Mil's Utility

International Phenomenological Society
Mill's Argument for the Principle of Utility

Author(s): Hardy Jones
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Mar., 1978), pp. 338-354
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
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MILL'S ARGUMENT FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
In chapter four of Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill offered an intrigu-

ing, provocative argument for the principle of utility. This effort to provide
rational support for the utilitarian ethical theory has inspired numerous
criticisms, defenses, interpretations, and analyses. Much of the early
philosophical discussion centered on the issue of whether Mill had commit-
ted some elementary logical blunder.' More recently, a number of writers
have successfully defended Mill against a variety of superficial attacks.2
Fortunately, one can now evaluate the argument without too much worry
over whether he committed the fallacy of equivocation, the fallacy of com-
position, or even the naturalistic fallacy. But the vigorous defense has not
been good enough. I shall try to show exactly what is at stake in the famous
proof and why Mill fails to establish his conclusion.
The principle of utility says that actions are right insofar as they tend to
promote happiness. The central issue of ethical theory, according to Mill, is
the question of the supreme good or ultimate end. His argument is designed
to show that the general happiness (the maximum happiness) is the ultimate
moral good.3 Mill cautions his readers that whatever he produces ". . . can-
not be proof in the ordinary and popular meaning of the term." His reason
is that "Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof.
Whatever can be proved to be good must be so by being shown to be a
I The harsh charges of Moore and Bradley were especially prominent. G. E. Moore, Prin-
cipia Ethica, chapter three. F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies, essay three.
2 James Seth, "The Alleged Fallacies in Mill's 'Utilitarianism,' " Philosophical Review
Vol. XVII (September, 1908), pp. 469-488. Everett W. Hall, "The 'Proof of Utility' in Ben-
tham and Mill," Ethics, 60 (October, 1949), pp. 1-18, reprinted in Mill: A Collection of
Critical Essays, ed. J. B. Schneewind (Garden City: Doubleday, 1968), pp. 145-78; Norman
Kretzmann, "Desire as Proof of Desirability," The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 8, no. 32 (Ju-
ly, 1958), pp. 246-258, reprinted in Mill: Utilitarianism, ed. Samuel Gorovitz (Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1971), pp. 231-41; L. Loring, "Moore's Criticism of Mill," Ratio, 9 (1967);
Mary Warnock, Ethics since 1900, 2nd edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), pp.
19-27.
3 John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (Indianapolis: -Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), pp. 3 and 10.
338
MILL'S ARGUMENT FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY 339
means to something admitted to be good without proof."4 It is not clear

what Mill intends to exclude, but several portions of his argument can be
recast into deductive form.5 He could, for instance, have argued as follows:
(1) If all nonultimate goods are means to some end, E, and if E is ad-
mitted to be good without proof, then E is an ultimate end.
(2) All nonultimate goods are means to the maximum happiness, and
the maximum happiness is admitted to be good without proof.
Therefore,
(3) The maximum happiness is an ultimate end.
Support for the premises in this argument would surely generate rational
support for Mill's utilitarianism. But he does not argue in this way; his proof
is more circuitous, more complex. He does not claim that the maximum
happiness is admitted to be good without proof. Instead, he provides a
proof for why it should be admitted to be good.
The key passage is the third paragraph:
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. If the end
which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice,
acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince any person that it was so.
No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each per-
son, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. 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. Happiness has made out its title as one of the ends of conduct and, conse-
quently, one of the criteria of morality.6
4Mill, p. 7.
The philosophical difficulties in the argument are very great and can be highlighted with
this sort of reconstruction. And these most severe problems cannot be evaded by urging that
Mill was not trying to provide a strict proof. However this may be, Mill almost certainly
overstated the point when he said that ". . . questions of ultimate ends do not admit of proof,
in the ordinary acceptation of the term. To be incapable of proof by reasoning is common to
all first principles, to the first premises of our knowledge, as well as to those of our conduct."
(Mill, p. 44) It appears to be unquestionable that, whatever type of proof is being offered in the
famous chapter four, it is a proof by reasoning in which Mill was trying to establish ra-
tionally the principle of utility, the first principle of conduct. Several writers have stressed that
Mill was not offering a strict, direct deductive proof. See especially Hall, op. cit.; D. D.
Raphael, "Fallacies in and about Mill's Utilitarianism," Philosophy, vol. 30, (October, 1955),
pp. 344-57; and S. A. Moser, "A Comment on Mill's Argument for Utilitarianism," Inquiry,
vol. 6 (1963), pp. 308-18.
6 Mill, pp. 44-45.
340 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
These legendary sentences express Mill's conviction that he has supported

