Ethics Paper

11/2/2020 Topic: J. S. Mill and Utilitarianism

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J. S. Mill and Utilitarianism

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J. S. Mill 1806-1873

-Son of Scottish philosopher James Mill.

-A trained minister, James Mill failed to solve The Problem of Evil and thus never practiced.

-James Mill conducted an "educational experiment" on his son J. S. Mill.

-J. S. knew Greek at age 3, Latin at age 8, and all classics by age 14.

-He was also well versed in Sacred Scripture, History, Logic, and Math.

-The "educational experiment" left J. S. with great analytic abilities yet little capacity for emotional expression. His thought was controlled by his father until age 20.

-J.S. thought of himself as "A sailing ship well equipped with rudder yet no sail." Yet even in this analogy one can see his lack of understanding of emotion as even with a fully equipped vessel "Only the unseen wind moves the ship."

-In his depression he sought solace in the poetry of William Wordsworth:

"I wandered lonely as a Cloud That floats on high o'er vales and Hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden Daffodils;

Beside the Lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."

-His turn to poetry was in reality a turn to the Cultural Sciences (or Humanities).

-J. S. Mill also found solace in the writings of Jeremy Bentham.

-Bentham was a friend of the family and, somewhat, of a mentor to the young J. S.

-He had written a popular work on what he called the "Utilitarian Principle."

-J. S. Mill was not only interested in this in an intellectual sense but also found the Utilitarian Principle itself gave him a renewed sense of hope and optimism.

-When J. S. Mill first read Bentham's "Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation" he described it as "one of the turning points in my mental history."

11/2/2020 Topic: J. S. Mill and Utilitarianism

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-However, Bentham's critics had attacked his Utilitarian Principle for not making a distinction between lower and higher pleasures.

-Thus J, S, Mill wrote our current selection to defend both the Utilitarian Principle itself and his old friend Jeremy Bentham.

Commentary on J. S. Mill Selection

p.223: The utilitarian creed holds actions right that produce happiness and wrong that promote unhappiness with happiness being defined as "Pleasure and the absence of pain."

-Is there anything new in this theory or is it just restating Epicurus' theory?

"Now such a theory of life excites in many minds... inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than pleasure."

-Are "pleasure" and "happiness" the same thing?

p.224: "When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it is not they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light."

-Notice how it is the critics who are projecting their own understanding of human nature here. Freud later described "projection" after he saw an early film projector. Think about it: For the first time he saw this box that projected an image from inside of it onto something else.

"Human beings have faculties more elevated than animal appetites, and when once made conscience of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification."

-Do you think when people have the choice they always will choose the higher pleasures?

p. 228: "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question."

-Do you think the only way to be a competent judge between two things is to have actual experience of both? (Mill certainly does). If not, what are the qualifications of a good judge?

p. 229: "Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance, and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away."

-If this is true, is not Mill engaging in an, at least, informal contradiction by saying that a competent judge has to have experience of both pleasures? For will not this kill the tender plant of nobility Mill speaks of here?

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Notice how Mill has only been talking about "pleasure and the absence of pain" in terms of the individual up to this point. If the motto of Utilitarianism is "The greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people" than just what is Mill's justification for moving from thinking only of the individual to thinking of all people as a whole?

MILL'S ARGUMENTS FOR THE GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE

[First Argument] p. 231: "that standard is not the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether." "There can be no doubt that it [a noble character] makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely made better by it."

-Does the fact that certain people have a noble character really make the rest of the world "immensely" better? Is this really a sufficient argument to justify Mill's "greatest happiness altogether" theory?

p. 233: "When, however, it is thus positively asserted that human life should be happy, the assertion... is at least an exaggeration."

-Can human beings really be happy anyhow? What is its nature? It is all just about smiling faces and and endless pleasure?

-Mill's brilliant response gives us a great summary of the classical definition of happiness:

"If by happiness be meant a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement, it is evident enough that this is impossible. A state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions, hours or days, and is the occasional brilliant flash of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame. Of this the philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of life were as fully aware as those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was not a life of rapture, but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing. A life thus composed, to those who have been fortunate enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy of the name of happiness. And such an existence is even now the lot of many, during some considerable portion of their lives. "

[Second argument] p. 235: "When people who are fortunate in their outward lot do not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make it valuable to them, the cause generally is, caring for nobody but themselves. To those who have neither public nor private affections, the excitements of life are much curtailed, and in any case dwindle in value as the time approaches when all selfish interests must be terminated by death: while those who leave after them objects of personal affection, and especially those who have also cultivated a fellow-feeling with the collective interests of mankind, retain as lively an interest in life on the eve of death as in the vigor of youth and health. "

-Mill's argument here is basically that selfishness makes people miserable, and having a lively interest in the well being of others makes life much more enjoyable. Thus one can make both

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themselves and others more happy by simply not being selfish and developing a sense of "fellow feeling" with others. What do you think of this argument? Does it adequately justify his greatest happiness principle? Is it really a lack of mental cultivation [good education] that causes selfishness? Or is this thought a failure to make the distinction of Aristotle between intellectual virtue and moral virtue?

p. 237: " In the Golden Rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality."

-Is the analogy made here between the Golden Rule and the Utilitarian Principle a good one?

-Does the Utilitarian Principle protect individual human rights in the same way as the Golden Rule?

COMMON CRITIQUES OF UTILITARIANISM

-The problem of conceptualizing, much less measuring, happiness even on a small level.

-The Problem of the Hedonic Calculus (How does one measure the pleasure of all?).

-Individual human rights being sacrificed for the "greatest happiness altogether."

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