Mill is neither an act-utilitarian nor a rule-utilitarian. Although he professes to regard “utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions”, he in fact makes no appeal to it in determining in Utilitarianism what actions are “of more absolute obligation than any others”. Nor does he appeal to it in his arguments for the two main conclusions of his essay, On Liberty.

Mill is neither an act-utilitarian nor a rule-utilitarian. Although he professes to regard “utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions”, he in fact makes no appeal to it in determining in Utilitarianism what actions are “of more absolute obligation than any others”. Nor does he appeal to it in his arguments for the two main conclusions of his essay, On Liberty.

This chapter contains section titled: General Remarks What Utilitarianism Is Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility Of What Sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible On the Connexion Between Justice and Utility.

Mill’s aim in chapter 3 of Utilitarianism is to show that his revisionary moral theory can preserve the kind of authority typically and traditionally associated with moral demands. One of his main targets is the idea that if people come to believe that morality is rooted in human sentiment then they will feel less bound by moral obligation. Chapter 3 emphasizes two claims: (1) The main motivation to ethical action comes from feelings and not from beliefs and (2) Ethical feelings (...) are highly malleable. I provide a critical examination of Mill’s use of these claims to support his argument that Utilitarianism can preserve morality’s authority. I show how the two claims, intended to form a significant rebuttal to the worry about Utilitarianism, can in fact be combined to raise powerful skeptical concerns. I explain how Mill evades the skepticism, and why contemporary philosophers who lack Millian optimism about human nature find it harder to avoid the skeptical outcome. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Of the Principle of Utility Of Principles Adverse to that of Utility Of the Four Sanctions or Sources of Pain and Pleasure Value of a Lot of Pleasure or Pain, How to be Measured Pleasures and Pains, Their Kinds.

In my dissertation, I analyze, interpret, and defend John Stuart Mill's proof of the principle of utility in the fourth chapter of his Utilitarianism. My purpose is not to glorify utilitarianism, in a full sweep, as the best normative ethical theory, or even to vindicate, on a more specific level, Mill's universalistic ethical hedonism as the best form of utilitarianism. I am concerned only with Mill's utilitarianism, and primarily with his proof of the principle of utility. (...) My overarching purpose guiding the entire work is to show that Mill proceeds intelligibly and systematically in pursuing a well-defined project in the fourth chapter of Utilitarianism, and that he successfully defends what he sets out to establish in his proof of the principle of utility. To this end, I devote the bulk of my efforts to studying and responding to traditionally popular and persistently enduring objections to the proof that are handed down from one generation to the next in the philosophical community as a standard companion to Utilitarianism. The primary objections to which I respond at length are the charges that Mill commits the naturalistic fallacy, the fallacy of equivocation, and the fallacy of composition in his proof. Secondary literature on the subject consists of journal articles and book chapters that treat one or another but not all of these problems. My research has convinced me that, although these commentaries are generally quite good, they are mutually incompatible, and they are neither severally nor jointly sufficient to produce the kind of comprehensive defense that would do justice to Mill's proof of the principle of utility. This kind of comprehensive defense is what I intend to contribute to secondary literature on the subject. Specifically, my ultimate contribution to secondary literature is an interpretation of Mill's proof of the principle of utility in its entirety, absolved of the three fallacies commonly attributed to the proof, yet faithful to the text at all points. (shrink)

Formulations of Mill's principle of utility are examined, and it is shown that Mill did not recognize a moral obligation to maximize the good, as is often assumed. His was neither a maximizing act nor rule utilitarianism. It was a distinctive minimizing utilitarianism which morally obligates us only to abstain from inflicting harm, to prevent harm, to provide for others minimal essentials of well being (to which rights correspond), and to be occasionally charitable or benevolent.

One aspect of the intellectual changes taking place in China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the emergence of utilitarian ideas. Although it may be useful to think of modern Chinese thought from the perspective of the emergence of social Darwinism and nationalism, it is significant that the country's most progressive scholars at the turn of thecentury derived their inspiration from utilitarianism. Utilitarianism was accepted as a weapon with which to challenge traditional social, political, and cultural ideas, (...) and to justify social and political reforms. (shrink)