two central claims: (a) Individual happiness is a good and (b) The general
happiness is a good.7
The utilitarian doctrine includes four other crucial elements: (c) Right
acts are conducive to what is good, (d) The good is the desirable, (e) Hap-
piness is the only intrinsically desirable human end, and (f) The general hap-
piness is the ultimate moral end. Mill's proof does not involve support for
(c). His discussion proceeds on the assumption that the correct moral theory
is a teleological one in which actions are to be evaluated according to the
supreme good.8 He writes also as though (d) is true; he does not argue that
'good' means "desirable," or that whatever is desirable must also be good.
I shall not question these features of utilitarianism. Mill argues for (e) with
the contention that the constraints of human nature require that anything
desired is desired as a means to or as a part of happiness.9 This is then used
to support (f). Near the end of chapter four, Mill reiterates the view that
t. . . nothing is a good to human beings but in so far as it is either itself
pleasurable or a means of attaining pleasure or averting pain," and imme-
diately adds, "But if this doctrine be true, the principle of utility is
proved. " '0
I want to show why Mill's argument cannot support the view that the
general happiness is the ultimate moral end. The next three sections are
devoted to the preliminary stage in which he argues (a) that the individual
happiness is good. I shall consider three interpretations of the startling
claim that ". . . the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is
desirable is that people do actually desire it." In sections V and VI I turn to
the argument that the general happiness is desirable. I argue that Mill's
evidentiary criterion is fatal to the defense of his utilitarian end.
' The term 'general happiness' will be interpreted to mean "maximum happiness." Mill
seems to be aware that he must show that the ultimate moral end involves the greatest at-
tainable degree of happiness. Some have interpreted Mill to have meant that the moral end is
the greatest average happiness, rather than the greatest absolute total. It is not necessary to
argue the matter here, since my evaluation of Mill's argument is not affected by it.
'I wish to avoid the controversy over whether Mill is an act or rule utilitarian. My argu-
ment is not affected by this issue. On these matters, see J. 0. Urmson, "The Interpretation of
the Moral Philosophy of J. S. Mill," The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 3 (January, 1953), pp.
33-39; J. D. Mabbott, "Interpretations of Mill's Utilitarianism," The Philosophical Quarter-
ly, vol. 6 (1956), pp. 115-20; and Maurice Mandelbaum, "Two Moot Issues in Mill's
Utilitarianism," In Schneewind.
9 Mill, p. 48.
10 Mill, p. 51.
II
Mill's argument that (individual) happiness is desirable has often been

thought to depend on a very strong link between desire and desirability. On
one view, something's being desired is a sufficient condition for its
desirability. The "sole evidence" that something is desirable is quite strong:
a thing cannot be desired unless it is also desirable. The analogy with
'visible' and 'audible' is thus quite apt, for being seen and being heard are
sufficient for things also to be visible and audible." This interpretation
allows a simple, direct argument:
(1) If something is desired, then it is desirable.
(2) Happiness is desired.
Therefore,
(3) Happiness is desirable.
This conclusion, together with two premises based on Mill's discussion of
the nature of human desire, quickly yield the conclusion that happiness is
the only desirable thing. There is evidence that Mill accepts
(4) If something is desirable, then it is capable of being desired,
and
(5) If something is capable of being desired, then it is happiness. The
latter claim is derived from Mill's view that happiness is the only thing per-
sons are capable of desiring intrinsically. 12 One can now conclude that hap-
piness is desirable, and that nothing else is desirable.
The construction of such simple proofs may cast doubt on this "suffi-
cient condition" interpretation (SC). It is rather surprising that Mill's seem-
ingly minimal initial moves, especially the mild-sounding claim that ". . .
the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that
people do actually desire it," enable him to establish conclusively that hap-
piness is desirable. Interpreted according to SC, the argument is open to a
simple objection. The first premise appears to be obviously false. Mill must
Several writers have interpreted the text along these lines. Norman Kretzmann, while
acknowledging that he may be departing from Mill's actual intent, says that "If anything is
desired in such a way as to occasion some overt reaction on the part of the normal desirer for
the thing in question, then that thing is desirable." It should be noted that Mill places no such
restrictions or qualifications on the sort of desiring that is relevant; nor does he insist on any re-
quirements of accompanying reactions by normal desirers. Presumably, however, since he
believes human nature to be such that all persons desire their own individual happiness, almost
any individual's desire for his happiness would satisfy Kretzmann's conditions on the type of
desire which entails desirability. Somewhat different restrictions for the relevant desires are im-
posed by Carl Wellman. See Kretzmann, Gorovitz, p. 237. Cf. Carl Wellman, "A Reinter-
pretation of Mill's Proof," Ethics, 69 (1959), esp. pp. 270-72.
12 Mill, pp. 48-49.
have recognized that a thing's being desired is not sufficient for it to be

