The 'proof' of utility Flashcards
How does Mill demonstrate that he is not trying to prove utility deductively?
‘questions of ultimate ends do not admit of proof, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. To be incapable of proof by reasoning is common to all first principles’
If not deductively, what is the alternative method that Mill suggests to test the doctrine of utility?
‘…being matters of fact, may be the subject of a direct appeal to the faculties which judge of fact- namely, our senses, and our internal consciousness’
‘a question of fact and experience, dependent, like all similar questions, upon evidence. It can only be determined by practised self-consciousness and self-observation.’
How does Mill define the doctrine of utility?
‘Questions about ends are, in other words, questions what things are desirable. 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.’
This is the utilitarian theory of the good, rather than the theory of right action.
What is the infamous paragraph of Mill’s ‘proof’ of utility?
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. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince a person that it was so. No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to acquire, that happiness is a good: that each person’s happiness is a good: that each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of persons. Happiness has made out its title as one of the ends of conduct, and consequently one of the criteria of morality.
How does Mill argue that utility can be shown to be the sole criterion of morality?
‘…necessary to show, not only that people desire happiness, but they never desire anything else.’
In what way does Mill argue that people desire virtue?
‘It maintains not only that virtue is to be desired, but it is to be desired disinterestedly for itself.’
Mill argues the same for other things such as money, fame and power.
‘The ingredients of happiness are very various, and each of them is desirable in itself, and not merely when considered as swelling an aggregate.’
What is the associationist account that Mill offers?
Initially, money is desired as a means to happiness. Over time, as the association between money and happiness is strong, money becomes desired as a part of happiness.
E.g. Pavlov’s dogs.
Initially, they would salivate at the sight of food, and showed no response to a neutral stimulus e.g. the ring of a bell.
The bell would be rung before the dog is presented with food.
After time, the dog would start salivating when they heard the bell, even if there was no food.
How does Mill state his revised form of psychological hedonism?
‘That to think an object as desirable, and to think of it as pleasant, are one and the same thing; and that to desire anything, except in proportion as the idea of it is pleasant, is a physical and metaphysical impossibility.’
How does Mill draw a distinction between will and desire?
Will, the active phenomenon, is a different thing from desire, the state of passive sensibility, and though originally an offshoot from it, may in time take root and detach itself from the parent stock; so much so, that in the case of habitual purpose, instead of willing the thing because we desire it, we often desire it only because we will it.
‘…we may will from habit what we no longer desire for itself, or desire only because we will it.’
What are the three stages of Mill’s argument according to Crisp?
- Happiness is desirable
- The general happiness is desirable
- Nothing other than happiness is desirable
What school of thought does Mill align himself with, on how we can access moral truth?
Mill contemptuously rejects the moral sense view.
He also rejects the intuitionist view.
He aligns himself with the inductivist school, which argues that questions of right or wrong are matters of ‘fact and experience’. This makes sense given that he is an empiricist.
Why does Mill reject the intuitive school?
i) It is unscientific, making appeal to allegedly ‘self-evident’ principles.
ii) Intuitive moralists rarely offer a list of these principles or attempt to systematise them.
How does Mill set out his meaning of the word proof in Chapter 1?
‘We are not, however, to infer that its acceptance or rejection must depend on blind impulse, or arbitrary choice. There is a larger meaning of the word proof, in which this question is as amenable to it as any other of the disputed questions of philosophy. The subject is within the cognisance of the rational faculty; and neither does that faculty deal with it solely in the way of intuition. Considerations may be presented capable of determining the intellect either to give or withhold its assent to the doctrine; and this is equivalent to proof.
What is the title of chapter 4?
‘Of what sort of proof the principle of utility is susceptible’
What is the open question objection to Mill?
An acceptable question, Moore claims, should not leave an open question. If I define a triangle as a plane figure bounded by three sides, then my definition has succeeded, as it is not an open question whether a triangle is a plane figure bounded by three sides. But the definition of ‘good’ as ‘desired’ fails the test, because it is clearly an open question whether what is desired is good.
Why is the ‘open question’ objection not ultimately successful?
Definitions are usually signalled by inverted commas. Mill is not interested here in defining terms.
