UTILITARIANISM
(1863)
by
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
Chapter 2
What Utilitarianism Is...
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The creed which accepts as the foundation
of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that
actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness,
wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness
is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain,
and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral
standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in
particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure;
and to what extent this is left an open question. But these supplementary
explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory
of morality is grounded- namely, that pleasure, and freedom from
pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable
things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other
scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves,
or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.
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Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds,
and among them in some of the most estimable in feeling and purpose, inveterate
dislike. To
suppose that life
has (as they express it) no higher end than pleasure- no better and
nobler object of desire and pursuit- they designate as utterly mean
and grovelling;
as a doctrine
worthy only of swine, to whom the followers of Epicurus were, at a
very early period, contemptuously likened; and modern holders of
the doctrine
are occasionally
made the subject of equally polite comparisons by its German, French,
and English assailants.
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When thus attacked, the
Epicureans have always answered, that it is not they, but their accusers,
who represent human
nature in
a degrading
light;
since the
accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no
pleasures except those of which swine are capable. If this supposition
were true,
the charge could not
be gainsaid, but would then be no longer an imputation;
for if the
sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human
beings and to swine, the
rule of life
which is good enough for the one would be good enough
for the other. The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts
is felt
as
degrading, precisely because
a beast's pleasures do not satisfy a human being's
conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than
the animal
appetites,
and when once made conscious of them, do not regard
anything as happiness
which does not
include their gratification. I do not, indeed, consider
the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out their
scheme of
consequences from
the utilitarian principle. To do this in any sufficient
manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian elements require to be included.
But
there is no known Epicurean
theory of lifewhich does not assign to the pleasures
of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments,
a much
higher value as
pleasures than to those of mere sensation. It must
be admitted,
however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority
of
mental over bodily
pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety,
uncostliness, etc., of the former- that is, in their circumstantial advantages
rather than in their intrinsic
nature. And on all these points utilitarians have fully
proved their case; but they might have taken the other,
and, as it may be called,
higher ground, with
entire consistency. 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.
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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. If one of the two
is, by
those who are competently
acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer
it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount
of discontent, and would
not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their
nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred
enjoyment
a superiority in
quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison,
of small account.
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Now it is an unquestionable
fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable
of appreciating and enjoying,
both,
do give a most marked
preference to the manner of existence which employs
their higher
faculties. Few human creatures would consent
to be changed into any of the lower
animals, for
a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's
pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no
instructed
person would
be an ignoramus,
no person of feeling and conscience would be
selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool,
the dunce,
or the
rascal is better
satisfied
with his lot than they are with theirs. They
would not resign
what they possess more than he for the most complete
satisfaction of
all the desires
which they
have in common with him. If they ever fancy they
would, it is only in cases of unhappiness so extreme, that to escape
from it they
would exchange
their lot
for almost any other, however undesirable in
their own eyes. A
being of higher faculties requires more to make
him happy, is
capable probably
of more acute
suffering, and certainly accessible to it at
more points, than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities,
he can never
really
wish to sink into
what he feels to be a lower grade of existence.
We
may give
what explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may
attribute it to pride, a name
which is given indiscriminately to some of the
most and to some of the least estimable
feelings of which mankind are capable: we may
refer it to the love of liberty and personal
independence,
an appeal to which was
with
the Stoics
one of the
most effective means for the inculcation of it;
to the love of power, or to the love of excitement,
both of which do really
enter into
and contribute to it:
but its most appropriate appellation is a sense
of
dignity, which all human beings possess in one
form or other, and in some, though
by no
means in exact, proportion
to their higher faculties, and which is so essential
a part of
the happiness of those in whom it is strong,
that nothing which conflicts
with it could
be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them.
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Whoever supposes that this preference
takes place at a sacrifice of happiness- that the superior being, in
anything like
equal
circumstances, is not
happier than the inferior- confounds the
two very different ideas, of happiness, and
content. It is indisputable that the being
whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having
them fully
satisfied;
and
a highly endowed
being will always feel that any happiness
which he can look for,
as the world is constituted, is imperfect.
But he can learn to bear its
imperfections,
if
they are at all bearable; and they will not
make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections,
but only
because
he feels
not at all the good
which those imperfections qualify. 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, are
a different opinion, it is because they only
know their own side of the question. The
other party to the comparison knows both sides.
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It may be objected, that
many who are capable of the higher
pleasures, occasionally, under the influence
of temptation, postpone them
to the lower. But this is quite
compatible with a full appreciation of the
intrinsic superiority of the higher. Men often, from infirmity of character,
make
their election
for
the nearer good,
though they know it to be the less valuable;
and this no less when the choice is between two bodily pleasures, than
when
it is between
bodily
and mental. They
pursue sensual indulgences to the injury
of health, though perfectly aware that health is the greater good.