desirable. His writings may be understood as aimed at getting DeoDle to stone
desiring undesirable things and to start desiring desirable ones.
If SC were correct, there would be immense conflict and confusion
among things warranting the adjective 'desirable.' Many human goods
would be achievable only at the expense of other goods. If A desires x and B
desires y, then x and y are desirable. It does not matter what x and y are,
how undesirable they are relative to other desires, or whether they conflict
with each other. But there is a good reason to believe that Mill would have
realized that either x or y could be undesirable though desired by A and B.
Many individuals' personal ends are not consonant with the ultimate end of
morality, the most important test of all human conduct (and thus of all
human ends). If they lack such consonance, surely they are not desirable.
III
There is an obvious alternative to the SC interpretation. The visibility

analogy does not commit Mill to the view that whatever is true of the rela-
tion between the seen and the visible is also true of the relation between the
desired and the desirable. He could have held that, though being seen is suf-
ficient for being visible, being desired is not sufficient for being desirable.
He might have agreed that, though the knowledge that something is seen
provides conclusive evidence that it is visible, knowledge that something is
desired provides only inconclusive evidence that it is desirable (even if this is
the only evidence it is possible to produce). According to this "inconclusive
evidence" interpretation (IE), the visibility analogy indicates some eviden-
tiary connection between desiredness and desirability. One may not con-
clude that an individual's happiness is desirable simply because he desires it.
The only evidence for its desirability would be just evidence; it does not
allow the use of conditionals, like (1) according to SC, with 'desires' in the
antecedents and 'desirable' in the consequents.
Mill's statement that ". . . the sole evidence it is possible to produce that
anything is desirable is that people do actually desire it" is comparable to
"The sole evidence it is possible to produce that a defendant is guilty is his
confession" or "The sole evidence it is possible to produce that a patient
has cancer is the blackened X-ray." The condition which as evidence is not
invariably accompanied by that for which it is evidence. Such an interpreta-
tion invites such questions as "How strong, or good, is such evidence?" and
"How great is the probability that that for which there is such evidence will
MiLL's ARGUMENT FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF UTrLITY 343
accompany it?" Here the text is unhelpful in determining, in particular

cases, the strength of the evidence and the resultant degree of desirability.
But there are more serious difficulties with IE. One is left with in-
conclusive evidence that each of a vast variety of things is desirable. Sup-
pose that each of several persons has confessed to a crime, but that there is
no other evidence against any of them. If one knows that not all are guilty
(suppose the crime to be such that only one person could have committed it),
then there will be only partial, perhaps very weak evidence that any par-
ticular individual is guilty. The case is analogous to those in which several
persons desire, as parts of their separately specified final goods, things not
all of which can be obtained. It is not incoherent to contend that each of
many conflicting goods is desirable; but one will have little guidance for
what to do if not all of them are obtainable, if the only evidence for each is
its being desired, if this evidence is inconclusive, and if there is no further
criterion to supply a basis for comparing them. It is tempting to suggest that
the principle of utility is such a criterion. But it would be circular to intro-
duce the principle at this preliminary stage of an argument designed to show
it to be true.
There is further reason to reject the IE interpretation. Mill states his in-
termediate conclusion much more strongly than the account allows. He says
that "Happiness has made out its title as one of the ends of conduct, one of
the ends of morality."'3 He has not yet argued that happiness is the only
possible object of human desire, but he writes as if he has shown much more
than that there is inconclusive, perhaps only weak, evidence that happiness
is good. His remark suggests that the reasons for thinking happiness to be
desirable are much stronger than the reasons for thinking the defendant to
be guilty or the patient to have cancer. If IE is correct, Mill greatly exag-
gerates his allowable conclusions.
IV
The third interpretation has recently been very popular. This view con-
siders the relation between the desired and the desirable to be weak, but uses
Mill's psychological doctrines to obtain a strong conclusion that happiness
is desirable. The argument is that since happiness is the only object of
human desire-the only thing persons can and do desire-it must be
desirable. The central claim is that happiness is the only legitimate can-
didate for what is desirable; it is the only thing which could be desirable.
13 Mill, p. 45.
Mill thinks that ". . . there is in reality nothing desired except happiness.
Whatever is desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself,
and ultimately to happiness, is desired as itself a part of happiness, and is
not desired for itself until it has become so."'4 His view is that happiness is
the only thing persons are psychologically able to desire, that it is necessary
that they (intrinsically) desire happiness alone."5 The "psychological
hedonism" interpretation (PH) depends very heavily on this doctrine.
Maurice Mandelbaum has provided an excellent statement of PH's ver-
sion of the argument. Having claimed that persons must be capable of desir-
ing goals which are desirable, he says,
.... Mill has argued that, as a matter of fact, there is no goal other than happiness
which human beings are capable of desiring. Should this psychological point be
granted, then I see no escape from his conclusion. Since we cannot desire any end but
happiness, no other end is capable of fulfilling what is a necessary condition of desir-
ability. Thus-by default-what is desired turns out in Mill's system to be both a
necessary and a sufficient condition of desirability."
But the desired conclusion cannot come this quickly. The premises are (1) If
something is desirable, then it is capable of being desired, and (2) If
something is capable of being desired, then it is happiness. It does not
follow, of course, that happiness is desirable. What is a necessary condition
does not become a sufficient condition simply because only one thing satis-
fies it. Nor does what fulfills a necessary condition thereby become a suffi-
cient one. The PH interpretation begins with the weak relation between the
desired and the desirable. If happiness is desired, there is some evidence that
it is desirable. If nothing else is desired, there is no evidence that anything
else is desirable. In order validly to infer that happiness is desirable, another
premise must be added: (3) Something is desirable. With this, Mill's thesis
that happiness, and that alone, is desirable has been established.
It may seem odd that the argument should be so heavily dependent on
the assumption that something is dsirable. One might, perhaps un-
charitably, refuse to grant this assumption and insist that Mill fully defend
his view that persons ought to seek desirable goals. This would require that
he establish that there are desirable ends to be sought and show why they are
14 Mill, p. 48.
'5 It is useful to recall the claim that ". . . Human nature is so constituted as to desire
nothing which is not either a part of happiness or a means of happiness . . ." and the striking
remark that ". . . to desire anything except in proportion as the idea of it is pleasant is a
physical and metaphysical impossibility." (Mill, p. 49)
16 Mandelbaum, pp. 231-32. This line of interpretation is also suggested in the articles by
Raphael, Seth, and Wellman. See also R. J. Atkinson, "J. S. Mill's 'Proof' of the Principle of
Utility," Philosophy, vol. 32 (April, 1957), pp. 158-67.
MILL'S ARGUMENT FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILMI 345
desirable. It is surely plausible, however, and that there is something which

