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J. S. Mill's “Proof” Of The Principle Of Utility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

R. F. Atkinson
R. F. Atkinson
Affiliation:
University College of North Staffordshire
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Extract

In Chapter 4 of his essay Utilitarianism, “Of what sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is susceptible,” J. S. Mill undertakes to prove, in some sense of that term, the principle of utility. It has very commonly been argued that in the course of this “proof” Mill commits two very obvious fallacies. The first is the naturalistic fallacy (the fallacy of holding that a value judgment follows deductively from a purely factual statement) which he is held to commit when he argues that since “the only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible is that people hear it: and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner … the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.”1 Here Mill appears to hold that “X is desirable (=fit or worthy to be desired)”—a value judgment—follows deductively from “People desire x”—a factual statement. And the second is the fallacy of composition (i.e. an illicit transition from a statement about each several member of a collection to a statement about the collection as a whole) which seems to be involved in Mill'zs argument that since “each person's happiness is a good to that person … the general happiness (is), therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.”2

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 32 , Issue 121 , April 1957 , pp. 158 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1957

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References

1 Mill's Utilitarianism, etc., ed. Plamenatz, (Blackwell, 1949), p. 198. All page references to Mill are to this edition. I shall refer to the paragraphs of Chapter 4, which contains Mill's supposed proof, by number—there are only 12 of them. The above quotation is from paragraph 3.Google Scholar

2 Ibidem.

3 “The Alleged Fallacies in Mill's Utilitarianism,” Phil. Review, Vol. XVII, No. 5, September 1908.Google Scholar

4 “The ‘Proof’ of Utility in Bentham and Mill,” Ethics, Vol. LX, No. 1, October 1949.Google Scholar

5 “Fallacies in and about Mill's Utilitarianism,” Philosophy, Vol. XXX, No. 115, October 1955.Google Scholar

page 159 note 1 The Vocabulary of Politics (Pelican Philosophy Series, 1953), pp. 176–7.Google Scholar

page 164 note 1 It is of minor importance that whereas he before spoke of happiness Mill now speaks of pleasure, for “by happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure” (p. 169).

page 164 note 2 I have omitted from this quotation the clause “that to think of an object as desirable (except for the sake of its consequences), and to think of it as pleasant, are one and the same thing.” Here Mill unquestionably expresses the view commonly attributed to him that “x is desired (=thought pleasant)” entails “x is desirable,” as he also does on p. 226 note by saying that “happiness” and “desirable” are synonymous. It is very difficult to accommodate everything Mill says in a consistent interpretation.

page 166 note 1 Cf. Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Abbott (6th ed.), p. 116. I am indebted to Professor A. E. Teale for drawing my attention to this interesting and, I believe, conclusive passage.