SOURCE: “Mill's Moral View,” in The Moral Philosophy of John Stuart Mill: Toward Modifications of Contemporary Utilitarianism, Longwood Academic, 1991, pp. 23-53.

Both the quantity and the quality of pleasures must be considered in utility calculations. However, Mill's theory needs further explication, since we must discuss whose happiness should be promoted. For example, Mill might claim that an individual acts rightly if her action promotes her own happiness. Or, he might claim that an individual acts rightly if her action promotes the happiness of the society in which she lives. Mill chooses neither of these, instead suggesting that the promotion of humankind's utility is paramount.

To make matters more complicated, Mill writes ambiguously when he says that actions are morally right insofar as they promote happiness. He might mean that an agent acts rightly if she performs an action which will promote utility. Or, he might mean that an agent acts rightly if she performs an action which is in accord with a rule, the general acceptance and following of which will promote utility. Most of the time, this distinction is unimportant. An action which will promote utility will also be an action which is in accord with a rule, the general following of which will promote utility. Sometimes, however, the action which will promote utility is not in accord with a rule, the general following of which will promote utility. At these times, a choice must be made.

MILL AS UTILITARIAN: ACT OR RULE?

Whether one is an act-utilitarian or a rule-utilitarian, one believes that the principle of utility has a special status. It cannot be viewed as on a par with other moral rules because it is the principle upon which the whole moral system is based. The act-utilitarian believes that the principle of utility has a special status in that it is the principle by which all actions should be judged—if there is ever a conflict between the dictates of the principle of utility and any other principle or rule, the dictates of the principle of utility must be followed.

The rule-utilitarian believes that the principle of utility has a special status in that it should never be directly applied to actions. Instead, it should only be used to determine which rules people should accept and follow, i.e., those rules the general acceptance and following of which would promote the most good.¹ Once these rules are ascertained, people should always act in accord with them.

Some writers insist that Mill is an act-utilitarian (someone who believes that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends solely upon the consequences of performing that action). Act-utilitarians claim, for example, that the “rightness or wrongness of keeping a promise on a particular occasion depends only on the consequences of keeping or of breaking the promise on that particular occasion.”² If keeping the promise would maximize utility, then the promise should be kept. If breaking the promise would maximize utility, then the promise should be broken.

Others argue that Mill is a rule-utilitarian (someone who believes that a particular action is right if it is in accord with a moral rule, wrong if it is against a moral rule). A moral rule is a rule which, if generally followed, maximizes utility.

There seems to be evidence to support both sides. Yet, most of the statements which allegedly support Mill's rule-utilitarian position either give outright support to or are consistent with an act-utilitarian position. Ultimately, this debate will be seen to have been given undue importance in the recent literature. Mill would not have ascribed to either act-utilitarianism or rule-utilitarianism as they are currently understood. Act-utilitarians are too willing to break moral rules in their quest to maximize utility.³ Rule-utilitarians are too rigid either in not building in enough exceptions into their rules or in insisting on following those rules when doing so would clearly be disutility-producing. Mill does not want secondary rules broken readily and hence does not want to characterize them as merely ‘guides’ or ‘rules of thumb’. He also does not want secondary rules followed if doing so would clearly be disutility-producing, which is why he is more appropriately labeled an act-utilitarian than a rule-utilitarian.

There is an even more important reason why Mill is not accurately labeled as a standard act-utilitarian, much less a standard rule-utilitarian. While he believes that the act which maximizes utility is right, he does not believe that an action must be utility-maximizing in order to be right. That point will be explained … [elsewhere]. In this [essay], there will be an examination of Mill's view of the relations among acts, rules, and the principle of utility.

MILL AS ACT-UTILITARIAN

In A System of Logic, Mill denies that we can construct a perfect moral system. Basically, he offers two points:

1. Moral rules are extremely difficult to formulate because we cannot anticipate all of the circumstances which might obtain in future situations. If we cannot thus anticipate, then we will be unable to devise rules to cover all cases and our rules will be imperfect.

2. Even if we could formulate rules to include all of the appropriate exceptions, these rules would be so complicated that most people would not be able to learn and remember them.⁴

For example, generally, one should not steal. However, stealing is sometimes permissible; indeed, “to save a life, it may not only be allowable, but a duty, to steal, or take by force, the necessary food or medicine.”⁵ Doubtless, there are other extenuating circumstances in which stealing would also be permissible. Thus, because of the difficulties involved (a) in formulating perfect rules, and (b) in learning and remembering them, we must view moral rules as very good guides, as very useful rules of thumb. Moral rules are not principles which must always be obeyed, they are rules which should be obeyed most of the time. However, it is the act-utilitarian rather than the rule-utilitarian who uses moral rules as (even very useful) rules of thumb.⁶

One must “know what are the practical contingencies which require a modification of the rule, or which are altogether exceptions to it [my italics].” Mill argues that “rules of conduct point out the manner in which it will be least perilous to act, where time or means do not exist for analyzing the actual circumstances of the case, or where we cannot trust our judgment in estimating them.”⁷

When we are considering whether to follow a rule, we must consider that:

1. Rules are imperfect. There are times at which we should disobey rules in favor of following courses of action which will produce much better results.

2. Our present rules have stood the test of time—they have been proven to be effective through the ages. We must think twice (and, perhaps, twice again) before disregarding a rule.

Mill argues that rules should occasionally be disobeyed and thus he cannot be accurately labeled a rule-utilitarian. However, he gives some very helpful advice: rules can be wrong but usually are not.

When one, as an unbiased, knowledgeable, careful deliberator, is certain that following the appropriate rule would produce bad results, one should definitely disobey the rule. Mill criticizes those who would insist upon following a rule despite their knowing that a different action would yield much better results. The person “who goes by rules rather than by their reasons, like the old-fashioned German tacticians who were vanquished by Napoleon, or the physician who preferred that his patients should die by rule rather than recover contrary to it, is rightly judged to be a mere pedant, and the slave of his formulas.”⁸

Mill is not merely arguing that improper rules should not be used; he is suggesting that the world is such a complicated place that we will be unable to devise rules which will cover all of the situations which a doctor might face. So, too, we will be unable to devise rules to cover all of the situations which a moral agent will have to face.⁹ Our complicated world sometimes warrants ignoring the rules and judging the particular case according to the principle of utility. Rules of thumb are good for most cases most of the time. In those cases in which one knows that the application of the ‘appropriate’ rule would not promote utility, one should ignore the rule and promote utility instead.