is desirable. Part of the force of Mill's argument (according to PH) is that
the denial that happiness is desirable requires the admission that nothing is
desirable. Since most persons commonsensically believe the latter to be
false, the argument has a definite persuasiveness. One will be fully persuad-
ed only if one accepts a dubious psychological claim about what persons can
desire. Even if true, however, it is odd that this claim would be thought re-
quired in order to show that happiness is desirable. The text suggests that
Mill does not think this to be the structure of his argument. He believes
himself to have shown that happiness is good, by the discussion of
paragraph three, before he even begins to consider the view that humans are
capable of desiring only happiness. He regards this claim as the basis for the
conclusion that happiness is the only (intrinsically) desirable end. But the
argument provided by the PH interpretation requires it even for the
minimal conclusion that happiness is desirable. The account imposes an un-
natural, circuitous reading of the text.
There is a more powerful objection. The argument according to PH re-
quires that it not be true that ". . . the sole evidence it is possible to produce
that anything is desirable is that people do actually desire it." The conclu-
sion that happiness is desirable is reached with considerations quite dif-
ferent from the sole evidence to which Mill restricts us. (It may be objected
that the logically sufficient conditions employed in the argument are not,
strictly speaking, "evidence." But Mill's use of 'evidence' is very liberal.
The visibility analogy involves the word 'proof.' And this word is used in
the broad sense of "rational grounds."' 7) A claim that something is desired
is not even crucial to the argument; the "sole evidence" sentence becomes
superfluous. What Mill states as a premise, or at least as a basis, for his
argument forms no part of the support for its conclusion. The essential
point is not that happiness is desired, but that it is the only thing capable of
being desired. The PH interpretation, then, though initially using a weaker
claim than that involved in SC and though eventually attaining a stronger
conclusion than that produced by IE, relies on considerations Mill seems
not to countenance and, by implication, even excludes. If PH's version is
correct, then it must be false that, "If the end which the utilitarian doctrine
proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged to be
an end, nothing could ever convince any person that it was so."'8 Either the
interpretation is mistaken or Mill has incoherently misrepresented his own
argument.
" See Mill, p. 7 and 47.
II Mill, p. 44.
There are serious problems with each of the interpretations. Unless