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It
may be further objected, that many who begin with youthful
enthusiasm for everything noble, as they advance in years
sink into indolence
and selfishness.
But I do not believe that those who undergo
this very common change, voluntarily choose the lower description
of pleasures
in preference
to the higher. I believe
that before they devote themselves exclusively
to the one, they have already become incapable of the other.
Capacity
for the
nobler feelings
is in most natures
a very tender plant, easily killed, not only
by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the
majority of young
persons it speedily
dies away
if the occupations to which their position
in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them,
are
not favourable to keeping that higher
capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations
as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have
not
time
or opportunity
for indulging
them; and they
addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not
because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the
only ones
to which
they
have access, or
the only ones which they are any longer capable
of enjoying. It may be questioned whether any one who has
remained
equally
susceptible
to both
classes of pleasures,
ever knowingly and calmly preferred the lower;
though many, in all
ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt
to combine both.
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From this verdict
of the only competent judges, I apprehend there can be no
appeal. On a question which is
the best worth
having
of two pleasures,
or which of two
modes of existence is the most grateful to
the feelings, apart from its moral attributes and from its consequences,
the judgment
of those
who
are qualified
by knowledge of both, or, if they differ,
that of the majority
among them, must be admitted as final. And
there needs be the less hesitation
to accept this judgment
respecting the quality of pleasures, since
there is no other tribunal to be referred to even on the question of
quantity.
What means
are there of determining which
is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest
of two pleasurable sensations, except the general suffrage of those
who are
familiar with both? Neither
pains nor pleasures are homogeneous, and
pain is always heterogeneous with pleasure.
What is there to decide whether a particular
pleasure is worth purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except
the feelings
and judgment
of the experienced?
When, therefore, those feelings and judgment
declare the
pleasures derived from the higher faculties
to be preferable in kind,
apart from the question
of intensity,
to those of which the animal nature, disjoined
from the higher faculties, is suspectible,
they are entitled on this subject
to the same regard.
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I have dwelt on this point, as being
a necessary part of a perfectly just conception of Utility or Happiness,
considered as the directive
rule of human conduct. But
it is by no means an indispensable
condition to the
acceptance of the utilitarian standard; for that
standard is not the
agent's
own
greatest
happiness, but the
greatest amount of happiness altogether;
and if it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always
the happier
for its nobleness,
there
can be no doubt
that it makes other people happier,
and that the world in
general is immensely a gainer by it.
Utilitarianism, therefore, could
only attain
its end by the general
cultivation of nobleness of character,
even if each individual were only benefited by the nobleness of others,
and his
own,
so far as
happiness is concerned, were
a sheer deduction from the benefit.
But the bare enunciation of such an absurdity as this last, renders refutation
superfluous.
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According to the Greatest Happiness Principle,
as above
explained, the ultimate end, with reference
to and for the sake of which
all other things
are desirable
(whether we are considering our own
good or that of other people), is an existence exempt as far as possible
from pain,
and as
rich as possible
in enjoyments, both
in point of quantity and quality; the
test of quality,
and the rule for measuring it against
quantity, being the preference
felt by those
who
in their opportunities
of experience, to which must be added
their habits of self-consciousness and self-observation, are best
furnished with the means of
comparison.
This, being,
according to the utilitarian opinion,
the end of human action, is necessarily also the standard of morality;
which may accordingly
be defined, the
rules and precepts for human conduct,
by the observance
of which an existence such as has
been described might be, to the greatest
extent possible, secured to all mankind; and not to them only, but,
so far as the nature
of
things
admits, to the whole
sentient creation.
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Against this doctrine, however, arises another class
of objectors, who say that happiness, in any form,
cannot be the rational
purpose of human
life and action;
because, in the first place, it is unattainable:
and they contemptuously ask, what right hast thou to be
happy? a question
which Mr.
Carlyle clenches by the
addition, What right, a short time ago, hadst thou
even to be? Next, they say, that men can do without
happiness; that
all noble
human
beings have felt this,
and could not have become noble but by learning the
lesson of Entsagen, or renunciation; which lesson,
thoroughly learnt
and
submitted
to, they affirm to be the beginning
and necessary condition of all virtue.
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The
first of these objections would go to the root of the matter were it
well founded; for
if no happiness is to be
had at all
by human beings,
the attainment
of it cannot be the end of morality,
or of any rational conduct. Though, even in that case, something might
still be said
for the utilitarian
theory; since
utility includes not solely the pursuit
of happiness, but the prevention or mitigation of unhappiness;
and if the former
aim be chimerical,
there will be all the greater
scope and more imperative need for
the latter, so long at least
as mankind think fit to live, and
do not take refuge in the simultaneous act of
suicide recommended
under certain conditions by Novalis.