Mill clearly favors the act-utilitarian view. In “Bentham,” he writes, “Insofar as Bentham's adoption of the principle of utility induced him to fix his attention upon the consequences of actions as the consideration determining their morality, he was indisputably in the right path.”¹⁰ In a review of Taylor's Statesman, Mill comments, “To admit the balance of consequences as a test of right and wrong, necessarily implies the possibility of exceptions to any derivative rule of morality which may be adduced from the test.”¹¹

These passages explicitly show Mill's commitment to a type of act-utilitarianism. Further, when we consider that Mill is accepting the “creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle [my italics],”¹² we have reason to believe that Mill's principle involves the maximization rather than merely the promotion of utility, i.e., Mill believes that action morally best which maximizes rather than merely promotes utility. He argues that the utilitarian standard involves the “greatest [my italics] amount of happiness altogether,”¹³ and that “[a]ccording to the Greatest Happiness Principle, … the ultimate end … is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain and as rich as possible in enjoyments [my italics].”¹⁴ Here, too, Mill is offering a maximizing condition. However, Mill does not believe that only those actions which maximize utility are morally right.¹⁵

MILL'S APPARENT RULE-UTILITARIANISM

Some critics interpret Mill to be claiming that an act is right if it is in accord with a rule the general acceptance and following of which will maximize utility, i.e., they claim that Mill is a rule-utilitarian.¹⁶ They support their interpretation by citing Mill's claim that one can accept the principle of utility as the ultimate principle and yet still accept secondary rules as the rules by which one should live.¹⁷

Mill offers an often-cited analogy. “To inform a traveler respecting the place of his ultimate destination is not to forbid the use of landmarks and direction-posts on the way. The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality does not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons going thither should not be advised to take one direction than another.”¹⁸ Just as a traveler can use landmarks to reach his final destination point, one can use secondary rules to help one maximize happiness.

Yet, Mill's example is somewhat misleading, since one's always using landmarks or secondary rules might be counter-productive.¹⁹ From a special vantage point, one might see a much better route than is indicated by the direction-post. So, too, for example, although lying is usually immoral and we are ‘directed’ to speak truthfully, we might realize that, because of certain extenuating circumstances, lying would be morally permissible. Our special vantage point, i.e., our knowledge of the extenuating circumstances, would allow us to ignore the rule and instead to maximize utility.

We should not ‘forbid the use of landmarks and direction-posts’. However, act- and rule-utilitarians agree that such aids should not be forbidden; they disagree about whether their use should be required. Quite simply, if the traveler knows of a much better route, the act-utilitarian will suggest that he take that route, while the rule-utilitarian will suggest that the traveler follow the direction-posts.

Individuals should not “test each individual action directly by the first principle [i.e., the principle of utility],” both because such a process would be too time-consuming and because such a process would sometimes result in the individuals' acting wrongly, e.g., because they miscalculated the utilities involved. Generally, secondary rules are the ones by which individuals should live.²⁰ However, if there is a conflict between a secondary rule and the principle of utility, one must follow the dictates of the principle of utility.

In a different passage, Mill seems to explicitly support a rule-utilitarian position. “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 abstain from it.”²¹

Mill seems to be saying that an action is wrong if the class of actions to which the action belongs should not be performed. A class of actions should not be performed if, were the actions generally performed, bad consequences would result. Mill's looking at whether an action is “of a class which, if practiced generally, would be generally injurious” as “the ground of the obligation to abstain from it,” is similar to one's looking at an action to see whether it is in accord with some rule and then looking at the rule to see whether its generally being followed would be harmful.²²

This reasoning seems rather confused. He acknowledges that the ultimate goal is to promote utility and that the action in question would be beneficial. Then, he objects that the action is of a class which, if practiced generally, would be harmful. However, the agent is not wondering whether she, generally, should perform this action; she is wondering whether she should perform it this particular time. Thus, as soon as Mill raises his objection, the agent will rightly respond, “But I don’t want to do it all of the time. I want to do it just once.”

Mill might then explain that the agent's performing this action would increase the probability that other people would also perform it. Others might see her performing the action or they might see the results of the action. In either case, they, too, would want to perform the action in question. Mill would then point out that many people's performing the action would be harmful. Thus, for fear of promoting the performance of the action at non-beneficial times, the agent should refrain from performing the action this time. In order for anyone to be justified in performing the action this time, the benefits must outweigh the harms produced by the agent's promoting others to perform the action at non-beneficial times.

The above analysis renders Mill's reasoning more understandable. Mill is not saying that the action is forbidden merely because it belongs to a class of actions which, if generally practiced, would be harmful. Such a claim is not very convincing. If an action were acceptable only if its general performance would produce good consequences, then many noble and praiseworthy activities, e.g., dying for one's family, country, religion, etc., would not be acceptable. Indeed, the uniqueness of an action can be part of its utility. For example, in military maneuvers or card play, a ploy may be successful in part because it is so unexpected.

Mill is pointing out that actions have various subtle effects which individuals often overlook when trying to ascertain the effects of a particular action. For example, someone might not consider that:

1. Other people will see that he has broken the rule. Their respect for the rule will be lessened and they will become more likely to break the rule at non-optimal times.

2. Seeing that the rule has been broken, other people will feel less secure that the rule will be followed when it should be. Even if these people realize that the rule was broken to promote greater utility and thus they will not be tempted to break the rule when such an infraction would cause disutility, they might not be so confident in their neighbors' perspicacity. Even though they understand why this particular rule-breaking was proper and thus would not be more likely to break the rules improperly, they could not be sure that others would so understand. Insecurity would result—an obvious disutility.²³

3. Seeing that this rule has been broken, people will be more likely to break other rules at inappropriate times.

Mill is not as clear about the act/rule distinction as one might like. He argues that there is a “necessity that some rule, of a nature simple enough to be easily understood and remembered, should not only be laid down for guidance, but necessarily observed, in order that the various persons concerned may know what they have to expect.” Mill believes that “the inconvenience of uncertainty [which results when rules are viewed as merely providing guidance] … [is] a greater evil than that which may possibly arise, in a minority of cases, from the imperfect adaptation of the rule to those cases.”²⁴

Mill seems to be offering a rule-utilitarian account in that the rules should be “necessarily observed.” However, the reason that rules should necessarily be observed is that their non-observance will cause insecurity. If Mill is afraid that a particular act of rule-breaking will cause net disutility, then he should not claim that rules must be observed, but that rules should be broken only when the various disutilities (including the increased insecurity) would be outweighed by the utility of the rule-breaking. Indeed, in the next paragraph he amends the claim that rules should necessarily be observed by arguing that “the license of deviating from [the rules], if such be ever permitted, should be confined to definite classes of cases, and of a very peculiar and extreme nature.”²⁵