Mill is claiming that desire offers the only evidence for something’s being good.
What are other possible meanings of the naturalistic fallacy?
It is committed when one attempts to derive evaluative conclusions from entirely non-evaluative premises. Mill is not doing this, because it would constitute the kind of direct proof that he is at pains to deny is possible.
Another accusation is that Mill is trying to equate goodness (a non-natural property) with desire (a natural property). Once again, Mill is not trying to equate goodness with desire, he is merely suggesting that what is desired is the only evidence for goodness.
How would an empiricist ‘prove’ that it is raining outside?
They would open the window and if you can see it raining outside, this would have to be admitted as final.
Is Mill trying to establish that the aggregate happiness is a good to each individual?
No. He is trying to show that the aggregate happiness is a good to the aggregate of individuals.
It is not fair to accuse Mill of the leap from egoistic hedonism to universalistic hedonism.
Is it possible to understand visible as ‘ought to be seen’?
It is possible to see something that is not actually there, e.g. by hallucinating. ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me?’.
This would be an example of something which is not ought to be seen.
The things which are visible are ought to be seen, because they are actually there.
The only evidence that something ought to be seen is that people do actually see it.
Sometimes people desire things which are not desirable.
Sometimes people see things which are not visible.
However, on both cases, an appeal to the relevant faculty is all that we can do.
What is the fallacy of composition?
The fallacy of composition is inferring from the fact that each member of a set has a certain property that the set does.
E.g. every man has a mother, therefore the set of all men has a mother.
Each component of this meal is healthy, therefore the meal is healthy. This might not be so, perhaps the meal is an excessively large portion.
Even though Mill has strictly committed the fallacy of composition, what is a charitable reading of him?
Although it is strictly a fallacy of composition, it might still be that goods are additive in this way. If p is an amount of butter, q is an amount of butter, and r is an amount of butter, p + q + r is an amount of butter.
Mill ultimately has to assume that happiness can be summed.
What does Mill say in a letter to Henry Jones?
‘As to the sentence you quote from my Utilitarianism, when I said that the general happiness is a good to the aggregate of all persons I did not mean that every human being’s happiness is a good to every other human being, though I think in a good state of society and education it would be so. I merely meant in this particular sentence to argue that since A’s happiness is a good, B’s a good, C’s a good, etc…, the sum of all these goods must be a good.’
What does Mill subtly change in his letter to Henry Jones that was different in ‘Utilitarianism’?
In Utilitarianism, he writes that each persons’ happiness is a good to each person, and therefore the aggregate of happiness is a good to the aggregate of all persons. This seems implausible that specific goods to individuals can be summed in that way.
However, in the letter to Henry Jones, he drops the relative notion of good in favour of an absolute notion. He simply describes A’s happiness as ‘a good’. This interpretation makes it seem much more plausible that these goods can be summed.
However, this absolute notion of good is less accurate. Each person’s happiness is a good to them, rather than just good. Otherwise, people would just aim at promoting happiness in general. However, as Mill recognises, it is our own happiness that we are concerned to promote. This is what the relative notion is better at capturing.
However, if we accept the relative notion, we have difficulty summing happiness. Therefore, Mill’s argument does not seem to be able to be completed.
There are several assumptions that Mill has not made explicit in Chapter 4. What are they?
Moral assumption- his readers were already taking morality seriously. Utilitarianism was not aimed at egoists, it was aimed at moral intuitionists.
Aggregative assumption- happiness is a good that can be aggregated.
Impartiality assumption- when summing happiness, the distinction between persons is irrelevant.
Teleological assumption- moral rules are justified only to the extent that they promote some end or good.
What are some problems with these assumptions that Mill has made?
(aside from the impartiality assumption)
The egoist may remain unimpressed by Mill’s assumption that morality matters.
It is not clear that or how happiness can be summed.
Mill’s teleological assumption may be rejected by someone who believed that human conduct should be guided not only by ends but also by self-standing moral rules, e.g. do not kill, lie, steal.
Why is the impartiality assumption particularly problematic for Mill?
He unjustifiably ignores the rationality of pursuing not only self-interest, but other distributional ends such as fairness.
