1863
UTILITARIANISM
by John Stuart Mill
Chapter 1
General Remarks.
THERE ARE few circumstances among those which make up the present
condition of human knowledge, more unlike what might have been
expected, or more significant of the backward state in which
speculation on the most important subjects still lingers, than the
little progress which has been made in the decision of the controversy
respecting the criterion of right and wrong. From the dawn of
philosophy, the question concerning the summum bonum, or, what is
the same thing, concerning the foundation of morality, has been
accounted the main problem in speculative thought, has occupied the
most gifted intellects, and divided them into sects and schools,
carrying on a vigorous warfare against one another. And after more
than two thousand years the same discussions continue, philosophers
are still ranged under the same contending banners, and neither
thinkers nor mankind at large seem nearer to being unanimous on the
subject, than when the youth Socrates listened to the old
Protagoras, and asserted (if Plato's dialogue be grounded on a real
conversation) the theory of utilitarianism against the popular
morality of the so-called sophist.
It is true that similar confusion and uncertainty, and in some cases
similar discordance, exist respecting the first principles of all
the sciences, not excepting that which is deemed the most certain of
them, mathematics; without much impairing, generally indeed without
impairing at all, the trustworthiness of the conclusions of those
sciences. An apparent anomaly, the explanation of which is, that the
detailed doctrines of a science are not usually deduced from, nor
depend for their evidence upon, what are called its first
principles. Were it not so, there would be no science more precarious,
or whose conclusions were more insufficiently made out, than
algebra; which derives none of its certainty from what are commonly
taught to learners as its elements, since these, as laid down by
some of its most eminent teachers, are as full of fictions as
English law, and of mysteries as theology. The truths which are
ultimately accepted as the first principles of a science, are really
the last results of metaphysical analysis, practised on the elementary
notions with which the science is conversant; and their relation to
the science is not that of foundations to an edifice, but of roots
to a tree, which may perform their office equally well though they
be never dug down to and exposed to light. But though in science the
particular truths precede the general theory, the contrary might be
expected to be the case with a practical art, such as morals or
legislation. All action is for the sake of some end, and rules of
action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character
and colour from the end to which they are subservient. When we
engage in a pursuit, a clear and precise conception of what we are
pursuing would seem to be the first thing we need, instead of the last
we are to look forward to. A test of right and wrong must be the
means, one would think, of ascertaining what is right or wrong, and
not a consequence of having already ascertained it.
The difficulty is not avoided by having recourse to the popular
theory of a natural faculty, a sense or instinct, informing us of
right and wrong. For- besides that the existence of such- a moral
instinct is itself one of the matters in dispute- those believers in
it who have any pretensions to philosophy, have been obliged to
abandon the idea that it discerns what is right or wrong in the
particular case in hand, as our other senses discern the sight or
sound actually present. Our moral faculty, according to all those of
its interpreters who are entitled to the name of thinkers, supplies us
only with the general principles of moral judgments; it is a branch of
our reason, not of our sensitive faculty; and must be looked to for
the abstract doctrines of morality, not for perception of it in the
concrete. The intuitive, no less than what may be termed the
inductive, school of ethics, insists on the necessity of general laws.
They both agree that the morality of an individual action is not a
question of direct perception, but of the application of a law to an
individual case. They recognise also, to a great extent, the same
moral laws; but differ as to their evidence, and the source from which
they derive their authority. According to the one opinion, the
principles of morals are evident a priori, requiring nothing to
command assent, except that the meaning of the terms be understood.
According to the other doctrine, right and wrong, as well as truth and
falsehood, are questions of observation and experience. But both
hold equally that morality must be deduced from principles; and the
intuitive school affirm as strongly as the inductive, that there is
a science of morals. Yet they seldom attempt to make out a list of the
a priori principles which are to serve as the premises of the science;
still more rarely do they make any effort to reduce those various
principles to one first principle, or common ground of obligation.
They either assume the ordinary precepts of morals as of a priori
authority, or they lay down as the common groundwork of those
maxims, some generality much less obviously authoritative than the
maxims themselves, and which has never succeeded in gaining popular
acceptance. Yet to support their pretensions there ought either to
be some one fundamental principle or law, at the root of all morality,
or if there be several, there should be a determinate order of
precedence among them; and the one principle, or the rule for deciding
between the various principles when they conflict, ought to be
self-evident.
To inquire how far the bad effects of this deficiency have been
mitigated in practice, or to what extent the moral beliefs of
mankind have been vitiated or made uncertain by the absence of any
distinct recognition of an ultimate standard, would imply a complete
survey and criticism, of past and present ethical doctrine. It
would, however, be easy to show that whatever steadiness or
consistency these moral beliefs have, attained, has been mainly due to
the tacit influence of a standard not recognised. Although the
non-existence of an acknowledged first principle has made ethics not
so much a guide as a consecration of men's actual sentiments, still,
as men's sentiments, both of favour and of aversion, are greatly
influenced by what they suppose to be the effects of things upon their
happiness, the principle of utility, or as Bentham latterly called it,
the greatest happiness principle, has had a large share in forming the
moral doctrines even of those who most scornfully reject its
authority. Nor is there any school of thought which refuses to admit
that the influence of actions on happiness is a most material and even
predominant consideration in many of the details of morals, however
unwilling to acknowledge it as the fundamental principle of
morality, and the source of moral obligation. I might go much further,
and say that to all those a priori moralists who deem it necessary
to argue at all, utilitarian arguments are indispensable. It is not my
present purpose to criticise these thinkers; but I cannot help
referring, for illustration, to a systematic treatise by one of the
most illustrious of them, the Metaphysics of Ethics, by Kant. This
remarkable man, whose system of thought will long remain one of the
landmarks in the history of philosophical speculation, does, in the
treatise in question, lay down a universal first principle as the
origin and ground of moral obligation; it is this: "So act, that the
rule on which thou actest would admit of being adopted as a law by all
rational beings." But when he begins to deduce from this precept any
of the actual duties of morality, he fails, almost grotesquely, to
show that there would be any contradiction, any logical (not to say
physical) impossibility, in the adoption by all rational beings of the
most outrageously immoral rules of conduct. All he shows is that the
consequences of their universal adoption would be such as no one would
choose to incur.
On the present occasion, I shall, without further discussion of
the other theories, attempt to contribute something towards the
understanding and appreciation of the Utilitarian or Happiness theory,
and towards such proof as it is susceptible of. It is evident that
this cannot be proof in the ordinary and popular meaning of the
term. Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof.
Whatever can be proved to be good, must be so by being shown to be a
means to something admitted to be good without proof. The medical
art is proved to be good by its conducing to health; but how is it
possible to prove that health is ...
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