In this article, responding to assertions that the principle of double effect has no place in legal analysis, I explore the overlap between double effect and negligence analysis. In both, questions of culpability arise in situations where a person acts with no intent to cause harm but where reasonable foreseeability of unintended harm exists. Under both analyses, the determination of whether such conduct is permissible involves a reasonability test that balances that foreseeable harm against the good intended by the (...) actor's conduct. In both, absent a finding that the foreseeable harm is unreasonable in light of that intended good, no liability will be imposed upon the actor. Even conceding, however, such general similarity between double effect and negligence analysis - disagreement over the proper interpretation of the reasonability criterion at play in negligence poses an additional challenge for the attempt to correlate negligence with double effect. Economic efficiency interpretations of negligence, for example, purportedly based on the Learned Hand Formula and the RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF THE LAW OF TORTS, propose that culpability depends upon a utilitarian balancing of good effects of conduct (utility) versus its harmful foreseeable consequences (magnitude of risk of injury). Based on such an interpretation of negligence, however, contrasts between actors' states of mind, and normative differences between kinds of goods and harms, ultimately fade into the background and become irrelevant as essential conditions for properly assessing liability. This article elaborates and defends the view that double effect analysis lies at the heart of negligence theory. Part I elucidates in more detail the principle of double effect and describes its prima facie operation in negligence analysis. Part II considers and rejects the economic efficiency interpretation that has been offered as a theory of negligence, overcoming the challenge that such an interpretation presents for the effort to locate double effect analysis in the law. Part III illustrates and confirms the overlap between double effect and negligence by consideration of a series of case applications. The Article proposes that the weighing of conflicting values in double effect analysis and negligence is not achieved - as proposed by law and economics theory with respect to negligence - by imposing a consequentialist-utilitarian reduction of all value to a single concept of good and eliminating the relevance of traditional state of mind distinctions between intention and foreseeability. Instead, each mode of analysis recognizes that distinct culpability determinations flow naturally and plausibly from an appreciation of the traditional legal distinctions made between various types of goods and harms, and upon whether such goods and harms come about as result of an actor's intention or mere foreseeability. Keywords: Double effect, negligence, intention, foreseeability, choice, law and economics, utilitarianism, consequentialism, weighing of values. (shrink)

In the introductory chapter of his essay on Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill says his aim is to contribute towards the understanding of utilitarianism and towards ‘such proof as it is susceptible of’. He immediately adds that ‘this cannot be proof in the ordinary and popular meaning of the term’ because ‘ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof’. A proof that something is good has to show that it is ‘a means to something admitted to be good without proof’. (...) But, he goes on, this does not imply that a formula of ultimate ends can only be accepted on ‘blind impulse, or arbitrary choice’. It can be rationally discussed and subjected to proof in a wider sense of that word. ‘Considerations may be presented capable of determining the intellect either to give or withhold its assent to the doctrine; and this is equivalent to proof.’. (shrink)

It is well known that Husserl considered phenomenology to be First Philosophy—the ultimate science. For Husserl, this means that phenomenology must clarify the ultimate phenomenological-epistemological principle that leads to ultimate elucidation. But what is this ultimate principle and what does ultimate elucidation mean? It is the aim of this paper to answer these questions. In section 2, we shall discuss what role Husserl’s principle of all principles can play in the quest for (...) ultimate elucidation and what it means for a principle to be ultimately elucidating and ultimately elucidated. We will see that the Husserlian thesis that originary presentive intuitions are an immediate and the ultimate source of justification qualifies as the ultimate epistemological principle. (shrink)

Why do corporations and wealthy philanthropists fund the human sciences? Examining the history of the Santa Fe Institute (SFI), a private research institute founded in the early 1980s, this article shows that funders can find as much value in the social worlds of the sciences they sponsor as in their ideas. SFI became increasingly dependent on funding from corporations and libertarian business leaders in the 1990s and 2000s. At the same time, its intellectual work came to focus on the underlying (...) principles of adaptation, innovation, and decentralized coordination supposedly at work in ‘complex systems’ from biological ecosystems to markets and firms. This research cast the ideas of the libertarian economist Friedrich Hayek into a new scientific idiom. SFI also became a space where figures in business, media, academia, and politics could come to learn to see the world in a particular way—to acquire the subjectivity of what I call ‘the Santa Fe Institute libertarian’. At SFI, visitors did not simply learn the principles of neo-Hayekian complex system science. They came to see themselves as agents of social evolution, providing the spark that the free-market system needed to produce new technologies and new solutions to social problems without top-down political direction. For the Institute's corporate and libertarian financiers, SFI was not just a space where intellectuals described the world in favored ideological terms, but a space where elite actors became committed to the project of making a new political-economic order. (shrink)

A topological model of elementary semiotic schemes is presented. Implications are discussed with respect to the establishment of abstract terms and the search for ultimate meaning.

