AN INTRODUCTION TO MILL’S UTILITARIAN ETHICS€¦ · most inﬂuential statement of the...

AN INTRODUCTION TO MILL’S UTILITARIAN ETHICS

John Stuart Mill was the leading British philosopher of thenineteenth century, and his famous essay Utilitarianism is themost influential statement of the philosophy of utilitarianism:that actions, laws, policies, and institutions are to be evaluatedby their utility or contribution to good or bad consequences.

Henry R. West has written the most up-to-date and user-friendly introduction to Mill’s utilitarianism available. Thisbook serves as both a commentary to and interpretation of thetext. It also defends Mill against his critics. The first chaptertraces Mill’s life and philosophical background. The secondchapter analyzes Mill’s arguments against alternative theo-ries. Succeeding chapters address the theory of qualitativehedonism; the question of whether Mill was an act or ruleutilitarian; the theories of sanctions and of the relation betweenjustice and utility; and the “proof” of the principle of utility.An appendix reviews in detail the structure and arguments ofUtilitarianism.

This book is primarily intended as a textbook for studentsin philosophy assigned to read Utilitarianism, but it should alsoprove helpful to students and professionals in other fields suchas political science, history, and economics.

Henry R. West is a professor of philosophy at Macalester Collegein Minnesota.

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Cambridge University Press978-0-521-53541-0 - An Introduction to Mill’s Utilitarian EthicsHenry R. WestFrontmatterMore information

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An Introduction to

Mill’s Utilitarian

Ethics

HENRY R. WESTMacalester College

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It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

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© Henry R. West 2004

Th is publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written

permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2004

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

West, Henry R., 1933–An introduction to Millʹs utilitarian ethics/Henry R. West.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 0-521-82832-5 – isbn 0-521-53541-7 (pbk.)1. Mill, John Stuart, 1806–1873. 2. Ethics, Modern – 19th century.

3. Utilitarianism. I. Title.b1608.e8w47 2003

171 .́5´092–dc21 2003051540

isbn 978-0-521-82832-1 Hardbackisbn 978-0-521-53541-0 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,

and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.




To Pat, my wife,

for love, support, and patience

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments page ix

Method of Citation xi

Introduction 1

1 Mill’s Life and Philosophical Background 8

2 Mill’s Criticism of Alternative Theories 28

3 Qualities of Pleasure 48

4 Was Mill an Act- or Rule-Utilitarian? 74

5 Sanctions and Moral Motivation 96

6 Mill’s “Proof” of the Principle of Utility 118

7 Utility and Justice 146

Appendix: An Overall View of Mill’s Utilitarianism 169

Bibliography 195

Index 213

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My greatest debt is to John M. Robson and Toronto UniversityPress for publishing the Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. With-out that, research on the corpus of Mill’s writings would havebeen difficult and limited. Another debt is to The Philosopher’sIndex for leads to secondary literature.

The paradigm of recent scholarship on Mill’s ethics is thework of David Lyons, whose careful analysis of Mill texts hasbeen a model to emulate. I have also been influenced byAlan Fuchs, who, through correspondence and conversation,has challenged some of my tendencies in interpretation.Conversations with Wendy Donner have also been helpful. Inthe early stages of this study, I was helped and encouraged byJ. B. Schneewind.

I am thankful to my colleagues Martin Gunderson and KarenJ. Warren for reading parts of the script and making helpfulcomments for revisions. The readers for Cambridge Univer-sity Press gave useful suggestions for revisions that improvedthe book. My friend Robert Foy read the entire manuscript,improving its style for clarity.

I became interested in Mill from a prior interest in utili-tarianism, initiated by Professor Charles Baylis in a graduatecourse on Ethical Theory. My interest was furthered by discus-sions with fellow graduate students such as David Lyons, DavidKurtzmann, and Michael Stocker, and I wrote a doctoral dis-sertation on utilitarianism, with Roderick Firth and John Rawlsas advisors. In three years of postdoctoral research at OxfordUniversity I had the opportunity to discuss utilitarianism withR. M. Hare, J. J. C. Smart, Derek Parfit, Peter Singer, Jonathan

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x Acknowledgments

Glover, R. M. Frey, James Griffin, and others. I have participatedin NEH seminars, on utilitarianism led by Richard Brandt, andon consequentialism led by Jonathan Bennett. I benefited fromthe participation of others in those seminars, and I have bene-fited from commentators on papers that I have presented at pro-fessional meetings. Finally, my thinking on utilitarianism hasbeen encouraged and kept on track by many years of conversa-tions and correspondence with my good friend Bart Gruzalski.

My research and writing has been supported by MacalesterCollege and by an NEH Fellowship for College Teachers.




METHOD OF CITATION

All page references to the writings of Mill are to the CollectedWorks of John Stuart Mill, 33 volumes, John M. Robson, GeneralEditor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963–91). Thereare many reprints of Mill’s more popular works; for easy refer-ence to them I have included the book and/or chapter, section,or paragraph in parentheses or brackets even if the paragraphis not numbered in Mill’s text.

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