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UTILITARIAN ETHICS New Studies in Ethics Edited by W NEW STUDIES IN ETHICS UTILITARIAN ETHICS New Studies in Ethics Edited by W. D. Hudson What is involved in judging_ a person to be moral or immoral, or in calling an action right or wrong? What makes a man good or an action our duty? Such questions as these, which concern the nature and content of morality, have been discussed by philoso­ phers from earliest times and are still live issues today. Many different types of ethical theory have emerged. New Studies in Ethics meets the need for an up-to-date examination of the main types. This series of monographs covers the whole range of ethical theory from Greek philosophers to the latest develop­ ments in contemporary moral philosophy. Each study is complete in itself and the whole series provides a unique treatment of the main philosophical problems in ethics. A distinguished team of philosophers, drawn from universities in Great Britain, the U.S.A. and Australia, was invited to prepare these studies. They have provided a series of monographs which will prove indispensable to university students of Moral Philo­ sophy, and will interest any intelligent reader. The Series H. B. Acton Kant's Moral Philosophy J. N. Findlay Axiological Ethics Antony Flew Evolutionary Ethics PamelaHuby Greek Ethics W.D.Hudson Ethical Intuitionism Eugene Kamenka Marxism and Ethics J. kemp Ethical Naturalism D. J. O'Connor Aquinas and Natural Law Anthony Quinton Utilitarian Ethics W. H. Walsh Hegelian Ethics, G. J. Warnock Existentialist Ethics Mary Warnock Contemporary Moral Philosophy Utilitarian Ethics ANTHONY QUINTON Fellow of New College, Oxford Palgrave Macmillan © Anthony Quinton 1973 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. First published 1973 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in New York Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras SBN 333 03740 5 ISBN 978-0-333-03740-9 ISBN 978-1-349-00248-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-00248-1 To JOANNA and EDWARD The paperback edition of this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. CONTENTS Editor's Foreword vi Preface vii INTRODUCTION I (i) Definition of utilitarianism I (ii) Egoism, motivation and the harmony of interests 5 I. THE PRECURSORS OF UTILITARIANISM II (i) Ethics before utilitarianism II (ii) Utilitarianism emerges 15 (iii) Hume 17 (iv) Theological utilitarianism 23 II. JEREMY BENTHAM 27 III. JOHN STUART MILL 38 (i) Introductory 38 (ii) The removal of misunderstandings 39 (iii) The sanctions of morality 54 (iv) The proof of the principle of utility 58 (v) Justice and utility 71 IV. FOUR CRITICS 82 (i) John Grote 83 (ii) Henry Sidgwick 87 (iii) F. H. Bradley 93 (iv) G. E. Moore 98 v. EPILOGUE: CONTEMPORARY UTILITARIANISM xo6 Notes III Bibliography II5 EDITOR'S FOREWORD Most people nowadays who concern themselves with moral issues would probably count themselves utilitarians. That is to say, they would consider that the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by the happiness or misery in which it results for those affected by it. This point of view has a long history and it provides the subject-matter for lively controversy amongst moral philosophers at the present time. In this monograph Mr Quinton, with characteristic clarity and skill, introduces us to the main exponents of utilitarianism, showing how their views have been, or ought to be, critically assessed. He ranges from the issues between Bentham and Mill to the contemporary controversy about act and rule utilitarianism. His book will prove an essential addition to the library of any student of moral philosophy. University of Exeter W. D. HUDSON PREFACE This exposition of utilitarian ethics, like comparable monographs in this series, is set out in a historical way. I have taken the paradigm of utilitarianism to be the ethical doctrines of Bentham and John Stuart Mill and, more specifically, I have treated as a utilitarian anyone who agrees with them that the rightness of actions is determined by the value of their consequences and that what determines the value of these consequences is the pleasure or pain that they include. I argue, by reference to this standard, that Hume is more of a utilitarian than he is nowadays often made out to be. The same standard implies that 'ideal utilitarians' like Moore and Rashdall, who, although consequentialists, do not take pleasure or happiness as the criterion of value, are not really utilitarians at all. The examination, criticism and, where appropriate, defence from criticism of the arguments and conclusions of Bentham and Mill has left space for no more than the barest survey of those aspects of utilitarian reasoning which most preoccupy ethical theorists at the present time, namely the structure and adequacy of consequentialist arguments in moral thinking. This is intentional and reflects my belief that the hedonistic aspect of traditional utilitarianism, its most widely repudiated ingredient, is equally deserving of consideration. New College, Oxford ANTHONY QUINTON INTRODUCTION (i) DEFINITION OF UTILITARIANISM Utilitarianism can be understood as a movement for legal, political and social reform that flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century, or, again, as the ideology of that movement. But it is also, and more persistently, a general ethical theory and it is almost exclusively in this sense that I shall be concerned with it. As a theory of ethics it provides a criterion for distinguishing between right and wrong action and, by implication, an account of the nature of the moral judgements that characterise action as right or wrong. In its standard form it can be expressed as the combination of two principles: (I) the consequentialist principle that the rightness, or wrongness, of an action is determined by the goodness, or badness, of the results that flow from it and ( z) the hedonist principle that the only thing that is good in itself is pleasure and the only thing bad in itself is pain. Utilitarians have generally taken it for granted, and have made trouble for themselves by doing so, that happiness is a sum of pleasures. Given this assumption, the doctrine can be expressed in the form of a single principle, the greatest happiness principle: the rightness of an action is determined by its contribution to the happiness of everyone affected by it. This formula is, I think, a fair account of what Bentham and John Stuart Mill held to be their fundamental doctrine. Bentham says, 'By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question.'1 The 'party in question' need not, and commonly will not, be a single person. Bentham goes on, 'An action then may be said to be conformable to the principle of utility ... when the I tendency it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it'. 2 'The interest of the community then is what?- the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.'3 There is a difference that is worth noticing between the first quotation, which speaks of what appears to contribute to the ·general happiness, and the second, which speaks of what actually augments or diminishes it. We shall have to inquire later which consequences of an action are relevant to its moral quality; its actual consequences, its intended consequences or the consequences it would be rational to expect from it. John Stuart Mill says, 'The creed which accepts as the founda­ tion of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.'4 There is an important moral distinction that is not explicitly provided for by the greatest happiness principle as I have formu­ lated it, following Bentham and Mill. This is the distinction between a morally obligatory action and a morally permissible one. An obligatory action is the right thing to do in the circum­ stances, the one thing one ought to do, anything other than which it would be wrong to do. A permissible action on the other hand, is one it is quite all right to do but which is not required. An obligatory action is something it would be wrong not to do; a permissible action is one it would be not wrong to do. Bentham is aware of this distinction but seems to think that it is of no importance. He says, 'Of an action that is conformable to the principle of utility one may always say either that it is one that ought to be done, or at least that it is not one that ought not to be done. One may say also, that it is right it should be done; at least that it is not wrong it should be done; that it is a right action; at least that it is not a wrong action.' 5 What Bentham seems to be suggesting is that any action that detracts from the general happiness is wrong, it ought not to be done; while any action that adds to it is all right or permissible, but is not something that ought to be done, is not something obligatory.
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