Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Utilitarianism, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Utilitarianism, Happiness, and The Good Life
Criticism and the Principles of Utility
The Common Good
Meta-Ethics
Summary
Analysis
Mill reminds the reader that first principles cannot be proven in normal ways. First principles about knowledge can be proven through “our senses and our internal consciousness.” However, ethics asks for first principles about “conduct” or “practical ends.” At the same time, this is based on a piece of knowledge—what is good or desirable. For utilitarians, this is nothing more and nothing less than happiness. So if “the only proof that a sound is audible is that people hear it,” then the only way to prove something desirable is “that people do actually desire it.”
Having explained his theory, defended it against its detractors, and outlined what should make it valid in the eyes of those who are asked to follow it, Mill now turns to another important nuts-and-bolts issue that should be particularly important to other philosophers: what makes his theory true? First, he has to return to meta-ethics by asking what can make any claim about good and evil true. Because he is establishing first principles, he can only look for basic things that cannot possibly be disproven—like the fact “that a sound is audible,” which can be explained through science but not proven as true by anything but human experience. Similarly, then, by definition, his first principle about what is good or desirable can only be proven by looking at what “people actually do desire.” But it is worth pausing to evaluate Mill’s argument. First, are good and desirable really one and the same? Or is it merely that the ultimate good is the same thing that everyone ultimately desires—what they would choose if they could have anything—which is, of course, happiness? And secondly, what happens to other kinds of moral claims—ones that base values on God, human reason, or the universe itself—under Mill’s system, in which there is no way to prove anything good except by proving it desirable to people?
Themes
Mill thinks it is plainly true that everyone desires happiness for themselves, which makes happiness good for each person. In turn, Mill contends, “the general happiness [is], therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.” This means it is ethically desirable, and can be a proper goal of action and an inherent value for an ethical system. But this is not enough: Mill wants to show that happiness is the only thing valuable in itself, and therefore the only value an ethical system should try to fulfill. He has to prove “not only that people desire happiness, but that they never desire anything else.”
Again, Mill does not try to offer a convoluted argument to support his moral theory, unlike most past ethicists. Rather, he simply says that everyone should understand that their happiness is a good thing, and he essentially challenges his readers to prove that it is not. (Of course, he recognizes that it is excessively difficult to make a coherent argument for such an idea.) The other interesting and contentious part of Mill’s argument here is the notion that the desirability of happiness for one person implies the desirability of a common happiness for all people—the group to whom morality should properly apply. If ethics is about what is good for humanity in general, in other words, then it simply must adopt the moral perspective of all of humanity.
Themes
Some critics would say that, since people desire things like “virtue and the absence of vice,” utilitarians cannot prove happiness to be the only criterion for good and evil. However, Mill disagrees: utilitarians in fact think of virtue as the absolute best “means to the ultimate end,” and virtuous people gain pleasure from their virtue, which they see as “good in itself.” This principle applies generally: people should not enjoy “any given pleasure” because this pleasure contributes to happiness as a whole. Rather, the pleasure contributes to happiness because they enjoy it: although pleasure is a means to creating greater happiness, it is also “a part of the end” itself.
Mill now looks to a much more sophisticated objection to his theory, one that can be easily made by those who adhere to virtue-based ethical systems that put the cultivation of character above all else. (Whereas Mill thinks only acts, not actors, are good and bad, virtue ethicists think it is the exact opposite.) This objection is powerful: if Mill shows that happiness is absolutely valuable but another philosopher shows that virtue is inherently valuable, too, then Mill cannot claim happiness to be the only true end of human action and therefore cannot suggest that people should always act for the greatest happiness. This is Mill’s first response: virtue, like moral instincts, is an excellent tool for the promotion of the greatest good—virtuous people will tend to act rightly and promote the common good, just as following one’s moral instincts will tend to produce ethical outcomes.
Themes
Mill illustrates this principle by looking at the parallel example of money: people originally love money because they can buy things with it, but then begin to desire money “in and for itself,” and sometimes even care more about having money than spending it. Money turns from “a means to happiness” into “a principal ingredient of the individual’s conception of happiness.” Indeed, happiness is made up of all sorts of pleasures and desires: it is “not an abstract idea but a concrete whole” made of various parts. Virtue, then, is like money. At first, people seek it because they know it can maximize their pleasure and protect them against pain. Later, it becomes “a good in itself,” and indeed the best of all happiness’s component elements, for—unlike fame, wealth, and power—more virtue will never lead to less happiness.
This is Mill’s second and much more powerful response to the objection about virtue. Virtues can be seen as valuable only because they are part of happiness. His analogy to money makes this much clearer—just as people desire money even though it is technically only a means to an end, good people can desire to be virtuous because their virtue demonstrates a moral goodness of which they should be proud, even though virtue is not good except as part of happiness. Therefore, Mill absorbs the criticism leveled at him by virtue ethicists: yes, virtue is desirable in and of itself, but this actually further affirms the primacy of happiness.
Themes
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Ultimately, Mill explains, the above discussion shows how, besides desiring things that are a means to happiness, people can desire things that are “a part of happiness.” And this is the “proof [to which] the principle of utility is susceptible.” If Mill can show that no natural human desire is anything but a desire for “either a part of happiness or a means to happiness,” then he has proven that happiness is the only goal of human life, the proper standard to make moral judgments about good and evil actions, and the sole “criterion of morality” itself. And it is possible to give this proof through “fact and experience.” Mill argues that “practiced self-consciousness and self-observation” will show anyone that “to think of an object as desirable […] and to think of it as pleasant are one and the same thing.”
Mill’s observation about the structure of happiness allows him to absorb many more criticisms: anytime someone argues that something is an inherent good, which would theoretically refute happiness’s status as the one and only inherent good, Mill can simply respond that that thing is good because it is part of happiness. Therefore, his proof is complete: happiness is inherently good because everyone unavoidably desires it, and it is the only good because there is nothing people desire that is not “either a part of happiness or a means to happiness.” He literally challenges the reader to try and disprove him: can you imagine something that you want, but that neither gets you closer to happiness nor would be part of an ideal happy life? If so, why do you want it, and what makes it good?
Themes
Mill considers the objection “that the will is a different thing from desire,” and therefore that people can will things they do not desire or enjoy. He agrees that this is true, but says that willing things one does not enjoy is just proof of “the power of habit,” that is, of people getting stuck in the habit of doing or obtaining things they no longer find pleasurable. At first, one wills what one desires, but one can keep willing it when one has stopped desiring it. There is nothing inherently good or bad about this—or, by extension, about the will. However, it is possible to make the will work for absolute good by developing a desire for virtue and the accompanying “will to be virtuous.”
Will is another philosophical concept that might seem out-of-date or confusing to contemporary readers: it essentially means choosing what desire to pursue. (This is related to the debate on whether we have “free will,” or actually make our own choices rather than being forced one way or another.) In other words, the objection Mill is answering says that people will choose to do things they do not want or enjoy. Mill agrees that this is true, but thinks it is not a problem for utilitarianism, because what is good is determined by what people desire, not by what they will. At the same time, he sees another opportunity to argue for promoting the general good—because will is simply the force of habit, teaching people good habits and correct moral instincts can help them habitually do what promotes the common good.
Themes
