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Utilitarianism

John Stuart Mill/1863 / 19th century

HappinessHigher And Lower PleasuresMoral CalculationUtility

HappinessHigher And Lower PleasuresMoral CalculationUtility

Ethics in the Utilitarianism tradition, oriented around happiness and higher and lower pleasures.

Mill's Utilitarianism revises the Benthamite tradition by defending the principle of utility while insisting that pleasures differ in quality as well as quantity. Written in Victorian Britain, it tries to reconcile moral seriousness, individual development, and social reform within a consequentialist ethics.

99 excerpts/5 sections

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Chapters

The structural skeleton of the work

Section 1

Chapter I: GENERAL REMARKS

6 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Morality4 excerpts Ethical Principles1 excerpt Happiness1 excerpt Moral Philosophy1 excerpt Nature Of Goodness1 excerpt

Unprovable Ultimate Ends

Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof. Whatever can be proved to be good, must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof. The medical art is proved to be good, by its conducing to health; but how is it possible to prove that health is good? The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof.

Section 2

Chapter II: WHAT UTILITARIANISM IS

34 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Utilitarianism13 excerpts Ethics7 excerpts Happiness6 excerpts Morality5 excerpts Pleasure5 excerpts

Pleasure's Quality vs Quantity

It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone. If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.

Section 3

Chapter III: OF THE ULTIMATE SANCTION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY.

15 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Moral Philosophy3 excerpts Conscience2 excerpts Moral Development2 excerpts Moral Obligation2 excerpts Sympathy2 excerpts

Custom's Moral Halo

For the customary morality, that which education and opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the mind with the feeling of being in itself obligatory; and when a person is asked to believe that this morality derives its obligation from some general principle round which custom has not thrown the same halo, the assertion is to him a paradox; the supposed corollaries seem to have a more binding force than the original theorem; the superstructure seems to stand better without, than with, what is represented as its foundation. He says to himself, I feel that I am bound not to rob or murder, betray or deceive; but why am I bound to promote the general happiness? If my own happiness lies in something else, why may I not give that the preference?

Section 4

Chapter IV: OF WHAT SORT OF PROOF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY IS SUSCEPTIBLE.

14 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Utilitarianism8 excerpts Virtue6 excerpts Happiness5 excerpts Desire3 excerpts Habit3 excerpts

Desire as Proof

The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end. What ought to be required of this doctrine--what conditions is it requisite that the doctrine should fulfil--to make good its claim to be believed? The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it: and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.

Section 5

Chapter V: ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTICE AND UTILITY.

30 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Justice22 excerpts Morality6 excerpts Rights4 excerpts Human Nature3 excerpts Moral Philosophy3 excerpts

Wrong as Deserving Punishment

For the truth is, that the idea of penal sanction, which is the essence of law, enters not only into the conception of injustice, but into that of any kind of wrong. We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience. This seems the real turning point of the distinction between morality and simple expediency.