One of four essays written for Money, Markets, and Morals where I argue that Mill’s version of utilitarianism strays too far from the roots of utilitarianism and relies on some hierarchy of good that utilitarianism cannot defend from its first principles.
What is Bentham’s argument for maximizing utility? How does John Stuart Mill’s version of utilitarianism differ from Bentham’s? On what basis does Mill distinguish higher pleasures from lower ones? Do you find his argument convincing? If not, do you reject the notion that some pleasures are qualitatively higher than others, or do you account for the distinction in some other way?
Near the end of the 18th century, Jeremy Bentham birthed, to the chagrin of every first year philosophy professor grading a paper at this moment, utilitarianism. According to the utilitarianism philosophy, actions are judged to be good if the resulting amount of pleasure outweighed the pain. Pleasure and pain, the common currency all human actions can be analyzed with, are to be measured by their intensity, duration, certainty, and propinquity. In Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill seeks to defend utilitarianism’s merits from its critics; opponents asserted that utilitarianism considered humans to be no better than swine. In response, Mill augments Bentham’s system of measuring pleasure, suggesting that “some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others.” Mill writes, “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.” This paper will closely examine this statement and its defense and demonstrate that Mill’s proposed utilitarianism is best understood as a philosophy of maximizing eudemonia, or human flourishing.
At the crux of Mill’s philosophy is the assertion that pleasure, rather than a singular currency with which to judge actions, is a taxonomy of different types of pleasures that can be compared based on their intrinsic quality. If utility were measured in potato chips, Bentham would believe that the action that results in the most number of potato chips is the best possible course of action. Extending the analogy, Mill would argue that the cheddar-flavored chips are intrinsically better and that they should be valued higher. In order to determine why Mill believes that some pleasures are intrinsically superior, it is best to first show that Mill does not believe that the quality of a pleasure is associated to the quantity of pleasure, as Bentham writes.
Mill claims that the quality of a pleasure must be understood separately than the quantity of that pleasure. Mill explicitly indicates that his defense of intellectual pleasures is distinct from previous utilitarian defenses that rely on demonstrating the “circumstantial advantages” that intellectual pleasures have. Those circumstantial advantages would be measured using Bentham’s utility calculus, which Mill distances himself from. Additionally, the quality of a pleasure cannot be measured by its duration or intensity because Mill claims that people would prefer a better quality pleasure over a lower quality pleasure despite “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.” Thus, Mill forbids himself from conflating the ideas of quality of pleasure with the quantity of pleasure.
With this in mind, Mill’s assertion that pleasure should be considered a taxonomy can be examined. However, despite making this very clear distinction between his taxonomy of pleasure and Bentham’s single denomination of pleasure, Mill continues to conflate the two understandings of pleasure in the remainder of his defense of utilitarianism with little effort to separate the two meanings. As a result of the poor distinction that Mill makes between the two understandings of utility, readers are left without a logical proof of the existence of different tiers or rankings of pleasures. Even more troubling, despite Mill asserting the existence of different qualities of pleasures, readers are unable to determine what makes one pleasure better than another. If Mill is to assert that the pleasure of being intelligent far outweighs the pleasure of being a fool, Mill must provide some proof or rationale for his claim. Unfortunately, Mill does not provide such an appeal and leaves his readers unable to quantify and differentiate between two pleasures.
Defenders of Mill will assert that Mill does indeed offer a method of differentiating between two pleasures of different quality. Indeed, Mill writes that,
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.
But this answer simply leaves the reader questioning the basis on which the tribunal prefers one pleasure to another. To which Mill provides no answer except for the following,
That to think of an object as desirable (unless for the sake of its consequences), 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.
Mill seems to be suggesting that the tribunal prefers one pleasure on the basis that one pleasure is more pleasant than the other. Recall that Mill cannot make an appeal to the quantitative aspect of pleasure in his rationale. Thus, Mill implies that a pleasure is more desirable than another (and thus higher in quality) when it is more pleasurable (and higher in quality). Unfortunately, this circular argument offers no explanation why certain pleasures, such as poetry writing, are higher quality than other pleasures, like watching dog fighting. Mill would have his readers believe that poetry writing would be a higher pleasure because it is more pleasurable and that it is more pleasurable because it is a higher pleasure.
