Mill notes Pleasure and happiness (hedonism) Mill versus Bentham on utilitarianism and hedonism o Hedonism: pleasure or pleasantness

ss is the only good-making property (the only thing good in itself) and the sole constituent of happiness All other things, when considered good, are because they are pleasurable (intrinsic vs extrinsic value) - only valuable insofar as they bring about pleasure Hence the desirable life (good/happy life) consists of pleasurable experiences. Similarly, pain is the only bad-making property (the only thing bad itself) Mill: "By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure." (2.2, Utilitarianism) o Benthams conception Pleasure and pain are both quantitative and commensurable how pleasurable/painful an experience is is a function of intensity and duration Measurable by felcific calculus Hence it is easy to pick between two alternative experiences/courses of action - simply weigh associated pleasure/pain Criticisms: To suppose that life has no higher end than pleasure - no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit - they designate as utterly mean and grovelling, as a doctrine worthy only of swine. (Utilitarianism) Response (Mill): o Human beings are capable of greater pleasure than swine because they possess intellect and higher faculties and can experience pleasure through them o The pleasures of the mind are of the same nature as physical pleasures, but are of a greater quantitative value because of their circumstances (eg. permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc) they are greater than baser pleasures because of their greater duration and intensity. o Mills conception Pleasure and pain are not merely quantitative, they are also qualitative "It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more

desirable and valuable than others. it would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone." (2.4, Utilitarianism) Distinction between higher pleasures (intellectual/aesthetic/moral) and lower pleasures (sensualist - playing pushpin) Higher pleasures can be ranked over lower without considering intensity/duration discontinuities in value between two kinds of pleasures, ordinal instead of cardinal ranking Competent judges: If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account. (2.5, Utilitarianism) Informed preference test o Competent judges are those who have experienced both higher and lower pleasures and judge that the former is more valuable Note: the higher is not higher merely because the competent judges say so, rather the fact that it is ranked as such leads us to believe that it is higher judging quality as analogous to judging quantity Hence a competent judge would not sacrifice the higher pleasure for any amount of the lower one, even if the higher pleasure comes with a great amount of discontent as well. o Even though a fool or an ignorant man is more satisfied with life, no learned person would choose to be a fool, for he would consider this to be of a lower existence. o Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied o Those who claim otherwise are confusing happiness with contentment This unwillingness Mill attributes to a sense of dignity, which he claims humans of higher intellect possess more of. A learned man has a higher capacity for pleasure and suffering, because he can experience both physical and mental pleasure. A fool, however, can only experience physical pleasure, and

would therefore have a lower capacity for pleasure, which means that he is satisfied more easily. Still, the learned man would never sacrifice his dissatisfaction with the imperfection of the world for the fools satisfaction and ignorance of this imperfection. o Crisp's thought experiment: Haydn and the oyster. Imagine you are given a choice between the short life of Haydn, validated by artistic fulfilment and glory, and the unending life of an oyster, mildly pleasurable. Benthamite hedonism dictates that we must pick the oyster. At some point the pleasure contained within its life will outweight that of Haydns (duration will outstrip intensity). Yet most people would not make that choice Mills utilitarianism may explain their choice Criticisms of Mills qualitative utilitarianism o Anti-hedonistic Dilemma: Either quality is reducible to quantity and Mills philosophy has not moved beyond Bentham's, or he can no longer consider himself a hedonist. If Mill is a hedonist: only goodmaking property is pleasure, and therefore adding pleasure to the oyster MUST tip it in its favour. o To claim otherwise means positing another quality as good-making this is what Mill seems to be doing if he states that higher and lower pleasures are incommensurable for any reason other than pleasurableness o Counter: value of pleasure dependent on NATURE as well as duration and intensity. However: Mill's tendency to talk about 'nobility' of higher pleasures such that it may seem to be itself a good-making property. 'Nobility' of higher pleaures is reason for greater value - but then can nobility not be valuable on its own? If a noble experience is not pleasurable, can it still have value? o Problem with competent judges Can these judges ever exist? May be the case that characteristics required to appreciate higher pleasures are in direct opposition to those required for lower.

