Two Qs

[David]

1. Forget about M's apparent commitment to SU in U: V 14, for present
purposes. Otherwise, M seems committed to direct utilitarianism and,
in particular, AU. M's claims about secondary principles are fully
compatible with AU. The best case for RU is this claim in U: II:

In the case of abstinences indeed – of things which people forbear to
do, from moral considerations, 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 refrain from it [II 19].

Can we avoid an RU reading of this passage:

• Read "obligation," not as duty, but as reason agent should follow
the optimal rule, rather than perform the optimal act.
• Distinguish beneficial and optimal and insist that M is not saying
that it's our duty to perform contra-optimal acts.
• Insist that the claim about the ground of obligation falls within
the scope of "it would be unworthy of an intelligent agent," in which
case M can be read as saying only that a good agent (e.g. one with
good motives) will regard duty as consisting in conformity to rules
with optimal acceptance value -- not that duty will so consist.

2. Look at V, 14:

[a] For the truth is, that the idea of penal sanction, which is the
essence of law, enters not only into the conception of injustice, but
into that of any kind of wrong. We do not call anything wrong unless
we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or
other for doing it – if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow
creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own
conscience. This seems the real turning point of the distinction
between morality and simple expediency. [b] It is part of the notion
of Duty in every one of its forms, that a person may be rightfully
compelled to perform it. Duty is a thing which may be exacted from a
person, as one exacts a debt. Unless we think that it might be
exacted from him, we do not call it his duty. [c] Reasons of
prudence, or of the interest of other people, may militate against
actually exacting it; but the person himself, it is clearly
understood, would not be entitled to complain.


Is there are tension here? Does (a) imply SU and (c) deny it? I do
think there is a tension between (b) and (c), but not between (a) and
(c). (a) defines duty in terms of the desirability of applying
sanctions for noncompliance. Sanctioning noncompliance and exacting
compliance are different things. Even if they were the same, M
could still say an action could be wrong by virtue of the desirability
of applying at least an internal sanction (conscience) without its
being true that it was desirable to apply social sanctions or
coercion. Can we reconcile (b) and (c)? We might reconcile by
emphasizing the "may" in (b). On this reading
(b) says that an action is wrong if it is permissible for it to be
enforced even if this is not advisable. I am not sure that this makes
sense. Surely, if there's any plausibility to (b) it must be that
noncompliance is wrong just in case one ought to exact compliance. If
we can reconcile (a) and AU (perhaps via my deflationary reading),
then (a) and (c) are also compatible -- the optimal act may not be
optimal to enforce.

[Theron Pummer]

This might seem like cheating because my presentation (on my paper) is
already going to be on the competent judges. But my meaty question --
while it is about the competent judges -- is distinct from the
question of whether the judges' preferences are evidential or
criterial of the superior value of higher pleasures (my paper topic).

What, exactly, are the direct objects of the competent judges'
preferences? In U II: 5, Mill indicates that the objects of the
competent judges' preferences are pleasures ("Of two pleasures...").
A competent judge is someone who is competently acquainted with both
pleasures. In paragraph 6, Mill spells out this acquaintance relation
a little further, but in doing so he introduces a different sort of
object of the judges' preferences, namely a "manner of existence."

I suppose I'm less concerned here with issues about subjective versus
objective pleasure, and more concerned about the temporal extent of
the objects directly being judged. Pleasures arguably occur either at
particular instants in time or at least span relatively short periods
of time. A "manner of existence" could also refer to short period of
time, or it might refer to a longer period of time, say, a being's
entire lifespan. Mill does seem to think competent judges can
meaningfully prefer to live a human life over a nonhuman animal's life
("Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the
lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's
pleasures...).

Is the idea (a) that judges form preferences about particular
pleasures, but then form, via some aggregative function of reason or
of the imagination, an "indirect" preference about some longer
temporal span filled with such pleasures? (Sorry if this seems too
much like Hume-talk, 10 weeks of Hume boot camp will do that to you).
If so, then if a pig's life is just a series of particular pleasures,
one can form a preference about a pig's whole life by sampling just
one such pigish pleasure. Or is the idea (b) that judges directly
form preferences about longer "packages" -- even up to and including
whole lifetimes -- of pleasures or modes of existence? If so, then
simply having one pigish pleasure is insufficient to make one a
competent judge of the pig's life, one needs to be acquainted with the
appropriate packages of pigish pleasures -- maybe even the pig's whole
life.

Moreover, back in paragraph 5, Mill makes the bold claim that
competent judges would not resign (a finite amount of) higher pleasure
"for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable
of." Is this italicized clause included because Mill wants to rule
out lexical priorities? And/or is it included because competent
judges can only form competent preferences about pleasures they are
capable of having ("equally acquainted with, and equally capable of
appreciating and enjoying")? Maybe the sort of capability implied
here is not the capability to live an indefinitely long life of lower
pleasures, but the capability to experience a very (indefinitely)
intense lower pleasure.

I guess I have two questions, one interpretive and one substantive:
(1) What did Mill likely intend concerning the temporal duration of
the objects of competent judges' preferences? Something more like (a)
or something more like (b)? Are there other options? (2) Which of
these views are more plausible, not as interpretations of Mill, but as
substantive philosophical theses?

Best,
Theron

[Theron Pummer]

By the way, the italicized clause was "which their nature is capable
of." I could use italics in gmail, but the rich text formatting was
lost when I pasted my message here.