In a different work, Mill argues that the “admission of exceptions to rules is a necessity equally felt in all ethical systems of morality. To take an obvious instance, the rule against homicide [and] the rule against deceiving … are suspended against enemies in the field, and partially against malefactors in private life.” The particular circumstances may require one to do something which is normally forbidden. “That the moralities arising from the special circumstances of the action may be so important as to overrule those arising from the class of acts to which it belongs, perhaps to take it out of the category of virtues into that of crimes, or vice versa, is a liability common to all ethical systems.”²⁶ Here, Mill seems quite clearly to be advocating an act-utilitarian line. However, on the next page, he claims, “The essential is, that the exception should be itself a general rule; so that, being of definite extent, and not leaving the expediencies to the partial judgment of the agent in the individual case, it may not shake the stability of the wider rule in the cases to which the reason of the exception does not extend.”²⁷

Again, Mill is afraid that the stability of the rule will be undermined and that people will disobey the rule at inappropriate times. “No one who does not thoroughly know the modes of action which common experience has sanctioned is capable of judging of the circumstances which require a departure from those ordinary modes of action.”²⁸ Agents must not haphazardly ignore rules, especially considering that their judgment might be biassed.²⁹ Were secondary moral rules simply rules of thumb, people adopting this theory would break rules too often.

Nonetheless, Mill ultimately holds that utility must be promoted. He believes that “where time or means do … exist for analyzing the actual circumstances of the cases, [and] where we [can] trust our judgment in estimating them,”³⁰ we must ignore the rule and promote utility. We should never perform an action which we (reliably) know to be disutility-producing. A man who does so “cannot discharge himself from moral responsibility by pleading that he had the general rule in his favor.”³¹

Mill explains his position in a letter. “I agree with you that the right way of testing actions by their consequences, is to test them by the natural consequences of the particular action, and not by those which would follow if everyone did the same. But, for the most part, the consideration of what would happen if every one did the same, is the only means we have of discovering the tendency of the act in the particular case.”³² In order to look at the effects of a particular action, “[w]e must look at [the action] multiplied, and in large masses.”³³ Thus, the insecurity which Mill fears would be produced by rule-breakings must be attributed to particular acts of rule-breaking. The destabilizing of rules, i.e., the increasing of the likelihood that rules will be broken at improper times, is an effect of particular acts of rule-breaking. These effects must be considered whenever one proposes to break a secondary rule.

When Mill considers consequences, he includes the often under-appreciated considerations of character. He criticizes Bentham for not having considered whether “the act or habit in question, though not in itself necessarily pernicious, may not form part of a character essentially pernicious, or at least essentially deficient in some quality eminently conducive to the ‘greatest happiness’,”³⁴ and Sedgwick for not having recognized that utilitarians also believe that “an essential part of the morality or immorality of an action or a rule of action consists in its influence upon the agent's own mind: upon his susceptibilities of pleasure or pain, upon the general direction of his thoughts, feelings, and imagination, or upon some particular association.”³⁵

Secondary rules are important because their generally being accepted and followed will tend to promote good character. They will also promote security, which is quite important. A “change, which has always hitherto characterized, and will assuredly continue to characterize, the progress of civilized society, is a continual increase of the security of person and property.”³⁶ Mill writes, “Security of person and property and equal justice between individuals are the first needs of society and the primary ends of government.”³⁷

Another important feature of secondary rules is that they give specific dictates about how to act, which is necessary because “utility, or happiness, [is] much too complex and indefinite an end to be sought except through the medium of various secondary ends.”³⁸ Individuals “who adopt utility as a standard seldom apply it truly except through the secondary principles.”³⁹

Yet, one would be wrong to think that it is obvious what the secondary rules should be, even given a particular end (e.g., the promotion of general utility). “The grand consideration is, not what any person regards as the ultimate end of human conduct, but through what intermediate ends he holds his ultimate end is attainable, and should be pursued; and in these there is a nearer agreement between some who differ, than between some who agree in their conception of the ultimate end.”⁴⁰

Once the secondary principles have been formulated, Mill claims that one can pretty readily decide which principle is appropriate in any particular case. “There is no case of moral obligation in which some secondary principle is not involved; and if only one, there can seldom be any real doubt which one it is, in the mind of any person by whom the principle itself is recognized.” Indeed, he somewhat surprisingly further argues that “only in these cases of conflict between secondary principles is it requisite that first principles should be appealed to.”⁴¹

Yet, one's having the ability to pick out the appropriate secondary rule does not imply that one has the ability to apply it correctly. The “common error of men [is] of sticking to their rules in a case whose specialties either take it out of the class to which the rules are applicable, or require a special adaptation of them.”⁴² Thus, it “is one thing to be master of general principles, and to be able to reason from them under assumed hypothetical circumstances: it is another thing to possess the talent of justly appreciating actual circumstances, so as to regulate the application of principles to any given case.”⁴³

Mill is a little misleading when he claims that the principle of utility should be appealed to only in cases involving conflicts between secondary rules, since such conflicts are easy to generate. We consider the case of lying. One secondary rule is ‘Never lie’. Another secondary rule is ‘Never lie unless doing so would promote utility and telling the truth would promote disutility’. In a case in which lying would promote utility and telling the truth would promote disutility, we have a conflict between rules and must appeal to the principle of utility.

“If evil will arise in any specific case from our telling truth, we are forbidden by a law of morality from doing that evil: we are forbidden by another law of morality from telling falsehood. Here then are two laws of morality in conflict, and we cannot satisfy both of them.” When there is a conflict between two rules, we must “resort to the primary test of all right and wrong, and … make a specific calculation of the good or evil consequences, as fully and impartially as we can.”⁴⁴

Basically, Mill is suggesting that whenever one would produce net disutility by following one secondary rule, one's act would not be in accord with a different secondary rule, viz., ‘Do not produce evil’ (‘Do not produce net disutility’). Whenever there are conflicts between secondary rules, one must appeal to the principle of utility. Thus, rule-utilitarians are not representing Mill's position when they argue that one may morally permissibly produce net disutility as long as one's act is in accord with a rule the general following of which would maximize utility. Mill would argue that in such a case one's act would not be in accord with the secondary rule ‘Do not produce net disutility’. He would then claim that one would have to appeal to the principle of utility to settle the conflict, and that the principle of utility would not allow the individual to perform a (net) disutility-producing act.

In general, a few principles emerge from Mill's writings with respect to the issue(s) at hand:

1. We should use secondary principles in our moral decision-making. Further, we should not be willing to break these secondary principles as readily as we would, were they merely guides to action.

2. These secondary principles should be simple enough so that they can be readily remembered and applied.

3. If, after including all of the relevant disutilities, we, as unbiased, knowledgeable, careful deliberators, are certain that following the rule would promote disutility and ignoring the rule would promote utility, then we must disobey the rule.⁴⁵

CO-OPERATIVE UTILITARIANISM

Some critics believe that maximizing act-utilitarianism is untenable,⁴⁶ since agents who seek to maximize utility may be unable to do so because they lack information about what other people will do. This can easily be illustrated.