In order to accept Mill’s argument that certain pleasures are higher quality than others, it is necessary to infer from the rest of Mill’s arguments the basis that makes one pleasure better than another. Mill writes the following about happiness.
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.
Despite Mill’s claim that this was how utilitarians before him understood happiness, it is clearly a far cry from the utility that Bentham describes. Given Mill’s previous uses of the term happiness as a synonym for pleasure, Mill must be understood as describing a different idea than pleasure. Indeed, this description is closer to eudemonia, the Greek term for human flourishing. Mill himself acknowledges that more than just happiness can be an end, rather than just a means to happiness. Maximizing eudemonia would be consistent with Mill’s claims that higher education and fully utilizing one’s intellectual capacities through noble acts of virtue are superior behaviors.
As demonstrated, Mill distinguishes between the two components of pleasure, quality and quantity. This distinction prevents Mill, when arguing that pleasures can be ranked according to the aspect of quality, from using the quantitative aspect of pleasure as a defense of his claim. In order for Mill’s arguments to remain logically coherent and consistent, it is necessary to interpret Mill as arguing for human flourishing, even if Mill attempts to conflate it with the terms happiness and pleasure. By differentiating the separate meaning Mill imbues the terms happiness and pleasure with, it is clear that Mill’s conflation of meanings obscures the fact that Mill makes a rapid departure from Bentham’s utilitarianism. When distinguishing between Mill’s uses of flourishing, it is clear that Mill truly argues for the maximization of human flourishing.
Mill’s version of utilitarianism, where utility is human flourishing rather than pleasure, is a more refined consequentialist philosophy than Bentham’s. It has large implications for everyone’s decision calculus, especially for governments. Rather than concentrating on maximizing pleasure, governments would need to nourish the capacity for higher pleasures in their citizens as well as ensure that their citizens can fulfill them. In order for governments to ensure that the particular pleasures that they seek to maximize are of the highest quality, governments need to consult tribunals that have experienced the pleasures in question. These tribunals would be made up of those people who have been educated. This logical conclusion of the aforementioned reading of Mill is consistent with Mill’s decry of the wretched education, writing “The present wretched education, and wretched social arrangements, are the only real hindrance to its being attainable by almost all.” So not only is Mill’s utilitarianism a significant alteration of Bentham’s version, the impetus it places on governments and individuals is significantly more nuanced and thoughtful—assuming the government consists of people capable of listening.
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863)
Your thesis is that Mill’s utilitarianism ultimately relies on the good of human flourishing, not simply happiness, and you go on to demonstrate why he is mistaken. You explain that Mill diverges from Bentham when he argues that the quality of happiness cannot be accounted for in the quantity of happiness and that quality for Mill is what determines the highest good. But if this is true, then Mill’s utilitarianism ultimately seeks to maximize something else other than happiness because Mill needs to justify his claim that quality matters more than quantity of happiness; and by Mill’s own terms it cannot be that quality of happiness increases the quantity of happiness. The only way that Mill can justify his claim is to say that he’s aiming to maximize something else. You argue that this “something else” is human flourishing understood broadly. This explains, among a slew of other things, why Mill prefers poetry to pushpin.
You get to the heart of what’s wrong with Mill as he presents himself. When we really start to unpack the concept of happiness we see that it entails many things so that the better term is really “flourishing” instead of just “happiness.” So your argument agrees with many contemporary ethical theorists who are busy trying to figure out what human flourishing consists of and how social institutions can help to realize it. We see that this concept raises tricky questions about values, capabilities, emotions, and rationality – not to mention many metaphysical questions about what “flourishing” consists of and even trickier questions about flourishing as a subjective experience. All of this to say, you point us in the direction of many interesting questions and take us well beyond Mill.
Next time: please cite your references! This includes quotes.