Routledge Revivals: The Greatest Happiness Principle (1986)

An Examination of Utilitarianism

Lanny Ebenstein

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351112451
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

First published in 1991, The Greatest Happiness Principle traces the history of the theory of utility, starting with the Bible, and running through Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus. It goes on to discuss the utilitarian theories of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill in detail, commenting on the latter's view of the Christianity of his day and his optimal socialist society. The book argues that the key theory of utility is fundamentally concerned with happiness, stating that happiness has largely been left out of discussions of utility. It also goes on to argue that utility can be used as a moral theory, ultimately posing the question, what is happiness?

CHAPTER V. MILL’S THEORY OF UTILITY

“The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.”¹

On Liberty

Mill’s Theory of Utility

John Stuart Mill’s version of utilitarianism is the apogee of the theory. John Rawls’ comment (“the strict classical doctrine [of utilitarianism]… receives perhaps its clearest and most accessible formulation in Sidgwick”²) notwithstanding, it is Mill’s theory of utility which is both most well known to students of and commentators on the theory, and is the best presentation of it. Mill’s theory of utility is, like Bentham’s, predominantly contained in one book, (in Mill’s case) Utilitarianism. Regrettably, unlike Bentham’s high opinion of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Mill did not share a similarly exalted view of his essay. Referring to Utilitarianism in his Autobiography, all that he stated was:

Soon after this time I took from their repository a portion of the unpublished papers which I had written during the last years of our married life, and shaped them, with some additional matter, into the little work entitled “Utilitarianism”³

It should initially be commented that Utilitarianism was originally written as two separate essays—one on the theory of utility and the other on justice—at different times.⁴ The original essay on the theory of utility is Utilitarianism’s first four chapters, and is less than a mere 15,000 words.

Given that Mill’s Utilitarianism, from his viewpoint, was a “little work”, we must also turn to other of his compositions when examining his theory of utility. Of his other major and famous works, he discussed his conception of utilitarianism most in “Essay on Bentham,” his Autobiography, and The Subjection of Women. On Liberty, too, is vital for determining the place of Mill’s theory of utility in his comprehensive ethical thought. Among Mill’s lesser works, “Remarks on Bentham’s Philosophy,” “Blakey’s History of Moral Science,” “Sedgwick’s Discourse,” and “Whewell on Moral Philosophy” have the most to do with his variant of utilitarianism. (These articles are contained in Volume X of the Collected Works,)

Mill’s theory of utility can be considered as having five parts: 1) what “utility” means, 2) the summum bonum, 3) Mill’s definition of happiness, 4) the proof of the theory of utility, and 5) utility and justice. My purpose in this chapter is to provide a correct reading of these parts of Mill’s theory, and thus of it as a whole. I accomplish (or so I hope) this largely through reference to Utilitarianism, although also through discussion of Mill’s other works and the thoughts of other writers in the field. After examining Mill’s theory of utility, I critique it. As a prelude to this discussion of Mill’s theory of utility proper, there will be an exposition of the institution which he felt was in his day the greatest practical impediment to happiness—the Christian Church. As a coda to the discussion proper, there is a presentation of the political, social, and economic system which Mill felt would practically lead to the greatest happpiness of the greatest number—socialism.

I

Mill’s eternal work was On Liberty. Of it, he wrote in his Autobiography, “it far surpasses…anything which has proceeded from me either before or since,”⁵ and “the ‘Liberty’ is likely to survive longer than anything else that I have written.”⁶ In On Liberty, Mill sought to define “the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.”⁷ He found this limit to be:

Self-protection. … the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.⁸

This powerful libertarian statement had qualifications. In particular, Mill limited his principle to members of civilized communities. Bentham, as we have seen, prepared the way for Mill’s libertarian views.

In addition to its well-known argument for freedom, On Liberty contains a largely (although not totally – considering James Fitzjames Stephen’s Liberty, Equality and Fraternity) unnoticed attack on the Christian churches of Mill’s day. Mill believed that Christianity, as practiced in his time, was the greatest impediment to happiness in his age. This latter argument of Mill’s is mostly hidden. My purpose in this part of this chapter is to demonstrate that at the heart of Mill’s work, in chapters I and II of On Liberty, there are hidden premises. Specifically, that these chapters, in addition to providing a general argument for freedom of thought and expression, contain a severe criticism of existing social opinion, especially religious opinion, and present a case for the superiority of Socratic to Christian ethics. As Mill most often made this criticism and case in a surreptitious manner, as though he was an intellectual fugitive hiding from his own times, careful textual analysis is necessary to uncover them.