When, however, it is thus positively
asserted to be impossible that human
life should be happy, the assertion, if not something
like a verbal quibble, is at least
an exaggeration. If by happiness be meant a continuity of highly
pleasurable excitement,
it
is evident enough
that this
is impossible. A state of exalted
pleasure lasts only moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions,
hours or days, and is
the
occasional brilliant flash
of enjoyment, not its permanent and
steady flame. Of
this the philosophers who have taught
that happiness is the end
of life
were as fully
aware as those who
taunt them. The happiness which they
meant was not a life of rapture;
but moments of such, in an existence
made up
of few
and transitory
pains, many and various
pleasures, with a decided predominance
of the active over the passive, and
having
as the foundation
of the whole, not
to
expect more from
life than it is capable
of bestowing. A life thus composed,
to those who have been fortunate
enough
to obtain it, has always
appeared
worthy
of the name of
happiness. And such an existence
is even now the lot of many, during
some considerable portion of their
lives.
The present wretched education,
and wretched
social
arrangements,
are the only
real hindrance to its being attainable
by almost all.
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The objectors perhaps may doubt
whether human beings, if taught to consider happiness as
the end of life, would be
satisfied
with such
a moderate
share of it. But
great numbers of mankind have
been satisfied with much less. The main constituents of a satisfied
life appear
to be two,
either of which
by itself is often found
sufficient for the purpose:
tranquillity, and excitement. With much tranquillity, many find that
they can
be content with
very little
pleasure: with much
excitement, many can reconcile
themselves to a considerable quantity of pain. There is assuredly
no inherent impossibility in
enabling even the mass
of mankind to unite both; since
the two are so far from being incompatible
that
they are
in natural alliance,
the prolongation of either
being a preparation for, and exciting a wish for, the other. It is
only those
in whom indolence
amounts to
a vice,
that do not
desire excitement after an
interval of repose: it is only those in whom the need of excitement is
a disease,
that feel
the
tranquillity which
follows excitement
dull and insipid, instead of
pleasurable in direct proportion to
the excitement which preceded
it. When people who are tolerably fortunate
in their outward lot
do not find in life sufficient
enjoyment to make it valuable to them, the cause generally is,
caring for
nobody but themselves.
To those
who have neither public
nor private affections, the
excitements of life are much curtailed, and in any case dwindle in
value
as the time approaches
when
all
selfish
interests must
be terminated by death: while
those who leave after them objects of personal
affection, and especially those
who have also cultivated a fellow-feeling with the collective interests
of mankind, retain
as lively an
interest in life on
the eve of death as in the
vigour of
youth and health. Next to selfishness, the principal cause
which makes
life unsatisfactory
is want of mental
cultivation.
A cultivated mind - I do not
mean that of a philosopher,
but any mind to which
the fountains of knowledge
have been opened,
and
which has
been taught, in any
tolerable degree, to exercise
its faculties- finds sources
of
inexhaustible interest in all
that surrounds it; in the objects
of nature,
the
achievements of art,
the imaginations of poetry,
the incidents of history, the
ways of mankind, past
and present, and their
prospects in
the future.
It
is possible,
indeed, to become
indifferent to all this, and
that too without having exhausted
a thousandth
part of it; but only when
one has had from the
beginning no moral or
human interest
in these things, and has sought
in them only the gratification
of
curiosity.
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Now there is absolutely no reason
in the nature of things why an amount of mental
culture sufficient to give an intelligent
interest
in these
objects of contemplation,
should not be the inheritance
of every one born in
a civilised country. As little
is there an inherent necessity that any
human being should
be a selfish egotist,
devoid of every feeling or
care but those which centre in his
own miserable individuality.
Something far superior to this is sufficiently
common
even now, to give ample
earnest of what the human
species may be made. Genuine private affections and a sincere interest
in the
public good, are
possible, though in
unequal degrees,
to every rightly brought
up human
being. In a world in which there is so much to interest,
so much
to enjoy, and so much
also to correct
and
improve, every
one who has this moderate
amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence
which may
be called enviable; and unless
such a person, through bad
laws, or subjection
to the will of others,
is denied the liberty to
use the sources of happiness
within
his reach, he
will not fail
to find this enviable
existence, if he escape the
positive evils of life, the
great sources
of physical and mental
suffering-
such as indigence,
disease, and
the unkindness, worthlessness,
or premature loss of objects
of affection. The main
stress of the problem lies,
therefore, in the contest
with these
calamities, from which it
is a rare good
fortune entirely to escape;
which, as things now are,
cannot be
obviated, and often cannot
be in any material degree
mitigated. Yet
no one
whose opinion deserves
a moment's consideration
can doubt that most of the
great positive evils
of the world are
in themselves
removable,
and will, if
human affairs
continue to improve,
be in the end reduced within
narrow limits. Poverty, in
any sense
implying suffering, may be
completely extinguished by
the wisdom of society,
combined with the good
sense and providence of individuals.