The intuitional assumption is as ‘a priori’ as any intuitive principle. Mill is after all an intuitionist. Making his assumptions clear does make his argument more plausible.
What does Crisp think is the most plausible interpretation of Mill’s associationist argument? (that only happiness is desired)
If we are to be said to desire only happiness, it must be the case that when we desire virtue as a part of happiness, we are desiring the enjoyable experiences of being virtuous or acting virtuously. Given human psychology, desire ‘cannot be directed to anything ultimately except pleasure and exemption from pain. Mill’s expectation must be that, when we examine the content of our own minds, we shall join with him in rejecting the common view, since in desiring virtue what we really desire is happiness. In speaking of music, fame, power, money, virtue, Mill really means the pleasure of these things.
Does he not contradict himself when he says that virtue is desired disinterestedly?
What is psychological hedonism and psychological egoism?
Psychological hedonism is the view that humans only act for the sake of pleasure.
Psychological egoism is the view that humans act only to further their own good.
What is Mill’s revised position on psychological hedonism/egoism?
Mill does believe that humans can act for things other than pleasure, as the will can prompt action independently of any perceived pleasure.
Mill allows that a person can genuinely sacrifice their happiness for the sake of others.
Humans desire only what is pleasurable to them.
How much of a problem does Mill’s version of psychological hedonism/egoism pose for his utilitarianism?
In Mill’s ideal society, there would be no gap between my own good and the maximum possible good that I could bring about. Doing what utilitarian morality required of me would in fact be what I wanted to do in my own interest.
It could be that people act out of will engendered by habit, when they resign their own portion of happiness to promote the aggregate. However, which of us actually have this habitual willpower to perform such a thing? And why should they, if it is not desirable for them?
What is the problem that Sidgwick identified with psychological hedonism?
‘hunger is frequently and naturally accompanied with anticipation of the pleasure of eating: but careful introspection seems to show that the two are by no means inseparable’.
I can distinguish my desire for the pie in front of me from any desire for the pleasure of eating it. And there is no good reason for relegating my desire for the pie to the status of a desire for a means to the end of pleasurable eating.
What is a final problem for psychological hedonism?
It does appear that there are goods which are independent of experience and yet are still desired.
Consider a women who is given a choice: either her children can succeed, but she will have the distress of thinking that they have failed, or they will fail, but she will have the pleasure of thinking they have succeeded. Such a women may well choose success for her children.
What is the difference between external and internal sanctions of utilitarianism?
External sanctions: hope of favour from others, fear of their anger and sympathy for them. They depend on others.
Internal sanctions: the individual’s own sense of duty, or their conscience. The internal sanction has its origin in the influence of others, through education etc… but then takes on motivation of its own, providing moral motivation.
What is Mill trying to achieve in his chapter on the sanctions of utility?
He is asking what might in fact motivate people to be utilitarians, but why anyone should feel obliged to act in accordance with utilitarianism.
Why should we live in accordance with utilitarianism? (Chpt 3)
Humans are naturally social creatures who desire to be in accord with one another. We have a strong desire for harmony between our own interests and those of others, and a natural dislike of discordance.
There is a direct link with the discussion of higher pleasures, which include pleasures of the moral sentiments which he is referring to here. The implication is that as people are educated to become more impartial, they will see (perhaps paradoxically) that there lives are getting better and better for them.
This is an argument for utilitarianism on the basis of self-interest. As humans extend their sympathies and move beyond self-concern, there lives will go better.
Unfortunately, it does seem that there will come a point where adhering to the demands of impartiality will become highly costly in terms of self-interest.
What is Hall’s test of ‘psychological realism’?
There may be visible things that are not seen, or audible things that are not heard. However, the test that someone can propose that something is visible is that it is actually seen. This is the establishment of a plausible principle.
A theory that conflicts with this requirement will not be accepted by reasonable people.
A theory which sets up desirable ends as that which no one desires is just being unrealistic.
If no one desired happiness, reasonable people would not give assent to the principle of utility.
This requirement of any ethical first principle can be called- ‘psychological realism’.
Mill attempts first to show that happiness passes this test, and nothing else does.
