Chapter V

UTILITARIAN ETHICS

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to

 demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the basic principles of

utilitarianism and its relationship to pleasure, as useful in attaining happiness;
 recognize the two models of utilitarianism and be critical of the social relevance
of utilitarian radicalism in terms of social reforms and moral ethics; and
 be critical of the contextualization of utilitarian ethics in terms of social issues
and individual struggles as a student and a citizen.

Introduction
In this chapter, the discussion will focus on the ethics of utility which is the basis of the
ethical perspective that is rooted on the usefulness of things. Utilitarianism is the ethical theory
which highlights human desire, natural impulses,and follows the consequentialist ethics in
terms of the contingencies of practices which determines the rightness and wrongness of action.
The production of happiness and the mitigation of suffering are the standard bases by which
actions are judged right and wrong; and by which the rules of morality, laws, public policies, and
social institutions are critically evaluated.

Consequently, part of this chapter is to distinguish the significance of two utilitarian

models: the quantitative model of Jeremy Bentham and the qualitative model of John Stuart
Mill. These two models would be the foundation of utilitarian analysis in terms of the
development of utilitarianism as ethical theory.

The former involves the intense discussion of the quantum experience of pleasure and
pain, and its sociological principle about the greatest happiness of the greatest number. You will
learn the weighted merit of pleasure and pain as source of happiness and misery by which
their essential existence has been introjected into your sensations as springs of human
experience. First, you will encounter here the mathematical morality of Bentham where he uses
modern mathematics, like the modern calculus to formulate his own felicific calculus as the
measuring gauge known as moral calculator. Second, you will appreciate the importance of
material properties as human needs whereby all your sensations have been shaped. These
material needs, as world of pleasures and pains, are the basic requirements of the ethics of
utilitarian consequentiality, an action based on sensation and material consumption.

The latter becomes the niche of Mill’s controversy where he started to develop his
brilliant analysis about the liberty of individuality as ethical subject of liberalism. First, you will
learn the qualitative stand of Mill about the differentiation of individual’s happiness and the right
of individuality towards liberty; and the value of individual’s capacity and faculty especially the
power of creativity which springs from natural impulse of human nature. Second, you will
encounter in this chapter the brilliant analysis of Mill about the problems of tyranny both on state
power of government and the political despotism of social pressures such as customs, collective
sentiments of morality, and traditions as enemy of human liberty.

In order to break down utilitarianism into two topics, the discussion will start from
Bentham as foundation of utilitarian ethics to Mill’s stunning application of utilitarianism in the
social issues specifically in the sociological struggle of individual liberty as necessary limitation
of social tyranny.

However, to update the ethical significance of utilitarianism in terms of contextualization,

you are obliged to challenge your critical consciousness by applying utilitarian ethics and
analyzing social issues such as: the worsening condition of the marginalized people; the
unprecedented growth of social suffering; the negation of human rights and the killings of
human rights defenders; the threat of shutting down the free press and the repudiation of the
freedom of speech; environmental destruction; the privatization of social services, and the rise
of anti-people policy; issues about students committing suicide and the deterioration of mental
health; and the other forms of psychological and sociological issues which today’s society
presents. All of these are issues which you are facing or will face as crucial problems of real life.

Thus, the questions to be answered in this chapter are: how does a utilitarian ethic
become relevant in your daily life? As student and faithful citizen of the society, how will you
respond to these critical social issues after reading the ethics of utilitarianism? Did utilitarian
ethics lose its significant value in saving the society from the tyranny of pain and social
sufferings? What would be your practical and transformative solution after taking this ethical
course? These are the questions to consider while you study the principles of utilitarianism.