more plausible accounts are devisable, the first part of Mill's argument can-
not be adequately defended. But even if a good argument based on a better
interpretation were produced, one would have to contend with the second
stage of Mill's general argument for the principle of utility. An evaluation
of his claims about the desirability of the maximum happiness will reveal
even worse difficulties.
V
The principle of utility requires that actions be conducive to the
greatest happiness for sentient beings; the end prescribed is the maximum
happiness, the greatest balance of pleasure over pain and suffering. It is this
fundamental principle for which Mill thinks a proof can be obtained. The
interpretations discussed above focus on an argument that (individual) hap-
piness is desirable. Even if that argument is successful, more is required in
order to show that the maximum happiness is the ultimate moral end. Mill
says that "no reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, ex-
cept that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his
own happiness." '9 He immediately claims that a proof is obtainable that ".
. . happiness is a good, that each person's happiness is a good to that per-
son, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all
persons."20
These lines have occupied critics for a long time, and they are probably
destined to continue to evoke derision and contempt. But they are still wor-
thy of scrutiny, and they can be best evaluated if interpreted sympathetical-
ly. In a famous letter of 1868, Mill responded to criticism by saying that
... when I said that general happiness is a good to the aggregate of all persons I did
not mean that every human being's happiness is a good to every other human being;
though I think in a good state of society and education it would be so. I merely meant
in this Darticular sentence to argue that. since A's haDDiness is a good. B's a good. C's
a good, etc., the sum of all these goods must be a good.2
Several commentators have emphasized Mill's remark that he could not of-
fer a strict, direct proof. However that may be and quite apart from what he
may have intended by that disclaimer, the following argument is constructi-
ble from the letter:
(1) If each individual's happiness is a good, then the sum of all such in-
dividual goods is a good.
19 Mill, p. 45.
20 Mill, p. 45.
21 See Hugh S. R. Elliot, The Letters of John Stuart Mill (London, 1910), vol. II, p. 116.
MiLL's ARGUMENT FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY 347
(2) Each individual's happiness is a good.

(3) The general happiness is the sum of all individual goods.
Therefore,
(4) The general happiness is a good.
It is of interest to note that Mill does not argue in the way suggested by the
early statement that, "Whatever can be proved to be good must be so by be-
ing shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof."
He claims neither that the maximum happiness is admitted to be good nor
that all nonultimate goods are means to the greatest happiness. He may
have believed that all that is desired extrinsically are means to one's in-
dividual happiness, and he seems clearly to have thought that the general
happiness is a collection of such individual goods. But Mill does not con-
clude that every nonultimate good is desired as a means to the maximum
happiness. Every nonultimate good may be a means to some part of that en-
tity described as the "general happiness," but it is not the case that each of
these is desired as a means to the general happiness.22
Is the argument a good one? It may contain some fallacy (the fallacy of
composition, perhaps) but a determination that the argument is unsuc-
cessful need not settle that issue. There is a more fundamental problem. The
conclusion of the argument is that a certain collection of individual goods is
desirable. But that collection is not the end specified by the utilitarian prin-
ciple as the ultimate moral end. The principle of utility requires the produc-
tion of the maximum happiness. This cannot be determined through
calculations in which one begins with objects of desires, regards them as
goods, and then simply adds the separate goods together so as to produce a
large good. This idealized procedure might be acceptable if it were possible
to make everyone happy to the fullest extent of their individual desires. But
the conditions under which we live (like those under which Mill lived) make
this impossible. There are conflicts of interests, what makes some persons
happy makes others unhappy, and some are made happy by the knowledge
that others are unhappy. These being the unfortunate facts, the utilitarian
settles for the "second best"-the maximum happiness, the greatest at-
tainable degree of happiness. This is not identical with the total combina-
tion of states of affairs that would be good for individuals, apart from other
individuals. Let us call this combination the "collection of all individual
22 I use the term 'entity' here only because it is convenient, not to introduce some special
sort of thing. One could as well characterize the greatest happiness as a very complex state of
affairs. Note Mill's remark that, "Happiness is not an abstract idea but a concrete whole . . .,"
p. 47.
goods." This collection is the sum referred to in premise (1). This sum is a
kind of ideal or "universal" good which cannot be actualized. The conflic-
ting nature of human goods, based on the conflicting nature of human
desires, makes it conceptually or theoretically impossible for all of them to
be realized. Given the nature of human desires, the properties of the univer-
sal good cannot be instantiated.
This perhaps deviant notion of conceptual possibility should not be
confused with two other notions of possibility relevant here-logical
possibility and factual possibility. The collection of all individual goods (the
universal good) is logically possible since there is no inconsistency in the
idea that all human desires and goods could be, or could have been,
realizable. In other words, there could have been no conflicts at all. The
universal good exists in some possible worlds. The maximum happiness is
both logically and conceptually possible, but it is not factually possible.
Unlike the universal happiness, it could in principle be brought about.
However, lacks of the requisite skills, knowledge, and motivation render it
factually impossible.
The maximum happiness requires a variety of things that satisfy some
people but not others, that make some happy and others unhappy, that
please some much more than others, that perhaps satisfy some even beyond
their desires and dreams. It is that combination of partial, complete, small,
and large satisfactions that answers to the description "the greatest hap-
piness for the greatest number." This happiness cannot be composed by
adding up the separate goods of independently considered individuals. It is
not a simple sum of individual goods. Its parts are not the same as those of
the universal happiness. The crucial premise (3) is false. Mill's argument
does not show that the maximum happiness, the "second best," is a good.23
It is no doubt quite natural to think that if the universal happiness is an
(unfortunately) unobtainable good, then the obtainable good "nearest to
it" or "most like it" is a good. But Mill's argument supplies no basis for ac-
cepting this. There is, furthermore, good reason for believing that the max-
imum happiness is not always an end worthy to be pursued. Philosophers
have been quite adept at producing examples of wrong acts which are
nonetheless conducive to the maximum happiness. If the universal happi-
23 In chapter two of Utilitarianism, Mill argues that some pleasures are better than others
and more worthy as ends to be sought by human beings. This element of quality complicates
matters even further, and makes it even harder to construct the utilitarian end. If people only
desire pleasure and yet some pleasures are better than others, then what some people desire is
better than what others desire. For this further reason, one cannot construct the utilitarian end
simply by adding together all the objects of actual individual desires.
ness, inherently involving the maximal satisfaction of every human desire,