Even that most
intractable of enemies, disease,
may be indefinitely reduced
in dimensions by good
physical and
moral education,
and proper control of noxious
influences; while
the progress of science holds
out a promise for the future
of still more
direct conquests
over this detestable
foe. And every advance in
that direction
relieves us from some, not
only of the chances which
cut short our own lives,
but,
what concerns
us still
more, which
deprive us of those in whom
our happiness
is wrapt up. As for vicissitudes
of fortune, and other disappointments
connected with worldly circumstances,
these
are principally the effect
either of gross imprudence,
of ill-regulated
desires, or of bad or imperfect
social
institutions.
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All the grand sources, in short, of human suffering
are in a great degree, many of them almost
entirely, conquerable
by human
care
and effort; and
though their
removal is grievously slow- though a long
succession of generations will perish in the breach before
the conquest is completed,
and this world
becomes all that,
if will and knowledge were not wanting, it
might easily be made- yet every mind sufficiently
intelligent
and
generous
to bear
a part, however
small and unconspicuous,
in the endeavour, will draw a noble enjoyment
from the contest itself, which he would not
for any
bribe in the form of selfish
indulgence
consent to be without.
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And this leads to the
true estimation of what is said by the objectors
concerning the possibility,
and the
obligation,
of
learning to
do without happiness. Unquestionably
it is possible to do without
happiness; it is done
involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths
of mankind, even in those parts of
our present world which are
least deep in barbarism; and it often
has to be done voluntarily by the hero
or the martyr,
for the sake of something
which he prizes more than his individual happiness. But
this something,
what
is it, unless the happiness
of others or some
of the requisites of happiness?
It is noble to be capable of resigning entirely one's
own portion of happiness,
or chances of it: but, after all, this self-sacrifice must
be for some
end; it is
not its own
end; and
if we are told that
its end is not happiness,
but virtue, which is better than happiness, I ask, would
the sacrifice be made if the hero or martyr did not
believe that it would earn for others immunity from
similar
sacrifices?
Would it
be made
if he thought that
his renunciation of happiness
for himself would produce no fruit for any of his fellow
creatures,
but to
make their
lot like his,
and place
them also in the
condition of persons who
have renounced
happiness? All honour to those who can abnegate for
themselves the personal enjoyment
of
life, when
by such renunciation
they contribute worthily
to increase the amount of happiness in the world; but
he
who does
it,
or professes
to do it,
for any other
purpose,
is
no more deserving
of admiration than the ascetic
mounted on his pillar. He may be an inspiriting proof
of what
men can
do, but assuredly
not an example
of what they should.
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Though it is only in a
very imperfect state of the world's arrangements
that any one can best
serve
the happiness of
others by the absolute
sacrifice of his
own, yet so long as
the world is in that imperfect state, I fully acknowledge
that the readiness
to make such a sacrifice
is the
highest virtue which
can be found in man.
I will add, that in this condition the world, paradoxical as
the
assertion may be, the
conscious ability to do without happiness gives the best
prospect
of
realising,
such happiness as is
attainable. For nothing
except that consciousness can raise a person above
the chances of life,
by making him feel that, let fate and
fortune do their worst, they have
not power to subdue
him: which, once felt, frees him
from excess of anxiety concerning the evils of life,
and
enables him,
like many a Stoic in the
worst times of the
Roman Empire, to
cultivate in tranquillity
the sources of satisfaction
accessible
to him, without
concerning himself
about the uncertainty
of their duration,
any
more than about
their inevitable end.
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Meanwhile, let utilitarians never
cease to claim the morality of self devotion
as a
possession which
belongs by as good
a right to them,
as either to the
Stoic or to the Transcendentalist. The utilitarian
morality does recognise
in human beings the power
of sacrificing
their
own greatest good
for the good of others.
It only refuses to
admit that the sacrifice is itself a good. A
sacrifice which does
not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness,
it considers
as wasted. The only
self-renunciation which
it applauds, is devotion
to the happiness, or to
some of the means
of happiness,
of others;
either of mankind
collectively, or of individuals within the limits
imposed by the collective interests of mankind.
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I
must again repeat, what the assailants of utilitarianism
seldom have the justice to acknowledge,
that
the happiness
which forms the utilitarian
standard of what
is right in conduct,
is not the agent's own happiness, but that
of all concerned.
