J. S. Mill's Modification of Benthamite Utilitarianism

The famous consequence. A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable of more acute suffering, and yet can never wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence. Mill's conclusion is the sentence everybody quotes: it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the pig is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question, while the other party to the comparison knows both sides.

Is this consistent with utilitarianism? The standard objection is that it is not: if a pleasure is preferred for its quality and not for the quantity of pleasure it yields, then something other than pleasure is being used as the standard, and Mill has abandoned hedonism while claiming to defend it. Mill's defence is that the preference of those who know both is itself evidence about pleasure, and that the competent judges are reporting a fact about the pleasures rather than importing an external standard. Whether that succeeds is the argument, and an answer should state both sides.

The second modification: what happiness is

Bentham's happiness is pleasure and the absence of pain, as sensation. Mill's is broader.

Happiness includes the exercise and development of the higher faculties, the intellect, the feelings and imagination, and the moral sentiments.

It includes a sense of dignity, which Mill says all human beings possess in some form and which is so essential to their happiness that nothing which conflicts with it can be an object of desire to them.

And it is not to be confused with contentment. A person of higher faculties may be less contented and more happy in Mill's sense than one whose capacities of enjoyment are low but fully satisfied.

The third modification: liberty gets a principle of its own

This is the modification with the greatest practical consequence and it is what chapter 610 is about.

Bentham protects liberty only so far as protecting it maximises happiness, which is a contingent and revisable protection. Mill gives liberty a principle: the only purpose for which power may rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will is to prevent harm to others.

How he keeps it utilitarian. Mill says expressly that he forgoes any advantage from the idea of abstract right and regards utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions, but utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being. The protection of liberty is justified because individuality and the development of character are among the largest of those permanent interests.

Critics say this is where Mill's utilitarianism finally breaks: a principle stated as governing absolutely is not something a calculation can override, and yet on his own account the calculation is the ultimate appeal.

The fourth modification: justice and rights

Mill devotes the last chapter of Utilitarianism to justice, which is the part most relevant to a law student.

The problem. Justice feels categorically different from expediency. We do not say it would be inexpedient to convict an innocent person; we say it would be unjust, and the feeling is of a different order.

Mill's account. To have a right is to have something society ought to defend one in possessing, and the reason society ought to is general utility. What makes the rules of justice feel different is that they protect the most vital of all interests, security, without which nothing else a person values can be relied on from one moment to the next. Because the interest is so extraordinarily important, the rules protecting it acquire an absoluteness of obligation that ordinary rules of expediency do not have.

Why this matters for the objections at chapter 660. Mill's answer to the charge that utilitarianism would permit punishing an innocent person is that no ordinary gain can outweigh the damage to security, so a rule permitting it could never be justified on utilitarian grounds. Whether that answer is sufficient, or whether it is available only because Mill has smuggled in something that functions as a right, is the question.

Was the modification an improvement or an abandonment?

The examiner's question, and both answers must be given.

An improvement. It rescues the doctrine from the swine objection; it accounts for the fact that we do think some satisfactions better than others; it protects liberty and justice, which pure aggregation cannot; and it makes the theory match the moral judgments people actually make.

An abandonment. Quality cannot be assessed by a hedonistic standard without importing another one; a liberty principle governing absolutely cannot be overridden by calculation, so it is not doing utilitarian work; and treating security as generating obligations of a different order is, in substance, a theory of rights. On this view Mill's utilitarianism is a doorway out of utilitarianism.

The fair conclusion. Mill made the doctrine humane and made it less pure, and both halves of that sentence are true.

A worked example

A State must allocate a limited budget between two schemes.

Scheme A funds free public libraries, evening classes and music instruction in a hundred towns, benefiting perhaps two lakh people.

Scheme B subsidises a popular entertainment channel's rural transmission, benefiting perhaps twenty lakh people.

On Bentham's calculus. Extent is ten times greater for B, intensity is comparable, duration is similar, certainty is higher for B since it needs no attendance. B wins on the arithmetic.

On Mill's modification. The question is not only how much satisfaction each produces but what kind. Ask the people who have experience of both, an education and passive entertainment, and Mill's claim is that those who know both give a decided preference to the first. If that is so, the quality of the pleasure counts and A is not to be dismissed because the numbers favour B.