were attainable, it might be much more difficult to devise counterexamples
to utilitarianism. Many of the most frequently discussed examples involve
the frustration of some persons' desires for the sake of the production of the
maximum happiness. One plausible, if partial, explanation for the
wrongness of the acts involved is their frustration of these desires. The
wrongness of any acts conducive to the universal happiness would require a
different, perhaps much more complex, explanation. But the utilitarian is
stuck with the more easily attackable doctrine that the greatest attainable
happiness is the supreme good.
There is a further difficulty. Mill is committed to the view that the
"sole evidence" of a thing's desirability is its being desired. If the argument
for the desirability of the maximum happiness is evidence, it is obviously
not the sole evidence to which one is restricted. That argument does not
assume, nor does it purport to show, that the utilitarian end is desired. If we
are to take Mill's evidentiary claim seriously, evidence of the desirability of
the general happiness requires that it be desired. One can readily admit that
some people desire it, but surely most do not. The evidence is quite weak at
best. In any case, the argument discussed above is logically quite indepen-
dent of any of this sort of evidence.24
The maximum happiness is probably desired by only a few of those
whom Mill would have admiringly regarded as enlightened, unselfish, and
cultivated. It would not even have been enough for him to have shown that
almost no one is completely egoistic and that virtually everyone desires the
happiness of some others. The maximum happiness, not merely happiness
of others, must be desired. In view of the discussion of sanctions in chapter
three, it may be desirable to arrange a society's legal and educational struc-
ture so that persons come to desire the general happiness. Mill wanted them
to desire it, and he believed they should be encouraged to do so. The argu-
ment might be persuasive after a program of utilitarian social and educa-
tional reform has been successful in causing people to desire the utilitarian
end. But, by his own stringent criteria, Mill was prevented from showing the
desirability of such a program. Assuming that it is not desired, its desirabili-
24 It is useful to note Sidgwick's criticism: ". . . an aggregate of actual desires, each

directed toward a different part of the general happiness, does not constitute an actual desire
for the general happiness, existing in any individual . . ." and "There being no actual
desire-so far as this reasoning goes-for the general happiness, the position that the general
happiness is desirable cannot be in this way established .....Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of
Ethics (New York: Dover, 1966), p. 388.
ty could be established only by showing that its prospective results-in the

form of increased general happiness-are desirable. But the only basis for
that-certain requisite desires-is just what is badly lacking.
VI
These conclusions have a significant bearing on recent efforts to defend