As
between his own
happiness and
that of others,
utilitarianism
requires him
to be as strictly
impartial as a disinterested and benevolent
spectator. In the golden
rule of Jesus
of Nazareth,
we read the complete spirit
of the ethics
of utility. To do as
you would be done
by, and to love
your neighbour as yourself, constitute the ideal perfection
of utilitarian
morality. As the means of making
the nearest approach
to this
ideal, utility would enjoin, first, that laws
and social
arrangements
should place the happiness, or (as speaking
practically it
may be called)
the interest, of every individual, as nearly
as possible in
harmony with
the interest of
the whole; and
secondly,
that education
and opinion,
which have so vast a power
over human character, should
so use that power
as to establish in the mind of every
individual
an indissoluble
association between
his own happiness and the good of
the whole; especially
between his own
happiness and the practice
of such modes of conduct,
negative and
positive, as regard for the universal
happiness prescribes;
so that not only he may be unable
to conceive the
possibility of happiness
to himself,
consistently
with conduct
opposed
to the general
good, but also that a direct
impulse to promote the general
good may be in
every individual one of the
habitual motives
of action, and the
sentiments
connected therewith
may fill a large
and prominent place in every human being's
sentient
existence. If
the, impugners of the utilitarian morality
represented it
to their own
minds in this
its, true character, I know not
what recommendation
possessed by any other morality
they could possibly
affirm to be
wanting to it; what more
beautiful or more exalted developments
of human nature
any other ethical system can
be supposed
to foster, or
what springs of action,
not accessible
to the utilitarian,
such systems
rely on for giving effect to their mandates.
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The
objectors to utilitarianism cannot always
be charged with
representing it in a discreditable
light. On the
contrary, those among
them who entertain anything
like a just idea of
its disinterested character, sometimes find fault with
its standard
as being too high for
humanity. They
say it is
exacting too much to
require that people
shall always act from the inducement
of
promoting the general
interests of society. But this is to mistake the
very meaning of a standard
of morals, and confound the rule of
action with the motive of it. It is the business
of ethics
to tell
us what
are our
duties, or by what
test
we may know them; but
no system of ethics
requires that the sole motive of all we do
shall be a feeling
of duty; on the contrary, ninety-nine hundredths of
all our actions are
done from other motives, and
rightly so done, if the rule of duty does not
condemn
them. It
is the
more unjust
to utilitarianism
that
this particular
misapprehension
should be made a ground
of objection to it, inasmuch as utilitarian moralists
have
gone
beyond almost
all others in affirming
that the motive has
nothing to do with the morality
of the action, though much with the worth of the
agent. He who saves a fellow creature from
drowning does what
is morally right, whether his
motive
be duty,
or the
hope of
being paid
for his trouble;
he who betrays
the friend that trusts
him, is guilty of a crime, even if his object be
to serve
another friend
to whom he
is under
greater
obligations.
-
But to
speak only of actions done from the motive of
duty, and in direct
obedience
to
principle:
it is a
misapprehension
of
the utilitarian
mode of thought,
to conceive it as implying
that people should
fix their minds upon so wide
a generality
as the
world, or
society at large.
The great
majority
of
good actions are
intended not for the benefit
of the world,
but for that of
individuals, of which the good of
the world is made up;
and
the thoughts of
the most virtuous man need
not on
these occasions
travel beyond the particular
persons concerned, except
so far as
is necessary to
assure himself that in benefiting
them he
is not violating the
rights, that is, the
legitimate
and authorised expectations,
of any one else.
The multiplication
of happiness is, according
to the
utilitarian
ethics, the
object of virtue: the
occasions on which
any person (except
one in a
thousand) has it in
his power
to do this on an extended
scale, in other
words to be a public
benefactor, are but
exceptional; and on
these occasions alone
is he
called
on to
consider
public utility;
in every other
case,
private
utility,
the interest
or happiness of some
few persons, is all
he has to attend to.
Those
alone
the influence
of whose
actions
extends to
society
in general,
need concern
themselves
habitually about
large an object.In the
case of abstinences
indeed- of things which people
forbear
to do from
moral considerations,
though the
consequences
in the particular
case might be beneficial- it would
be
unworthy of
an intelligent
agent not to be consciously aware that
the
action
is of a
class which, if
practised generally, would be
generally injurious, and
that this is the
ground of the obligation to abstain
from it.
The amount
of
regard
for
the public interest
implied in this recognition, is
no
greater
than is
demanded by every
system of morals, for they all enjoin
to abstain
from whatever is
manifestly
pernicious
to society.
-
The same considerations dispose
of another reproach against
the doctrine of utility,
founded on a
still grosser misconception
of the purpose
of a standard of morality,
and of the very meaning
of the words right and wrong. It is often
affirmed that utilitarianismrenders
men cold and unsympathising;
that it chills
their moral
feelings towards individuals;
that it makes them regard only the dry
and hard
consideration
of
the consequences
of actions,
not
taking into
their moral estimate
the qualities from which
those actions emanate.
