Arguments Agains Mills Theory People Only Do Things for Happiness Blog
Author: Dale E. Miller
Category: Ethics, Historical Philosophy
Wordcount: 999
It may seem obvious that happiness is valuable, but is information technology the simply matter valuable for its own sake, equally opposed to being useful as a manner to become something else?
The 19th-century utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) argues that information technology is.[1] His statement is notorious because some critics charge that it contains obvious errors. This essay considers whether Manufactory really makes elementary blunders.
1. Manufacturing plant'southward Principle of Utility
Mill's name for the claim that just happiness is valuable for its own sake is the "principle of utility." This is ripe for defoliation.
Mill offers this claim in the course of discussing the moral theory called utilitarianism. In its simplest form, utilitarianism says that deportment are correct if they would maximize the total corporeality of happiness in the world in the long run; otherwise they're wrong.[ii]
Yet Mill's principle of utility doesn't direct concern the morality of actions.[3] Instead it concerns what'south "desirable every bit an end." It's the foundation of Factory'due south utilitarianism, not the theory itself.[4] This subtlety oftentimes goes unnoticed.
2. The Proof
Factory'south argument appears in Chapter four of his essay Utilitarianism. Today it'due south called Mill'south "proof," although the proper noun is misleading since he admits that the "considerations" he offers aren't a tidy deduction.[5]
Manufactory's argument consists of 3 steps, each meant to establish a unlike merits:
1. Happiness is desirable every bit an stop.
2. The "general happiness" is desirable as an end.
3. Zip except happiness is desirable equally an terminate.
Manufactory takes these three claims together to compose the principle of utility.
2.one. First Pace
In the first step, Mill writes that:
"The simply proof … that an object is visible, is that people really see information technology. … In like manner, … the sole evidence … that anything is desirable, is that people exercise actually want information technology."
One criticism of this pace is that Mill overlooks the fact that while 'visible' ways "capable of being seen," to call something desirable means not that we tin desire it but that we ought to. While our actually doing something is proof positive that we can do it, information technology doesn't hateful that nosotros should.[six]
Only find the shift in Mill's wording from "only proof" to "sole prove." Fifty-fifty if the fact that everyone actually desires happiness doesn't logically entail that they should, it might still be evidence for this. If happiness isn't desirable then all of humanity has made the same huge mistake, which may seem implausible.[7]
2.2. Second Footstep
In the same paragraph, Mill turns to the second step:
"No reason can be given why the full general happiness is desirable, except that each person … desires his own happiness."
Elsewhere, Factory restates this step:
"since A's happiness is a good, B's a good, C's a good, &c., the sum of these goods must be a expert."[viii]
Some critics take charged Mill with committing the "fallacy of composition," which is the fallacy of reasoning that because the members of a drove all accept some property, the collection must have it, besides.[9] An apple is spherical, but a bushel of apples isn't. But while collections don't always have the properties that their members share, sometimes they practice. If I know that one gold bar is heavy, I'yard non reasoning badly if I conclude that a pallet of these bars will be heavy, too.
Sometimes combining good things might produce something bad, like topping a pizza with hot fudge sauce. Oft, though, a collection of valuable items volition also be valuable. It depends on the natures of the items, their value, and the drove.
Mill reasons that if every person's happiness is valuable and then a earth that contains more happiness is ameliorate than one that contains less, other things equal. That'southward not plainly beguiling.
2.3. Third Footstep
In the third step, Mill argues that happiness is the only thing we desire for itself. This means that information technology's the only affair for whose desirability in itself we have evidence.
