By Branch / Doctrine > Ethics > Utilitarianism

ntroduction

Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility in maximizing happiness or pleasure as summed among all people. It is, then, the total utility of individuals which is important here, the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Utility, after which the doctrine is named, is a measure in economics of the relative satisfaction from, or desirability of, the consumption of goods. Utilitarianism can thus be described as a quantitative and reductionistic approach to Ethics.
Utilitarianism starts from the basis that pleasure and happiness are intrinsically valuable, that pain and suffering areintrinsically disvaluable, and that anything else has value only in its causing happiness or preventing suffering (i.e."instrumental", or as means to an end). This focus on happiness or pleasure as the ultimate end of moral decisions, makes it a type of Hedonism (and it is sometimes known as Hedonistic Utilitarianism).
Utilitarians support equality by the equal consideration of interests, and they reject any arbitrary distinctions as to who is worthy of concern and who is not, and any discrimination between individuals. However, it does accept the idea of declining marginal utility, which recognizes that the same thing furthers the interests of a well-off individual to a lesser degree than it would the interests of a less well-off individual.
It is a form of Consequentialism (in that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome or consequence - the ends justify the means), as opposed to Deontology (which disregards the consequences of performing an act, when determining its moral worth), and to Virtue Ethics (which focuses on character, rather than rules or consequences).

History of Utilitarianism

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The origins of Utilitarianism are often traced back to the Epicureanism of the followers of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. It can be argued that David Hume and Edmund Burke were proto-Utilitarians.
But as a specific school of thought, it is generally credited to the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Bentham found pain andpleasure to be the only intrinsic values in the world, and this he derived the rule of utility: that the good is whatever brings thegreatest happiness to the greatest number of people. Bentham himself, however, attributed the origins of the theory toJoseph Priestley (1733 - 1804), the English scientist, theologian and founder of Unitarianism in England.
Bentham's foremost proponent was James Mill (1773 - 1836) and his son John Stuart Mill, who was educated from a young age according to Bentham's principles. In his famous 1861 short work, "Utilitarianism", John Stuart Mill both named the movement and refined Bentham's original principles. Mill argued that cultural, intellectual and spiritual pleasures are of greater value than mere physical pleasure as valued by a competent judge (which, according to Mill, is anyone who has experienced both the lower pleasures and the higher).
In his essay "On Liberty" and other works, Mill argued that Utilitarianism requires that any political arrangements satisfy theliberty principle (or harm principle), according to which 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, a cornerstone of the principles of Liberalismand Libertarianism. Some Marxist philosophers have also used these principles as arguments for Socialism.
The classic Utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill influenced many other moral philosophers and the development of many different types of Consequentialism.

Criticisms of Utilitarianism

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It has been argued that measuring and comparing happiness among different people is impossible, not only in practice, but even in principle. Defenders argue that the same problem is sucessfully overcome in everyday life, and that rough estimates are usually sufficient.
Another dilemma of Utilitarianism is that the pleasure of a sadist should have the same importance as the pleasure of an altruist, although proponents have countered that sadists are relatively few and so their effective influence would be minimal, and that the hurt suffered by others would counterbalance any pleasure registered by the sadist. Furthermore, the sadist's pleasure is superficial and temporary, thus it is detrimental to the sadist's long term well-being.
Another argument is that sometimes a long time is needed to weigh all the evidence and reach a definite conclusion on the relative costs and benefits of an action. Utilitarians admit that certain knowledge of consequences is sometimes impossible, but argue that best estimates of the consequences or predictions based on the past are usually sufficient.
A very specific argument against Utilitarianism has been put forward on the grounds that Determinism is either true or false: if it is true, then we have no real choice over our actions; if it is false, then the consequences of our actions are unpredictable, not least because they will depend on the actions of others whom we cannot predict.
Utilitarianism has been criticized for only looking at the results of actions, not at the desires or intentions which motivate them, which many people also consider important. Thus, an action intended to cause harm but that inadvertently causes good results would be judged equal to the result from an action done with good intentions.
Utilitarians may argue that justification of slavery, torture or mass murder would require unrealistically large benefits to outweigh the direct and extreme suffering to the victims, as well as taking into consideration of the indirect impact of social acceptance of inhumane policies (e.g. general anxiety and fear might increase for all if human rights are commonly ignored).
Other critics have made objections to the following: the right and wrong dichotomy implicit in Utilitarianism, whereby a "good"act (e.g. a charitable donation) may be branded as a wrong action (e.g. if there is an alternative donation to a more efficient charity); Utilitarianism does not take account of the fact that human nature is dynamic and changing, so the concept of a single utility for all humans is one-dimensional and not useful; Utilitarians have no ultimate justification for primarily valuing pleasure, other than the tautological on that "this is the way it should be".
Some Consequentialists consider that, although happiness an important consequence, other consequences such as justice orequality should also be valued and taken into consideration, regardless of whether they increase happiness or not.

