Mill’s Utilitarianism: Utility as the Foundation of Morality
How Mill Defends the Usefulness of Action as the Foundation of Morality
Utilitarianism sets the greatest happiness principle as the moral foundation, stating that actions are right insofar as they tend to promote happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.
Faced with the accusation that a life subject to this moral standard would be a life fit only for pigs, Mill replies that human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and once we are aware of their existence, we do not consider anything that does not include the gratification of these powers to be happiness.
Utilitarians base the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures in their circumstantial advantages rather than their intrinsic nature. For Mill, the difference is more qualitative than quantitative: Few human creatures would consent to become a lower animal for the promise of the fullest enjoyment of the pleasures of a beast. This is due to a sense of dignity that all human beings possess in varying degrees and that bears some correlation with higher powers.
Mill Defends Against Criticisms of the Principle of Utility
Mill defends against the criticism that the principle of utility is the foundation of morality. Is not this approach doomed to condemn human morality to unhappiness? No. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.
Do individuals not choose the lower pleasures? They do so because they have lost the capacity to enjoy the higher ones.
Is not happiness unattainable? The utilitarian approach seeks happiness and also to prevent and mitigate unhappiness.
Can we not do without individual happiness? Self-sacrifice is necessary to achieve general happiness.
Is this demand not excessive? No, because in the general pursuit of happiness lies our own.
Is it not an atheistic principle? No, because God desires the happiness of humankind.
Is it a principle that requires time for its application? We have the cumulative experience of humanity on the useful, which has resulted in moral rules.
Can the principle of utility in its specific application lead to immorality? No, because what is truly useful cannot be immoral. However, exceptions in the application of moral rules are possible. It is always better to apply the principle than to not have it, or to take it to an absolute extreme.
Is the principle of utility binding? It is binding in the same way as any other principle. We expect to gain favor and avoid rejection from our fellow men or God. We hope for pleasure and wish to avoid pain resulting from violating the dictates of our conscience, a feeling present in our minds – internal sanctions. The basis of all morality – excluding external sanctions – is the presence in humans of a binding force, and experience shows that it exists in properly educated individuals who wish to harmonize their feelings with their peers.
Testing the Principle of Utility as the Foundation and Moral Criteria
Happiness is desirable because everyone desires it. Happiness is the highest good, the ultimate goal of any action. Whether individual happiness is the greatest good for everyone, and whether general happiness is the greatest good for all, general happiness is desirable because everyone desires it.
Is general happiness the only moral criterion? Yes. Everything else is a means to that end. Virtue is desirable as a means to happiness, but by association with it, it becomes part of the end, and then, and not before, is it desired for itself. But if it appears that there is a moral standard different from the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, it is only because of habit.
But do we all desire general happiness? Not now, because we are in a relatively primitive state of human development. Only a minority of people with a developed social sense do not consider their peers as rivals to be defeated in order to achieve happiness. This feeling of unity will be enhanced with the continuous improvement of the human spirit, leading us to not want anything to benefit a particular individual that does not include the benefit of others.