Mill's proof. Everett W. Hall thinks the argument involves an implicit
appeal to persons' intellectual honesty and to their considered judgments
about what is good and right. On this account, the Millian position is better
than certain other ethical theories because it passes a test that
they fail: "A theory that sets up, as ends desirable in themselves (i.e., good,
not simply capable of being desired), states of affairs that nobody ever
desires, is just being academic and unrealistic."2 The test of
"psychological realism" condemns such theories. Whatever faults it may
have, Mill's discussion does maintain close connection with some actual
desires. But, one may ask, desires for what? Hall suggests that only the
principle of utility passes the test because happiness is the only thing people
ever desire. The desires to which Mill appeals are individuals' desires for
their own happiness. The theory of utility, however, sets up, as an end
desirable in itself, a state of affairs called "the maximum happiness."
Though probably not very many persons desire this, it would be surprising
if no one did. So it seems that Mill's utilitarianism will pass, if barely, Hall's
test. But it might easily fail. A collection of separate goods might fail the
test even if each of its parts passed with no difficulty. Whether the theory of
utility passes or fails, it seems clear that no part of Mill's proof would be
seriously affected. He is committed to the argument discussed in section V.
If that argument is sound, then the maximum happiness is desirable. And its
desirability is quite independent of its being desired. The desiredness of the
utilitarian end is actually irrelevant to its desirability. In view of the fact
that failing the test of psychological realism would not weaken the theory,
its passing of that test can hardly strengthen it. And if this is so, the test can-
not be used as a basis for rational preference of utilitarian theories to other
theories.
Norman Kretzmann defends Mill's position on the grounds that .... it
is strictly incredible that a thing be desired by the human majority ... and
25 Hall, p. 161. Cf. Mandelbaum, p. 231.
MILL's ARGUMENT FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY 351
be at the same time undesirable, or even indifferent."" Like Hall, he insists

that an ethical theory must be attentive to close connections between actual
desires and that which is desirable. Hall thinks a thing cannot be desirable if
never desired; and Kretzmann thinks a thing is desirable if desired (by the
majority). The latter seems clearly false. In any case, it fails to support the
Millian position. It is clearly conceivable, and not at all incredible, that a
human majority desire a most undesirable war-a war which contributes far
more greatly to pain and suffering than to pleasure and satisfaction. Also,
most people probably desire amounts of happiness which are considerably
smaller than the maximum happiness. Though the states of affairs con-
stituting these quantities of happiness are variously composed, these dif-
ferent objects of desire share the property of being less than the greatest at-
tainable happiness. Since a utilitarian thinks the maximum happiness to be
the supreme human good, such lesser quantities must be regarded as less
desirable, and perhaps as undesirable. So some things which are desired are
less desirable than, and undesirable as compared with, a thing which may be
desired by no one.
These lesser quantities may, of course, not be desired under the
description "less than the maximum happiness." (Certain states of affairs
are desired, they constitute certain quantities of happiness, and these quan-
tities are less than the maximum.) Conceivably, their being desired at all
might be attributable to desirers' ignorance that they fall short of the
greatest happiness. And coming to this realization may cause some to cease
to desire the quantities. Frequent, widespread changes of this sort seem
unlikely in view of human propensities to pursue self-interest. So even if the
quantities' being less than the maximum does not constitute part of the con-
tent of the original desires, these desires are very important. Their impor-
tance in the present context is dependent on two facts: (1) There would have
been desires for the lesser quantities even if they had been described as such,
and (2) Attaching such descriptions to them would not cause them to cease
to be desired. If (1) and (2) are facts, there is a significant class of objects of
desire all of whose members turn out to be less desirable than a thing (the
26 Kretzmann, p. 241. G. C. Clark poses the following rhetorical questions: "Could

something be desirable which no one ever did or will desire?" and "Could all who ever lived or
will live desire something which nevertheless is not desirable?" Such questions are answerable
in a quite straightforward way from a utilitarian point of view. The answer to the first is "Yes,
the maximum happiness." The answer to the second is "Yes, a quantity of happiness less than
the maximum." The questions are devised so as to lend support to the theory of utility, but
they offer no such support unless the answers to them are "No." ("Mill's 'Notorious
Analogy'," Journal of Philosophy, vol. 56 (1959), p. 655.)
maximum happiness) whose desirability does not depend on its being