Types of Utilitarianism

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Act Utilitarianism (or Case Utilitarianism) states that, when faced with a choice, we must first consider the likely consequences of potential actions in that particular case and, from that, choose to do what we believe will generate the most overall happiness. Act Utilitarians may follow certain rules of thumb (heuristics) to save time or cost although, if the consequences can be calculated relatively clearly, exactly and easily, then such rules of thumb can be ignored, and the choice treated on a case by case basis.
Rule Utilitarianism states that, when faced with a choice, we must look at potential rules of action to determine whether the generalized rule produces more happiness than otherwise, if it were to be constantly followed. Thus, an action should only be carried out if it follows a rule that morally should be followed at all times. Rule Utilitarians may agree that there are some general exception rules that allow the breaking of other rules if this increases happiness (e.g. the exception of self-defence to overcome the general rule never to kill a human), although critics argue that this logically just reduces to Act Utilitarianism.
Two-Level Utilitarianism states that normally we should use "intuitive" moral thinking, in the form of Rule Utilitarianism, because it usually maximizes happiness. However, there are some times when we must ascend to a higher"critical" level of reflection in order to decide what to do, and must think as an Act Utilitarian would. This method is based on the view that, although Act Utilitarianism may be preferable in theory, usually it is too difficult to perfectly predictconsequences, and so we require moral guidelines or rules in day to day life.
Motive Utilitarianism states that our initial moral task is to inculcate motives within ourselves (by means of teaching and repetition) that will be generally useful across the spectrum of the actual situations we are likely to encounter, rather than hypothetical examples which are unlikely to occur. It can be thought of as a hybrid between Act and Rule Utilitarianism, but it also attempts to take into account how human beings actually function psychologically.
Total Utilitarianism advocates measuring the utility of a population based on the total utility of its members. However, it has been argued that this leads to a "repugnant conclusion", in which an enormous population whose individual lives are barely worth living is considered preferable to a smaller population with good lives.
Average Utilitarianism advocates measuring the utility of a population based on the average utility of that population. The drawback here is known as the "mere addition paradox", where bringing a moderately happy person in a very happyworld would be seen as an immoral act, or the logical implication that it would be a moral good to eliminate all people whose happiness is below average, as this would raise the average happiness.
Negative Utilitarianism requires us to promote the least amount of evil or harm, or to prevent the greatest amount of suffering, for the greatest number (as opposed to the general, or positive, Utilitiarian rule of the greatest amount of goodfor the greatest number). The justification for Negative Utilitarianism is that the greatest harms are more consequentialthan the greatest goods, and so should have more influence on moral decision-making. Critics have argued that theultimate aim of Negative Utilitarianism would therefore logically be to engender the quickest and least painful method ofkilling the entirety of humanity, as this would effectively minimize suffering, although more moderate proponents would obviously not propose that.
Sentient Utilitarianism states that the well-being of all sentient beings (i.e. conscious beings who feel pain, including therefore some non-human animals) deserve equal consideration with that given to human beings, when making moral decisions in a Utilitarian context.

Introduction

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Virtue Ethics (or Virtue Theory) is an approach to Ethics that emphasizes an individual's character as the key element of ethical thinking, rather than rules about the acts themselves (Deontology) or their consequences (Consequentialism).
There are three main strands of Virtue Ethics:

Eudaimonism is the classical formulation of Virtue Ethics. It holds that the proper goal of human life is eudaimonia(which can be variously translated as "happiness", "well-being" or the "good life"), and that this goal can be achieved by a lifetime of practising "arête" (the virtues) in one's everyday activities, subject to the exercise of "phronesis"(practical wisdom) to resolve any conflicts or dilemmas which might arise. Indeed, such a virtous life would in itselfconstitute eudaimonia, which should be seen as an objective, not a subjective, state, characterized by the well-lived life, irrespective of the emotional state of the person experiencing it.
A virtue is a habit or quality that allows individuals to succeed at their purpose. Therefore, Virtue Ethics is only intelligible if it is teleological (i.e. it includes an account of the purpose or meaning of human life), a matter of somecontention among philosophers since the beginning of time. Aristotle, with whom Virtue Ethics is largely identified, categorized the virtues as moral virtues (including prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance) and intellectual virtues(including "sophia" or theoretical wisdom, and "phronesis" or practical wisdom). Aristotle further argued that each of the moral virtues was a golden mean, or desirable middle ground, between two undesirable extremes (e.g. the virtue of courage is a mean between the two vices of cowardice and foolhardiness).
Ethics of Care was developed mainly by Feminist writers (e.g. Annette Baier) in the second half of the 20th Century, and was motivated by the idea that men think in masculine terms such as justice and autonomy, whereas woman think infeminine terms such as caring. It calls for a change in how we view morality and the virtues, shifting towards virtues exemplified by women, such as taking care of others, patience, the ability to nurture, self-sacrifice, etc, which have been marginalized because society has not adequately valued the contributions of women. It emphasizes the importance of solidarity, community and relationships rather than universal standards and impartiality. It argues that instead of doing the right thing even if it requires personal cost or sacrificing the interest of family or communitymembers (as the traditional Consequentialist and deontological approaches suggest), we can, and indeed should, put the interests of those who are close to us above the interests of complete strangers.
Agent-Based Theories, as developed recently by Michael Slote (1941 - ), give an account of virtue based on ourcommon-sense intuitions about which character traits are admirable (e.g. benevolence, kindness, compassion, etc), which we can identify by looking at the people we admire, our moral exemplars. The evaluation of actions is thereforedependent on ethical judgments about the inner life of the agents who perform those actions.

Virtue Ethics, essentially Eudaimonism, was the prevailing approach to ethical thinking in the Ancient and Medieval periods. It suffered something of an eclipse during the Early Modern period, although it is still one of the three dominant approaches to normative Ethics (the others being Deontology and Consequentialism).
The term "virtue ethics" is a relatively recent one, essentially coined during the 20th Century revival of the theory, and it originally defined itself by calling for a change from the then dominant normative theories of Deontology and Consequentialism.

History of Virtue Ethics

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Socrates, as represented in Plato's early dialogues, held that virtue is a sort of knowledge (the knowledge of good and evil) that is required to reach the ultimate good, or eudaimonia, which is what all human desires and actions aim to achieve. Discussion of what were known as the Four Cardinal Virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance) can be found in Plato's"Republic". He also claimed that the rational part of the soul or mind must govern the spirited, emotional and appetitiveparts in order to lead all desires and actions to eudaimonia, the principal constituent of which is virtue.
The concept reached its apotheosis in Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" in the 4th Century B.C.. Aristotle held that eudaimonia is constituted, not by honour, wealth or power, but by rational activity in accordance with virtue over a complete life, what might be described today as productive self-actualization. This rational activity, he judged, should manifest as honesty, pride,friendliness, wittiness, rationality in judgment; mutually beneficial friendships and scientific knowledge.
Non-Western moral and religious philosophies, such as Confucianism in ancient China, also incorporate ideas that may appearsimilar to those developed by the ancient Greeks and, like ancient Greek Ethics, Chinese ethical thought makes an explicit connection between virtue and statecraft or politics.
The Greek idea of the virtues was later incorporated into Scholastic Christian moral theology, particularly by St. Thomas Aquinas in his "Summa Theologiae" of 1274 and his "Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics". The Christian virtueswere also based in large part on the Seven Virtues from Aurelius Clemens Prudentius's epic poem (written c. 410 A.D.):chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience and humility. Practice of these virtues was alleged to protect one against temptation from the Seven Deadly Sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride).
Virtue Ethics has been a recurring theme of Political Philosophy, especially in the emergence of classical Liberalism, theScottish Enlightenment of the 18th Century, and the theoretical underpinnings behind the American Revolution of 1775. However, although some Enlightenment philosophers (e.g. David Hume) continued to emphasize the virtues, with the ascendancy of Utilitarianism and Deontology, Virtue Ethics moved to the margins of Western philosophy.
In the second half of the 20th Century, there was a minor revival of Virtue Ethics, principally due to the efforts of Elizabeth Anscombe (1919 - 2001), Philippa Foot (1920 - 2010), Alasdair MacIntyre (1929 - ), Paul Ricoeur (1913 - 2005) and Stanley Hauerwas (1940 - ).