Someone might challenge Manufactory by proverb that other things are valuable in themselves. On the surface, Mill'south strategy is to agree that people "do desire things which, in mutual linguistic communication, are … distinguished from happiness"[x] for their own sakes. His master instance is being virtuous. However, he asserts, people merely want virtue for its own sake if they have incorporated information technology into their happiness. If virtue partially constitutes someone's happiness, then they desire it "every bit a function of their happiness." Hence "there is in reality nothing desired except happiness."[xi]
Only at present Mill may appear inconsistent. He defines 'happiness' every bit "pleasure, and the absence of pain."[12] How then, some of his critics have challenged, tin virtue be part of our happiness? Virtue ≠ pleasance.[13]
The key may exist in Manufacturing plant's business relationship of how something similar virtue tin go part of our happiness. He explains how the feel of being treated better by others when we behave virtuously can cause u.s. to form a mental association betwixt virtue and pleasure. When people associate virtue with pleasure then the awareness or "consciousness" that they're virtuous becomes pleasurable for them.
It might and then be this pleasance—non virtue itself, strictly speaking—that they desire as an stop. If this is his intention, then reverse to surface appearances Mill's actually denying that some people desire to be virtuous for its own sake. But he's explaining why they seem to: for them, the connection between virtue and pleasance has become much closer than it is for people who merely want to be virtuous then they'll be treated better.[fourteen]
Reading Factory this manner nevertheless lets us say that he takes happiness to be the only matter we want for itself, albeit at the cost of not taking his talk about virtue's becoming part of our happiness or our desiring it as an cease entirely literally.
3. Determination
Perhaps, then, Mill's "proof" doesn't comprise clumsy mistakes. At least Manufactory has some responses available to the critics who allege that it does. More work would be needed to judge whether the argument ultimately succeeds, and more work nevertheless to become from this principle to utilitarian morality, but Mill'south contribution shouldn't be hastily dismissed.[15]
Notes
[one] Mill 1969 [1861], 234–nine.
[ii] More specifically, this is true of the simplest form of the theory, which is sometimes called classical act utilitarianism.
Another versions of utilitarianism might apply the requirement to maximize happiness differently. For instance, dominion utilitarianism says that whether actions are right or wrong depends on whether they would be permitted or forbidden by the set of rules whose general adoption would maximize happiness. So it applies the criterion of maximizing happiness straight to rules and but indirectly, via rules, to private actions.
There is some debate most what version of utilitarianism Manufacturing plant accepts.
[3] Brown (1973).
[4] To add to the potential for confusion, other philosophers (both earlier and subsequently Mill'southward fourth dimension) take used the term 'principle of utility' to refer to principles that are concerned with what makes actions right or wrong. Given this, and the fact that Manufacturing plant never offers a formal definition of the principle, information technology's no surprise that fifty-fifty professional philosophers are often tripped up past this. Manufactory refers at one point to a 'Greatest Happiness Principle' (Manufactory 1969 [1861], 210), and it's possible that he intends this to be a principle about the morality of actions, but if so he thinks information technology's distinct from and rests on the principle of utility.
While this may sound a bit sloppy on Mill's office, one thing to behave in mind is that he was writing for a very wide audience, not only for philosophy professors or even philosophy students. The essay that contains his "proof" first appeared in a popular mag of the twenty-four hour period. So he sacrificed some precision for readability.
[five] Here'southward how Mill makes this point in Chapter 1:
Questions of ultimate ends are non amenable to direct proof. Whatever can be proved to be good, must be so past being shown to exist a ways to something admitted to exist expert without proof. The medical art is proved to exist good past its conducing to health; but how is it possible to testify that health is skilful? The fine art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasance; just what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is practiced? If, so, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves proficient, and that whatever else is proficient, is not so as an end, but as a hateful, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is normally understood past proof. Nosotros are non, still, to infer that its acceptance or rejection must depend on blind impulse, or arbitrary option. At that place is a larger meaning of the discussion proof, in which this question is as acquiescent to it equally whatsoever other of the disputed questions of philosophy. The subject area is within the cognisance of the rational faculty; and neither does that faculty deal with it solely in the manner of intuition. Considerations may be presented capable of determining the intellect either to give or withhold its assent to the doctrine; and this is equivalent to proof. (Mill 1969, 207–eight).