If the assertion means
that they do not allow their judgment respecting
the
rightness or wrongness
of an action
to be influenced by their
opinion of the qualities of the person who
does it, this
is a complaint
not
against utilitarianism,
but against
having any standard
of morality at all; for certainly
no known ethical standard decides
an action
to be
good or bad
because it is done by
a
good or a
bad man, still
less because
done by an amiable, a brave, or
a benevolent man, or the contrary.
These considerations
are relevant,
not
to the estimation
of
actions, but of
persons; and there is
nothing in the utilitarian theory
inconsistent with the fact that
there are other
things which interest
us in persons
besides the
rightness and wrongness of their
actions. The Stoics, indeed, with
the paradoxical misuse of language
which
was part of their
system, and by
which they
strove to raise
themselves
above all
concern about anything but virtue,
were fond of saying that he who
has that has
everything;
that
he, and
only he, is
rich, is
beautiful,
is
a king. But no claim
of this description is made for
the virtuous man by the utilitarian doctrine.
Utilitarians
are quite
aware
that there are other
desirable possessions
and qualities besides virtue, and
are perfectly willing to allow
to all of
them their full
worth. They are also aware that
a right action does not necessarily
indicate
a virtuous
character, and
that actions which are
blamable, often proceed
from qualities entitled
to praise. When this is apparent in any particular
case,
it
modifies their estimation,
not certainly of the act, but of the agent. I grant
that they
are,
notwithstanding, of
opinion,
that
in the long
run the best proof
of a good character is
good actions; and resolutely refuse to consider
any mental
disposition as
good, of which the
predominant tendency
is to produce bad conduct.
This makes them unpopular
with many people; but it
is an unpopularity which
they must share with every one who regards
the distinction
between right and wrong
in a serious light; and
the reproach is not one which a conscientious
utilitarian need
be anxious
to repel.
-
If no more be meant by the objection
than that many
utilitarians look on the morality
of actions,
as
measured by
the utilitarian standard, with too
exclusive a regard, and do not lay sufficient
stress upon
the other beauties of character which go towards
making
a human being
lovable
or admirable,
this may be admitted. Utilitarians who have cultivated
their moral
feelings, but not their sympathies
nor their
artistic perceptions,
do fall
into
this mistake;
and so do all
other moralists under the
same conditions. What can be said in excuse for
other moralists
is equally available for
them,
namely, that,
if there is to be any error, it
is better that
it should be on that side. As a matter of fact,
we may
affirm that
among utilitarians as among adherents
of other systems, there is
every imaginable
degree of rigidity
and of laxity in the application of their standard:
some are
even puritanically
rigorous, while
others are as indulgent
as can possibly
be desired by sinner or
by sentimentalist. But on the whole, a doctrine
which brings prominently
forward
the interest
that
mankind have
in the repression
and prevention of conduct which violates the
moral law, is likely
to be inferior
to no other in turning the sanctions of opinion
again such
violations.
It is true, the question, What does violate the moral law?
is
one on which
those who recognise different standards
of morality
are likely
now
and then to
differ. But difference of opinion
on moral questions
was not first introduced into the world by
utilitarianism, while
that doctrine
does supply,
if not
always
an easy, at
all events a tangible and
intelligible mode
of deciding such differences.
-
It may not
be superfluous to notice a few
more of the common misapprehensions
of
utilitarian
ethics, even those which
are so
obvious and gross that it might appear impossible
for any
person
of candour and intelligence
to fall into them; since persons, even
of considerable
mental
endowments,
often give themselves so little trouble to understand
the bearings
of any opinion against which
they
entertain a prejudice,
and men
are in general so little
conscious
of this
voluntary ignorance as
a defect, that the vulgarest misunderstandings
of ethical
doctrines are continually met with in the deliberate
writings of persons of the greatest
pretensions
both to high principle and to philosophy. We not uncommonly
hear
the
doctrine
of utility
inveighed
against
as
a godless
doctrine. If it be necessary
to say
anything at all against so mere an assumption, we may
say that
the
question
depends upon what idea we have
formed
of
the
moral
character of the Deity.
If it be a true belief that God
desires,
above all things, the happiness
of his
creatures, and that
this
was his purpose
in their
creation, utility is not
only not a godless doctrine, but
more profoundly religious than any
other.
If it be meant that utilitarianism
does not recognise
the revealed
will of God as the
supreme law of morals, I answer,
that a utilitarian
who believes in the perfect
goodness and wisdom of God, necessarily
believes that whatever
God has thought
fit to reveal on the subject
of morals, must fulfil the
requirements of utility
in a supreme
degree.