Suppose that Whiff and Poof each have to decide whether to push the buttons in front of them. The utilities can be summed up in the following diagram.⁴⁷

				Poof
		Push			Not-push
	Push		10		0
Whiff
	Not-push		0		6

The optimal situation would involve both Whiff's and Poof's pushing the buttons. However, if one of them is not going to push a button, then neither of them should.

Suppose that neither knows what the other will do. What should Whiff do? If he pushes and Poof not-pushes, then no utiles will be produced.

As long as Whiff knows that Poof knows the possible outcomes and Poof knows that Whiff knows the possible outcomes, they will both push, since they are both seeking to maximize utility and their both pushing would produce optimal results. However, Whiff and Poof would not be helped by this solution if their situation were a little different. Suppose that as long as they both pushed or not-pushed, they each would produce ten utiles; otherwise, they each would produce minus five utiles. If neither has any idea what the other will do, neither can say what he himself ought to do.

Obviously, Whiff and Poof should talk to each other, if possible. If they cannot, then they are in a difficult position and each will simply have to make a guess about what the other will do.⁴⁸

In discussing these issues, we must be careful to distinguish among several issues:

1. Did the agent act rightly?

2. Should the agent be blamed?

3. How much blame should he receive?

In the problem posed above, the agent does not know what to do. Should Whiff push the button? Yes, if Poof is going to push, and no, otherwise. If Whiff does not know what Poof is going to do, Whiff will have to guess, taking into account all that he knows about Proof. If Whiff guesses correctly, he will have acted rightly; otherwise, he will have acted wrongly.⁴⁹ Co-ordination problems do not prevent agents from acting rightly. They merely prevent agents from knowing what to do.

Should we blame Whiff for guessing wrongly? This is a separate issue. Whiff's lack of knowledge may affect whether or how much he should be blamed for his bad guess. It does not at all affect whether he in fact performed the right action.

Current theorists are correct that co-ordination problems may affect act-utilitarian analyses of the proper courses of action. Mill would welcome the suggestion that agents should try to be well-informed before making their decisions. However, the co-ordination utilitarians are in no better position than the act-utilitarians. Both should find out all they can about the situation at hand, including what other people are planning on doing, and then act accordingly.

WHICH CONSEQUENCES ARE THE EFFECTS OF PARTICULAR ACTIONS?

When Mill talks about the effects of an action, he includes many of the consequences which one might not (at first) attribute to the performance of a particular action. For example, Mill believes that one should be truthful because “the cultivation in ourselves of a sensitive feeling on the subject of veracity is one of the most useful, and the enfeeblement of that feeling one of the most hurtful, things to which our conduct can be instrumental.” Thus, one's lying has a negative effect on one's character. Also, one's lying will help to “deprive mankind of the good, and inflict upon them the evil, involved in the greater or less reliance which they can place in each other's word.”⁵⁰ People will feel less secure if I lie to them, both because they will trust me less and because they will tend to trust others less as well.

When Mill is trying to decide whether a particular lie would be justified, he does not merely look at the immediate effects of the lie, e.g., my being very pleased versus someone else's being slightly displeased. My lying will hurt my character, will make the other person less likely to believe people, and will make me less likely to believe people.

Mill argues that the consequences which rule-utilitarians claim should be traced back to rules can in fact be traced back to actions. By taking a rather broad view of which effects are correctly deemed the effects of particular actions, Mill can account for the considerations which a rule-utilitarian might cite, e.g., effects on character, security, etc., and Mill is able to secure an additional benefit. He can claim that lying is sometimes morally permissible,⁵¹ for example, at those times when calamities might be averted by a little ‘judicious’ lying.

THE BENEFIT OF HUMANKIND

As a type of act-utilitarian, Mill believes that an action which maximizes utility is morally right. However, his view is somewhat unusual with respect to whose utility should be promoted.

Mill is quite concerned about promoting the happiness of the individual. He believes that one of the reasons that individuals should pursue the higher pleasures is that, by so doing, they will be both better and happier people.⁵² Mill is also quite concerned about promoting the happiness of society, arguing that even if an individual, himself, is not happier as a result of his becoming nobler, other people will thereby be happier.⁵³ Yet, neither the promotion of individual happiness nor the promotion of societal happiness is Mill's ultimate concern. Mill's ultimate concern is to promote the utility of humankind.

In On Liberty, Mill says, “I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions, but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.”⁵⁴ Mill's talking about “man as a progressive being” does not make each individual's interests of primary importance. Rather, the permanent interests of humankind are important. Each individual's utility is promoted as a fortunate by-product of the promotion of humankind's utility.

When talking about ‘man’, Mill might seem to be referring to the interests of society. Such an interpretation is incorrect.

The permanent interests of man are not simply the permanent interests of a particular society, e.g., Greek, Roman, or British. Rather, they are the interests of the Society of Man, i.e., Humankind. When Mill talks about Humankind, he is not merely talking about all of the people who happen to be living at a particular time. He is talking about “the Human Race, conceived as a continuous whole, including the past, the present and the future.”⁵⁵

Mill agrees with Comte that “reflection, guided by history, has taught us the intimacy of the connection of every age of humanity with every other.”⁵⁶ We are narrow-minded if we think that we should promote the good of a particular society of a particular time period at the expense of the good of humankind. It is “the good of the human race [which] is the ultimate standard of right and wrong.”⁵⁷

Mill complains that Bentham's doctrine, which emphasizes individuals' acting out of self-interest, is very destructive of “all natural hope for good for the human species [my italics].” Bentham undermines “our hopes of happiness or moral perfection to the species [my italics].”⁵⁸

In A System of Logic, Mill says that the ultimate standard is “conduciveness to the happiness of mankind.”⁵⁹ In Utilitarianism, Mill also speaks about promoting the happiness of all humankind.⁶⁰

Mill believes that we are able to predict what will promote the happiness of humankind, because “social phenomena conform to invariable laws.”⁶¹ We merely need to figure out what would be the ideal setting, e.g., which attitudes people should have and which actions people should perform, for happiness to be promoted. We can examine the history of humankind to see which rules and actions further that goal.⁶²

When Mill talks about promoting the happiness of humankind, he does not specify whether he is talking about the average happiness or the (net) total happiness. The difference may be illustrated in the following way.

Suppose that there are four individuals in World W, each of whom is fairly happy. For the sake of illustration, we shall assign each of them a “happiness level” of 25. The question at hand is whether the world would be a better place were there an additional person, Jones, who over her lifetime would enjoy a happiness level of 10.

Were Jones to live in W, the (net) total level of happiness would be raised to 110 happiness units. However, the average happiness level would be lowered from 25 to 22. Thus, on the (net) total happiness account, W would be a better place were Jones also to live there. On the average happiness account, W would be a worse place were Jones to live there.