Criticisms of Virtue Ethics

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According to critics, a major problem with the theory is the difficulty of establishing the nature of the virtues, especially as different people, cultures and societies often have vastly different opinions on what constitutes a virtue. Some proponents counter-argue that any character trait defined as a virtue must be universally regarded as a virtue for all people in all times, so that such cultural relativism is not relevant. Others, however, argue that the concept of virtue must indeed be relative and grounded in a particular time and place, but this in no way negates the value of the theory, merely keeps it current.
Another objection is that the theory is not "action-guiding", and does not focus on what sorts of actions are morally permitted and which ones are not, but rather on what sort of qualities someone ought to foster in order to become a good person. Thus, a virtue theorist may argue that someone who commits a murder is severely lacking in several important virtues (e.g. compassion and fairness, among others), but does proscribe murder as an inherently immoral or impermissible sort of action, and the theory is therefore useless as a universal norm of acceptable conduct suitable as a base for legislation. Virtue theorists may retort that it is in fact possible to base a judicial system on the moral notion of virtues rather than rules (modern theories of lawrelated to Virtue Ethics are known as virtue jurisprudence, and focus on the importance of character and human excellenceas opposed to moral rules or consequences). They argue that Virtue Ethics can also be action-guiding through observance of virtuous agents as examplars, and through the life-long process of moral learning, for which quick-fix rules are no substitute.
Some have argued that Virtue Ethics is self-centred because its primary concern is with the agent's own character, whereas morality is supposed to be about other people, and how our actions affect other people. Thus, any theory of ethics should require us to consider others for their own sake, and not because particular actions may benefit us. Some argue that the whole concept of personal well-being (which is essentially just self-interest) as an ethical master value is mistaken, especially as its very personal nature does not admit to comparisons between individuals. Proponents counter that virtues in themselvesare concerned with how we respond to the needs of others, and that the good of the agent and the good of others are not twoseparate aims, but both result from the exercise of virtue.

Other critics are concerned that Virtue Ethics leaves us hostage to luck, and that it is unfair that some people will be lucky and receive the help and encouragement they need to attain moral maturity, while others will not, through no fault of their own. Virtue Ethics, however, embraces moral luck, arguing that the vulnerability of virtues is an essential feature of the human condition, which makes the attainment of the good life all the more valuable

By Branch / Doctrine > Ethics > Utilitarianism Burke

Edmund Burke
(Detail from an oil painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1771)

Introduction

Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) was an Anglo-Irish philosopher, statesman and political theorist of the Age of Enlightenment.
He served for many years in the British House of Commons, and was one of the leading figures within the Conservative faction of the Whig party. He was a strongsupporter of the American colonies, and a staunch opponent of the French Revolution. He is often regarded as the philosophical founder of Anglo-AmericanConservatism.

Life

Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland on January 12, 1729. His father, Richard Burke, was a prosperous, professional solicitor, who had converted to the Church of Ireland from the Roman Catholicism of his Munster lineage. His mother, Mary (née Nagle), came from a genteel Roman Catholic family of County Cork. He wasraised in the Church of Ireland (although his sister, Juliana, was brought up as and remained a Roman Catholic) and would remain throughout his life a practisingAnglican, although his political enemies would later repeatedly accuse him of harbouring secret Catholic sympathies at a time when membership in the Catholic church would have disqualified him from public office.
His early education was at a Quaker school in Ballitore just south of Dublin, and he remained in correspondence with his schoolmate Mary Leadbeater, the daughter of the school's owner, throughout his life. In 1744, he continued his education atTrinity College, Dublin, where he set up a debating club, known as Edmund Burke's Club, and graduated in 1748. In 1750, he went to London to study law at the Middle Temple, but he soon gave up his legal studies in order to travel in Europe, and attempted to earn his livelihood through writing.
During his time in London, Burke published his first work, "A Vindication of Natural Society" (a defence of Anarchism) and a treatise on Aesthetics, "A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful". He founded the influential political publication, the "Annual Register", in 1858, and became closely connected with many of the leadingintellectuals and artists of the time, including Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), David Garrick (1717 - 1779), Oliver Goldsmith(1730 -1774) and Joshua Reynolds (1723 - 1792).
In 1757, Burke married Jane Mary Nugent, and they had a son, Richard, in 1758 (another son, Christopher, died in infancy). From 1758 to 1761, they moved to Dublin, where Burke was private secretary to William Gerard Hamilton (1729 - 1796), who had been appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland. In 1765, he became private secretary to the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the liberal Whig Charles Watson-Wentworth, Marquess of Rockingham (1730 - 1782) and, in the same year, began his political career proper as Member of Parliament for Wendover.
He took a leading role in the debate over the constitutional limits to the executive authority of the King, and directly opposedKing George III's policy of severe sovereignty in relation to the American colonists. He campaigned against the persecution of Catholics in Ireland and denounced the abuses and corruption of the East India Company. His speeches and writings soon made him famous, and in 1774 he was elected MP for Bristol, then England's "second city", although his support for free trade with Ireland and his advocacy of Catholic emancipation were unpopular and he lost his seat in 1780. For the remainder of his parliamentary career, Burke sat as the member for Malton, a pocket borough of his benefactor, the Marquess of Rockingham. After Rockingham's return to power, Burke became Paymaster of the Forces and Privy Councillor, although these ceased when Rockingham died unexpectedly in 1782.
With the beginning of the long Tory administration of William Pitt the Younger (1759 - 1806) in 1783, the remainder of Burke's political life was in opposition, but he distinguished himself in the impeachment of the Indian governor Warren Hastings (1732 - 1818), and he vociferously condemned the French Revolution, which he predicted would end in disaster.
His strong views on the French Revolution received conflicting responses. Former admirers, such as Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Thomas Paine (1739 - 1809), Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751 - 1816) and Charles James Fox (1749 - 1806), denounced Burke as a reactionary and an enemy of the French and their ground-breaking aspirations; other former supporters of the American Revolution, such as John Adams (1735 - 1826), George Washington (1732 - 1799) and Alexander Hamilton(1755 - 1804), however, agreed with Burke's assessment of the French situation.
In 1794, his son Richard died and the Hastings trial came to an end, and Burke, feeling that his work was done and that he was worn out, retired from Parliament. Although he had regained the favour of King George III by his attitude on the French Revolution, he declined the title of Lord Beaconsfield, accepting only a generous pension instead. After a prolonged illness, Burke died on 9 July 1797 at Beaconsfield.