But others besides utilitarians
have been of opinion that
the Christian revelation was
intended,
and is fitted, to inform the
hearts and minds of mankind
with a spirit
which should enable them to
find for themselves
what is right, and incline
them to do it
when found, rather than to
tell them, except in
a very general
way, what it
is; and that
we need
a doctrine
of ethics,
carefully
followed out, to interpret to us the will God. Whether
this
opinion
is correct
or
not,
it is superfluous
here
to discuss; since
whatever
aid religion, either natural
or revealed, can afford to ethical investigation,
is as
open to the
utilitarian
moralist
as to any other. He can use it
as the
testimony
of God to the usefulness
or hurtfulness of any given course of action,
by as
good a
right
as others can use
it for
the indication of a transcendental
law,
having no connection
with usefulness or with happiness.
-
Again, Utility
is often summarily stigmatised
as an immoral doctrine by giving it
the name of
Expediency, and taking
advantage of
the popular
use of that term to contrast it with Principle.
But the Expedient,
in the sense in which it is
opposed to the Right, generally means
that which
is expedient
for the particular
interest of
the agent himself; as when a minister sacrifices
the interests
of his country
to keep himself in place.
When it means
anything better than this, it means that
which is expedient
for
some immediate
object, some temporary purpose,
but which violates
a rule whose
observance is expedient in
a much higher
degree. The Expedient, in this sense,
instead of
being the same thing with the
useful, is
a branch
of the hurtful.
Thus, it would
often
be
expedient,
for the purpose of getting over some momentary
embarrassment,
or attaining some object immediately
useful to ourselves
or others,
to tell a lie.
But inasmuch
as the cultivation
in ourselves
of a sensitive feeling on the subject of
veracity, is
one of the
most useful, and the enfeeblement
of that feeling
one of the most hurtful, things
to which our
conduct can be instrumental; and inasmuch
as any, even
unintentional, deviation
from truth,
does that much
towards weakening
the trustworthiness
of human assertion,
which
is not only the principal support
of all
present
social
well-being,
but the insufficiency
of which does
more than any
one thing that
can be named
to keep back
civilisation,
virtue, everything
on
which human
happiness
on the largest
scale depends;
we feel that
the violation,
for
a
present advantage,
of a rule
of such transcendant
expediency,
is
not expedient,
and that he
who, for the
sake of a convenience
to himself
or to some
other
individual,
does what depends on
him to deprive
mankind of
the good, and inflict upon
them the
evil, involved
in the greater or
less reliance
which they
can place in each other's word, acts the
part of
one of their
worst enemies. Yet that
even this rule,
sacred as it is, admits of possible
exceptions,
is acknowledged by all moralists; the chief
of which is
when the withholding
of some
fact
(as of information
from a
malefactor,
or of bad news from a person dangerously
ill) would
save
an individual
(especially
an individual other
than oneself)
from great
and unmerited evil,
and when the
withholding
can only be effected
by denial.
But in order
that
the exception
may not
extend itself
beyond the
need,
and may
have the least
possible effect
in weakening
reliance
on veracity,
it ought to
be recognised, and,
if
possible, its
limits
defined; and
if the principle
of utility
is good for anything,
it must be
good for weighing
these
conflicting
utilities against one another,
and marking
out the region
within which
one or
the other preponderates.
-
Again, defenders
of utility often find themselves
called upon to
reply
to such objections
as this- that there
is not
time, previous
to action,
for calculating
and weighing
the effects of any line of conduct
on the
general
happiness.
This
is exactly
as if
any one were to say
that it is impossible to
guide
our conduct by Christianity,
because there is not time, on every
occasion
on which
anything
has
to be
done, to read
through
the Old and New Testaments.
The answer
to the objection
is, that
there has
been
ample time, namely,
the whole
past duration
of the
human species. During
all that
time,
mankind have
been
learning
by experience the tendencies
of actions;
on which experience
all
the prudence,
as
well
as all the morality of life,
are dependent.
People
talk as if
the commencement
of this
course
of experience had hitherto
been
put off, and as if, at
the moment
when some man
feels
tempted
to meddle with
the property or
life
of another,
he had
to begin
considering
for the
first
time
whether
murder and theft are injurious to
human
happiness.
Even
then
I do
not
think
that
he would
find
the question
very
puzzling;
but,
at all
events,
the matter
is
now
done
to his
hand.
-
It is truly a whimsical
supposition
that, if mankind were agreed
in
considering utility to be the test
of
morality, they would
remain
without any agreement
as
to what is useful, and would take
no
measures for having their notions on the
subject
taught to the young, and enforced by
law
and opinion. There is no difficulty in
proving
any ethical standard whatever
to
work ill, if
we
suppose universal idiocy to be conjoined
with
it; but on any hypothesis short
of that, mankind must by
this
time have acquired
positive
beliefs
as to the effects of some actions
on
their happiness; and the beliefs which have
thus
come down are
the
rules of morality for
the
multitude, and for
the
philosopher until
he
has succeeded in finding better. That
philosophers might easily do this, even
now,
on many subjects; that the received
code
of ethics is by no means of divine
right;
and that mankind have still much to learn
as
to the effects of actions on
the
general
happiness, I admit, or rather, earnestly
maintain.