desired. The initial evidentiary criterion (expressed in the "sole evidence"
sentence) has been left behind.
The sympathetic interpretations of Hall and Mandelbaum rest on the
view that something can be desirable only if it is capable of being desired.
Even this aspect of the position fails to withstand scrutiny. Can't a
utilitarian contend that the general happiness is desirable even if no one can
desire it? He surely could coherently claim that it can best be achieved by
not being desired by certain persons and by not being a goal of certain ac-
tions. Since many persons make mistaken calculations about how to secure
their ends, the probability of its being produced could be enhanced by their
failure to desire it. There are strong suggestions of such a view in Mill's
discussion of secondary principles in the second chapter of the essay. And in
the last chapter of the System of Logic, he says that the general happiness
should not be the aim of every action. The goodness of the maximum hap-
piness, then, does not entail the desirability of everyone's pursuing it. Its
ultimate nature as the supreme moral end does not require that each person
ought to desire it.
Mill's defenders have apparently thought that the desirability of an end
entails or requires that persons ought to desire it. Because they have thought
this, they have also believed that one must be capable of desiring it. But if
there is no conceptual (or even factual) connection between (1) the
desirability of the general happiness and (2) a requirement that it ought to
be desired, then there may be no such connection between its desirability
and (3) a requirement that it be capable of being desired. Though (2) may
entail (3), (1) entails neither (2) nor (3). A plausible account of a Millian
view according to which persons need not desire, or even be able to desire,
the ultimate end would weaken the force of arguments resting on the
necessity of a certain desire-capacity. Such a view could involve the idea of
arranging a social system so that persons are legally required to perform ac-
tions conducive to the maximum happiness. Once organized (leaving aside
the question of whether some original "arranger" must have been able to
desire the utilitarian end) the system could work smoothly to achieve this
result-a result the people are incapable of desiring.
But there is a serious problem associated with the rejection of the claim
that something is desirable only if capable of being desired (Let us call this
the "capability condition."). It undermines Mill's argument that happiness
is the only desirable thing. For even if happiness is the only possible object
of desire, the only thing persons are capable of desiring, it would not then
follow that nothing else can be desirable. At first, this appears to be an ad-
vantage. Mill's psychological claims about the desiring of happiness seem
limited to cases of individuals desiring their own individual happiness. In
other words, it seems that he has shown that the only possible object of any
individual's desire is his happiness. The rejection of the close connection
between being desirable and being capable of being desired renders the
psychological doctrine consistent with the thesis that the general happiness
is desirable. But this rejection also makes that doctrine consistent with
nonhedonistic theories of value according to which happiness is only one of
many intrinsically desirable things. These other things might not be capable
of being desired, but they could nonetheless be desirable. We are left with
the resulting dilemma: retention of the capability condition implies that the
maximum happiness is not always desirable, but rejection of that condition
allows that things other than happiness are possibly desirable. Either way, it
cannot be established that the maximum happiness is the supremely
desirable end.
I have discussed the second stage of Mill's argument somewhat in-
dependently of the interpretations examined in sections II, III, and IV. It is
useful to note the ways these apply to the maximum happiness. On the suffi-
cient condition interpretation, the general happiness is desirable if someone
desires it. But many lesser quantities are also desired, and they too are
desirable. Since their being produced often precludes the realization of the
maximum happiness, SC alone is unhelpful for establishing the latter as the
supreme good. A similar point applies to the insufficient evidence account.
There is only some evidence that the maximum happiness is desirable, and
only some evidence that many things incompatible with its production are
desirable. IE allows that the latter have at least as much claim to be regard-
ed as desirable as does the utilitarian end. The psychological hedonism ac-
count fares no better. PH relies on the psychological doctrine that hap-
piness alone is capable of being desired. But that view applies to the in-
dividual happiness.
These results compare very unfavorably to one achieved by allowing
the conclusion that the general happiness is good because it is a collection
composed of individual goods. The famous "sole evidence" sentence ap-
pears to exclude a result obtained by such an argument. Its premises are
"evidence" in the broad sense of "rational grounds." But if desire really is
the sole evidence of desirability, the utilitarian end cannot be established
with these grounds. As the foregoing discussion has shown, we cannot con-
clude that the maximum happiness is desirable and we have reason to con-
dude that it is not desirable. We are led to this by taking Mill's evidentiary
criterion seriously and restricting ourselves to the only sort of evidence that
stringent constraint allows. The materials Mill uses to get his conclusion
that individual happiness is desirable render him unable to get the conclu-
sion that the general happiness is desirable. From the perspective of the
theory of utility, the latter is surely more important. It remains
unestablished.27
HARDY JONES.
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA.
27 I am indebted to Robert Audi, David Blumenfeld, Larry BonJour, and

for their helpful suggestions.

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Mill's Argument for the Principle of Utility

International Phenomenological Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve

In chapter four of Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill offered an intrigu-

means to something admitted to be good without proof."4 It is not clear

These legendary sentences express Mill's conviction that he has supported

Mill's argument that (individual) happiness is desirable has often been

have recognized that a thing's being desired is not sufficient for it to be

There is an obvious alternative to the SC interpretation. The visibility

accompany it?" Here the text is unhelpful in determining, in particular

desirable. It is surely plausible, however, and that there is something which

There are serious problems with each of the interpretations. Unless

(2) Each individual's happiness is a good.

ness, inherently involving the maximal satisfaction of every human desire,

24 It is useful to note Sidgwick's criticism: ". . . an aggregate of actual desires, each

ty could be established only by showing that its prospective results-in the

These conclusions have a significant bearing on recent efforts to defend

25 Hall, p. 161. Cf. Mandelbaum, p. 231.

be at the same time undesirable, or even indifferent."" Like Hall, he insists

26 Kretzmann, p. 241. G. C. Clark poses the following rhetorical questions: "Could

maximum happiness) whose desirability does not depend on its being

27 I am indebted to Robert Audi, David Blumenfeld, Larry BonJour, and

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