John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism (A critique) (Part 4)
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The alterability of the standard moral content of utilitarianism subjects it to the dangers of whim and abuse, which frequently undermine its significance as a theory of how we ought to behave. One need only examine each time historically a “greater good” was invoked in order to mobilize people to commit atrocities (the Holocaust, the Soviet purges, Rwandan genocide, etc. )
The entire discussion prior to this sentence, of course, is mostly an exercise of thought and is not essential; simply put, Mill’s Utilitarianism fails to present a valid justification for the principle of utility in the first place. In fact, it is this failure that indirectly causes the aforementioned difficulties. There is no relationship drawn between the moral theory he advocates and any believable story of human nature. The previously expressed concerns are mostly problems encountered with utilitarian principles as a given, but how these principles were derived in the first place must be addressed. Mill’s bogus proof is the first part of this failure:
The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible is that people hear it; and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that people do actually desire it… this, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good, that each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.
The equivocation of the word “desirable” in his proof is clear. He intends to argue that people desire happiness, which makes it desirable (i. e. intrinsically good). However, he fails to account for the different senses of the word “desirable. ” His proof could correctly assert that if people desire happiness, it is capable of being desired, but his intended demonstration that happiness is intrinsically worthy of being desired because people desire it is fallacy. By Mill’s logic, one could simply substitute any noun- like “cats”- for “happiness,” and there would be a proof for the intrinsic value of cats! The problem with Mill’s proof is that what people contingently happen to desire does not change what is “desirable” (in the intrinsic sense); just because nobody in the 14th century desired equal recognition of the rights of women does not mean that it is not in fact desirable. [8]
Furthermore, the second part of his proof commits the fallacy of composition. While it is indeed true that the good of one individual contributes to the good of the aggregate of all persons (which is merely a sum total of individual goods), the reverse (that the general happiness is a good to the individual), which is the goal of Mill’s proof, is not true. The aggregate of all persons is not an entity in itself which possesses a good, and any increase in the aggregate of happiness is not necessarily fulfilling the desire for happiness of all its members; it could be fulfilling the desires of one, few, or many. Even supposing the reality of some kind of collective entity, Mill provides no reason why we ought to care for each other’s happiness.
Is there, yet, any defense of utilitarianism which renders it plausible? In the absence of a proof of the principle of utility, Bentham contends that all moral systems reduce to a form of utility, are ambiguous, or cannot be followed consistently.
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