The book considers foundational thinking in quantum theory, focusing on the role the fundamental principles and principle thinking there, including thinking that leads to the invention of new principles, which is, the book contends, one of the ultimate achievements of theoretical thinking in physics and beyond. The focus on principles, prominent during the rise and in the immediate aftermath of quantum theory, has been uncommon in more recent discussions and debates concerning it. The book argues, however, that exploring (...) the fundamental principles and principle thinking is exceptionally helpful in addressing the key issues at stake in quantum foundations and the seemingly interminable debates concerning them. Principle thinking led to major breakthroughs throughout the history of quantum theory, beginning with the old quantum theory and quantum mechanics, the first definitive quantum theory, which it remains within its proper (nonrelativistic) scope. It has, the book also argues, been equally important in quantum field theory, which has been the frontier of quantum theory for quite a while now, and more recently, in quantum information theory, where principle thinking was given new prominence. The approach allows the book to develop a new understanding of both the history and philosophy of quantum theory, from Planck's quantum to the Higgs boson, and beyond, and of the thinking the key founding figures, such as Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and Dirac, as well as some among more recent theorists. The book also extensively considers the nature of quantum probability, and contains a new interpretation of quantum mechanics, "the statistical Copenhagen interpretation." Overall, the book's argument is guided by what Heisenberg called "the spirit of Copenhagen," which is defined by three great divorces from the preceding foundational thinking in physics-reality from realism, probability from causality, and locality from relativity-and defined the fundamental principles of quantum theory accordingly. (shrink)

Instead of postulated fixed structures and abstract principles of usual positivistic science, the unreduced diversity of living world reality is consistently derived as dynamically emerging results of unreduced interaction process development, starting from its simplest configuration of two coupled homogeneous protofields. The dynamically multivalued, or complex and intrinsically chaotic, nature of these real interaction results extends dramatically the artificially reduced, dynamically single-valued projection of standard theory and solves its stagnating old and accumulating new problems, “mysteries” and “paradoxes” within the unified (...) and causally complete picture of intrinsically evolving, dynamically complex reality. The permanently unfolding complexity progress thus revealed is fundamentally unlimited and does not need to stop at the directly observed diversity of usual matter complexity. The exciting, but rigorously substantiated and objectively inevitable prospects of further civilisation complexity development towards its superior levels of genuine sustainability and global Noosphere are outlined, with practically important conclusions for today’s critical problem solution. (shrink)

The main result of this paper is a formal argument for the principle of maximizing expected utility that does not rely on the law of large numbers. Unlike the well-known arguments by Savage and von Neumann & Morgenstern, this argument does not presuppose the sure-thing principle or the independence axiom. The principal idea is to use the concept of transformative decision rules for decomposing the principle of maximizing expected utility into a sequence of normatively reasonable (...) subrules. It is shown that this procedure provides a resolution of Allais's paradox that cannot be obtained by Savage-style or von Neumann & Morgenstern-style arguments. (shrink)

Is j s mill's concept of liberty basically utilitarian? the 'utilitarian' justifies action if it promotes the ends of happiness or pleasure. But for mill liberty is neither defined nor justified by reference to any felicific calculus. Rather, His concept of liberty seems to be based on (1) natural rights theory and (2) a consideration of its social benefits.

What is real and what is noble, as well as what is deranged and wrong, can often be stated briefly. Nietzsche was famous for his succinct aphorisms and epigrams. Aquinas in one of his responses could manage to state clearly what he held to be true. Ultimately, all of our thought needs to be so refined and concentrated that we can see the point. So these are "brief" essays and they are largely of a philosophical "hue." They touch on things (...) worth thinking about. Indeed, often they consider things we really need to think about if our lives are to make sense. The advantage of a collection of essays is that it is free to talk about many things. It can speak of them in a learned way or in an amused and humorous way. As Chesterton said, there is no necessary conflict between what is true and what is funny. Oftentimes, the greatest things we learn are through laughter, even laughter at ourselves and our own foibles and faults. So these essays are "brief." And they are largely of philosophical import. At first sight, taxing beer may seem to have no serious principle, except perhaps for the brewer and the consumer. But wherever there is reality, we can find something to learn. Each of these essays begins with the proposition "on"--this is a classical form of essay in the English language. Belloc, one the essay's greatest masters, wrote a book simply entitled "ON"--and several other books with that introductory "ON" to begin it. The word has the advantage of focusing our attention on some idea, place, book, person, or reality that we happen to come across and notice, then notice again, then wonder about. (shrink)

Mill’s Principle of Utility: Origins, Proof, and Implications (Leiden: Brill, 2022) is a scholarly monograph on John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism with a particular emphasis on his proof of the principle of utility. Originally published as Mill’s Principle of Utility: A Defense of John Stuart Mill’s Notorious Proof (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 1994), the present volume is a revised and enlarged edition with additional material, tighter arguments, crisper discussions, and updated references. The initiative is still principally (...) an analysis, interpretation, and defense of the controversial proof, which has yet to attract a scholarly consensus on how it works and whether it succeeds. Well over a century and a half after Mill’s contribution, the subject matter continues to figure prominently in classroom discussions, where the principle and its proof are presented and debated in connection with the critical baggage of logical problems and conceptual confusions wrongly attributed to Mill from the beginning. The overarching aim of the book, now supplemented by a comprehensive historical background and salient philosophical implications, remains the vindication of Mill’s reasoning in pursuit of what he promises as a proof of the principle of utility. (shrink)