Two honest observations about the example. First, Mill's test is empirical, so it can be wrong: if the competent judges actually prefer the entertainment, the doctrine says so. Second, the argument is easily abused, because it lets an educated official say that what they enjoy is a higher pleasure than what everybody else enjoys. Mill's protection against that is that the judges must have experience of both, which excludes the official who has never watched the channel.

Distinctions that carry marks

What the modification is NOT

It is not a rejection of the principle of utility. Mill states expressly that utility is the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions, and defends the doctrine as its most careful exponent.

"Better Socrates dissatisfied" is not an argument for misery. Mill's point is about the capacity for happiness, not about the desirability of being unhappy.

The competent judge test is not a test of who is more educated. It requires experience of both pleasures, which excludes anybody who has not had the lower one.

It is not a minor adjustment. It changes what happiness means, adds a test the original doctrine had no room for, and gives liberty and justice a protection aggregation cannot supply.

Quick revision

1. The problem: Bentham's doctrine was attacked as a pig philosophy, fit for swine, if pleasures differ only in quantity.
2. Modification one, quality: it is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable, and absurd that quality should be considered in estimating everything else and not pleasures.
3. The test: of two pleasures, that to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation, is the more desirable. The competent judges are those who know both, and there is no appeal from them; and there is no other tribunal even for quantity.
4. The consequence: better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied; the fool knows only one side of the question.
5. Modification two: happiness includes the exercise of the higher faculties and a sense of dignity, and is not the same as contentment.
6. Modification three: liberty gets a principle of its own, justified by utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.
7. Modification four: justice and rights rest on the most vital interest, security, which gives them an absoluteness ordinary expediency lacks.
8. The examiner's question: improvement or abandonment? Say both, and conclude that Mill made the doctrine humane and made it less pure.

Test yourself

1. What objection was Mill answering, and how did he answer it? The objection that utilitarianism is a doctrine worthy only of swine: if pleasure is the only good and pleasures differ only in quantity, a life of simple sensual satisfaction is as good as any other of equal quantity. Mill answered that the objection would be fatal if the premise were true and denied the premise, holding it quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others, and that it would be absurd for quality to count in estimating everything else while pleasures were estimated by quantity alone.

2. State Mill's test for the quality of pleasures. That of two pleasures, if there is 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. The judges are those qualified by knowledge of both, or, where they differ, the majority among them, whom Mill calls the only competent judges and from whose verdict he says there can be no appeal. He adds that there is the less hesitation in accepting their judgment about quality since there is no other tribunal available even on the question of quantity.

3. Is the introduction of quality consistent with utilitarianism? The objection is that it is not: if a pleasure is preferred for its kind rather than for the quantity of pleasure it produces, then something other than pleasure is functioning as the standard, and hedonism has been abandoned while being defended. Mill's answer is that the preference of those who have experienced both is itself evidence about the pleasures rather than an external criterion, so the competent judges are reporting a fact about pleasure and not importing another value. Whether that succeeds is the live argument, and a good answer gives both sides.

4. How does Mill account for justice and rights? To have a right is to have something society ought to defend one in possessing, and the reason it ought to is general utility. What makes the rules of justice feel categorically different from rules of expediency is that they protect the most vital of all interests, security, without which nothing a person values can be relied on from moment to moment. Because that interest is so extraordinarily important, the rules protecting it acquire an absoluteness of obligation which ordinary expediency lacks, which is Mill's answer to the objection that utilitarianism would permit convicting an innocent person.

5. Did Mill improve utilitarianism or abandon it? Both answers are defensible. He improved it by rescuing it from the swine objection, by accounting for the fact that people do think some satisfactions better than others, and by protecting liberty and justice, which pure aggregation cannot. He abandoned it, on the other view, because quality cannot be assessed on a hedonistic standard without importing another, because a liberty principle stated as governing absolutely cannot be overridden by calculation and so is not doing utilitarian work, and because treating security as generating obligations of a different order is in substance a theory of rights. The fair conclusion is that he made the doctrine humane and made it less pure.