Utilitarianism J.s. Mill Pdf
Leoma Cianchetti
Now the way that helps us here is that it shows that individual happiness is not always what we might call a fungible commodity. And because piggish pleasures and philosophical pleasures are incommensurable, sacrificing the happiness of one Socrates even for the sake of a million happy pigs need not be a good utilitarian bargain. But that only gets us so far. Presumably the pleasures of humans are more nearly commensurable, even if they can be ranked in terms of higher and lower pleasures, and thus more likely to be fungible in the above sense. So you might be tempted to conclude that it would be a good utilitarian bargain to trade the happiness of one former philosopher turned crusading lawyer for the happiness of a million ordinary Janes and Joes.
I mentioned on the other tag for this blog that I had procured a copy of Mill's Three Essays... One of those happens to discuss the utility of religion. On page 51 (part of the essay entitled: Nature) he talks about veracity: "Veracity might seem, of all virtues, to have the most plausible claim of being natural, since in the absence of motives to the contrary, speech usually conforms to, or at least does not intentionally deviate from, fact. Accordingly, this is the virtue with which writers like Rousseau delight in decorating savage life, and setting it in advantageous contrast with the treachery and trickery of civilization..." But,"Savages are always liars. They have not the faintest notion of truth as a virtue."So, if we take his thought at face value, a conclusion might go something like: we have a lot of savages living in our civilized midst. I believe that conclusion is not so far from truth. This further illustrates the problem discussed in your Fake News post, since virtue means nothing to those who advance their own agendas. Have not yet secured a copy of Mill's Utilitarianism---that would seem to have his definitive stance on same. I'll wade through Three Essays first...
Today, finished reading Mill's extended essay on utilitarianism. He is kind of tricky; kind of cagey on this topic. But, in an overall assessment of his intention, he appears to have placed utilitarianism as a function of happiness (or maybe the other way round). Anyway, he talks about things like justice; expediency and a whole lot more in about fifty-three pages, mentioning such contemporary luminaries (?) as Bentham and Herbert Spencer. So, whether his is a purely utilitarian stance or not, is difficult to ascertain, but his emphasis on happiness is pretty clear. The 'function of' aspect I see seems to show him trying to have things both ways, as I alluded to previously. Here's an unlikely (yet, perhaps, not impossible) alternative: maybe he did not wish, at the time, to come out in full support of utilitarianism, as he then understood it? In the essay, he made a very brief reference to a future (unnamed) piece. I do not know what he had in mind, not being well-versed in the body of his work. But, as you were, I was left with questions and puzzlements. Sometimes we want to have things both ways---usually, that is not, uh, expedient. If, on the other hand, he sought to re-frame utilitarianism, to suit his own argument, well...stranger things have happened in philosophy.
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