Basic to an understanding of Mill’s perception of his time is an understanding of the primacy which he attached to the intellectual portions of man. Mill was an intellectual elitist; no one who wrote concerning “human understanding” that “on any matter not self-evident, there are ninety-nine persons totally incapable of judging of it, for one person who is capable,”⁹ could have been anything but. Mill’s radical intellectualist bent thoroughly informed his description of society and his prescriptions for it. Precisely because humans are so essentially cerebral is freedom of thought and expression so important. And, precisely because mankind did not in his time possess these freedoms and thus were ignorant (or so Mill believed), did he think his society so vapid.

In Utilitarianism, Mill made his case for the supremacy of the mind over the other “parts” of man, as we shall see. In On Liberty, he just assumed it, in such statements as, “the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends),”¹⁰ and, “the human mind, the source of everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral being.”¹¹ Mill attached importance to the mind not only because of its benefits to individuals, but because of its benefits to society; he was a great believer in the importance of genius. “There are but few persons,” he held, “in comparison with the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by others, would be likely to be an improvement on established practice. But these few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a stagnant pond.”¹² The relationship between genius and liberty is simple: “Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.”¹³ Mill summed up the general relationship between the intellect and freedom of thought and expression as follows: “We have now recognized, the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind … of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion.”¹⁴

The individual and societal benefits deriving from the free-play of the mind were Mill’s ultimate reasons for advocating liberty of thought and expression. What, then, did Mill consider the status of these fundamental freedoms to be in his society? To answer this, it is first necessary to understand the distinction he drew between political and social liberty. In the first line of On Liberty, Mill identified its topic as, “Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.”¹⁵ Mill’s primary concern in On Liberty was not political liberty, but social liberty, or freedom from society-at-large: “Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling.”¹⁶ The reason protection against this opinion and feeling was so important was

it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.¹⁷

Now, Mill implied at several points in On Liberty that he thought that his society possessed a certain measure of political liberty. He began chapter II, for example, with the relatively optimistic (for his day) comment, “The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the ‘liberty of the press’ as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government.”¹⁸ Political liberty is, however, in no way equivalent to social liberty, as it is not, as we have just seen, as extensive as it. It is vital to constantly recall Mill’s emphasis in On Liberty in order to understand it. His emphasis was social liberty, or protection of the individual from the tyranny of society (or, in a democracy, from the “tyranny of the majority”). Consequently, there are peculiarly sinister implications in Mill’s statement that, “In England,…though the yoke of opinion is perhaps heavier, that of law is lighter, than in most other countries of Europe.”¹⁹ Mill has written that the topic of On Liberty is social liberty (which includes, especially, freedom from “the yoke of opinion”), and, also, that lack of social liberty can be worse than many kinds of political oppression; “No society in which these [social] liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government.”²⁰ Thus, England, far from being among the freest of European countries (as many, if not most, of Mill’s contemporaries thought), was perhaps among the unfreest. This interpretation of Mill’s position on what true freedom is, is backed up in a letter of his, “my little book [On Liberty] is … as little needed in Germany as it is much here;”²¹ Germany lacking in political liberty, but possessing social freedom. Furthermore, Mill feared that as democratic methods moved into English institutions, the situation would become even worse: “The majority have not yet learnt to feel the power of the government their power, or its opinions their opinions. When they do so, individual liberty will probably be as much exposed to invasion from the government, as it already is from public opinion.”²² Mill believed that the England of his day, though freer in form than its predecessors and contemporaries, remained slavish in substance.

Mill’s view of his society was dark. He did not see England as either free or moving in the direc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• I. Happiness in the Bible
• II. The Role of Happiness in Plato and Aristotle
• III. Epicurus
• IV. Bentham’s Theory of Utility
• V. Mill’s Theory of Utility
• VI. John Rawls’ Non-Utilitarian Theory
• VII. A New Theory of Utility
• Appendices:
• A. Utility and Justice
• B. Henry Sidgwick’s Utilitarian Contributions
• C. Comments on Various Utilitarian Writers
• D. Glimpses of a Utilitarian Future
• E. Free Will and Determinism
• F. Teleologism-Deontologism, Consequentialism-Non-Consequentialism
• G. Why Happiness
• Bibliography
• Supplementary Materials:
• “Mill’s Theory of Utility”
• Mill’s “Quality”
• Sidgwick’s Ethics