[6] Here'south how the early 20th-century philosopher G. E. Moore (1873-1958) articulates this objection:
Well, the fallacy in this footstep is then obvious, that it is quite wonderful how Manufactory failed to see it. The fact is that "desirable" does non mean "able to be desired" equally "visible" means "able to be seen". The desirable means only what ought to be desired or deserves to be desired. (Moore 1903, 67).
[7] Mill makes a very similar motility in Chapter 2 of Utilitarianism, where he famously argues that the only way to determine which of 2 pleasures is of higher quality is by appeal to the judgment of people who take experience of both (Mill 1969, 210–4).
[8] Manufacturing plant 1972, 1414.
[ix] For example, Mackenzie 1901, 218–xx.
[10] Factory 1969, 235.
[11] Mill 1969, 235–7.
[12] Mill 1969, 210.
[13] Money is another of Mill'south examples of something that tin (seemingly) become part of our happiness, although in contrast with virtue he thinks that it's unfortunate that some people do so. Moore references this example when criticizes this step of the argument:
Does Mill hateful to say that money, these actual coins, which he admits to be desired in and for themselves, are a function either of pleasure or of the absence of pain? Volition he maintain that those coins themselves are in my heed, and actually a office of my pleasant feelings? If this is to exist said, all words are useless: nothing tin perhaps be distinguished from annihilation else; if these two things are not distinct, what on earth is? (Moore 1903, 71–2).
[14] The example of coin tin assist to analyze what's going on hither, since Mill thinks that very much the aforementioned process tin happen with it.
Initially, we desire money just because nosotros can use it to purchase things that we want. In some people, though, this leads to a mental clan betwixt coin and pleasance such that just thinking about their money gives them pleasance. In the case of misers, this clan grows and so strong that they can't bear to spend coin even on things that are very important; the pleasure of having the money has become much greater than the pleasure of using it.
Mill would say that people who have formed this clan have made money part of their happiness and that they desire it as such, although this is speaking rather loosely. Strictly speaking, Mill would say, even misers don't want coin for its own sake. What they desire for its own sake is the pleasure they get from the knowledge that they take money. It's this pleasure that is function of their happiness, not the money itself. The real indicate is just that money and happiness are much more closely connected for people similar this than they are for people who simply regard money as a fashion to buy things.
Mill does remember that in that location's 1 important difference betwixt money and virtue in this regard. We should want people to form this association betwixt pleasance and beingness virtuous. This will help to motivate them to act in ways that lead to an overall happier lodge. In contrast, this sort of clan between pleasure and coin is pathological. Society will be much happier if people but regard money equally a tool.
[fifteen] I give a more detailed discussion of Mill's argument for the principle of utility in Miller 2010, 31–53.
References
Chocolate-brown, D. G. (1973). "What is Manufacturing plant'south Principle of Utility?," Canadian Journal of Philosophy Three: 1–12.
Mackenzie, John S. (1901). A Manual of Ethics 4th ed. New York: Hinds, Hayden & Eldredge.
Factory, John Stuart (1969). Utilitarianism. In John 1000. Robson (ed.), Collected Works of John Stuart Factory vol. Ten. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Originally published 1861.
—– (1972). Alphabetic character to Henry Jones (13 June 1868). In John G. Robson (ed.), Collected Works of John Stuart Factory vol. Sixteen. Toronto: University of Toronto Printing. 1413–iv.
Miller, Dale E (2010). John Stuart Mill: Moral, Social and Political Thought. Cambridge: Polity.
Moore, G. Due east. (1903). Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Printing. Reprinted 1992.
For Further Reading
Brink, David (2018). "Factory'due south Moral and Political Philosophy." In Edward North. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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Dale Eastward. Miller is a Professor of Philosophy at Former Dominion University and the editor-in-chief of Utilitas. DrDaleEMiller.net
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