Journal of the History of Philosophy

On Interpreting Mill's Utilitarianism MAURICE MANDELBAUM IT IS DOUBTFULwhether any text in the history of ethical thought is better known to contemporary British and American philosophers than John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. Nevertheless, those who discuss Mill's views have usually been content to isolate and analyze particular propositions, rather than offering an interpretation of the essay as a whole. Among the propositions most often discussed are those connected with Mill's introduction of the notion of higher and lower pleasures, and those connected with his proof of the principle of utility. To the various questions associated with these passages, there has recently been added the further issue of whether Mill is to be classified as a "rule-utilitarian," or whether he holds the classic position of unrestricted utilitarianism. I do not believe that, on the whole, this method of fragmentary criticism has been particularly unfair, nor that it has led to distorted interpretations of Mill's doctrine on those issues with which most critics and commentators have been concerned . However, many passages have been left needlessly obscure, and in fact baffling. Consider, for example, the manner in which Mill uses the term "virtue" and its cognates. In a passage which immediately succeeds his discussion of the proof of the principle of utility, Mill acknowledges the distinction which is made in common language between a desire for happiness and a desire for virtue? Rather surprisingly, he then goes on to say that the utilitarian doctrine "maintains not only that virtue is to be desired, but that it is to be desired disinterestedly, for itself." 2This thesis, he claims, is in no way incompatible with holding that "actions and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote another end than virtue ." The method by means of which Mill can reconcile these two apparently contradictory statements is an important aspect of his ethical theory, but it is not an aspect which can easily be understood without reference to some of his generally neglected ethical writings, nor without relating it to a number of other views which he held. A similar claim can be made with respect to the issue of whether Mill should or should not be classed as a rule-utilitarian, but I shall not deal with that issue in the present paper.8 In what follows I shall draw on the whole corpus 1Utilitarianism, chap. IV,para. 4 (Everyman edition, p. 33). [In citing Mill's Utilitariani,wn I shall make use of Mill's paragraphing, so that the reader may readily find the passage regardless of the edition he uses. However, in each case I shall also add the pagination of the Everyman edition.] Chap. IV, para. 5 (p. 33). eI discuss it at length in a forthcoming article entitled "Two Moot Issues in Mill's Utilit " " 3) . . . . . . armnzsm, to be published in Modern Studies :n Ph:losophy : John Stuart M:ll, ed. Jerome B. Schneewind (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1968). The question of whether Mill is to be regarded as a rule-utilitarian was first raised in its present influential form by J. O. Urmson. His essay, "The Interpretation of the Moral Philosophy of J. S. Mill," was originally published in Philosophical Quarterly, III (1953); it too is to appear in the forthcoming volume edited by Schneewind. [35] 36 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of Mill's writings, rather than attempting to deal with Utilitarianism in isolation. By this means, I believe, one can best explicate what is otherwise obscure in that work.4 I. Mill on Bentham I suppose it will be granted that if we are to understand Mill's ethical theory we must keep in mind its relationship to the thought of Bentham. It will be recalled that in speaking of the time when he first read Bentham, Mill said: "The feeling rushed upon me, that all previous moralists were superseded, and that here indeed was the commencement of a new era of thought." 5 Even when, after his mental crisis, his own views began to diverge from those of Bentham (and of his father), he never abandoned the conviction that, in its most essential aspects, Benthamism was true. In his Autobiography he referred to the...