Principle of Utility
According to some beliefs, utilitarianism has been labelled with negative connotation
about hedonism, better known as pig-philosophy, in which the idea of pleasure has been
described in a negative manner, such as a way of decadent life. Generally, there are
conservative people who believed that pleasure based on the philosophy of hedonism is
induced by selfishness and strong desire of the flesh. That, it is inherently evil in nature and
makes people sinners in the eyes of God. There are varieties of terms which described
hedonism as immoral, unreligious, wicked, vice, atheistic, and deprave morality (Bentham
2003). Thus, utilitarianism has been tainted by these biases of hedonism without the proper
examination and deep knowledge of its positive roots as ethics of happiness that originated from
the ethical usefulness of pleasure.

Furthermore, utilitarianism has been accused of unruly liberalism, anti-authoritarianism,

and most importantly as an archenemy of religion. These are the classical accusations of
religion against utilitarianism which is historically justified during the end of 18th century at the
heyday of enlightenment period known as the Victorian era. Moreover, utilitarianism is one of
the radical movements back then where this school of thought had been rallying the project of
the new world order which caters democracy and liberalization of economy from the yoke of
feudalism.

In the course of contending ideas at that time, utilitarianism is one of the progressive
ethical philosophies which value the primacy of reason over faith, liberty over despotic control,
and pleasure over religious asceticism. With those progressive ideas of modernity, the fertile
ground of utilitarian ethics had been sprouted and nourished its unique version of morality as
product of higher development of modernity in human history.

A. Quantitative Model: Felicific Calculus or Moral Calculator

The original principle of utilitarianism could be found
on the work of Jeremy Bentham entitled,An Introduction to
the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Bentham 1789).
Bentham believes that nature has placed mankind under the
governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.
The measuring standard of right and wrong and other chain
of causes and effects are fastened to their throne (Bentham
1983). Our motives are always rooted from them and
Bentham famously acclaimed that pleasure and pain is the
basis of all the springs of action. The principle of utility
Fig. 5.1 Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
recognizes this human subjection as foundation of utilitarian
https://www.viva.org.uk/what-we-do/celebrity-
ethics in general. supporters/jeremy-bentham

However, according to Bentham, the basic definition of utility is based on the usefulness of
property in any object which it tends to produce benefit, advantage, security, pleasure, or
happiness (Bentham 1983: 14). Thus, Bentham’s utilitarian ethics does not only highlight the
value of sensations of pleasure and pain, but he also accentuates the material foundation of
human needs as prerequisite of human experience.

Bentham’s ethical stance is very simple, just maximize pleasure and mitigate pain.
However, the problem is, how do you measure pleasure and pain? What procedure did he use
in measuring sensation? What instrument can measure pleasure and pain? The Benthamian
ethics appreciates the modern development of mathematics, especially the measuring of
sensation through observation. Bentham acknowledges the contribution of modern mathematics
as sign of maturity of human reason. He believes that the courage to use one’s reason is the
embodiment of man’s enlightenment against ignorance or superstitious belief and by that
liberation; humanity has been liberated from the darkness of the past.

Thus, the arithmetical activity of reason becomes the finest instrument for measurement
especially the power to measure our perceptive capacity in investigating empirical observation.
Bentham is a modern ethicist who values the importance of empirical knowledge of quantitative
calculation as instrument for moral calculation. This so-called moral calculation, his felicific
calculus has been created as moral calculator of his ethical project. Bentham asserts that “an
action can be evaluated on the basis of intensity or strength of pleasure or duration” (Bentham
1983). To a certain extent, Bentham forwarded the basic definition of consequentialist ethics,
i.e. of being evaluative by assessing the human action, of practicing an action which creates
pleasure and happiness guided by calculative reason. Calculative reason is one of the features
of practical reason as ethics. The use of human reason as tool of measurement for pleasure is
what distinguishes Bentham from the rest of modern and religious moralists. His ethics is
materially defined by the science of sensation regulated by the felicific calculation of reason.
This instrumentalization of reason is what makes Bentham the descendant of modernity.

