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Today’s Lecture
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Grade spreadsheet
Turnitin.com
Study session on Monday 18th
Final Exam and office hours
Immanuel Kant
Preliminary comments on Mill
John Stuart Mill
Grade spreadsheet
• I will be placing an undated grade spreadsheet on
the course website some time today (probably this
evening). Please check to ensure that the data
matches what you have (this will be the last chance
to do so before the exam).
• If there are any discrepancies, come and see me.
Turnitin.com
• Remember that if your assignments are not
in Turnitin.com by Friday you will receive a
zero on the relevant assignment.
• There is no negotiation on this one, so don’t
leave this task to the last minute.
Study session on Monday 18th
• There will be a study session on Monday the 18th,
from 1100-1300 (or 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.). This
will be held in Talbot College room 305 (NOT 310
… apparently they are removing the floor). You
don’t have to stay for the whole period, if you come
at all. Attendance is strictly voluntary. But you may
be able to help each other out.
• Bring ideas and talk stuff over. I won’t be able to
give you any substantive answers, as that would
defeat the purpose of the exam. But I can referee
your discussion (i.e. if you need a referee).
Final Exam and office hours
• Don’t forget that the final exam is on Tuesday, the 19th, at
9:00 a.m.
• The location, remember, is TC 343.
• Also, I will choose the exam questions from the first fifteen
questions on your original handout of possible exam
questions (unfortunately we will not be getting to either
Rawls or hooks - so drop questions 16 and 17).
• My final office hours for this course are this week. I will be
submitting your final grades on Friday the 22nd, so if you
have any questions about grades, seek me out before the
22nd.
Second Section: Rational beings as ends in themselves
• The third version of the supreme categorical imperative
rests on a recognition that each of us, when we will an
action, treat ourselves as ends in ourselves ... not merely as
means. Since we could not (without contradiction) will
ourselves to be regarded as means only, we ought not to
treat other rational beings in this way (FP, p.662).
• This is true whether we talk of hypothetical or categorical
imperatives (FP, pp.661-62).
• This Kant contends, is a duty of every rational agent (FP,
p.662).
• The ‘third version’ reads: “Act so that you treat humanity,
whether in your own person or in that of another, always as
an end and never as a means only” (FP, p.662).
Second Section: Rational beings as
ends in themselves
• Of note in getting to this point: Kant is delineating
here who is included in the moral community of
ends in themselves. Only those who count as
rational beings, who have the power to determine
their own actions “according to the conception of
laws” (FP, p.653) are to be included. Kant restricts
the notion of persons to such beings (FP, p.662)).
• Note that this view of each rational being as an end
in herself nicely yields talk of rights.
Second Section: Rational beings
as ends in themselves
• The autonomy of rational beings is
exploited in what is arguably the fourth
version of the supreme categorical
imperative where he contends that “the
principle of every human will as a will
giving universal law in all its maxims is
very well adapted to being a categorical
imperative” (FP, p.664).
Second Section: The kingdom of
ends
• The notion of each and every rational being
as a member of a legislative body,
legislating universal laws for all rational
beings (as ends in themselves), yields an
image of a kingdom of ends (i.e. a kingdom
of ends in themselves) (FP, pp.664-65).
• This last image nicely connects Kant’s
theory to the social contract theory of his
(near) contemporaries.
Second Section: The kingdom of
ends
• This kingdom of ends is one in which every
rational being legislates universal laws
which are objectively binding for all. Within
such a shared system of laws, they do not
vary since they arise from our shared
rational faculties, each views him/herself as
a legislating member (FP, p.665).
Second Section: The kingdom of
ends
• This suggests the intrinsic value of the good
will ... that is the will which is itself
determined by universal law. The will and
reason allow every rational being to
determine her own actions, independently
of inclinations or empirical contingencies.
This gives each rational being, as an end in
themselves, inestimable value ... what Kant
christens ‘dignity’ (FP, pp.665-66).
Revisiting Consequentialism
• Consequentialists treat our moral notion of the good
as more fundamental than the right…in contrast to
deontologists.
• Actions which maximize the (aggregate) good are
considered right, while those which minimize the
(aggregate) good are considered wrong.
• Regardless of the favored view of the good, actions
are, according to consequentialists, extrinsically
right or wrong, depending on their overall
consequences.
Preliminary comments about what Mill
is up to
• Mill’s method of inquiry in the pursuit of a normative
ethical theory is fundamentally empirical rather than a
priori. On this point alone his approach contrasts with
Kant’s (FP, pp.671-72).