Most donated organs in the United States come from brain dead donors, while a small percentage come from patients who die in “controlled,” or expected, circumstances, typically after the family or surrogate makes a decision to withdraw life support. The number of organs available for transplant could be substantially if donations were permitted in “uncontrolled” circumstances–that is, from people who die unexpectedly, often outside the hospital. According to projections from the Institute of Medicine, establishing programs permitting “uncontrolled donation after circulatory (...) determination of death,” or uDCDD, throughout the United States has the potential to provide 22,000 more donation opportunities annually. In contrast, U.S. controlled donation after circulatory determination of death, or cDCDD, cases have increased progressively over the past decade from 87 to 848 donors, but currently account for only 10.6 percent of all deceased donors. Following the IOM recommendations, several projects exploring the feasibility of uDCDD were funded by the federal government, including a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration that supported a pilot project in New York City in which the authors of this article participated.A key feature of our protocol, and indeed of many uDCDD protocols, is the initiation of preservation methods such as chest compressions and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation shortly after death in order to perfuse and preserve the donor's organs. Critics of uDCDD argue that the means of determining death deviates from generally ascribed principles. They assert that reinstituting circulation in order to preserve organs has the effect of “undoing” the prior determination of death. The result is that cDCDD is widely accepted and practiced routinely even though it only marginally increases the number of organs available for transplantation, and uDCDD is widely considered unacceptable despite being ethically embraced and proven to significantly increase organ donation opportunities in other countries. This article explores the evolution of this counterintuitive state of affairs and calls for a policy that, in line with the IOM report, allows for both cDCDD and uDCDD protocols. (shrink)

In mill the principle of utility does not ascribe rightness or wrongness to anything. It governs not just morality but the whole art of life. It says that happiness is the only thing desirable as an end. But the meaning of this formulation is problematic, Since mill's theory of practical reason conceives this desirability as an end as generating reasons for action for all agents in a way implying impartiality between self and others, Whereas in the ordinary sense (...) it does not. This interpretation is supported by detailed textual analysis. (shrink)

In 2004 Emanuel et al. published an influential account of exploitation in international research, which has become known as the 'fair benefits account'. In this paper I argue that the thin definition of fairness presented by Emanuel et al, and subsequently endorsed by Gbadegesin and Wendler, does not provide a notion of fairness that is adequately robust to support a fair benefits account of exploitation. The authors present a procedural notion of fairness – the fair distribution of the benefits of (...) research is to be determined on a case-by-case basis by the parties involved in each study. The fairness of the distribution of benefits is not assessed against an independent normative standard. Emanuel et al.'s account of fairness provides a framework for objecting only to transactions that occur without the fully informed consent of the weaker party. As a result, a debate about exploitation collapses into a debate about consent. This is problematic because, as the proponents of the fair benefits framework acknowledge, neither the trial participants' consent nor the host community's consent preclude exploitation. Attempts to stipulate normative standards of fairness to protect research subjects in developing countries have been controversial and divisive, and it is therefore understandable that bioethicists would be tempted to develop accounts of exploitation that are independent of such prescriptive principles. I conclude, however, that the utility of the fair benefits model of exploitation as a policy tool will ultimately depend on whether a substantive principle of fairness can be developed to underpin it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Light that Binds: A Study in Thomas Aquinas's Metaphysics of the Natural Law by Stephen BrockAngel Perez-LopezThe Light that Binds: A Study in Thomas Aquinas's Metaphysics of the Natural Law by Stephen Brock (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2020), xv + 277 pp.How does the natural law fit the definition of law? Opinions clash among different interpreters of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Stephen Brock's book provides both a magisterial and (...) a definitive answer to this question.Like fine wine, this book has been fermenting and maturing for almost thirty years. Originally a doctoral dissertation, this recently published work has been rewritten, and to a certain extent, reworked by the author with respect to some of its content.Without disregard for nuances, the first chapter introduces the reader to four different groups of Aquinas's interpreters. The first two groups question the full legal character of the natural law in its dependence to the eternal law. The third one questions its naturalness. The fourth group, instead, upholds both the divine origin of the natural law's full legality in its dependence on the eternal law, as well as its natural character.Brock places Dom Odo Lottin, Wolfgang Kluxen, Germain Grisez, and John Finnis in the first group. They maintain that the natural law is a law only in a qualified sense and that it does not entirely fulfill the definition of law. The natural law would provide an intrinsic morality. It should be treated independently from the eternal law. The second group is composed by authors such as Frederick Copleston, Alan Donagan, or Gregory Stevens. Similar to the first group, they argue that the natural law is an autonomous self-standing law, legislated by human reason. Thus, it should be treated independently from the eternal law, except to point out its ultimate origin.The author who exemplifies the third position is Ernest Fortin. Reacting against Finnis, Fortin's position jeopardizes the natural character of the natural law. In his view, the legal force of the first principles of practical reason is not fully actualized until one recognizes the divine institution sanctioning them. [End Page 981]All the authors of the fourth group uphold that the natural law is fully a law on account of its divine origin and that it is also entirely natural insofar as it is naturally known by human reason. Herein Brock places commentators of Saint Thomas such as Francisco Suarez, Dominic Farrell, Lawrence Dewan, and himself. He also includes in this last group other philosophers such as G. E. M. Anscombe and Peter Geach. In the course of his whole study, Brock shows how Aquinas's true position differs from the other members of this group. Special attention is given to the differences between Aquinas's true mind and the interpretations offered by Suarez, Farrell, and, to a certain degree, even by Dewan. In order to better appreciate the depth of this process, I have found it very helpful to read Farrell's The Natural Law According to Aquinas and Suarez in conjunction with Brock's work.The second chapter targets the natural law's legal character in its dependence to the eternal law. It proves that Thomas provides a strict definition of the natural law when he says that it is nothing but a participation of the eternal law in the rational creature. This chapter opens with a historical study concerning the influence of the Summa Fratri Alexandri in the Summa theologiae (ST). Aquinas's understanding of the dependence of the natural law on the eternal law turns out to be more systematic and refined. It is based on a fuller comprehension and development of what law is (the ratio legis).The remainder of the second chapter consists in a superb commentary regarding ST, I-II, q. 91, a. 2, on whether something existing in man is fit to be called a natural law. Promulgation is the element of the definition of law that specifies the different kinds of laws. Hence, the natural law is differentiated from the others by its natural promulgation, namely, by the act through which the order of the eternal law (already instituted by God... (shrink)