Work

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Burke's first published work, "A Vindication of Natural Society" (subtitled "A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind"), appeared in 1756. It was perhaps the first serious defence of Anarchism (although Burke later, with a government appointnent at stake, characterized it as a satire), and was taken quite seriously by later anarchists such as William Godwin(1756 - 1836).
In 1757, he published a treatise on Aesthetics, "A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", which attracted the attention of prominent Continental thinkers such as Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784) and Immanuel Kant.
In his "Reflections on the Revolution in France" of 1790, Burke described the French Revolution as a violent rebellion against tradition and proper authority, and as an experiment disconnected from the complex realities of human society. Hevehemently disagreed with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's theory of the "Popular Will", believing instead that most men in a nation are not qualified to govern it. He believed the country should look to men of finer upbringing and higher Christian education, or risk a move away from personal merit and distinction and towards an unprincipled, enervating mediocrity. The intemperate language and factual inaccuracies of the "Reflections" convinced many readers that Burke had lost his judgment but, after his death, when his predictions were proven largely correct, it grew to become his best-known and most influential work.
In economics, he was a strong supporter of the free market system (believing that trade should be fair and benefit both parties, but that governments should not interfere any more than necessary), but was wary of industrialization. The pioneering economist, Adam Smith, was a strong supporter of his ground-breaking views; the socialist Karl Marx was a radicalopponent of them. Over time, Burke has come to be regarded as one of the fathers of modern Conservatism in the English-speaking world, and his thinking has exerted considerable influence over the political philosophy of modern classical Liberals.

A very common quotation mistakenly attributed to Burke is: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" (or several similar variations). There is no definite source for the quotation, but it may be a paraphrasing of Burke's "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle

By Branch / Doctrine > Ethics > Utilitarianism Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

Introduction

Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832) was an English philosopher, political radical and legal and social reformer of the early Modern period.
He is best known as the founder of Utilitarianism, which he saw as the underlying moral principle on which his legal and social reforms should be based. Although his influence during his life was perhaps minor, his impact was greater in later years as his ideas were carried on by followers such as John Stuart Mill, Robert Owenand John Austin.