• Like Kant, Mill hopes to provide a rational method for
deciding our moral duties or obligations.
• By ‘rational method’ I mean a way to reflectively and
critically approach the relevant ‘data’ (that is, a given moral
context) and make a warranted judgment regarding what is
right or wrong, or alternatively what is good or evil.
• The judgment will be warranted if and only if it conforms to
the relevant epistemic standards or values.
Preliminary comments about
what Mill is up to
• For Mill, an analysis, or theory, of morality must do
more than merely analyze what it means to be a
rational being, or to act rationally.
• It must accommodate the probable source of
morality in our being social animals with a
particular ability to extend our natural inclinations or
sentiments for our own welfare to include the
greater community of humankind…and all other
sentient life.
Preliminary comments about what Mill
is up to
• The universality of Mill’s moral theory lies in “the
theory of life” it presupposes (see FP, p.681).
• Drawing from biology and psychology, Mill
suggests that all sentient life is attracted to that
which causes pleasure and is averse to that which
causes pain (see FP, p.682).
• Understood by Mill as the Good, happiness is
integrally tied up with maximizing pleasure and
minimizing pain (caveats to come) (FP, p.681).
Utilitarianism: Chapter One
• Mill contrasts what he calls the intuitive and
inductive schools of ethics (FP, p.679).
• The intuitive school of ethics, for Mill, divides into
popular and philosophical forms (FP, p.678).
• The popular forms talk of intuitive faculties which
perceive the right and the wrong in the concrete (i.e.
in particular actions or in the particular moral
context) (FP, p.678).
• What reasons might there be to think this approach
will fail…as Mill thinks it will?
Utilitarianism: Chapter One
• The philosophical forms of the intuitive school of ethics
see the intuitive faculty as an aspect of our faculty of
reason, only supplying us with general moral principles
(FP, p.678). It is under this class of intuitive ethics that Mill
places Kant (see FP, p.680).
• Under the philosophical forms of the intuitive school, the
principles of ethics, or general moral laws, are evident a
priori (i.e. without appeal to experience).
• The evidency of such principles or laws emerges from a
proper understanding of the terms or notions involved (FP,
pp.678-79).
• This is clearly Kant’s position.
Utilitarianism: Chapter One
• Inductive schools of ethics, including
utilitarian ones like Mill’s, ground moral
principles or general moral laws in
observation and experience (i.e. they are
fundamentally empiricist) (FP, p.679).
Utilitarianism: Chapter One
• Note part of Mill’s own conception of an adequate
normative ethical theory, and how we ought to go
about our moral reasoning, in this discussion.
• An adequate normative ethical theory will have high
order principles or laws from which we deduce our
moral judgments about a given case, action or
circumstance (FP, p.679).
• This justificatory structure for our moral judgments
relevantly resembles a foundationalist epistemology.
Utilitarianism: Chapter One
• It is important to note Mill’s criticism of Kant’s a
priori approach.
• It is his contention that Kant must, at some point in a
defense of his position, appeal to utilitarian
arguments (FP, pp.679-80).
• Think of Kant’s third example (i.e. The Talented
(But Lazy) Person) (FP, p.659) or his fourth
example (i.e. The Selfish, and Unscrupulous, Rich
Person) (FP, p.659). Does he sneak in utilitarian, or
at least consequentialist, considerations?
• Indeed, Mill suggests that his moral theory will fail
without them (FP, p.679).
Utilitarianism: Chapter One
• Mill rejects the idea of a “direct proof” (FP, p.680)
for an ultimate end (of action) (FP, p.680).
• (He seems to mean by ‘direct proof’ something
decisive, or yielding a conclusion that is necessarily
or at least evidently true.)
• He suggests the following examples. Though
medicine and music are extrinsically valuable/good
as means to health and pleasure respectively, neither
health nor pleasure are open to direct proof as
intrinsically valuable/good (FP, p.680).
• Is he right?
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• It is important to recognize that Mill is offering
clarifying comments and corrections to common
misconceptions about Utilitarianism in the
second chapter.
• He also responds to objections that he thinks
arise from mistaken interpretations of
Utilitarianism (FP, p.680).
• This chapter is not a direct defense of his
normative ethical theory (FP, p.680).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• Utilitarianism’s foundational/supreme principle, as
understood by Mill, is known as “the Greatest
Happiness Principle” (FP, p. 681).
