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of happiness as the ultimate end (which I take up below). These paragraphs form a unit. They are further elaborated in IV: ¶¶4–9.
¶¶11–18: These paragraphs also form a unit and discuss two objections: first, that utilitarianism is impracticable because happiness is unattainable; and second, that human beings can do without happiness, and forming our character so that we can do without it is the condition of achieving the nobility of virtue.
The rest of Chapter II takes up various other objections. I should mention, though, II: ¶¶24–25, which are important in sketching Mill’s view of the relation between moral precepts and principles and the principle of utility itself as the supreme regulative standard. These paragraphs bear on recent discussions as to whether Mill is an act utilitarian or a rule utilitarian or something else. I touch on this question briefly in the next lecture.
7. Chapter III contains Mill’s account of how we may naturally acquire a firm regulative desire to act from the principle of utility, that is, to act from this principle independent of external legal or social sanctions of various kinds, including public opinion viewed as coercive social pressure. Just as Chapter II develops the idea of utility that looks beyond Bentham’s principle of specific consequences and is meant to apply to the basic institutions that shape and educate national character, so Chapter III goes beyond what Mill regards as Bentham’s rational and calculating egoistic psychology. Here III: ¶¶8–11 are especially important, and I shall discuss them later.
Chapter IV contains an essential part of Mill’s justification of the principle of utility (the so-called proof ), while Chapter V takes up the utilitarian basis of the various principles and precepts of justice, and how they support moral and legal rights. This question Mill thinks Bentham did not treat satisfactorily, and Mill’s discussion of it is impressive and one of the strongest parts of the essay. It will be our topic for the next lecture.
§3. Happiness as the Ultimate End
1. I now turn to Chapter II. Let’s start straightaway by looking at Mill’s summary statement at II: ¶10. Here he says that: “According to the Greatest Happiness Principle . . . 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
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possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in quantity and quality.”
2.Note that Mill speaks of the ultimate end (the greatest happiness) as an existence (II: ¶10); or as a mode, or manner, of existence (II: ¶¶8 and 6 respectively). Happiness is not merely pleasurable or agreeable feelings, or a series of such feelings, whether simple or complex. It is a mode, or one might say, a way of life, as experienced and lived by the person whose life it is. Here I assume that a mode of life is happy only when it is more or less successful in achieving its aims.
Mill does not talk about pleasures and pains as merely feelings, or as sensory experiences of a certain kind. Rather, he speaks of them, especially pleasures, as enjoyable activities that are distinguished by their source (II: ¶4): that is, by the faculties, the exercise of which is involved in the enjoyable activity. It is in this connection that Mill mentions the higher vs. the lower faculties:
(a) the higher faculties are those of intellect, of feeling and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, while:
(b) the lower faculties are those associated with our bodily needs and requirements, the exercise of which gives rise to pleasures of mere sensation (II: ¶4).
3.Thus, by way of summary, happiness as the ultimate end is a mode (or manner) of existence—a way of life—which includes in due degree and variety a suitable place for both the higher and the lower pleasures, that is, a suitable place for the exercise of both the higher and the lower faculties in an appropriate ordering of enjoyable activities.
§4. The Decided Preference Criterion
1. The test of quality is said to be the following. One pleasure is higher in quality than another when:
(a)Those who have experience of two pleasures have a decided preference for the activity connected with one over the activity connected with the other, and this preference is independent both from any feeling of moral obligation to prefer that pleasure, and also from any consideration of its circumstantial advantages (II: ¶4).
(b)A decided preference for one pleasure over another (for instance, for
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the pleasures associated with having “faculties more elevated than the animal appetites” [II: ¶4]), means that the enjoyment of that pleasure will not be given up, or abandoned, for any amount of the enjoyment of the other pleasure that our nature is capable of, even when it is known that the preferred pleasure involves “a greater amount of discontent” (II: ¶5).
(c)A decided preference is one held by persons who have acquired habits of self-consciousness and self-observation (II: ¶10).
2. The decided preference criterion includes four elements:
(a)The persons making the comparison between the two pleasures (enjoyable activities) must be competently acquainted with both, and this normally involves experiencing both.
(b)These persons must have settled habits of self-consciousness and self-observation.
(c)The decided preference arrived at must not be influenced by a sense of moral obligation.
(d)It must not be formed on the basis of the circumstantial advantages of the pleasures in question (like permanence, safety, price, etc.), or their consequences (rewards and punishments), but in view of their intrinsic nature as pleasures.
It is (c) and (d) together that provide a foothold for speaking of the quality vs. the quantity of pleasure. We shall come back to this.