Life

Bentham was born in Spitalfields, London on 15 February 1748, the son of a wealthy Tory attorney. He was a child prodigy and was supposedly found as atoddler sitting at his father's desk reading a multi-volume history of England, and began his study of Latin at the age of three. He went to Westminster School, and in 1760 (at the age of 12) his father sent him to Queen's College, Oxford, where he took his Bachelor's degree in 1763 and his Master's degree in 1766. He trained as alawyer at Lincoln's Inn, London, and was called to the bar in 1769 (although he never actually practised).
He soon became disillusioned with the law, however, and he threw off his earlyConservative political views after reading the work of the 18th Century British theologian and natural philosopher Joseph Priestley (1733 - 1804). He gained much attention when his first major work, "A Fragment on Government" of 1776, criticized the leading legal theorist in 18th Century England, Sir William Blackstone(1773 - 1780), and, in the wake of this publication, he became friends with the powerful Lord Shelburne (1737 - 1805), which allowed him to take time to travel and to write. Among his early followers were the economist David Ricardo (1772 - 1823), andRobert Owen (1771 - 1858), the Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of Socialism and the cooperative movement.
Bentham was a regular correspondent with the French Comte de Mirabeau (1749 - 1791), a moderate during the French Revolution of 1789 - 1799, although he was an outspoken critic of the revolutionary discourse of natural rights (the concept of a universal right inherent in the nature of living beings, that is not contingent upon laws or beliefs), and of the violence which arose after the Jacobins took power in 1792. He also had a personal friendship with the Latin American independence precursor Francisco de Miranda (1750 - 1816), and carried on a mutually beneficial correspondence with the pioneering political economist Adam Smith.
In about 1808, he met James Mill (1773 - 1836), who was to become his secretary and main collaborator, and together they co-founded the "Westminster Review" in 1823 as a journal for a group of younger disciples who became known as the"philosophical radicals" (contributors to the journal included Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle). Mill, and his son, John Stuart Mill, became Bentham's most committed students, and were largely responsible for popularizingBentham's vision and in particular his theory of Utilitarianism. Bentham tended to write in a rather complex style himself, and other radical reformers such as Sir Francis Burdett (1770 - 1844), Leigh Hunt (1784 - 1859), William Cobbett (1763 - 1835) and Henry Brougham (1778 - 1868) attempted to communicate his ideas to the working class.
Jeremy Bentham died on 6 June 1832 in his native London and, as requested in his will, his body was preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet, which he called his "Auto-Icon", and which is still kept on display at University College, London.

Work

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Most of Bentham's writing was never published in his own lifetime, and several of his works appeared first in French translations by Étienne Dumont (some only becoming available in English in the 1820s as a result of back-translation from the French). His most important work was "The Principles of Morals and Legislation" of 1780, in which his formulation ofUtilitarianism was first expounded.
Bentham proposed an underlying moral principle on which his legal and social reforms should be based, which he calledUtilitarianism. This philosophy (essentially a modification of Hedonism) evaluates actions based upon their consequences (a type of Consequentialism), and holds that the right act or policy is that which would cause "the greatest happiness of the greatest number", a phrase which he attributed to Joseph Priestley (1733 - 1804). He also suggested a "felicific calculus" for estimating the moral status (or "happiness factor") of any action, using a classification of 12 pains and 14 pleasures. His initial theory (often referred to as the principle of utility or the greatest happiness principle) was further developed by his students, particularly by John Stuart Mill, to incorporate more of a principle of fairness and justice, the lack of which was criticized in Bentham's original formulation.
His opinions on monetary economics (as opposed to those of his contemporaries Adam Smith and David Ricardo) focused onmonetary expansion as a means of helping to create full employment. He can be considered as both a classical, and a market, Liberal, and tried to convince Smith that his "Wealth of Nations" called for too much regulation.
Bentham's political position included arguments in favour of individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the abolition of slavery and of physical punishment (including that of children), the recognition of animal rights, the right to divorce, the promotion of free trade and usury and the decriminalization of homosexuality.

Among his many proposals for legal and social reform was a design for a prison building he called the Panopticon, which had an important influence upon later generations of thinkers. As early as 1798, he wrote that universal peace could only be obtained by first achieving European unity. He was also instrumental in the foundation of the University of London in 1826, as the first English university to admit all, regardless of race, creed or political belief

By Branch / Doctrine > Ethics > Utilitarianism Mill

John Stuart Mill
(Photogravure, 19th Century)

Introduction

John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist and Member of Parliament of the early Modern period.
His philosophical roots were in the British Empiricism of John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume. But he is best known for his further development of the Utilitarian theory of his teacher, Jeremy Bentham, which he popularized as amovement and of which he became the best known exponent and apologist.
He was instrumental in the development of progressive political doctrines such as Socialism, Libertarianism and Feminism, and he was active in calling forpolitical and social reforms such as the abolition of the slave trade, universal suffrage, labour unions and farm cooperatives.
He was perhaps the most influential English-speaking philosopher and liberalthinker of the 19th Century, and he made important contributions to British thought, especially in Ethics and Political Philosophy.

