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Millian Qualitative Superiorities and Utilitarianism, Part II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2009

JONATHAN RILEY
JONATHAN RILEY*
Affiliation:
Tulane [email protected]
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Abstract

I continue my argument that Millian qualitative superiorities are infinite superiorities: one pleasant feeling, or type of pleasant feeling, is qualitatively superior to another in Mill's sense if and only if even a bit of the superior is more pleasant (and thus more valuable) than any finite quantity of the inferior, however large. This gives rise to a hierarchy of higher and lower pleasures such that a reasonable hedonist always refuses to sacrifice a higher for a lower irrespective of the finite amounts of each. Some indication of why this absolute refusal may be reasonable is provided in the course of outlining the content of the Millian hierarchy. It emerges that Mill's hedonistic utilitarianism has an extraordinary structure because it gives absolute priority over competing considerations to a code of justice that distributes equal rights and correlative duties for all. His utilitarianism also recognizes that certain aesthetic and spiritual pleasures may be qualitatively superior even to the pleasant feeling of security associated with the moral sentiment of justice. Thus, for instance, a noble individual may reasonably choose to waive his own rights so as to perform beautiful supererogatory actions that provide great benefits for others at the sacrifice of the right-holder's own vital interests.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 127 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 See Riley, Jonathan, ‘Millian Qualitative Superiorities and Utilitarianism, Part I’, Utilitas 20 (September 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 It should be emphasized that the higher pleasure cannot properly be said to be equal in value to an actual infinite quantity of the lower pleasure. Infinity is not a real number, magnitude or quantity. Human beings are incapable of experiencing an actual infinity of pleasure of any kind. As Mill (following Aristotle and many others) recognizes, we cannot even conceive of what an actual completed infinity would look like: ‘infinity’ is merely a term that denotes an unlimited magnitude or an endless process of ‘coming into being’.

3 Again, to say that a unit of higher pleasure is infinitely larger is to say that a unit of the higher remains larger and thus more valuable than any finite mass of the lower, no matter how many units of lower pleasure are combined to make the finite mass. This does not imply that a unit of the higher is equal in value to an actual infinity of units of the lower. Experience presents us with no example of an actual completed infinity.

4 Mill says, for instance, that the pleasant feelings associated with the claims of equal justice can become ‘so much more intense than those concerned in any of the more common cases of utility, that the difference in degree (as is often the case in psychology) becomes a real difference in kind’ (Utilitarianism, CW, x. 251). He adds that the difference in kind takes on a character of ‘absoluteness’ and ‘apparent infinity’. Moreover, the qualitatively superior moral feelings of right and wrong do not feel anything like the inferior feelings of ordinary expediency and inexpediency.

5 Recall that Hutcheson considered enlarging the meaning of ‘intenseness’ to subsume the claim that some kinds of pleasures are ‘incomparably’ superior to others (see Part I, n. 44). But his enlarged definition would have involved, on the one hand, intensity of dignity or worth when comparing different kinds of pleasures and, on the other, intensity of pleasant feeling when comparing different pleasures of the same kind. It is hardly surprising that he dismissed this enlarged notion of intensity as inconvenient. By applying ‘intensity’ to two different variables, the notion was liable to lead to confusions, including the mistake of thinking that highly intense bodily sensations of pleasure might be able to outweigh higher pleasant feelings of mild intensity. Mill's enlarged notion of intensity applies solely to pleasant feelings and requires only that we keep clear the distinction between quality and quantity of pleasure.

6 Rawls, among others, apparently recognizes this point. See Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1971; rev. edn. 1999), p. 44, n. 5Google Scholar. See, also, Gray, John, Two Faces of Liberalism (New York, 2000), p. 53Google Scholar. But neither Rawls nor Gray finds Mill's view of qualitative superiorities to be plausible.

7 The infinite superiority of one type of pleasure to another is necessary and sufficient to give rise to the lexical hierarchy of different types of pleasure in the context of ethical hedonism. But I have never maintained that infinite superiority is necessary for a lexical value ranking defined over any domain of objects, independently of the given theory of value. AR, in the course of distinguishing between infinite superiority and lexical superiority, fail to recognize the essential link between them in the hedonistic context (‘Millian Superiorities’, p. 131, n. 10). They also confuse the Millian or Aristotelian idea of infinite superiority with the distinct idea that an actual infinite amount of utility (pleasure) may be expected as a prize in a lottery. On the difference between these ideas, see nn. 2 and 3 above.

8 In his discussion of pluralistic or qualitative hedonism, Rem Edwards suggests that Millian qualitative superiorities might be captured by a simple ordinal ranking of the different kinds or qualities of pleasant feelings. See Edwards, Pleasures and Pains: A Theory of Qualitative Hedonism (Ithaca, NY, 1979), 68–72, 111–19. Like Edwards, Fred Wilson also interprets Mill as groping for an ordinal utility scale that orders different qualities of utility from higher to lower without trying to quantify how much a higher quality differs from a lower. See Wilson, Psychological Analysis and the Philosophy of J. S. Mill (Toronto, 1990), 220–3, 253, 275–93.

9 For a more complete discussion than I can give here of this key point, see Riley, Jonathan, ‘Justice as Higher Pleasure’, John Stuart Mill: Thought and Influence – A Bicentennial Reassessment, ed. Kelly, P. J. and Varouxakis, G. (London, 2010)Google Scholar.

10 This does not imply that any person's equal rights can guarantee perfect security for his vital concerns. The uncertainty of human affairs renders such absolute security impossible.