Family planning practices might differ, depending upon whether one adopted the former or latter account. Mill was clearly interested in promoting a decline in the population rate. “It appears to me impossible but that the increase of intelligence, of education, and of the love of independence among the working classes, must be attended with a corresponding growth of the good sense which manifests itself in provident habits of conduct, and that population, therefore, will bear a gradually diminishing ratio to capital and employment.”⁶³ Here, he might be inferred to be promoting the average happiness. However, Mill would not be in favor of destroying all but two people (who happened to be very happy and to require no one else but themselves), even though the average happiness might thereby be increased.

Clearly, Mill wants future generations to be considered in calculations of utility. However, he does not specifically address some of the issues raised if one is indeed to consider future generations, e.g., whether one has a duty to procreate, whether future generations' interests should be discounted, if so, by how much, etc.⁶⁴

An additional complicating factor which must be considered is that Mill does not believe that only rules and actions should be judged by the principle of utility. Attitudes should also promote utility. Mill criticizes Whewell for assuming that people's moral attitudes are above reproach. “The point in dispute is, what acts are the proper objects of those [moral] feelings; whether we ought to take the feelings as we find them, as accident or design has made them, or whether the tendency of actions to promote happiness affords a test to which the feelings of morality should conform.”⁶⁵ Indeed, “intellectual progress [is] in no other way so beneficial as by creating a standard to guide the moral sentiments of mankind, and a mode of bringing those sentiments effectively to bear on conduct.”⁶⁶ Thus, when Mill talks about promoting utility, he is talking about the utility of humankind. He is interested in changing both attitudes and actions in order to bring about his goal.

Merely because Mill is primarily interested in promoting the interests of humankind does not mean that Mill is uninterested in protecting the individual. The protection of individual liberties is extremely important, because protecting them is the best way to promote the interests of humankind. On Liberty is written to demonstrate on empirical grounds that the protection of individual liberties will ultimately be the best way of promoting the interests of humankind.⁶⁷

THE IMPORTANCE OF MILL'S BEING A TYPE OF ACT-UTILITARIAN

It might seem unimportant to ascertain whether Mill was an act-utilitarian, since even if this controversy could be resolved the result would seem to have little bearing on any contemporary philosophical discussions. Such a view is mistaken. In understanding Mill's act-utilitarianism, we shall see how contemporary act-utilitarians can refute some of their severest critics.

Act-utilitarians are often charged with being unable to show that justice will be preserved or that promises will be kept. Mill deflects these charges by talking about the hidden disutilities caused by the performance of such actions. If justice is not preserved, insecurity will result.⁶⁸ Insecurity will also result if people habitually lie. Mill is including these results as part of the total consequences of particular actions.

Mill is an act-utilitarian who looks at immediate and eventual consequences of actions in light of how these actions will affect the utility of humankind. He thus disagrees with act-utilitarians who only look at the immediate consequences of actions or who only look at consequences in light of how they will affect a particular society or even the world at a particular time.

When theorists talk about the remote effects of actions, e.g., “possible effects on the agent's character, and effects on the public at large,”⁶⁹ they are talking about effects which, according to Mill, are effects of particular actions. While even Mill admits that it is difficult to determine exactly how much disutility is promoted by a particular lie, he still believes that the disutility is produced by the action. We may have to look at many actions of a similar type in order to ascertain all of the effects, but it is the effects of the action that concern Mill.

Mill would be confused by a critic who claimed that effects on character or on public feelings of security are reasons not to support act-utilitarianism. For Mill, these would be reasons to support his type of act-utilitarianism.

Since Mill's act-utilitarianism takes into account many of the factors that are taken into account by various forms of rule-utilitarianism, it might seem unimportant to make the distinction. Such a claim is false because of the way that rule-utilitarianism tends to be formulated.

Suppose that even after one has taken all of the hidden disutilities of a particular action into account, one still sees that one should perform what is normally called an unjust action. The act-utilitarian will claim that the unjust action should be performed. She will explain her position in one of two ways:

1. She will claim that the performance of justice is not always morally correct, opting for a rather paradoxical view of both justice and morality.

2. She will adopt Mill's view and claim that because the dictates of justice cannot be disutility-producing, what is normally just (i.e., what the secondary rules of justice dictate to be just) is not just in this particular case.

The rule-utilitarian would say that even if the dictates of justice do not promote utility in this particular case, the dictates generally promote utility and thus must always be followed. There is a major difference between the act- and rule-utilitarian. In a situation in which the dictates of justice do not promote utility, the act-utilitarian claims that the dictates must be ignored, while the rule-utilitarian claims that the dictates of justice must be followed.

Mill argues, “In such cases [i.e., where justice and utility conflict], as we do not call anything justice which is not a virtue [e.g., which is disutility-producing], we usually say, not that justice must give way to some other moral principle, but that what is just in ordinary cases is, by reason of that other principle, not just in this particular case.” By doing this, we will avoid conceptual difficulties. “By this useful accommodation of language, the character of indefeasibility attributed to justice is kept up, and we are saved from the necessity of maintaining that there can be laudable injustice.”⁷⁰

Mill is not merely making a semantic point here. He is claiming that since justice is founded on utility, justice cannot dictate that we perform disutility-producing actions. In cases in which the apparent rule of justice dictates that we do something which is obviously disutility-producing, we must either amend the rule or ignore it altogether.

Mill has little patience for those who would claim that not following the normal dictates of justice to promote utility would involve doing an ‘evil’. He agrees with Whately's analysis of such a case. “[W]hen in a discussion, one party vindicates, on the ground of general expediency, a particular instance of resistance to government in a case of intolerable oppression, the opponent may gravely maintain that ‘we ought not to do evil that good may come;’ a proposition which of course has never been denied, the point in dispute being, ‘whether resistance in this particular case were doing evil or not’.”⁷¹

If truth-telling would be disutility-producing and lying would be utility-producing in a particular case, then lying would be morally required. Lying and acting ‘unjustly’, i.e., not following the normal dictates of justice, may not have (net) negative effects on one's character, on public security, or on others' lying or breaking other moral rules at inappropriate times. Lying has a bad effect on one's character only when the lie would promote one's acting in disutility-producing ways. By the same token, acting unjustly would have a bad effect on one's character only when the ‘injustice’ would promote one's acting in disutility-producing ways. If I lie or act unjustly because doing so would slightly benefit me and would greatly hurt others, then my so acting would be wrong—I have counted my own interests too heavily. My character will suffer in that I am promoting my own tendency to act selfishly and in that I am promoting my own and others' tendency to lie or act unjustly at inappropriate times. However, if I lie to promote utility, then my character may not suffer. I should lie when doing so would promote utility, and my character is helped rather than harmed insofar as my tendency to lie at utility-producing times is promoted. True. If I lie to promote utility, then my character might suffer in that the tendency to lie in general rather than at only utility-promoting times might be strengthened. Further, my character might suffer in that the disposition to break other moral rules might also be strengthened. Nonetheless, the disutility produced might not be sufficient to outweigh the utility of telling the lie.⁷²

Suppose that Ann and I agree to meet somewhere. I go there but she fails to keep the appointment. She has broken her promise. Much disutility can result from promise-breaking, e.g., I may grow to distrust her and others.