Life

John Stuart Mill was born on 20 May 1806 in the Pentonville area of north-centralLondon, the eldest of nine children of the Scottish philosopher and historianJames Mill (1773 - 1836). His mother was Harriet Barrow, but she seems to have had very little influence upon him.
We have a detailed account of his youth from Mill's own "Autobiography" of 1873. He was given an extremely rigorous upbringing and education by his father, with the advice and assistance of the English social reformers Jeremy Bentham andFrancis Place (1771 - 1854), and was deliberately shielded from association with children his own age (other than his siblings). His father was an almost fanatical follower of Bentham and Associationism (the idea that mental processes operate by theassociation of one state with its successor states), and wanted to deliberately groom John as an intellectual genius who would carry on the cause of Utilitarianism after he and Bentham were dead.
Mill was anyway a notably precocious child, leaning Greek at the age of three. By the age of eight, he had read Aesop's"Fables", Xenophon's "Anabasis", and the whole of Herodotus, and was acquainted with Lucian, Diogenes Laërtius,Isocrates and six dialogues of Plato, as well as arithmetic and a great deal of history in English. At the age of eight he began learning Latin, algebra and Euclid and to teach the younger children of the family. By the age of ten he could read Plato andDemosthenes, and was familiar with all the Latin and Greek authors commonly read in the schools and universities at the time, such as Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Tacitus, Homer, Dionysus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes and Thucydides. In his "spare time", he enjoyed reading about natural sciences and some popular novels (such as "Don Quixote" and "Robinson Crusoe"). One of Mill's earliest poetry compositions was a continuation of the "Iliad".
At about the age of twelve, Mill began a thorough study of scholastic Logic, reading Aristotle's logical treatises in the original language. In the following year he was introduced to political economy and studied the works Adam Smith and David Ricardo(a close friend of his father, who would often discuss economics with the young Mill).
At fourteen, Mill spent a year in the mountains of southern France with the family of Sir Samuel Bentham (Jeremy Bentham's brother), also attending the winter courses on chemistry, zoology and logic of the Faculté des Sciences in Montpellier, as well as taking a course of higher mathematics with a private tutor. He also spent some time in Paris with the renowned French economist Jean-Baptiste Say (1767 - 1832), who was a friend of Mill's father, and met several other notable Parisiens, including the utopian socialist thinker Henri Saint-Simon (1760 - 1825), all through his father's myriad connections.
In 1823, at the age of 17, Mill chose (rather than take Anglican orders from the "white devil" in order to study at Oxford University or Cambridge University) to follow his father to work for the British East India Company. He led a long and active career as an administrator there, rising through the ranks to become the chief of office in 1856, and retiring with a pension in 1858 when the Company's administrative functions in India were taken over by the British government following the Mutiny of 1857.
All his intensive study, however, had had injurious effects on Mill's mental health and state of mind and, in 1826, at the age of twenty, he suffered a nervous breakdown, probably from the great physical and mental arduousness of his studies and thesuppression of most normal childhood feelings. This depression eventually began to dissipate, however, with Mill taking solace in the Romantic poetry of Coleridge, Wordsworth and Goethe. He was also introduced around this time to thePositivism of Auguste Comte, which had a strong influence on his future thinking.
He began having articles published in the "Westminster Review" (a journal founded by Bentham and James Mill to propagateRadical views) and in other newspapers and journals including the "Morning Chronicle" and the "Parliamentary History & Review. In 1834, Mill co-founded the Radical journal, the "London Review" with Sir William Molesworth (1810 -1855) and then, two years later, purchased the "Westminster Review" and merged the two journals, using it to support politicians who were advocating further reform of the House of Commons.
In 1851, Mill married Harriet Taylor (on the death of her husband) after over twenty years of intimate friendship. Brilliant in her own right, she was a significant influence on Mill's work and ideas during both friendship and marriage, including his advocacy of women's rights. After only seven years of marriage, though, she died on a trip to Avignon in the south of France in 1858 after developing severe lung congestion. Mill took a house in Avignon in order to be near her grave and thereafter divided his time between there and London.
He became involved with the abolitionist movement against the slave trade (as well as other contemporary reform movementson the prisons, poor laws, etc), and penned a famous rebuttal in 1850 (which came to be known under the title "The Negro Question") to Thomas Carlyle's anonymous letter in defence of slavery.
From 1865 to 1868, Mill served as the Liberal Member of Parliament for Westminster, as well as serving as Lord Rector of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. During his time as an MP, Mill became the first person in Parliament to call forwomen to be given the right to vote, and advocated easing the burdens on Ireland, as well as working indefatigably for such political and social reforms as proportional representation, labour unions and farm cooperatives.
Mill died on 8 May 1873 in Avignon, and was buried alongside his wife.

