Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill Copyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017. All rights reserved [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . . . . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. First launched: September 2005 Last amended: April 2008 Contents Chapter 1: General Remarks 1 Chapter 2: What utilitarianism is 4 ·Higher and Lower Pleasures· . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 ·Happiness as an Aim· . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 ·Self-Sacrifice· . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 ·Setting the Standard too High? · . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 ·Is Utilitarianism Chilly? · . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 ·Utilitarianism as ‘Godless’· . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 ·Expediency· . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 ·Time to Calculate? · . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 ·Bad Faith· . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Chapter 3: What will motivate us to obey the principle of utility? 18 Chapter 4: What sort of proof can be given for the principle of utility? 24
Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill Chapter 5: The connection between justice and utility 28 ·Punishment· . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 ·Wages· . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 ·Taxation· . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 ii Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill 1: General remarks Chapter 1: General Remarks Little progress has been made towards deciding the contro- versy concerning the criterion of right and wrong. Among all the facts about the present condition of human knowledge, the state of this controversy is •most unlike what might have been expected and •most indicative significant of the backward state in which theorizing on the most important subjects still lingers. That is how little progress has been made! From the dawn of philosophy the question concerning the summum bonum [Latin, = ‘the greatest good’] or, what is the
same thing, concerning the foundation of morality, has •been regarded as the main problem in speculative thought, •occupied the most gifted intellects, and •divided them into sects and schools, vigorously war- ring against one another. And after more than two thousand years the same discus- sions continue! Philosophers still line up under the same opposing battle-flags, and neither thinkers nor people in general seem to be any nearer to being unanimous on the subject than when young Socrates listened to old Protagoras and asserted the theory of utilitarianism against the popular morality of the so-called ‘sophist’ (I’m assuming here that Plato’s dialogue is based on a real conversation). [Except on page 14, ‘popular’ is used in this work only to mean ‘of the people’, with no implication about being liked.] It is true that similar confusion and uncertainty, and in some cases similar disagreements, exist concerning the basic principles of all the sciences—even including the one that is thought to be the most certain of them, namely mathematics—without doing much harm, and usually with- out doing any harm, to the trustworthiness of the conclu-
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