May be that although a competent judge rejects a brutish life, it does not neccessarily show that said life is made up of lower pleasures per se - merely that the life of a brute is undesirable for said competent judge, though it may very well be desirable for a brute. Unclear whether Mills test is applicable to general/longterm pursuits or instances of such pursuits. Reading plato once in our lives vs a regular diet of philosophy? o Simplistic dichotomy between higher/lower Distinctions within sensualist pleasures (fine dining vs McDs) Understand higher/lower as relative terms rather than definite categories The implications of this perspective is that the learned
man and the fool are not different in seeking the highest pleasure that they are aware of and are willing to pursue, and so there is nothing less good about the fool who seeks one kind of physical pleasure over another. It is not universal for some pleasures to be higher pleasures and some lower

o Elitism Intellectual snobbery! Epicurean will take umbrage at suggestion that his/her pursuits are less valuable than that of a philosophy lover However: caveats about Mill's philosophy Mill is no Aristotle - does not suggest that individuals themselves do not have the final say on whether or not a personal experience of theirs is pleasurable. Does not countenance idea that everyone should be forced to give up lower for higher, as what matters is ultimately the pleasure derived from it. o Lexical view of welfare maximisation Crisp Secondary values such as lower pleasures are to be sought only after primary values have been promoted maximally ie. read ALL THE PLATO YOU CAN before even thinking of munching on a cupcake. Uh huh Mill (2:7) attempts to deal with this objection by arguing
that people do otherwise because of their infirmity of character, that it is out of weak will and folly that they choose lower pleasures. But not rly leh Other interesting things o Authenticity of experiences

Benthams utilitarianism: most straightforwardly understood as the claim that certain experiences (mental states) are valuable experiences (experience account) Anything that happens beyond your conscious awareness and does not affect that cannot affect your welfare (eg. person spying on you)

Criticisms: o Brain in the vat, where pleasurable experiences are manufactured Mills hedonism may be understood to place a special value on the genuine (veridical) experience of certain activities. The value of authenticity Buuuttt: o Genuineness cannot be a source of welfare value, or a good-making property, since that would require dropping hedonism o WWMD? He claims value of someone's pleasures depends partly on being genuine (pleasurableness affected by genuineness) BUT THEN he is moving towards an Aristotelian view, according to which how pleasurable an experience is is a matter to be judged not only by the person experiencing that experience.

Other accounts of well-being Act and rule utilitarianism Act utilitarianism o Direct moral theory o Judges directly whether or not an act is right/wrong based on whether it fits with the utilitarian principle of maximisation of happiness o Criterion of right action: whether or not an act generates the greatest possible happiness o Single-step procedure - consider an act itself o Object of calculating welfare maximisation: specific case Rule utilitarianism o Indirect moral theory o Rules dictate action and must be morally followed at all times o Rules formulated by judging the consequences of what would happen if the rule were constantly followed by the utilitarian principle o If an act is in accordance with a rule, it is a right action o Two-step procedure - refer to a rule that concerns a particular act o "Our rules are fashioned on utility; our conduct on rules." (Austin) o Object of calculating welfare maximisation: general rule Advantage of act over rule o Consistent measure recourse to highest welfare principle o Allows for flexibility Advantages of rule over act utilitarianism o Instances where adherence to act utilitarianism contradicts intuitive morality o Torturing an innocent person to save lives, breaking promises

o Rule utilitarianism dodges these by observing that these acts, if performed generally, would be anti-utilitarian o However: the application of rules may too in specific cases be antiutilitarian eg. Never harm a person - what about self-defense? However: We can come up with general exception rules to circumvent these instances o 'Too demanding' A moral agent cannot prioritise the welfare of a relative/friend/self over that of a stranger Logical conclusions are slightly ridiculous: give all your $ and time to charity, for instance Rule utilitarianism posits an 'ideal world' where everyone follows moral rules: can hold that a person need only give a fraction of income to charity (given that everyone follows this rule, it is fine!) o Insane task to compute the resultant happiness of every possible course of action Rule utilitarianism preferable as it is only necessary to observe general tendencies o Trust-based rules eg. promise keeping o Problem with act utilitarianism and consequence Forced to think of probable consequence Rule utilitarianism has performed calculus for you! Collapse of rule utilitarianism into act utilitarianism o Outcome of two-stage procedure, if consistently applied, will always coincide with that of a direct test o Mackie's reduction ad absurdum argument: Suppose act and rule are distinct. Then there must exist some individual act A on which they differ. (Rule forbidding A, of sort S, is called R.) Let this distinctive quality of A's (such that it is beneficial on one occasion, but not on the whole) be D. Hence there are SD acts and SnonD acts. Then there must be a better rule R' that forbids the latter. Hence a consistently worked out rule utilitarianism must always agree with act utilitarianism. o However: hard to represent rules as purely abstract entities reducible to symbols formulated at will Rules may be more of social traditions passed from generation to generation than a set of rigid guidelines To be propagated in this way there are only so many qualifications/provisions a rule can contain Lose assurance that people will conduct themselves accordingly if exceptions to rules are common Mill: rule utilitarian vs multi-level act utilitarian o Rule utilitarian