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Throughout his life, Mill tried to persuade the British public of the necessity of a scientific approach to understanding social, political and economic change while not neglecting the insights of poets and other imaginative writers. Philosophically, he was a radical empiricist who held that all human knowledge, including even mathematics and Logic, is derived by generalizationfrom sensory experience. He believed firmly that there is no such thing as innate ideas, no such thing as moral precepts.
His "System of Logic" of 1843 was an ambitious attempt to give an account not only of Logic, as the title suggests, but of themethods of science and their applicability to social as well as purely natural phenomena. Mill's conception of Logic comprised not only formal logic (what he called the "logic of consistency"), but also a "logic of proof" (a logic that would show howevidence tended to prove the conclusions we draw from the evidence). This led him to an analysis of causation and ultimately to an account of inductive reasoning that remains the starting point of most modern discussions on Logic. The "System of Logic" also attacked the Intuitionist philosophy (the belief that explanations rested on intuitively compelling principles rather than on general causal laws) of William Whewell (1794 - 1866) and Sir William Hamilton (1788 - 1856), which he saw as "bad philosophy".
His "Principles of Political Economy" of 1848 tried to show that economics was not the "dismal science" that Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881) and its radical and literary critics had supposed, and it became one of the most widely read of all books on economics in the period, and dominated economics teaching for decades. His early economic philosophy was generally one of free markets with minimal interventions in the economy, and the "Principles" is largely a highly proficient re-statement ofSmith and Ricardo's theory of classical capitalist economics. He helped develop the ideas of economies of scale, opportunity cost and comparative advantage in trade.
But in the "Principles", Mill also made the radical arguments that we should sacrifice economic growth for the sake of theenvironment, and should limit population as much to give ourselves breathing space as in order to fend off the risk ofstarvation for the overburdened poor, and advocated his own ideal of an economy of worker-owned cooperatives.
His "Utilitarianism" of 1861 remains the classic defence of the Utilitarian view that we should aim at maximizing the welfare(or happiness) of all sentient creatures. However, he was keen to develop Utilitarianism into a more humanitarian doctrine. One of Mill's major contributions to Utilitarianism was his argument for the qualitative separation of pleasures, his insistence that happiness should be assessed not merely by quantity but by quality and, more specifically, that intellectual and moral pleasures are superior to more physical forms of pleasure. He went so far as to say that he would rather be a dissatisfied human being than a satisfied pig. He also turned away from Bentham's external standard of goodness to something moresubjective, arguing that altruism was as important as self-interest in deciding what ought to be done.
However, it was Mill's essay "On Liberty" of 1859 that aroused the greatest controversy and the most violent expressions of approval and disapproval. It addressed the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over theindividual, and he laid down his "one very simple principle" governing the use of coercion in society (whether it be by legal penalties or by the operation of public opinion), arguing that we may only coerce others in self-defence: either to defend ourselves, or to defend others from harm (the so-called "harm principle"). Thus, if an action is self-regarding (i.e. it only directly affects the person undertaking the action), then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself. Man is therefore free to do anything unless he harms others, he argued, and individuals are rational enough to make decisions about what is good and also to choose any religion they want.
"On Liberty" also contains an impassioned defence of free speech, arguing that free discourse is a necessary condition for intellectual and social progress, and that we can never be sure that a silenced opinion does not contain some element of the truth. It introduces the concepts of "social liberty" (limits on a ruler's power to prevent him from harming society, requiring that people should have the right to a say in a government’s decisions), and also the concept of the “tyranny of the majority”(where the majority oppresses the minority by decisions which could be harmful and wrong sometimes, and against whichprecautions are needed).
Mill's "Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy" of 1865 constituted the first developed presentation of the doctrine of Phenomenalism (the epistemological view which regards sensations as the basic constituents of reality, and attempts to construct the external world from sensations and the possibilities of sensation), and it included his quote: “Matter, then, may be defined as the Permanent Possibility of Sensation”. Although the origins of Phenomenalism can be traced back toGeorge Berkeley, it was only after Mill that a commitment to the doctrine became standard among scientific philosophers, until superseded by Physicalism in the 1930s.
"The Subjection of Women" of 1869, apparently published late in life in order to avoid controversies that would lessen the impact of his other work, was thought to be excessively radical in Mill's time, but is now seen as a classic statement of liberalFeminism. Mill argued that if freedom is good for men, then it is for women too, and that every argument against this view drawn from the supposedly different "nature" of men and women is based on mere superstitious special pleading. If women dohave different natures, the only way to discover what they are is by experiment, and that requires that women should have access to everything to which men have access. He felt that the oppression of women was one of the few remaining relics from ancient times, a set of prejudices that severely impeded the progress of humanity.

Likewise, he chose not to have his "Three Essays on Religion" published until after his death, although they remain models of calm discussion of contentious topics, and actually disappointed those of Mill's admirers who had looked for a tougher and more abrasive Agnosticism. In general the essays criticized traditional religious views and formulated an alternative (inspired byComte) in the guise of a "Religion of Humanity". Mill argued that belief in an omnipotent and benevolent God, encouragedintellectual laziness. Among other points, though, he argued that, although it is impossible that the universe is governed by anomnipotent and loving God, it is not unlikely that a less omnipotent benign force is at work in the world.

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