The formal systems of logic have ordinarily been regarded as independent of biology, but recent developments in evolutionary theory suggest that biology and logic may be intimately interrelated. In this book, William Cooper outlines a theory of rationality in which logical law emerges as an intrinsic aspect of evolutionary biology. This biological perspective on logic, though at present unorthodox, could change traditional ideas about the reasoning process. Cooper examines the connections between logic and evolutionary biology and illustrates how logical rules (...) are derived directly from evolutionary principles, and therefore have no independent status of their own. Laws of decision theory, utility theory, induction, and deduction are reinterpreted as natural consequences of evolutionary processes. Cooper's connection of logical law to evolutionary theory ultimately results in a unified foundation for an evolutionary science of reason. It will be of interest to professionals and students of philosophy of science, logic, evolutionary theory, and cognitive science. (shrink)

This is a defense of John Stuart Mill’s proof of the principle of utility in the fourth chapter of his Utilitarianism. The proof is notorious as a fallacious attempt by a prominent philosopher, who ought not to have made the elementary mistakes he is supposed to have made. This book shows that he did not. The aim is not to glorify utilitarianism, in a full sweep, as the best normative ethical theory, or even to vindicate, on a more (...) specific level, Mill’s universalistic ethical hedonism as the best form of utilitarianism. The book is concerned only with Mill’s utilitarianism, and primarily with his proof of the principle of utility. The purpose is to show that Mill proceeds intelligibly and systematically in pursuing a well-defined project in the fourth chapter of Utilitarianism, and that he successfully defends what he sets out to establish in his proof of the principle of utility. (shrink)

The paper deals with the correlation between the justification of morality and the justifi­cation of utilitarian normative ethics in the two treatises of Jeremy Bentham: An Intro­duction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation and Deontology. In the Introduction, the general requirement of morality (‘promote the good of others’) is considered justified because a) it is integrated into the structure of the principle of utility and only contingent to the concurring principles (the principle of asceticism and the (...) principle of sympathy and antipathy), b) the two concurring principles cannot withstand rational criticism, c) the list of principles is closed. There are two additional strategies to justify morality in the treatise. Bentham claims that the advantages of having a reputation of a trustworthy person are a sufficient reason to hold burdensome obligations. At the same time, he in­sists that an agent cannot persuade other people that her moral judgments are right unless these jugments are grounded in her recognition of the equal non-instrumental value of ev­ery person. In the Deontology, Bentham expands on the second strategy – the identifica­tion of moral virtue (duty) with the correctly understood personal interest of an agent. First, he proposes such a conception of moral virtue (duty) where sacrifices and efforts made by a person of prudence, probity, and beneficence are interpreted as the result of a clash among her own interests. Then, he demonstrates that the system of sanctions (sympathetic, religious, physical, moral, political) peculiar to human societies makes ad­vantages brought by breaches of prudence, probity, and beneficence illusory. (shrink)