3. When he says that in comparing pleasures we are not to consider circumstantial advantages, Mill has in mind the kinds of reasons Bentham gave for preferring the higher pleasures (as Mill describes them). Bentham says, “Quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin [a game of darts] is as good as poetry.”5 Here, think of a mode, or a way, of life as our living according to a plan of life, this plan consisting of various activities engaged in according to a certain schedule. With this thought in mind, what Bentham means is that in drawing up the schedule of activities that specifies our mode of life, there comes a point at which the marginal utility of pushpin (per unit of time) is just equal to the marginal utility of poetry (per unit of time). He grants that normally the total time and energy we give to poetry (or to the activities exercising the higher faculties) is greater than the time and energy we give to pushpin (or to other similar games and amuse-
5. In Jeremy Bentham, Rationale of Reward, in The Works of Jeremy Bentham (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1843–1859), Vol. II, p. 253.
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ments). The explanation is that, given human psychology, we can devote more time and energy to poetry before we become tired, or bored, and lose interest.
Bentham’s view is that the source of pleasure (the activity that gives rise to it) is irrelevant: intensity and duration being the same, a pleasure is a pleasure is a pleasure. When Bentham says that at the margin, pushpin is as good as poetry, he is not expressing a low opinion of poetry (although he did indeed have such an opinion)6 but rather stating his hedonistic doctrine.
4.Now, however, there is a difficulty, which arises as follows. Mill grants in II: ¶8 that differences in the quantity and the intensity of pleasure are also shown in, and known by, our preferences. That is, that in our decisions and choices we also disclose our estimates of the intensity and quantity of different pleasures. But if this is so, how can the decided preference criterion distinguish between the quality and quantity of different pleasures?
The answer lies, I think, in the special structure of the schedule of activities that specifies our preferred mode of existence as well as in the priorities we reveal in drawing up that schedule and in revising it as circumstances change.
Thus, what shows that a pleasure (as an activity) is of a higher quality than another is that we won’t abandon it altogether (eliminate it from the schedule, from our way of life) in return for any amount of fulfillment of the lower pleasures which our nature is capable of. In arranging our way of life (or in scheduling our activities) there comes a point at which the rate of exchange of the lower for the higher pleasures is, practically speaking, infinite. This refusal to abandon the higher pleasures for any amount of the lower shows the special priority of the higher (II: ¶¶5–6).
5.Yet one question still remains. For surely in drawing up our schedule of activities there must come a point at which the opposite rate of exchange of the higher for the lower pleasures is also infinite, practically
6.On this, see Mill’s comments in his essay “Bentham” in CW, Vol. X, pp. 113f, where
he speaks of “Bentham’s peculiar opinions on poetry.” He says that Bentham enjoyed music, painting, and sculpture, but “towards poetry . . . that which employs the language of words, he entertained no favors. Words, he thought, were perverted from their proper office when they were employed in uttering anything but precise logical truth.” Mill says that even so, Bentham’s pushpin/poetry quote “is only a paradoxical way of stating what he would equally have said of the things which he most valued and admired.”
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speaking. The reason is that we must reserve a certain minimum of time and energy to keeping ourselves well and healthy, and in good spirits. This is necessary if we are to carry out effectively our other activities, particularly the higher ones. To express Mill’s distinction between quantity and quality of pleasure we must say, then, that the explanation of why the two rates of exchange become infinite, practically speaking, are different. In the case of securing the necessary minimum needed to keep us well and healthy, and in good spirits, the explanation is physiological and psychological: it concerns our fitness and morale. Whereas with the other rate of exchange, the explanation lies in features intrinsic to the activities that involve the exercise of the higher faculties.
6. In summary: Mill’s distinction between the quantity and quality of pleasures (activities) is this. He holds that when we look at the ways of life that we decidedly prefer, then the schedules of activities (over an appropriate period of time, say a year) which specify these ways of life have several characteristic features:
(a)There are essentially two different kinds of activities to be distinguished in these schedules, namely, those involving the exercise of the higher faculties vs. those involving the exercise of the lower faculties. These two kinds of faculties are regarded as sources of qualitatively distinct kinds of pleasures in the sense explained.
(b)In scheduling our activities we must, of course, give a significant place to the activities giving rise to the lower pleasures: this is required for normal health and vigor and psychological well-being. Once this minimum is secured, a greater fulfillment of the lower pleasures rapidly becomes of far less importance and soon approaches zero.
(c)On the other hand, above this minimum, the higher pleasures quickly take over and become the focus and center of our way of life, as shown in our schedule of activities over the appropriate unit of time. Above this minimum, we will never freely give up, or resign (as Mill says in
II:¶5), the activities giving rise to the higher pleasures, no matter how great the compensating fulfillment of the lower pleasures may be.
(d)Finally, in the evaluations made in (c) above, no account is taken of circumstantial advantages, or of the consequences, of the higher activities as a group, except insofar as this is necessary to be sure that the schedule of activities is practicable and feasible.
It is all these features taken together that give force to the term “qual-
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