The
corollaries from the principle
of utility, like the precepts
of
every practical art,
admit
of indefinite improvement,
and,
in a progressive
state
of the human mind, their
improvement
is
perpetually going on.
-
But to consider the rules
of
morality as improvable, is
one
thing; to pass over
the
intermediate generalisations
entirely, and endeavour
to
test
each individual action directly by
the first principle, is another.
It
is
a strange notion that the
acknowledgment
of a first principle is inconsistent
with
the admission
of secondary ones. To
inform a
traveller
respecting the place of his.
ultimate
destination, is not
to
forbid the use of
landmarks
and
direction-posts
on the way. The proposition
that
happiness is
the
end and aim of morality, does not
mean
that no road ought to be
laid
down to that goal, or that
persons
going thither
should
not be advised to take one direction
rather
than another. Men really
ought
to leave off
talking a kind of nonsense on this subject,
which
they
would neither talk
nor listen to on other matters
of practical concernment.
Nobody
argues that the
art of navigation is not founded
on
astronomy, because sailors
cannot wait
to
calculate
the
Nautical
Almanack. Being rational
creatures,
they go to sea with it ready
calculated;
and all rational
creatures
go
out
upon
the
sea
of
life
with
their minds made up on the
common
questions
of right
and wrong, as
well
as
on
many of the
far
more
difficult questions of wise
and
foolish.
And
this,
as long as foresight is
a
human
quality,
it is to be presumed they
will
continue
to
do.
Whatever
we
adopt
as the fundamental
principle
of morality, we require
subordinate
principles
to
apply
it
by;
the
impossibility of doing without
them,
being
common
to
all
systems,
can
afford
no
argument
against
any
one
in
particular;
but
gravely
to
argue
as
if
no
such
secondary principles could be had,
and
as
if
mankind
had
remained
till
now,
and
always
must
remain,
without
drawing
any
general
conclusions
from
the
experience
of
human
life,
is
as
high
a
pitch,
I
think,
as
absurdity
has
ever
reached
in
philosophical
controversy.
-
The remainder of the
stock arguments against utilitarianism
mostly consist
in laying to its charge the
common infirmities of human
nature, and the general
difficulties which embarrass conscientious
persons in shaping
their course through life. We are
told that a utilitarian will be apt
to make his own particular case
an exception to moral rules,
and, when under temptation, will see
a utility in the
breach of a rule, greater
than he will see in
its observance. But is utility the only creed which
is able to furnish us with
excuses for evil
doing, and means of
cheating our own conscience? They
are afforded in abundance
by all doctrines which recognise as
a fact in morals the existence
of conflicting considerations;
which all doctrines
do, that have been believed
by sane persons. It is
not the fault of any creed,
but of the complicated nature
of human affairs, that rules
of conduct cannot be so
framed as to require no exceptions,
and that
hardly
any kind
of action
can safely be
laid down as either
always
obligatory or always
condemnable. There
is no ethical creed
which
does
not temper the rigidity
of its laws, by giving
a certain
latitude, under
the moral
responsibility
of the
agent, for accommodation
to peculiarities
of circumstances;
and under every creed,
at the
opening thus made,
self-deception and
dishonest
casuistry get in.
There exists no moral system
under which there
do not arise
unequivocal cases
of conflicting obligation.
These
are thereal difficulties,
the knotty
points both in the
theory of ethics,
and in the
conscientious
guidance of personal
conduct. They
are overcome
practically, with
greater or with less success,
according
to the intellect
and virtue of the individual;
but
it can hardly be
pretended that any
one will
be the less
qualified
for dealing
with them, from
possessing
an
ultimate standard
to which conflicting rights and duties
can be referred.
If utility
is the ultimate source
of moral obligations, utility may
be invoked
to decide between
them when
their demands are incompatible. Though
the application
of the standard may
be difficult, it is better
than none at all: while
in other systems,
the moral laws all claiming
independent authority, there is
no common umpire entitled to interfere
between
them; their
claims to precedence
one over another
rest on little better than
sophistry, and unless determined,
as they generally
are, by the unacknowledged influence
of considerations
of utility, afford
a free scope for
the action of personal desires
and partialities. We must
remember that only in these cases
of conflict between
secondary principles is
it requisite that
first principles should
be appealed to. There is no case
of moral obligation
in which some
secondary principle is not involved;
and if
only one,
there can seldom
be any real doubt
which one it
is, in the mind
of any person
by whom the principle
itself is recognised.
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