Public health ethics is a subfield of bioethics that focuses on population health. This study aims to conform the principles of biomedical ethics to Islamic values in the context of public health. It culturally helps to optimize health care delivery. The approach is based on the method of immanent critique. The principle of the common good in Islam has a rational justification to draw public interests and ward off harms. The rule of “no harm”, with an emphasis on the (...) preferability of preventing harm to increase benefits, is consistent with the principle of utility, intending to produce a maximum balance of benefit over harm in the context of public health. Thus, on the one hand, the government is obliged to prevent harm and improve public benefits and, on the other hand, as a steward of health and with reference to the article “limitation of the ownership dominance”, it has the right to protect public health with the least justifiable harm. Islam attention to human dignity, individual justice and good will in the rule of goodness implies that Islam, beyond distributive justice, knows that human flourishing and the cultivation of moral virtues are a requisite for the realization of social justice. The present study discusses about the adjustment of the principles of PHE to the principles of the Islamic jurisprudence and, at the same time, it explains why the optimal PH in Muslim societies requires research in order to define accurate indicators of benefit and harm based on the teachings of revelation and reason. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to study the problem of inherent obscurity of the criterion for maximal utility in utilitarianism. For the sake of convenience of analysis, situations of moral actions are classified into four categories. It is shown that morality is flexible, especially in the positive sense, in that a virtuous action can be taken in various ways and/or to various degrees. For some situations it is inherently unclear what the moral requirement is, and whether it is (...) a maximum or a minimum. It is concluded that the schism of the principle of utility between the principle of the good and the principle of the right seems to be inevitable, and the interpretation of the ultimate criterion for maximal utility should be relaxed or interpreted separately and differently according to the situation of action. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to study the problem of inherent obscurity of the criterion for maximal utility in utilitarianism. For the sake of convenience of analysis, situations of moral actions are classified into four categories. It is shown that morality is flexible, especially in the positive sense, in that a virtuous action can be taken in various ways and/or to various degrees. For some situations it is inherently unclear what the moral requirement is, and whether it is (...) a maximum or a minimum. It is concluded that the schism of the principle of utility between the principle of the good and the principle of the right seems to be inevitable, and the interpretation of the ultimate criterion for maximal utility should be relaxed or interpreted separately and differently according to the situation of action. (shrink)

Classical utilitarianism is very demanding and entails some counter-intuitive implications in moral dilemmas such as the trolley problem in deontological ethics and the repugnant conclusion in population ethics. This article presents how one specific modification of utilitarianism can avoid these counter-intuitive implications. In this modified utilitarian theory, called ‘discounted’ or ‘mild’ utilitarianism, people have a right to discount the utilities of others, under the condition that people whose utility is discounted cannot validly complain against such discounting. A complaint made (...) by a utility discounted person is not valid if either the existence of the discounting people in that option is in a specific sense necessary or the existence of the discounted person is in a sense not necessary. According to mild utilitarianism, we should choose the option that maximizes the total validly discounted or complaint-free discounted utility, i e. the sum of everyone’s utility minus the complaint-free discounts. As there are two conditions that make a complaint invalid, this right to discount can be translated into two versions: the right to bodily autonomy and the right to procreation autonomy. The former right relates to the mere means principle in deontological ethics, the latter right is useful in avoiding the repugnant conclusion problem in population ethics. The possibility of democratically imposing an upper bound on the permissible amount of discounting is discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Dialogue:The Principle of Civility in Academic DiscourseForest HansenSeveral months ago New York Times columnist David Brooks addressed the lack of civility in recent public discourse. "So... you get narcissists who believe they or members of their party possess direct access to the truth.... You get people who prefer monologues to dialogue.... You get people who... loathe their political opponents."1One might think that by contrast academia, and especially (...) academic publications, would provide a bastion of civil discourse. Alas, even academia has been infiltrated. At least it so appears to me when I read some of what has been recently published in the name of the philosophy of music education.I find that disheartening.However one defines "philosophy," it minimally entails raising questions whose answers are reasonably debatable. The key word here is "reasonably." Those who are committed to philosophical activity criticize positions they oppose by formulating arguments, giving examples, calling on accepted facts, clarifying the meaning of terms, and bringing to bear the principles of formal and informal logic. And thus they open themselves to counter-criticism of the same [End Page 198] sort. Nowhere in this enterprise is there need—or room—for invective, sarcasm, name-calling, ad hominems, or any other kind of personal abuse. One might call this The Principle of Civility in Academic Discourse.Philosophy differs in this respect from polemics. In one of its senses "polemics" means "the art or practice of disputation or controversy," and so seems a close cousin to philosophy. However, while "philosophy" traces its etymological roots to "love" and "wisdom," "polemics" is derived from "war." Polemics is a kind of verbal warfare. Typically polemicists are willing to use any tool at their disposal—even underhanded ones—to "win" the war of ideas. Polemics in this usual sense dispenses with objectivity and fairness (though it may make such a pretense). In fact, people who mount personal attacks thereby reveal their lack of philosophical tools and diminish their argument.Distinguishing philosophy from polemics does not mean that all philosophical claims are equal. Some positions are stronger than others, some weaker. Some can be dismissed relatively out of hand if they are illogical or do not square with normal experience. But even when positions are inadequate, the persons who advance the positions deserve to be treated with courtesy, respect, and collegiality.Typically, people trained in philosophy assimilate this principle as a matter of course. They have learned that over the centuries great minds have disagreed about every philosophical issue—whether the make-up of ultimate reality, the nature and sources of knowledge, the existence of god, the justification of morality. So too with what the nature of music is, what music should be taught and how, what is the purpose of music education.No one has a corner on the answers to such questions. The floor should always be open to debate—to consideration of new proposals and reconsideration of old ones. In disciplines where some matters are more or less settled (as in natural science and mathematics), such arguments disappear and new quests hope to find new settled answers. But in philosophy, more fundamentally than in any other traditional academic discipline, the discussion, the reasoned argumentation, is ongoing.Many years ago Douglas Morgan, in his essay "Must Art Tell the Truth"2 eloquently captured this spirit of philosophy:Philosophy is itself to be conceived as an invitational, dialectical activity rather than as any system of dicta. A philosopher can be thought of as [one] who, far from commanding assent with any thunderous barrage of argumentative artillery, invites you to think [about] the world or some aspect of it in a somewhat different way. "Come in," [the philosopher] says cordially, "and welcome. Sit down. Let me mix you an idea. Sip this thought, and tell me how your own experience looks. If you should find my way of construing our [End Page 199] world unappetizing or unpromising, pray show me your way. Let us once again in the good old Greek way, dia-lego, talk it through together."Finally, The Principle of Civility in Academic Discourse ought to be conveyed in our classrooms, as we foster new generations in... (shrink)