The creed which accepts as foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. (2.2, Utilitarianism). Mill speaks of 'tendencies' - characteristic of a group of acts. (J. O. Urmson, 1953) However: standard in utilitarian tradition to mean 'balance of happiness over unhappiness' when using 'tendencies' "Though the consequences in the particular case might be beneficial - it would be unworthy of an intelligent agent not to be consciously aware that the action is of a class which, if practiced generally, would be generally injurious, and that this is the ground of the obligation to abstain from it. Eg. an individual who does not pay taxes (Fuchs, 2005) However, when Mill speaks of 'obligation to abstain from it', the agent's obligation not to perform her action arises from her recognition that her action can bring about detrimental consequences to society (ie. act utilitarian), and not an obligation to conform to a rule. o Multi-level act utilitarian Mill observed the 'too demanding' failure of act utilitarianism Criterion of right action (judging right/wrongness of action) and decision-making procedure Single-level vs multi-level utilitarianism Single-level: constant conscious and deliberate reference to utilitarian principles when making decisions o Only one level of consideration with regards to making moral decisions Multi-level: Mill's 'customary morality' (secondary principles) o Human beings have throughout history developed customary morality based on utility, which we should use as 'rules of thumb' Rules of thumb (heuristics) do not imply rule utilitarianism - not first principles in themselves, based on standard of act utilitarianism, function to save time and effort Most act utilitarians agree on the need for such rules for practicalitys sake however, if consequences can be easily

calculated then rules of thumb may be ignored o Customary morality does not impact criterion of right action, merely decision-making o Reference to utilitarian principle (back to first principles) should only be made in event that customary morality cannot resolve a moral dilemma - time efficient and reliable to use customary morality otherwise Actualism and probabilism (just being kiasu here) o Doctor example Two treatments available for a serious medical condition: first will leave you with high welfare, second with low. But there is only a 1% of success for the first; if it fails, you die. The second will undoubtedly succeed. o Actualism Takes into account the actual, manifested consequences The right action in any circumstance takes into account only what actually would happen Does it mean we can only judge actions retrospectively? Does not serve any decision-making purpose o Probabilism Account of rightness in terms of what the agent is justified in believing at time of action In assessing rightness/wrongness resultant welfare ought to be multiplied by probabilities of occurrence

Objections to consequentialism Williams objection failure to consider agents integrity o Examples George: a chemist whose only job opportunity is working for a company conducting research into biochemical warfare, which runs counter to his personal ethical system. Yet if he turns it down it is likely that someone less scrupled than him will accept the job. Jim: a traveller in a South American town facing a group of Indians waiting to be executed. Their executor tells Jim that as a welcome gift he may kill one of the Indians personally, permitting the rest to walk free. If he chooses not to do so, they will be killed as per original plan. o Utilitarian solution to these dilemmas is obvious, but we still have misgivings o Williams argument Projects and commitments Higher-order vs lower-order projects K idk if this is really useful so whatever Attack on integrity

Practical deliberation is in every case first-personal, and he first person is not derivative or naturally replaced by [the impersonal] anyone (Williams, 1985) It is absurd to demand of such a man it is to alienate him in a real sense from his actions and the source of his actions in his own convictions. It is to make him into a channel between the input of everyone's projects, including his own, and an output of optimific decision; but this is to neglect the extent to which his actions and his decisions have to be seen as the actions and decisions which flow from the projects and attitudes with which he is most closely identified. It is an attack on his integrity. (Williams, 1985) Integrity requires that persons act out of their own convictions, out of commitments with which they deeply identify Central to our first-person, autonomous existence that we act for reasons that are our own and not superimposed upon us by some alien imperative Unthinkable that an agent should be able to wholly renounce all personal projects in favour of a completely impartial perspective Forced agent to serve as a sub-human conduit for the furtherance of the projects of others, with no prioritisation of his own above them Loss of integrity is almost dehumanising, forfeiting a persons agency to a utilitarian collective superagent Reconciling utilitarianism with this objection Make act-utilitarianism less stringent o Give personal projects/commitments more weight in the calculator Distinguish between criterion of right action and decision-making procedure o Act-utilitarianism must circumscribe itself to the former, cannot tell agents what decisions to make (eg betraying their convictions) o But: Wtf then is the practical point Just be heartless utilitarianism need not respect integrity o Ends may justify means Utilitarianism does not necessarily demand that agents act contrary to their personal convictions o Assume everyone lives according to utilitarian principles (as they should according to utilitarianism)