11 For Mill's view of what it means for an individual to assume infallibility, see On Liberty, CW, xviii. 234.

12 A more complete discussion of these matters is given by Jonathan Riley, ‘Millian Infinite Superiorities and Rational Agency’, unpublished.

13 Mill depicts Aristotle's ethics as a ‘judicious utilitarianism’.

14 Mill, Utilitarianism, CW, x. 257, my emphasis.

15 For a more detailed discussion, see Riley, Jonathan, ‘The Interpretation of Maximizing Utilitarianism’, Social Philosophy and Policy 26 (Winter 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Mill, On Liberty, CW, xviii. 257. See, also, Riley, Jonathan, Mill on Liberty (London, 1998), ch. 3Google Scholar.

17 Any rational individual would consistently rank the proposed alternatives from highest to lowest in terms of the estimated amount of security which he expects from the relevant rules and rights. There is no assumption that the individual can come up with a precise measure of his relative preference intensities. Nor is there any assumption that meaningful interpersonal comparisons can be made. Rather, the weights used to count individual preference rankings equally are social norms that do not necessarily correspond to the real amounts of security (or utility of that kind) which different persons actually expect or experience. In short, the weighting scheme is akin to that employed by a positional voting rule such as Borda count. As a result, the ordinal utilitarian process avoids well-known inconsistencies associated with majority rule, although it may occasionally fail to select so-called Condorcet winners when they exist. For further discussion, see Jonathan Riley, ‘Classical Ordinal Utilitarianism’, unpublished.

18 With some caveats, the classical utilitarians were strong defenders of democratic government. For further discussion of the links between ordinal utilitarian aggregation and democratic voting, see Riley, ‘Classical Ordinal Utilitarianism’. Mill's argument that a form of constitutional representative democracy is the best form of government for any civil society is discussed in Riley, Jonathan, ‘Mill's Neo-Athenian Model of Liberal Democracy’, J. S. Mill's Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment, ed. Urbinati, Nadia and Zakaras, Alex (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 221–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Mill, Utilitarianism, CW, x. 257–8, including note.

20 Mill, Utilitarianism, CW, x. 257.

21 Mill, Utilitarianism, CW, x. 257–8, original emphasis.

22 Mill, Utilitarianism, CW, x. 257–8, original emphasis.

23 Mill, On Liberty, CW, xviii. 225. As I understand it, self-regarding conduct does not affect others by altering their circumstances without their consent. But it can and should affect their feelings, that is, their likes and dislikes, as Mill insists (p. 278).

24 For the case of trade or market exchange, see Mill, On Liberty, CW, xviii. 292–3. For the case of speech, see Jonathan Riley, ‘Mill's Doctrine of Freedom of Expression’, Utilitas 17 (2005).

25 For further discussion of Mill's doctrine of individual liberty as I interpret it, see Riley, Mill on Liberty; and Riley, Jonathan, Mill's Radical Liberalism (London, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

26 Edwards, Pleasures and Pains, esp. pp. 75–111. Moore's charge that Mill is spouting ‘contemptible nonsense’ occurs in Moore, G. E., Principia Ethica (Cambridge, 1959), p. 72Google Scholar, quoted by Edwards (p. 80).

27 See, for instance, Bain, Alexander, The Emotions and the Will, 3rd edn. (London, 1875), pp. 295–9Google Scholar. Bain points out that ‘Mill's position is tenable only on the ground, that the omission of a disinterested act that we are inclined to, would give us so much pain that it is on the whole for our comfort that we should make the requisite sacrifice’ (p. 295, emphasis in original). He finds the position plausible in cases where the sacrifice required is slight but not in cases where it is extreme: ‘All that people usually suffer from stifling a generous impulse is too slight and transient to be placed against any important sacrifice’ (p. 295). But the ‘usual’ conception of personal happiness is evidently not the noble and generous conception which is held by exceptional individuals such as John Howard (referred to by Bain) who devoted his life to helping the poor and needy. Mill's doctrine recognizes that there are such exceptional individuals whose life would be made miserable if they did not make such extreme sacrifices to benefit others, and it gives them the freedom to make these choices without compelling the rest of us to follow suit. Bain merely insists that the majority's conception of personal happiness is the only reasonable conception of what gives us pleasure including freedom from pain, it seems to me, even though he allows that most of us are fair-minded rather than narrowly selfish. On the latter point, Bain's utilitarian theory of justice is similar to Mill's insofar as Bain, like Bentham, gives prominence to a code of rights and duties as an instrument for promoting the general welfare. But Bain, again like Bentham, does not rely on any claim that security is a qualitatively superior kind of pleasure. See Bain, The Emotions and the Will, pp. 264–93.

28 Sidgwick, Henry, The Methods of Ethics; 7th edn. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981), pp. 497–509Google Scholar; and Bain, The Emotions and the Will, p. 298.

29 Mill, Utilitarianism, CW, x. 215, my emphasis.

30 West, Henry, An Introduction to Mill's Utilitarian Ethics (Cambridge, 2004), p. 64Google Scholar.

31 West, Introduction, pp. 69, 72.

32 Skorupski, John, ‘Quality of Well-Being: Quality of Being’, Well-Being and Morality: Essays in Honour of James Griffin, ed. Crisp, R. and Hooker, B. (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar.

33 For helpful comments on earlier drafts, I am grateful to Christoph Fehige, Paul Kelly, Dale Miller, Elijah Millgram, Molly Rothenberg, and an anonymous referee. Responsibility for the views expressed is mine alone.