• It states that: “actions are right in proportion as they
tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to
produce the reverse of happiness” (FP, p. 681).
• Happiness is “pleasure and the absence of pain”
while unhappiness is “pain and the privation of
pleasure” (FP, p. 681).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two important caveats
• (1) Mill will want to qualitatively distinguish pleasures, and
pains. Some pleasures are qualitatively more valuable than
others, and dido for pain (FP, p.682).
• (2) Mill is not just talking of one individual’s pleasure or
pain when talking of maximizing happiness and minimizing
unhappiness. Rather he is referring to the aggregate pleasure
or pain of the relevant moral community. This community
includes “the whole [of] sentient creation” (FP, p.684).
• (3) Mill understands Utilitarianism to be concerned not only
with maximizing the aggregate happiness of the relevant
moral community, but also minimizing the aggregate
unhappiness of said community (FP, p.684).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two important caveats
• (4) Mill, like Kant, distinguishes the criteria
for right and wrong from the motives one
has for acting rightly or wrongly. This is an
important distinction for Mill as we’ll see
soon (FP, pp.688-89).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two - the
‘swine objection’
• To contend, as Utilitarians do, that the ultimate end
of action is the maximizing of pleasure and freedom
from pain, is, for some anti-Utilitarians, “a doctrine
worthy only of swine” (FP, p.682).
• There is in such an objection the implicit accusation
that Utilitarian doctrine undermines human
dignity...reducing humans to mere animal pursuits
(FP, p.682).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two - the
‘swine objection’
• Mill’s response is several-fold.
• (1) The greatest happiness principle is only reducing
humans to mere animal pursuits if human pleasure does not
differ from that experienced by animals other than human
(FP, p.682).
• (2) What’s more, if this were all there is to human pleasure,
then Utilitarians could hardly be accused of debasing
humanity (FP, p.682).
• (3) That this objection has any force indicates, for Mill, that
human pleasure is qualitatively different from that of
animals other than human (FP, p.682).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two - the
‘swine objection’
• This is where Mill introduces the aforementioned
caveat regarding the qualitative differences that exist
between pleasures (and between pains), and the
cautionary note that the Greatest Happiness
Principle does not restrict Utilitarians to the pursuit
of quantity over quality of pleasures (FP, p.682).
• Do be careful here. Quantity of pleasure is
nevertheless important.
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two - the
‘swine objection’
• Mill introduces the notion of competent judges to
allow for an objective (read inter-subjective) basis
for distinguishing the quality of pleasures (you will
find something similar to this in Plato’s Republic)
(FP, p.682).
• A competent judge is someone who has experienced
the range of relevant states over which she is about
to judge. Having experienced this range of states she
is thought to be in an informed, or competent,
position from which to judge (FP, p.682).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two - the
‘swine objection’
• Mill contends that convergence of (all, or the majority of)
judgments made by the class of competent judges regarding
which pleasures are of superior value is sufficient to warrant
a judgment to that affect (FP, p.682).
• Two important qualifications are (1) that these judges are
not to be swayed by feelings of moral duty to prefer one
over the other and (2) that they possess a significant degree
of self-knowledge (FP, pp.682, 684).
• The strength of his contention lies in there being no other
way, on his account, to compare the intensity or quality of
pleasures or pains other than experiencing both (FP, p.682).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two - the ‘swine
objection’
• Mill contends that those experienced with the range of
pleasures open to humanity tend to favor those associated
with our “higher faculties” (FP, p.683), even when it is
known that the ‘lower pleasures’ are more easily attained
(FP, p.683).
• Indeed, he contends that humans who have experienced the
range of pleasures open to humanity only content
themselves with the easily attained lower pleasures because
of a weakness of will or under extreme duress ... i.e. when
their unhappiness is so extreme as to push them towards
such lower pleasures, when they are no longer capable of
the higher pleasures or if they no longer enjoy access to the
higher pleasures (FP, pp.683-84).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two - the
‘swine objection’
• This discussion is summed up in Mill’s now
famous response: “It is better to be a human
being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better
to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool
satisfied” (FP, p.683).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• Mill’s caveat about Utilitarianism
minimizing the aggregate unhappiness as
well as maximizing the aggregate happiness
of the relevant moral community is in
response to the objection that happiness is
unattainable, i.e. impossible (FP, p.685).
• Mill also here clarifies further what he
means by happiness.