Suppose, however, that she has very good reasons for her promise-breaking. Once I have been apprised of the facts, I might have two very different reactions:

1. I might grow to trust her as much as or more than I did before. I would realize that she has exercised good judgment. Her action would promote feelings of security, both in myself because I know that she has acted as she should have, and in others, especially those who directly benefited from her good use of her judgment.

2. I might still be angry and resentful, despite my knowing that her action promoted utility. Mill would condemn my resentment rather than Ann's action. He would say that “just persons [resent] a hurt to society, though not otherwise a hurt to themselves, and [do] not [resent] a hurt to themselves, however painful, unless it be of the kind which society has a common interest with them in the repression of.”⁷³

Mill argues persuasively for the protection of liberty and the preservation of justice on utilitarian grounds. We learn from him, not (as some rule-utilitarians and deontologists seem to imply) that the preservation of justice is usually but not always utility-producing, but that the preservation of justice is necessarily utility-producing. When one, as an unbiased, knowledgeable, deliberate calculator, takes into consideration the effects of following the standard rules of justice and morality and one sees that following those rules will be disutility-producing, one will understand that those rules must be amended or ignored entirely.

It is important to understand Mill's act-utilitarianism because we can then see that some of the arguments (e.g., that insecurity and the formation of bad characters will result from performing certain actions) used by rule-utilitarians and deontologists to support their own theories, are used cogently and convincingly to support an act-utilitarian position. However, there is an important respect in which act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism are not so far apart after all.

We should not conform our acts to socially useful rules when doing so would promote disutility. However, when making the appropriate calculations, we must include the remote effects of rule-breakings, e.g., effects on character, effects on general security, etc.

If we really know of a case in which following the rule would promote disutility and breaking the rule would promote utility (including all of the considerations above), then the rule-utilitarian will want to modify his rule to account for the exception, since the rule-utilitarian cannot justify a rule when the adoption of a different rule in its stead would produce more utility.⁷⁴ If we know that following a rule would be disutility-producing, then an act-utilitarian will claim that we should not follow that rule, i.e., he will say that we should disobey it. By the same token, if we know that our following a rule would be disutility-producing, then the rule-utilitarian will claim that we should not have that rule—she will say that we should instead have a different rule to follow.

Usually, agents suspect rather than know that following a particular rule would be disutility-producing. In such situations, the rule-utilitarian and the act-utilitarian face similar problems. The act-utilitarian must decide whether he should disobey the rule of thumb which is usually effective to follow. The rule-utilitarian must decide whether this rule is in need of an (or another) exception.

The claim here is not that act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism are co-extensive. A rule-utilitarian might argue that we have to keep moral rules fairly simple if people are going to be able to accept and follow them correctly. Mill and act-utilitarians in general whole-heartedly agree with such a claim. The rule-utilitarian might further argue that these rules must be obeyed, even if on a particular occasion the rule's being obeyed would produce net disutility. At this point, Mill and act-utilitarians in general would disagree. They would argue that one must promote utility, even if one must break a secondary rule to do so.

It is important to understand Mill's act-utilitarianism because it is important to understand that he really is committed to the promotion of the utility of humankind above everything else. However, precisely because he is committed to the promotion of utility, he is justifiably worried that his calling secondary moral principles mere guides or mere rules of thumb would result in too many disutility-producing rule-breakings. As to whether Mill is better interpreted as claiming that the promotion of humankind's utility can best be achieved by ignoring disutility-producing rules or by simply amending them, this is a question which is, perhaps, neither answerable nor important to answer.

Notes

1. Another form of indirect utilitarianism would involve motivations rather than rules. Brandt writes, “An optimific indirect theory is a normative theory which roughly holds that any other-person-involving act is morally permissible if it would be best for the moral motivations of (roughly) all agents to permit acts of that type in its circumstances, and that an other-person-involving act is an agent's moral duty if it would be best for the moral motivations of (roughly) all agents to require acts of that type in those circumstances.” He explains that he means “by a person's moral motivations a complex consisting of a desire/aversion for some kind of action for itself, in certain circumstances, a disposition to feel guilty if one does (does not) perform an act of this sort, and a disposition to disapprove or be indignant if someone else does (does not) perform an act of that type, in those circumstances.” R. B. Brandt, “Fairness to Indirect Optimific Theories in Ethics,” Ethics 98 (1988), pp. 342-343.

2. J. J. C. Smart, “Extreme and restricted utilitarianism” in Mill: Utilitarianism with Critical Essays, ed. Samuel Gorovitz (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc, 1971), p. 195.

3. Alexander believes that act-utilitarianism's mandating that one break rules if doing so will be utility-maximizing may produce so many unwarranted rule-breakings (because agents would sometimes miscalculate and would thus break rules at inappropriate times) that one's adopting act-utilitarianism might produce less utility than would one's adopting rule-utilitarianism. See Larry Alexander, “Pursuing the Good—Indirectly,” Ethics 95 (1985), p. 324. For an illustration of how these miscalculations might occur, see F. H. Bradley, “Pleasure for Pleasure's Sake” in Ethical Studies (first published 1876), Introduction by Ralph Ross (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1951), p. 49.

4. John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Book 6, Ch. 12, Sec. 3, CW Vol. 8, p. 945.

5. Utilitarianism, Ch. 5, Par. 37, p. 259.

6. See Smart, “Extreme and restricted utilitarianism,” p. 199.

7. A System of Logic, Book 6, Ch. 12, Sec. 3, pp. 945-946. For a similar point, see John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, Ch. 3, Par. 10, CW 21, p. 307.

8. A System of Logic, Book 6, Ch. 12, Sec. 2, p. 944.

9. A number of theorists talk about the importance of rules' being fairly simple. See R. M. Hare, Moral Thinking (Oxford: University Press, 1981), p. 33; and John Rawls, “The Independence of Moral Theory,” American Philosophical Association Proceedings and Addresses 48 (1974-1975), p. 14.

