6 - Utilitarian socialism: J. A. Hobson

Summary

INTRODUCTION

English new liberals, as I have been suggesting, are traditionally viewed as having been largely unsympathetic, if not hostile, to utilitarianism. My study rejects this view, which, no doubt, largely stems from nineteenth-century English idealism's legacy to the new liberalism. Hegelian idealists like Bradley criticized utilitarians like Mill and Sidgwick on many accounts including the futility of trying to maximize happiness. However, though new liberals endorsed many such criticisms, they nonetheless never abandoned utilitarianism entirely. They modified Millian utilitarianism, making all of them at least consequentialists if not full-blooded, conventional utilitarians.

This chapter focuses on Hobson's utilitarian inheritance by, first, examining his criticisms of “old” or “narrow” utilitarianism. Hobson conceded that classical utilitarianism was plagued by many of the shortcomings identified by idealists. Yet, he insisted that it could be compellingly renovated. Next, I examine Hobson's efforts to refurbish utilitarianism. In particular, I try to assess what he means by “organic welfare” and what he means by “social utility” as the ultimate criterion of right. I also address Hobson's theory of moral rights, hoping to demonstrate how Hobson followed other new liberals in defending robust moral rights as utility-maximizing conditions. This chapter, then, completes my endeavor to show that the new liberalism was fundamentally a form of consequentialism. Notwithstanding Green's consequentialism, the new liberalism was, more specifically, a variety of liberal utilitarianism. However, unlike previous chapters, this one eschews treating concepts like self-realization in sustained detail because Hobson was much less a moral philosopher than Green, Hobhouse or Ritchie.