Mill argues that the ultimate sanction of any moral standard is the conscientious desire to do right in accordance with that standard. The expediency of external sanctions is a separate issue and has nothing to do with the identification of right or wrong actions. He also argues that utilitarianism as he conceives it provides the only genuine moral standard for humanity because the desire to do right in terms of ‘utility in the largest sense’ is a natural (...) outgrowth of our natural desire for social unity. All other moral standards lack a solid footing in human nature: any desire to do right in their terms is merely an artificial compound feeling produced by early conditioning and mechanical associations of ideas that cannot withstand the dissolving force of analysis. Mill emphasizes that his enlarged utilitarian moral standard gives absolute priority to considerations of liberal justice and equal rights for all. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I II III.

Some people have supposed that utility is good in itself, non-in-strumentally good, as distinct from good because conducive to other good things. And in modern versions of this view, utility often means want-satisfaction, as distinct from pleasure or happiness. For your want that p to be satisfied, is it necessary that you know or believe that p, or sufficient merely that p is true? However that question is answered, there are problems with the view that want-satisfaction is a (...) non-instrumental good. What if you want something only because you have a false belief? What if the time at which you want that p is fifty or five hundred years before the time to which p itself refers? To meet these difficulties, qualifications have to be introduced, and much has been written about how exactly these qualifications are to be framed.1 There is however what may be a rather more serious objection to the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental good, or rather to the combination of that view with the principle that it is sufficient for your want that p to be satisfied simply that p is true. The objection is that this combination forces you to give undue weight to the mere acquisition of desires when you come to make judgements about changes in the value of things. It forces you to say that for any true proposition p, which initially you do not want to be true, your mere acquisition of a desire that p will, other things being equal, make the world better. Non-instrumental value can be increased merely by multiplying desires, even though everything else remains the same. Surely, however, improving the world is not as easy as that. (shrink)