10. John Stuart Mill, “Bentham,” CW Vol. 10, p. 111.

11. John Stuart Mill, “Taylor's Statesman,” CW Vol. 19, p. 638.

12. Utilitarianism, Ch. 2, Par. 2, p. 210.

13. Ibid., Ch. 2, Par. 9, p. 213.

14. Ibid., Ch. 2, Par. 10, p. 214.

15. Rem Edwards claims that Mill was “neither a maximizing act nor rule utilitarian.” See his “The Principle of Utility and Mill's Minimizing Utilitarianism,” Journal of Value Inquiry 20 (1986), p. 132. See also his “J. S. Mill and Robert Veatch's Critique of Utilitarianism,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 23 (1985), pp. 181-200. Here, it is argued that Mill agrees with standard act-utilitarians that those actions which maximize utility are right. However, he disagrees insofar as they claim that an action must be utility-maximizing in order to be right. For a related point, see Marcus Singer's “Actual Consequence Utilitarianism,” Mind 86 (1977), p. 69.

16. See J. O. Urmson, “The Interpretation of the Moral Philosophy of J. S. Mill,” Mill: Utilitarianism with Critical Essays, p. 170; and H. J. McCloskey, John Stuart Mill: A Critical Study (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1971), p. 58.

17. Utilitarianism, Ch. 2, Par. 24, p. 224.

18. Ibid., pp. 224-225.

19. This is Mabbott's example. See J. D. Mabbott, “Interpretations of Mill's Utilitarianism” in Mill: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. J. B. Schneewind (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1968), p. 194.

20. Utilitarianism, Ch. 2, Par. 24, p. 224.

21. Ibid., Ch. 2, Par. 19, p. 220.

22. A class of actions is merely a set of actions, all of which meet one or more criteria. Or, to use a different description, a class of actions is a set of actions, all of which correspond to some rule(s). To be concerned with the consequences of performing actions of a certain class is to be concerned with the consequences of performing actions of a particular set, all of which correspond to the same rule(s). Thus, Mill seems to be espousing a rule-utilitarian position—one should not perform an action unless the rule with which it is in accord would promote the general good. The consequences which result from not following the rule seem to be of concern, not the consequences of performing the action.

23. For a similar argument, see Bernard Semmel, John Stuart Mill and the Pursuit of Virtue (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 87. For related comments of Mill’s, see “Whewell on Moral Philosophy,” p. 182; and On Liberty, Ch. 4, Par. 8, CW Vol. 18, p. 280.

24. A System of Logic, CW Vol. 8, Book 6, Ch. 11, Sec. 6, Par. 3, pp. 1154-55.

25. Ibid., Par. 4, p. 1155. These two passages were deleted after the 1846 edition. Mill may have deleted these passages because he simply changed his mind and wanted to espouse a much more act-utilitarian line. However, passages in other works would not support this explanation. I suspect that he deleted these passages, not because his position had changed but rather because they sounded too rule-oriented and thus did not represent his position. One can easily understand Mill's difficulty. He does not want to advocate blind rule-following, but also does not want to advocate a position which would result in frequent and inappropriate violations of secondary rules. Of course, it may be that the passages were deleted because of printing costs. However, even were that true, other passages in Mill's writings support the position offered here.

26. “Whewell on Moral Philosophy,” p. 182.

27. Ibid., p. 183.

28. Considerations on Representative Government, Ch. 5, Par. 8, p. 425.

29. “Whewell on Moral Philosophy,” p. 183.

30. A System of Logic, Book 6, Ch. 12, Sec. 3, p. 946.

31. “Taylor's Statesman,” p. 640. In Chapters 4-7, there will be a discussion of how much net utility one has a duty to promote.

32. CW Vol. 17, p. 1881. Brown points out this letter. See D. G. Brown, “Mill's Act-utilitarianism,” Philosophical Quarterly 27 (1974), p. 68.

33. “Whewell on Moral Philosophy,” p. 181.

34. “Remarks on Bentham's Philosophy,” CW Vol. 10, p. 8.

35. “Sedgwick's Discourse,” p. 56.

36. Principles of Political Economy, Book 4, Ch. 1, Sec. 2, Par. 2, Vol. 3, p. 706.

37. Considerations on Representative Government, Ch. 15, Par. 11, p. 541. See also “De Toqueville” (1), CW Vol. 18, p. 80.

38. “Bentham,” p. 110.

39. Ibid., p. 111.

40. “Blakey's History of Moral Science,” CW Vol. 10, p. 29.

41. Utilitarianism, Ch. 2, Par. 25, p. 226.

42. The Subjection of Women, Ch. 3, Par. 10, p. 307. Mill seems to believe that the moral judgment of individuals improves as they become more ‘civilized’. See “Civilization,” CW Vol. 18, p. 132.

43. “Taylor's Stateman,” pp. 622-623.

44. Ibid., pp. 638-639. See also Utilitarianism, Ch. 2, Par. 23, p. 223 in which Mill writes that even the rule of truth-telling, “sacred as it is, admits of possible exceptions.”

45. The position described here is quite compatible with Berger's “strategy” conception of moral rules. See Berger, Happiness, Justice and Freedom, pp. 72 ff. The position here is also compatible with Henry West's. See his “Mill's Moral Conservatism,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 1 (1976), pp. 71-80.

46. See Lars Bergstrom, “Utilitarianism and Future Mistakes,” Theoria 43 (1977), pp. 84-102; Jordan Sobel, “Utilitarianism and Past and Future Mistakes,” Nous 10 (1976), pp. 195-219; Brian Ellis, “Retrospective and Prospective Utilitarianism,” Nous 15 (1981), pp. 325-339; Hector-Neri Castaneda, “On the Problem of Formulating a Coherent Act-Utilitarianism,” Analysis 32 (1972), pp. 118-124. For related comments, see Fred Feldman, Doing the Best We Can (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1986), Ch. 1.

    These theorists make interesting and important points which will not be addressed here both because these points do not directly address Mill's system and because insofar as they do indirectly address his system, they (analogously, if not directly) might be made against many, if not all, moral systems. For example, there are serious problems raised by the notion of group actions for moral theorists in general, at least in part, because such a notion may force theorists to reassess the basic unit of moral evaluation. There are also serious problems raised insofar as one should consider others' and one's own probable future immoral actions.

    Sympathizing with some of these criticisms directed at act-utilitarianism, Holbrook argues that “an action is right if and only if it is part of that series of actions that has the greatest overall pleasure as its result.” See Daniel Holbrook, Qualitative Utilitarianism (Lanham: Press of America, 1988), p. 42. He does not seem to appreciate that on this account an agent may be held morally accountable for others' moral misdeeds. While we should try to anticipate and consider our own and others' future actions when we deliberate about what to do currently, a theory like Holbrook's demands much more than that and seems to destroy the notions both of individual agency and of (individual) moral responsibility. In any case, the kind of analysis required to handle these problems would have to be too extensive and too foundational to be appropriately handled here.