o Utilitarian convictions should hence take precedence o Dilemma only brought about if we assume non-utilitarians forced to act according to utilitarian lines Nagels objection absolutism o Absolutism: the view that there exist certain moral edicts that must be fulfilled without exceptions (eg. Do not kill the innocent) Not a substitute for consequentialism instead a check or limit on its standard processes Distinction between allowing and doing Utilitarianism gives primacy to a concern with what will happen. Absolutism gives primacy to a concern with what one is doing. (Nagel) Letting someone die vs killing someone People should not be treated as means to an end (like Kant!), treament should always be appropriate to its object Eg. Warfare: do not attack messengers/civilians/medical officers and noncombatants in general they are not the true objects of hostility o Objections Represents mere moral self-interest: prioritises preserving ones moral purity over concern for general moral good However: o Impossible for ones primary motivation to be preserving moral purity If one betrays moral purity to commit murder murder must already have been wrong if it is against moral purity One cannot sacrifice moral integrity to pursue a higher end it would by definition be morally good to do so Limited applicability Use Jim example (difference perhaps due to appropriate targets of hostility) Threshold situations o Where absolutist reasons are not adequate justification for violating utilitarian principle (or vice versa) o Moral blind alleys where we are left with no recourse to guiding principles

Proof of utilitarianism Justice and utilitarianism Mills concept of justice

o Six spheres identified by Mill 1) Legal rights 2) Moral rights 3) Just desserts 3) Contractual injustice as reneging on a promise 4) Impartiality irrelevant factors (race/sex) do not impact judgments 6) Equality Common threat between these spheres notion of justice has its roots in idea of conformity to law Law meaning both legislature as well as ideal laws that are not legally enforced but we nevertheless feel should be applied o Obligations, rights and duties Perfect vs imperfect obligation Perfect imperative o Binding without exceptions, mandatory o Duty to fulfil perfect obligation Imperfect not an imperative o Agent has autonomy in deciding when, and wrt whom to discharge the obligation o eg. Giving to charity: doing so is morally right, but failing to do so does not violate someones rights For every perfectly obligated person there is a person with a corresponding right Justice in these terms Something which is not only right to do and wrong not to do, but which some individual person can claim from us as his moral right. Injustice when a wrong [is] done, and [there exists] some assignable person who is wronged o When someones rights have been infringed o Justice two key components The belief that someone has been harmed The desire to punish the perpetrator of said harm Dual origins: o Natural impulse to defend oneself Evolutionary origins: animal instinct to harm those who attempt to harm oneself/ones young o Natural feeling of sympathy humans have for one another ** Evolutionary origins: human sympathies differ from animals in 1) their extension to all sentient beings (not just oneself and ones young) and 2) complexity From ** - social dimension to justice/morality Moral facts as the subordination of it to the social sympathies, so as to wait on and obey their call.

Justice is a sentiment in response to those actions of the kind which society has a common interest [with just people] in the repression of Customary morality (created by society on utilitarian principles) protects these individual rights Justice makes sure customary morality is obeyed, individual rights are respected, and utility is promoted Hence justice serves utilitarianism, a higher level tool Accounts for strength of our feelings of justice justice is intrinsically linked to an essential source of utility ie. security, which allows us to live without fear of domination by those stronger than us o Hence justice does not exist as a standard per se Secondary principle within Mills multi-level utilitarianism, a rule of thumb Objections o Flawed conception of relationship between duties, rights and justice Duties to people beget rights, but not respecting these rights/duties are not unjust per se eg. rape/murder Unjust when duties are violated, though rights are not violated eg. I care for a billionaire until he dies, but he does not leave me anything in his will Justice does not always correspond to duties eg. accepting an invitation to a party not unjust if I pangseh, though I had a duty not to o Strength of the feeling of justice + fact that it sometimes runs counter to utilitarianism Sheriff example Murder spree in a small town. Sheriff may execute vagrant who he knows is innocent, or face the wrath of an angry mob threatening to unleash deadly riots Justice only served by sparing vagrant, although utilitarianism does not recommend this Slavery example Stuff I still dont really understand o Distributive justice Unequal society with one class of really happy people and one class of really unhappy people, vs one where everyone is kind of mildly happy Mill must accept the first society if it yields more net utility, counter to notions of distributive justice/equality

If we want to reconcile utilitarianism with justice in this case, the former must recommend that we disregard individual utility or happiness Justice then seems to be a trump against utilitarian considerations (Dworkin, 1984)