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• He contends that a life in which an individual experiences
periodic states of pleasure, a minimal amount of pain, and
possesses a realistic expectation of what can be achieved in
life, is one that is properly described as happy (FP, p.685).
• Happiness is not, then, the succession of states of pleasure.
So understood, happiness would not be attainable (FP,
p.685).
• To those who doubt that such a description of the happy life
would satisfy everyone, Mill suggests that many have
contented themselves with less (i.e. many have contented
themselves with enjoying a certain frequency of tranquility
or excitement) (FP, pp.685-86).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• Mill also concedes that humans can indeed live
without happiness, but this is often in contexts in
which they have no other choice ... i.e. where they
have lack the proper opportunities to acquire the
education needed to enjoy certain pleasures or the
discipline to avoid certain vices, and where the
social institutions ignore or unfairly pass over the
disadvantaged (FP, pp.685, 686-87).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• He will also concede that among the noble there are those
who sacrifice their own happiness, and are counted noble
(read very moral) for doing so.
• But, Mill contends, such sacrifice is properly regarded as
noble only when the individual in questions sacrifices their
own happiness so that others do not have to suffer a similar
fate, or so that others may be happy (FP, p.687).
• “A sacrifice which does not increase, or tend to increase, the
sum total of happiness, it [i.e. Utilitarianism] considers as
wasted” (FP, p.688).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• It is important to note that Mill insists that
the greatest happiness principle ought to be
applied impartially (see page 688 of your
FP). Each individual’s happiness counts as
one among many (i.e. the members of the
relevant moral community) within the
Utilitarian calculus (FP, p.688).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• Mill’s emphasis on social reform comes into play as
a way of combating the favoritism of the few over
the many enjoyed under the British social
institutions of his time, and as a way of combating
the selfishness, or apathy towards others, extant in
British society (see FP, pp.686, 688).
• It is Mill’s belief that such selfishness is inculcated
rather than innate, but that at any rate it can be
overcome through education and proper
socialization (FP, pp.686, 688).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• Mill also deals with the objection that the
Utilitarian ideal is too high a standard by
which to live. It is impossible, it is argued,
to always act with the general or aggregate
good of the whole moral community in
mind (FP, p.688).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• This is the context for Mill’s caveat about distinguishing
talk of the criteria for right and wrong from the motives one
has for acting rightly or wrongly (FP, p.688).
• It is only when an action, or set of actions, can (directly)
affect the general or aggregate happiness of the relevant
moral community that the moral agent should consider
whether her action(s) will positively or negatively affect the
aggregate happiness of the whole (FP, p.689).
• Otherwise, her motives are irrelevant when considering the
moral quality of her actions. What matters is whether her
actions do, in fact, contribute to the aggregate happiness of
the community of moral equals (FP, 688).
• This is in strong contrast to Kant’s view of the matter.
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• He does add the following caveats.
• (1) The responsible moral agent ought to consider,
before acting, whether by so acting she will
adversely affect the “legitimate and authorized
expectations...of anyone else” (FP, p.689).
• (2) The responsible moral agent ought also to
reconsider an action when “the action is of a class
which, if practiced generally, would be generally
injurious” (FP, p.689).
• (2) is reminiscent of Kant.
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• One of Mill’s more contentious points is
that the motive of an action only matters to
judgments about the moral character of an
agent rather than the morality of the action
(FP, pp.688, 690).
• Thus if an individual saves a drowning child
merely because he is going to be financially
rewarded for his labor, he still acts rightly
(FP, p.688).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• In footnote 2 Mill does discuss the relevance of
intention when circumscribing behavior under
the description of a certain type of action.
• If an agent saves a drowning person only
because they intend to torture them then their
sub-action (that of saving the person from
drowning) is only one step in a ‘greater’ action
which is morally blameworthy (FP, p.689).
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• This response raises a perennial problem for
ethicists - How do we decide on the proper
description for the behavior we are trying to
morally assess? Or, What are the criteria for
setting the boundaries of behavior so that
we can judge that behavior under a general
description which fits a type of action?
Utilitarianism: Chapter Two
• Note also that Mill allows for other moral
assessments than those of action. That is, he
concedes that we must accommodate our moral
discourse about individual character. His focus of
discussion just happens to be right and wrong action,
rather than good or evil character (FP, pp.689, 690).
• Do note Mill’s responses to those who would accuse
Utilitarians of holding a godless doctrine (FP,
p.691). You would do well to relate his comments
back to Plato’s Euthyphro.