However, Bentham does not only recognize human reason as calculative being, he also
accentuates the crucial task of knowledge, as product of human reason, as guiding principle to
deliver you from the state of suffering and pain. This is where utilitarianism stands as product of
enlightenment. Bentham argues that, without the guidance of knowledge, our mind would be
wrapped up by impenetrable darkness of obscurity and ignorance which during this earthly
darkness, depression and timidity are the never-failing companion and offspring of fear and
ignorance (Bentham 2003). Ignorance and lack of courage denote misery in human existence;
with this misery, knowledge would be the instrument of light to appease the darkness of
excruciating misery. However, Bentham advances his argument in a concrete manner that
knowledge is not only a guiding light; this can be also our source of driving force to improve
human skills. In other words, knowledge is an impulsive force from our faculty which can help
us to provide the means and objects of human pleasures. When we say means, Bentham
denotes the instrument of production as aide for human’s happiness and survival.

To simplify Bentham’s arguments about the power of human intellect, reason has a fluid
nature in terms of instrumentalization. First, the power to measure, for instance, the formulation
of felicific calculus as moral calculator; second, the power of judgement to learn which human
being becomes knowledgeable; lastly, the power of reason in incessant development of human
skills as means to provide objects of pleasure. However, Bentham believes that through rigid
education, human intellect might have reached this kind of intensity of learning as proof of
(wo)man’s maturity. Thus, education is a productive process for the development of mental
capacity and bodily improvement in terms of human skills. Reason as moral calculator is also a
human educator for the cultivation of the self-activity. This is the point where happiness could
possibly attain.

So how does Bentham improve his ethical theory about utilitarianism as ethics of
happiness? The important questions to be asked are: why did Bentham resort to quantitative
calculation by measuring the intensity of pleasure especially its precise calculation? Did he
advance the existential argument of reality as realm of change and always is in the fluid state? If
reality is in the state of constant change, does it mean that reality is cruel, and you are always in
the realm of suffering because its needs the mind to search and calculate the exact pleasure so
that you could mitigate your experience of displeasure?
 Bentham believes that human reason and knowledge are important gifts to be utilized so
that we could (re)create an artificial redemption from the eternal damnation of human suffering
in the world. Reality is always subjected to change, which is painful. There is no forever; natural
pain is the only forever. Reality is undifferentiated and fluid,and because of this inconsistency of
experience, dissatisfaction turns into misery, pain, and suffering. For Bentham, it is impossible
to attain happiness and to avoid displeasure without resorting to the proper calculation of
pleasure as the only way to mitigate the pain. The necessity to calculate is a virtue of the act of
prudence. Prudence is the disposition of the mind in order to deliver the body from
displeasureness. As what Bentham stated, it is the job of your cultivated mind to deliver you
from painful dissatisfaction. That is why Bentham considered that if you fail in calculation which
can be manifested in miscalculation, it might end in displeasure or worst it will end in terrible
suffering. Precision and accuracy are the secret ingredients of Benthamian felicific calculation.
The purpose of Bentham’s moral calculator is to have an exact intensity of pleasure.

Thus, the intellectual craftiness in terms of precision and accuracy could be applied
consequentially to your daily activities by finding what is more pleasurable. Is this evil? No. You
should appreciate that human reason is part of human nature which is always subject to further
education. In other words, contrary to the religious belief, reason is not a curse; it is a blessing
to develop your own creative power as human being. That is, precise calculation is one of the
manifestations of finding pleasurable things; where to avoid pain, precision of measurement is
the answer. That is the essential nature of cultivated mind in terms living a sublime life full of
enjoyment. Pleasurable life is a healthy life, and a healthy life is a happy life. Failure to use
one’s reason embraces the life of dissatisfactions and displeasures.

In a simplified definition of the ethics of utility, utilitarian ethics has a unique tradition in
accentuating its moral calculator, which the incessant practice of precise calculation must be
the human conduct. As what would have been stated in utilitarian virtue, searching and
producing happiness becomes the highest form of moral excellence. Precision is a virtue, and
the ethical virtue of Bentham is for the liberalization of happiness, human being exists because
of happiness and you need to work it out creatively.

