Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T15:52:58.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Two Pessimisms in Mill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2021

Joshua Isaac Fox*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, Chicago, USA

Abstract

Mill defines utilitarianism as the combination of a “theory of life” and a moral claim: only pleasure and freedom from pain are desirable as ends, and the promotion of happiness is the sole goal of moral action. So defined, utilitarianism is open to ad hominem pessimistic objection: a “theory of life” which entails the impossibility of happiness fits poorly with a morality centered on its promotion. The first two challenges Mill confronts in Utilitarianism share this pessimistic structure. Interestingly, however, these challenges paint inverted pictures of the best utilitarian life: one suggests this life is satisfying but ignoble, the other that it is noble but unsatisfying. I explain Mill's treatment of both challenges as genuinely pessimistic interpretations of utilitarianism's “theory of life.” Read through the lens of Mill's engagement with pessimism, these challenges point to distinctive conceptions of dignity and satisfaction that play a significant role in Mill's ethics.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, James. 1992. Philosophical Forgetfulness: John Stuart Mill's “Nature”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 53: 437–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 1991. John Stuart Mill and Experiments in Living, Ethics, 102: 426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Annas, Julia. 2004. Happiness as Achievement, Daedalus, 133: 4451.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, . 1984. Rhetoric, in The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, vol. 2, ed. by Barnes, Jonathan (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 21522269.Google Scholar
Beiser, Frederick. 2016. Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860–1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentham, Jeremy. 1988. The Principles of Morals and Legislation (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books). [= IPML]Google Scholar
Brink, David. 2013. Mill's Progressive Principles (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlyle, Thomas. 1831. Characteristics, Edinburgh Review, 54: 351–83.Google Scholar
Carlyle, Thomas. 1843. Past and Present (London: Chapman and Hall).Google Scholar
Corcoran, Paul. 2019. John Stuart Mill's Political Pessimism, The European Legacy, 25: 471–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devigne, Robert. 2006a. Cultivating the Individual and Society: J. S. Mill's Use of Ancient and Romantic Dialectics, History of Political Thought, 27: 91121.Google Scholar
Devigne, Robert. 2006b. Reforming Liberalism: J. S. Mill's Use of Ancient, Religious, Liberal, and Romantic Moralities (New Haven: Yale University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devigne, Robert. 2017. J. S. Mill on Plato, Reason, and Art, History of Political Thought, 38: 110–33.Google Scholar
Halbertal, Moshe. 2015. Three Concepts of Human Dignity, Dewey Lecture, University of Chicago Law School, Chicago.Google Scholar
Hauskeller, Michael. 2011. No Philosophy for Swine: John Stuart Mill on the Quality of Pleasures, Utilitas, 23: 428–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heydt, Colin. 2006. Rethinking Mill's Ethics: Character and Aesthetic Education (London: Continuum).Google Scholar
Heydt, Colin. 2011. Mill, Life as Art, and Problems of Self-Description in an Industrial Age, in John Stuart Mill and the Art of Life, ed. by Eggleston, Ben, Miller, Dale, and Weinstein, David (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 264–90.Google Scholar
Leiter, Brian. 2018. The Truth is Terrible, The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 49: 151–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mawson, Tim. 2002. Mill's Proof, Philosophy, 77: 375405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messina, J. P. 2020. Freedom of Expression and the Liberalism of Fear: A Defense of the Darker Mill, Philosophers’ Imprint, 20: 117.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1963–91. Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. by Robson, J. M. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). [= CW]Google Scholar
Miller, Dale. 2010. J. S. Mill: Moral, Social, and Political Thought (Cambridge: Polity Press).Google Scholar
Miller, William. 1997. The Anatomy of Disgust (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Millgram, Elijah. 2011. Mill's Incubus, in John Stuart Mill and the Art of Life, ed. by Eggleston, Ben, Miller, Dale E., and Weinstein, David (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 169–91.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 2008. Who Is the Happy Warrior? Philosophy Poses Questions to Psychology, The Journal of Legal Studies, 37: S81113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reginster, Bernard. 2006. The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riley, Jonathan. 2013. Mill's Greek Ideal of Individuality, in John Stuart Mill: A British Socrates, ed. by Demetriou, Kyriakos and Loizides, Antis (London: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 97125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riley, Jonathan. 2019. Bentham, Mill, Stoicism and Higher Pleasures, in Happiness and Utility, ed. by Varouxakis, Georgios and Philp, Mark (London: University College London Press), pp. 184206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rozin, Paul, Haidt, Jonathan, and McCauley, Clark. 1999. Disgust: The Body and Soul Emotion, in Handbook of Cognition and Emotion, ed. by Dalgleish, Tim and Power, Michael (Chichester, England: Wiley), pp. 429445.Google Scholar
Setiya, Kieran. 2017. Midlife: A Philosophical Guide (Princeton: Princeton University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sully, James. 1877. Pessimism: A History and a Criticism (London: Henry S. King).Google Scholar
Thorlby, Anthony. 1973. Liberty and Self-Development: Goethe and John Stuart Mill, Neohelicon, 1: 91110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tulloch, Gail. 1989. Mill and Sexual Equality (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf).Google Scholar
Vogler, Candace. 2001. John Stuart Mill's Deliberative Landscape: An Essay in Moral Psychology (New York: Garland).Google Scholar
West, Henry. 2003. Mill's Utilitarianism: A Reader's Guide (London: Continuum).Google Scholar
Zanker, Andreas. 2011. Some Thoughts on the Term “Pessimism” and Scholarship of the Georgics, Vergilius, 57: 83100.Google Scholar