1 I shall assume throughout this discussion that positive and negative deontic concepts are trivially interdefinable. Thus an action a is right (is a duty) Just in case failing to do a is wrong.

2 One set of principles is prior to another in a given theory if the latter is reducible to the former, but not vice versa.

3 The standard analysis of act-utilitarian and rule-utilitarian theories is David Lyons, Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965).

4 For Moore's treatment of Mill see Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), Ch. 3. Moore's own theory is a maximizing direct theory; see Principia, Ch. 5, and Ethics (London: Oxford University Press, 1912).

5 “The Interpretation of the Moral Philosophy of Mill, J.S.”, Philosophical Quarterly, 3 (1953), 33-9.Google Scholar Urmson devotes most of his attention to refuting the reading of Mill as an act-utilitarian and to pointing out the important role which Mill assigns to moral rules. He is less explicit on the precise nature of the rule-utilitarianism which he attributes to Mill, but it appears to be a generalized theory. For a similar view see Quinton, Anthony, Utilitarian Ethics (London: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 47ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Lyons, David, “Mill's Theory of Morality”, Nous, 10 (1976), 101-20;CrossRefGoogle Scholar “Human Rights and the General Welfare”, Pi1ilosophy and Public Affairs, 6 (1977), 113-29; “liberty and Harm to Others”, this volume. David Copp, “The Iterated-Utilitarianism of J. S. Mill”, this volume. Brown, D. G., “Mill on liberty and Morality”, Philosophical Review, 81 (1972), 133-58;CrossRefGoogle Scholar “What is Mill's Principle of Utility?”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 3 (1973-4), 1-12; “Mill's Criterion of Wrong Conduct”, submitted to Dialogue. It is only fair, however, to give credit to Jan Narveson who sketched a similar account in Morality and Utility (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), pp. 146ft. (see also pp. 92-3).

7 It is far more plausible as a rendering of Sidgwick. In The Methods of Ethics, Seventh Edition (London: Macmillan, 1907), Sidgwick claims that “a utilitarian must hold that it is always wrong for a man knowingly to do anything other than what he believes to be most conducive to Universal Happiness“ (p. 492; cf. p. 411). Bentham is not sufficiently careful in his formulations of the principle of utility for any interpretation to be held with confidence, but he did devise the theory of sanctions which is the distinctive component of Mill's indirect theory.

8 See, for instance, Brian Cupples, “A Defense of the Received Interpretation of Mill, J.S.”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 50 (1972), 131-7,Google Scholar and Sumner, L.W., “More Light on the later Mill”, Philosophical Review, 83 (1974), 504-27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 See Lyons, Forms and Limits, Chs. 3 and 4.

10 In what follows I have employed my own terminology to reduce these three interpretations to a common denominator. The authors are not, of course, responsible for any resulting distortion of their views.

11 Mill, , Utilitarianism, in Essays on Ethics, Religion and Society (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), p. 246.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 255. See also the discussion of secondary principles, pp. 225-6.

13 Copp, “Iterated-Utilitarianism”, this volume, p. 81.

14 Mill, , On Liberty, in Essays on Politics and Society (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), pp. 224-5.Google Scholar

15 Utilitarianism, pp. 255-6.

16 In his “Mill on liberty and Morality” Brown argues that Mill is inconsistent in countenancing such duties. On this issue I side with Lyons, “Liberty and Harm to Others', this volume.

17 Utilitarianism, p. 255.

18 Ibid., p. 246.

19 Lyons, “Mill's Theory of Morality”, pp. 112-3. For some of the main types of rule-utilitarianism see Lyons, Forms and Limits, Ch. 4. Mill's theory is clearly not a generalized rule-utilitarianism — the critics of Urmson's interpretation were right on that score.

20 On the second impediment see, for example, Sobel, J. Howard, “The Need for Coercion”, in Pennock, J. Roland and Chapman, John W., eds., Coercion (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1972).Google Scholar

21 An account of the status of rules which is similar in many respects is given in Sartorius, Rolf E., Individual Conduct and Social Norms, (Encino and Belmont, Calif.: Dickenson, 1979),Google Scholar especially Ch. 4. Its ancestors are Sidgwick, Methods, Book IV, Chs. 3-5, Moore, , Principia, Ch. 4.Google Scholar All three theorists, however, imbed this view of moral rules in a maximizing direct utilitarianism. For the contractarian counterpart of an indirect utilitarian treatment of rules see Mackie, J.L., Ethics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), Ch. 7.Google Scholar

22 See, for example, Utilitarianism, p. 259.