47. This is Regan's example. See Donald Regan, Utilitarianism and Co-operation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 18

48. Information constraints create difficulties for a variety of theories. Suppose that we adopt Regan's position and say, “What each agent ought to do is co-operate, with whoever else is co-operating in the production of the best consequences possible given the behaviors of the non-co-operators.” Regan, Utilitarianism and Co-operation, p. 124. Or, we can adopt the proposal suggested by Postow and say, “In any given situation, any group of one or more agents ought to follow a course of action by means of which the group would produce the most good that it can produce in that situation.” B. C. Postow, “Generalized Act Utilitarianism,” Analysis 37 (1977), p. 51. (For a discussion of how agents who lack perfect knowledge should act if they wish to be rational, see David Gauthier, Morals By Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), especially Ch. 3.) If there is no available information about what others are doing, the agent may have to flip a coin. Whether one is an act-utilitarian or a co-operative utilitarian, one will simply have to hope for the best.

49. In the next chapter, we shall see that Mill is sometimes thought to evaluate actions in terms of their foreseeable consequences. If Whiff has no reason to believe that Poof will act one way rather than the other, then neither of Whiff's alternatives is foreseeably better and he acts rightly no matter which of the two options he chooses, regardless of Poof's choice.

50. Utilitarianism, Ch. 2, Par. 23, p. 223.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid., Ch. 2, Par. 6, p. 212.

53. Ibid., Ch. 2, Par. 9, p. 213.

54. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Ch. 1, Par. 11, p. 224.

55. “Auguste Comte and Positivism,” p. 333.

56. Ibid., p. 334.

57. Ibid., p. 335. Levi argues that ‘the permanent interests of man as a progressive being’ are related to the actualization of certain human potentials. See Albert William Levi, “The Value of Freedom: Mill's Liberty (1859-1959),” Ethics 70 (1959), p. 40. That interpretation is quite compatible with this one, as long as the actualization of those potentials would indeed promote the general happiness of humankind.

    By the same token, theorists are correct that Mill argues for the great importance of the promotion of autonomy and individuality, as long as they keep in mind that Mill so argues because he believes that the promotion of these qualities is necessary for the progress and well-being of humankind. See On Liberty, Ch. 3, Par. 1 ff, pp. 260 ff.

58. John Stuart Mill, “Remarks on Bentham's Philosophy,” CW Vol. 10, p. 15. For related comments, see Richard Arneson, “Mill Versus Paternalism,” Ethics 90 (1980), pp. 470-489.

59. A System of Logic, Book 6, Ch. 12, Sec. 7, p. 951.

60. Utilitarianism, Ch. 2, Par. 10, p. 214.

    In the passages above, Mill is clearly interested in promoting humankind's utility. Sometimes, Mill writes as if he is interested in promoting the happiness of all sentient beings. It is not clear how the happiness of each sentient creature should be weighed, e.g., whether each counts for one and no one for more than one. See “Whewell on Moral Philosophy,” pp. 186 ff. Mill writes that the maximization of the happiness of all sentient creatures would be best, “as far as the nature of things admits.” Utilitarianism, Ch. 5, Par. 10, p. 214. It is not clear how this qualification should be treated.

    In this work, it will be assumed that Mill believes that the act which maximizes humankind's (foreseeable) utility is morally best. The account can be suitably modified, depending upon how animals' interests should be weighed.

61. “Auguste Comte and Positivism,” p. 290.

62. Utilitarianism, Ch. 2, Par. 24, p. 224.

63. Principles of Political Economy, Book 4, Ch. 7, Sec. 3, Par. 1, CW Vol. 3, p. 765. See also “Chapters on Socialism,” CW 5, p. 729. For a brief, related (historical) discussion of Mill's views on the dissemination of birth control information, see Michael Packe, The Life of John Stuart Mill (London: Secker and Warburg, 1954), pp. 56 ff. See also Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Liberty and Liberalism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1974), p. 121.

64. A vast literature has been devoted to the topic of our obligations to future generations. See, e.g., R. I. Sikora and Brian Barry (eds.), Obligations to Future Generations (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978).

65. “Whewell on Moral Philosophy,” p. 172. Brandt seems to want to attribute his theory of indirect utility to Mill. See Brandt's “Fairness to Indirect Optimific Theories in Ethics,” p. 342. As will be explained more fully in later chapters, Mill evaluates an action's rightness according to the principle of utility and he evaluates a motivation's goodness according to the principle of utility, but not the moral goodness of an action in terms of the goodness of the motivation which, itself, is evaluated according to the principle of utility—Mill argues that the rightness of an action and the goodness of a motivation are each directly evaluated according to the principle of utility. The theory which Brandt describes is more appropriately attributed to Hutcheson. See my Francis Hutcheson's Moral Theory: Its Form and Utility.

66. “Auguste Comte and Positivism,” pp. 322 ff.

67. See my “Mill and the Utility of Liberty,” Philosophical Quarterly 34 (1984), pp. 63-68. See also Ted Honderich's “The Worth of J. S. Mill On Liberty,” Political Studies 22 (1974), pp. 463-470 and his “‘On Liberty’ and Morality-Dependent Harms,” Political Studies 30 (1982), pp. 504-514.

68. Utilitarianism, Ch. 5, Par. 25, pp. 250-251.

69. See Williams's claim in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 100.

70. Utilitarianism, Ch. 5, Par. 37, p. 259. Narveson criticizes rule-utilitarianism because it might morally require that one perform what one knows to be a non-utility-maximizing action. See his Morality and Utility (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), p. 128.

71. A System of Logic, Book 5, Ch. 7, Sec. 3, Par. 4, p. 829.

72. For a related discussions, see Copp on “generic effects.” David Copp, “The Iterated-Utilitarianism of J. S. Mill,” New Essays on John Stuart Mill and Utilitarianism, p. 94.

73. Utilitarianism, Ch. 5, Par. 21, p. 249.

74. Goldman points out that there is insufficient appreciation of the difficulty of providing the relevant description of the appropriate moral rule within certain forms of rule-utilitarianism. See Holly Goldman, “David Lyons on Utilitarian Generalization,” Philosophical Studies 26 (1974), pp. 78 ff. Feldman claims that Lyons uses the wrong criterion for relevance. See Fred Feldman, “On the Extensional Equivalence of Simple and General Utilitarianism,” Nous 8 (1974), pp. 191 ff. See also Gertrude Ezorsky, “A Defense of Rule-Utilitarianism Against David Lyons Who Insists on Tieing it to Act-Utilitarianism, Plus a Brand New Way of Checking Out General Utilitarian Properties,” Journal of Philosophy 65 (1968). For an informative discussion on this and related matters, see Gerald Gaus, “Mill's Theory of Moral Rules,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58 (1980), pp. 265-279.