B. Qualitative Model: Qualities of Pleasure—Intellect, Feeling and Imagination

As part of John Stuart Mill’s defense against spiteful accusation on utilitarianism, he

revised, perhaps broadened and softened Benthamism, but he never deserted it (West 2004: 5).
His defense is to clarify the ethics of utilitarianism which render, not only the intrinsic value of
quantitative model of Jeremy Bentham, but also to advance utilitarianism based on qualitative
outlook. This qualitative model is a perspective of an artist where he or she values the creativity
of individual’s intellect—which is beyond purely sensual appetite—and also as foundation of
intellectual passion. It is a response to the rigorous approach of Bentham’s quantitative model of
utilitarianism.

To begin with Mill’s analysis, what is lacking with the

quantitative analysis is the intellectual differentiation of
contradicting qualities of pleasure and pain. These two are heterogeneous. It is an exposition of
opening the gap between the two qualities. Mill clarifies between the two distinct pleasures—
animal appetites and intellectual appetites. The source of the latter is the human faculty;
whereas, the former is simply labelled as corporeal pleasure, known as inferior type of pleasure,
where everyone has access to this kind of animality. Based on the statement of Aristotle, human
beings are composed of two beings: animal being and rational being. The rational being is the
artistic being who can use his intellectual power to further his development. These higher
faculties are the intellect, the feelings and imagination, and the moral sentiments (Mill
1879). This intellectual being could have a qualitative judgement of what is superior and inferior.
Other philosophers acknowledge this type of judgement as realm of difference, distinction,
multiplicity, and dissimilarity. This is the reason why Mill is an enthusiastic supporter of
individuality, pluralism, and diversity. This will be discussed in his analysis about liberty.

Moreover, human individuality as possessor of creativity has been the main theme of
Mill’s qualitative approach. The individual person possesses his or her own capacity to feel, to
imagine, and to think creatively. The power of intellectual comparison of knowing both sides, of
the bodily pleasure and of the mental creativity as highest pleasure, delivers you from the
confusion of happiness and contentment. For instance, an individual with few capacities may be
easily contented, but is not happy. This is also the main point of Mill’s famous line: “better to be
a human being dissatisfied than pig–satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool
satisfied”(Mill 19879). Socrates dissatisfied and fool satisfied may have different interpretations;
however, the difference is, the former knows both sides of pleasure compared to the one-
sidedness of the other. Mill advances the arguments that the realm of individuality has multiple
sides of enjoyment which it is hard to reduce to one type of enjoyment, for instance, in the
Benthamian type of quantum mechanics of corporal pleasure.

Thus, Mill advances the arguments of the distinctiveness of individual’s identity about
pleasure and the acknowledgement of the diversity of pleasure as multiple forms of happiness.
Mental enjoyment is different from bodily enjoyment; however, they are equal in nature, though
with hierarchical classifications. The point is, you should be open about an individual’s opinion
about his/her own happiness whether bodily or mentally defined. Mill values all of them as
products of the impulses of human nature which conceives desire. Despite the different qualities
of pleasure or happiness, the point is, it is wise to let them flourish like contending ideas in
public sphere. For instance, the pleasure of taste is different from the pleasure of smell; the
pleasure of smell is different from the pleasure of hearing; the pleasure of hearing is different
from the pleasure of sight; the pleasure of sight is different from the pleasure of taste. Hence,
the real satisfaction which dissatisfies human creativity is the acknowledgement of the diversity
of pleasures as immensely numerous both within the individual’s impulse and social impulse as
diverse reality of different individuals.

Moral Sentiments: Sanctions and Moral Motivation

One of the important themes of utilitarianism is the value of sanctions as stirring forces
of human motivation and the relationship of sanction to moral sentiments as social feeling.
Bentham and Mill provided supplementary analysis on these matters as their starting point in
terms of sociological investigation of morality,though they have differences in terms of analysis.
Bentham analyzes sanction as an external factor of regulation, an exercise of power over
individuals. Whereas, Mill does not only think of sanction as external factor of regulation, but
also as something that has been working in the individual’s psychological formation by
internalizing sanction as conscience,a motivating factor of human action.

