John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

1. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) Utilitarianism

2. Utilitarianism • Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory of ethics and morality. • It is a consequentialist theory because what determines whether a given act is right or wrong are the consequences of the act. • The consequences that need to be measured is HAPPINESS • When confronted with a moral dilemma, then, utilitarianism says that we ought to do the act that will produce the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.

3. The Greatest Happiness Principle • Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness and wrong as they tend to promote the reverse of happiness. • Happiness is defined as PLEASUSE and the absence of PAIN. • Unhappiness is defined as pain and thes privation of pleasure.

4. Pleasure • Sensual pleasures • Intellectual pleasures • Feelings • Emotions • Moral sentiment • Imagination

5. Quality vs. Quantity • Small dosage of the feeling of love may be more desirable (pleasurable) than a lot of sensual pleasure. • A feeling of accomplishment may be more pleasurable than the absences of pain, so that one is willing to endure certain physical suffering to feel the sense of accomplishment. • The feeling of praise may be more pleasurable than certain sensual pleasures, so that one may be willing to go without certain sensual pleasures to received praise. • The feeling of moral sentiments, such as loyalty and honesty, may be more pleasurable than the absence of pain, so one may be willing to endure pain to feel these moral sentiments.

6. How to determine quality? • How or who determines which pleasures are more desirable? • This can only be done by people who have experienced two distinct kinds of pleasures and have overwhelmingly decided that one is much more superior than the other. • In the final analysis the only judge we have to determine these things is a community of people.

7. Quality • Mill argues that people overwhelmingly have concluded that the pleasures associated with the higher faculties are more pleasurable than the pleasures associated with the lower (animal) faculties.

8. Proof: Thought experiment • Would you trade places with a lower animal? • Content vs. Happiness • Since a lower animal’s does not have higher faculties it can be satisfied more easily by simply satisfying its lower faculties. • Would you rather be a CONTENT (satisfied) lower animal, than an unsatisfied human? • “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.”

9. Higher Intellect: Pleasure and suffering • Mill realizes that there are pleasures that one can receive from the higher intellect that could never be matched by the lower intellects. • Many of these pleasures concern the moral sentiments, such as love. Consider the joy one can receive from the love between a parent and their children. Consider the happiness that one can receive after being notified that one’s child was in an accident, to find out that he or she is okay. • Mill also realizes that these higher faculties can also cause more acute suffering.

10. Objections 1) Treating everyone the same is not always morally preferable. 2) The consequences of one’s acts are not always known. 3) The happiness our acts produce cannot always be calculated and known. 4) There intuitive cases (counter examples) in which the application of a utilitarian theory seems to produce wrong acts. 5) There are acts that have intrinsic moral value irrespective of the consequences.

11. Examples • Consider a promise one makes to someone who is dying. Does one have an ethical duty to keep the promise, even if no good consequences arise from doing so? • Is it always ethically right to sacrifice the life of an innocent person to save the lives of others.