QUALITATIVE

UTILITARIANISM

of John Stuart Mill

Mill’s concept of Utilitarianism in
Five concepts
1. Pleasure is the only thing that is
desirable.

2. The only proof that a thing is desirable is

the fact that people do actually desire it.
3. Each person’s own pleasure or happiness
is a good to that person, so the general
happiness is a good to everybody.

4. Men do desire other objects, but they

desire them as a means to pleasure.
5.If one of two pleasures is preferred by
those who are competently acquainted
with both, we are justified in saying that
this preferred pleasure is superior in
quality to the other.
 REMEMBER
• Utilitarianism in its common forms
subscribes to ethical hedonism and as
such it sets pleasure as the moral
standard.
• Pleasure alone is morally good.
• HOWEVER, the word pleasure may be
understood in different senses.
 J.S. Mill
• Sensuous pleasure is a pleasure of inferior
quality, while pleasure of the mind or
intellectual pleasure is of superior quality.

• HENCE, Mill’s doctrine is refined

utilitarianism as contrasted to Bentham’s
gross untilitarianism.
• FOR Bentham and Mill, the HUMAN MIND
CAN DESIRE PLEASURE ALONE and
nothing else – this is PSYCHOLOGICAL
HEDONISM.
 PLEASURE IS DESIRABLE
• “The only proof capable of being given that
an object is visible is that people see it.
The only proof, that a sound is audible is
that people hear it, the sole evidence that
everything is desirable is that people do
actually desire it.”

• ALL PERSONS DESIRE PLEASURE, so

pleasure is desirable.
 INTELLECTUAL PLEASURE
vs. BODILY PLEASURE

• Competent judges will always prefer

intellectual pleasure over bodily/sensual
pleasure.
• If there is a conflict of opinion among
competent judges, we should abide by the
verdict of the majority of them.
WHY WOULD COMPETENT JUDGES
prefer intellectual pleasure?

- “sense of dignity” – which is natural to

man.
- It is an account of its existence that no
man would consent to be changed into
any of the lower animals capable of
sensual pleasure alone.
“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied
than a pig satisfied; better to
be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool
Satisfied.”
• Like Bentham, Mill’s hedonism is altruistic,
but unlike Bentham, Mill gave a reason for
the same, to wit:

“The utilitarian standard of what is right in

conduct, is not the agent’s happiness but
that of all concerned.”
 Happiness of self and of others
• Utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly
impartial as a disinterested and
benevolent spectator.

• “No reason can be given why the general

happiness is desirable except that each
person, so far as he believes it to be
attainable, desires his own happiness.”
• Each person’s happiness is a good to that
person, and the general happiness,
therefore, is a good to the aggregate of all
persons.
• A’s happiness is a good to A. B’s
happiness is a good to B. C’s happiness is
a good to C. THEREFORE, general
happiness is a GOOD TO ALL.
 EGOISM to ALTRUISM
• Altruism grows out of egoism – sympathy
or fellow-feeling, out of self-love in the life
time of an individual according to the laws
of association and transference of interest
from the end to the means.
• At first we were egoists and relieved the
miseries of others in order to relieve our
own pain.
• THEN by repetition our own interest was
transferred from the end to the means; we
forgot our own pleasure, and came to take
delight in relieving the miseries of others,
and acquired sympathy. THUS, sympathy
is acquired by the individual in his own life
time.
 Moral Obligation to pursue
General Happiness

• Due to external sanctions and internal

sanction of conscience (in contrast to
Bentham’s external sanctions of physical,
social, religious and political).
 Internal Sanctions
• Refers to sympathy, fellow-feeling, social
feeling of mankind, a feeling for the
happiness of mankind, a desire to be in
unity with our fellow creatures.
• “The internal sanction of duty is a feeling
in our own mind, a pain, more or less
intense, attendant on violation of duty.
This feeling when disinterested, and
connecting itself with the pure idea of duty,
is the essence of conscience.”
 CRITICISMS
1. Happiness is not the same thing as
pleasure.

“Happiness is the feeling of the whole

self, as opposed to pleasure, a feeling of
some one aspect of self; that happiness
is permanent, as opposed to pleasure
which is temporary and related to a
particular activity.” Dewey
• “Happiness lied in the harmony of
pleasures while pleasure arises from the
gratification of a single isolated desire.”
Dewey
• Happiness is the feeling that accompanies
the systematization of desires.
PLEASURE is the feeling that arises from
the fulfillment of a single desire.
• Pleasure is not the direct object of desire,
but the consequence of the fulfillment of
desire. The more we seek pleasure, the
less we get it. This is the PARADOX of
hedonism.
Mill’s proof of Ethical Hedonism
• An object is visible if people actually see it.
An object is audible if people actually hear
it. An object is desirable if people actually
desire it.
• In fact, we actually desire pleasure
THEREFORE, pleasure is desirable.
 Fallacy of Figure of Speech
• Mill confounds the word “desirable” with
the words “capable of being desired.”

• Desirable is what ought to be desired, not

that which is capable of being desired.

• The ‘desirable’ is not the normal object of

desire, but the proper or reasonable object
of desire.
• What is capable of being seen is visible.
What is capable of being heard is audible.
But what is capable of being desired is not
desirable.
• What ought to be desired is desirable.
QUIZ
1. Differentiate Bentham’s Quantitative
Utilitarianism from Mill’s Qualitative
Utilitarianism. (15 points)
2. For Mill, what is superior, intellectual
pleasure or sensual pleasure. Explain.
(15 points)
3. Explain “desirable” from “capable of being
desired” based on Mill’s theory of
utilitarianism (15 points)