Mill’s proof of utilitarianism
Michael Lacewing
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Stage 1: happiness is good
• You can’t ‘prove’ that something is
good or not, but you can give a
reasoned argument.
• What is good is what we should aim at
in our actions and lives.
– Good is an end, a purpose of action
– Happiness is a purpose of action
Desire and happiness
• The only proof capable of being given that
an object is visible is that people actually
see it … In like manner … the sole evidence
… that something is desirable is that people
do actually desire it … .
• No reason can be given why the general
happiness is desirable, except that each
person … desires his own happiness.
Fallacy of equivocation?
• Equivocation: using one word with two
different meanings
– Makes an argument invalid
• Moore: Mill equivocates on ‘desirable’
– Worthy of being desired (good)
– Capable of being desired (what people desire)
• Reply: what people desire is evidence for
what is desirable (good)
Individual and general
happiness
• This, however, being a fact, we have
not only all the proof 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 …
Fallacy of composition?
• Fallacy of composition: attributing some feature
of the members of a collection to the collection
itself
• Because each person desires their own
happiness, everybody desires everybody’s
happiness (the general happiness)?
– Compare: Every girl loves a sailor. Therefore, there is
one sailor who every girl loves! No.
• Reply: Mill simply assumes impartiality. If
happiness is good, then morality concerns the
general happiness.
Stage 2: only happiness is
good
• People don’t only desire happiness
• Reply: Happiness has many ‘ingredients’, such as
truth and freedom, and each ingredient is desirable
in itself
• The distinction between ‘external’ means and
‘constitutive’ means
• To want to know the truth for its own sake is the
same as one’s happiness consisting in knowing the
truth
• It is not possible to desire something that you don’t
think is a pleasure