I show how the Cosmological Argument (CA) is undermined by one of its own premises: the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). First, I explain the type of CA that I am thinking about. Second, I explain a traditional modal objection against the PSR, which is ultimately based upon our intuitions in favor of contingency. Third, I show how this modal objection begs the question against the necessitarian, and then I reformulate the CA in more neutral terms. Fourth, using this (...) more neutral version of the CA, I argue that the main problem with the PSR goes way beyond its apparent necessitarian consequences. As an argument used by Bradley shows, embracing the rationalist path that underlies the PSR seems to commit us to a form of Radical Monism. I conclude by showing how this result ultimately undermines the CA. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 295-313 [Access article in PDF] The Ecology of Victorian Fiction Joseph Carroll I In the past ten years or so, ecological literary criticism--that is, criticism concentrating on the relationship between literature and the natural environment--has become one of the fastest-growing areas in literary study. Ecocritics now have their own professional association, their own academic journal, and an impressive bibliography of scholarly studies. Ecocritical scholars (...) divide their attention between "nature writing" and ecological themes within all literature. In other words, some scholars write on Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Annie Dillard; others write on topics such as the representation of nature in romantic poetry, the American West as a symbol, metaphors of landscape, or Dante's Inferno as a polluted ecosystem. Ecocritics have a distinct subject matter, and they share in a certain broad set of attitudes, values, and public policy concerns, but they do not yet have a firmly established framework of commonly accepted theoretical principles. In the absence of any overarching theory, ecocritics have usually sought to incorporate their ecological subject matter within other, already established theoretical schools: feminism, Bakhtin's dialogism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, or English romantic and American transcendentalist, idealist philosophy. Most commonly, ecocritics have affiliated themselves with the standard contemporary blend of Foucauldian ideological criticism--a blend that is vaguely Marxist and Freudian, generally radical, and strongly tinctured with deconstructive irrationalism and textualism. 1Given its specialized themes and topics and its ready affiliation with the standard theoretical blend, ecocriticism might seem little more than a special topic area within the general field of contemporary [End Page 295] literary study. But ecocritics do not see their approach that way. They share in a feeling of being at the forefront of critical response to an urgent practical problem of world-historical magnitude: the prospect of irreversible environmental devastation. They thus have a strong sense of a political mission, and they often feel that the urgency of their environmental concerns should sanction realigning the canon to give much greater prominence to nature writers and to the study of ecological themes. In their view, the natural world claims a special status as the ultimate ground and frame of all existence. It is an object of peculiar veneration and of primary experiential importance.The special conceptual status of ecology as a theme and a topic necessarily raises a question about its theoretical import. If the subject of ecocriticism is the relation of literature and the natural world, and if this relation is more important and more elemental than any other concern, does it not follow that ecocriticism should identify itself as a matrix for all literary study? To put the question operationally, in what way could ecology, as a subject matter and a concept, generate a theory of literature? Since the relation between organisms and natural environments is a necessary precondition of all experience, one could reasonably argue that the special topic of ecocriticism is more elemental than the topics of feminism, Marxism, or any other form of political criticism, and that the basic physical conditions of organic life take conceptual precedence over semiotics and theories of "culture" and "discourse."I shall argue that ecology cannot by itself generate a theory of literature or serve as the basis for a theory of literature, but I shall also argue that responsiveness to the sense of place is an elemental component of the evolved human psyche and that it thus can and should be integrated into a Darwinian literary theory. E. O. Wilson's notion of "biophilia" provides a Darwinian alternative to the ecological transcendentalism of "deep ecology," and the evolutionary epistemology of Konrad Lorenz provides a Darwinian rationale for locating the human psyche within its physical world. In constructing a bridge between the evolutionary epistemology of Lorenz and the idea of place within verbal narrative, I shall make use of a new branch of Darwinian aesthetics, Joseph Anderson's "ecological" version of "cognitive film theory."In order to illustrate the ways in which setting can be integrated into a Darwinian literary criticism, in the latter part of the essay... (shrink)

This book is a thoroughgoing analysis, interpretation, and defense of John Stuart Mill's proof of the principle of utility. It answers the traditional charges levelled against that proof, supports a comprehensive interpretation by painstaking study of Mill's text in Utilitarianism , and marshals arguments on behalf of utility as the first principle of morality. Universal Justice is dedicated to the advancement of justice conceived globally. It publishes interpretations of the history of thought as well as original (...) monographs and collective volumes, including work related to the activities of the International Society for Universalism. (shrink)

Wilson derives various broad philosophical morals from the scientific role played by the Principle of Virtual Work. He argues roughly that PVW conditionals cannot be understood in terms of things as large as possible worlds; that PVW conditionals are peculiar and so cannot be accommodated by general accounts of counterfactuals, thereby reflecting the piecemeal character of scientific practice and standing at odds with the one-size-fits-all approach of “analytic metaphysicians”; and that PVW counterfactuals are not made true partly by natural (...) laws. I distinguish, elaborate and critically examine various arguments for these morals suggested by the PVW and Wilson’s text, looking especially at what makes a displacement “virtual” and the operation of the conditionals that the PVW takes to express necessary and sufficient conditions for equilibrium. Ultimately, I do not find the PVW to be especially well suited to support Wilson’s morals; some of these arguments fail, whereas others arise from general considerations rather than having to appeal to anything like the PVW. (shrink)

I examine Leibniz’s version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason with respect to free will, paying particular attention to Peter van Inwagen’s argument that this principle leads to determinism. Ultimately I conclude that Leibniz’s formulation is incompatible with free will. I then discuss a reformulation of the Principle of Sufficient Reason endorsed by Alexander Pruss that, I argue, manages to both retain the strength of Leibniz’s formulation and remain consistent with free will.