First, the resolution of resolving the gap between subjective dimensions of utilitarian
morality against objective dimensions of utilitarian ethics is the main analysis of Mill’s
sociological reading on how these two, morality and ethics, become one as Moral Ethics of
Utilitarianism.

Second, Mill’s analysis about this process of reproduction of moral ethics through
internalization process could be his celebrating concept of tyranny of the state and of the
majority against individual’s natural creative impulse. The state only promotes sanction to
reinforce the acceptable standard of moral sentiments in the community. The moral sentiments
become the springs of the state to execute laws and sanctions as prohibition against
unacceptable conduct. Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism implies that sanction is dangerous if it
is not used for the general happiness of the community. There is tendency to corrupt and inflict
limitations to people’s happiness,prohibiting them from self-development.

Lastly, the function of sanction and its intrusive prescription towards individual’s action
could be used as apparatus for social justice by promoting the principle of utilitarianism,
greatest happiness of the greatest number. However, here the state turns into supporting
apparatus which harden the process of internal process of utilitarian idea of morality and justice
over the individual’s action. This is the ethical dimension of social utility of government which
regulates and reinforce the utilitarian morality of happiness. For instance, when the state
commands you to enjoy life with the persuasive dictum: you must enjoy your life because the
state strictly implements the rules of promoting and defending the happiness of everyone as
long as you are always conscious of not harming your fellow human beings and not infringing
on their choice of happiness in life.

By this analysis, Mill predicted the idea of artificial happiness as a social construct. It is
more structural than based on the natural arguments of Bentham. However, later Mill will
recourse to the natural impulse as foundation individual’s originality contrary to the artificial
imposition of social construction.

A. Sanction

Following Bentham, Mill uses the word sanctions to refer to the sources or springs of
motivation. This is very important because motives are the reflection of what types of structural
sanctions you had adapted as your moral formation in life. Categorically, Bentham distinguishes
the four sources from which pleasure and pain are used: considered separately they may be
termed the physical, the political, the moral, and the religious: and inasmuch as the
pleasures and pains belonging to each of them are capable of giving a binding force to any law
or rule of conduct, they may all of them termed sanctions (Bentham 1781: 27). In other words,
sanction is a binding force which strictly manages the action of a person.

Bentham argues that the making of behaviour or fashion of individuals by the use of
legislation should have been the ultimate goal of the legislators in order to promote impunity
against suffering and pain. This is interesting because sanctions could be used as means for
establishing pleasurable habits of the community and to combat anarchism as chaotic structure
which causes suffering to the people. Hence, Bentham and Mill conceived legislation as means
to construct a social order in which the motivation is to establish security and happiness to the
people. Legislation, through governance is a means to suppress pain and, at the same time, a
means to promote and govern happiness of what is suitable to the community standard. From
another perspective, legislation as sanction should be the formation house of happiness and the
legislators are the formators of that so-called formation house of happiness. Structurally,
sanctions through legislation are the roots of all motive; sanctions are the springs of all motives
which pleasure is the primary end.

B. Moral Motivation: External and Internal Sanctions

To adopt the standard sanctions of the community is what makes motivation functional
as morality of individuals.Or the motives as inspirational principle of every individual reflect the
functionality of the moral sentiments of the community. This is crucial about Mill’s analysis on
motives as moral about the classification and the relationship between external and internal
sanctions. As what Bentham stated, these sanctions are the binding forces that can conduct
from moral sentiments to the rule of law and vice versa which pleasure and pain are the main
objectives of the implementation.

Bentham’s notion of external sanction rested on the physical, the political, the moral
and religious sanctions. All of these have a social function in (re)forming the individual being.
Bentham’s analysis has always been based on govern-mentality which highlighted the external
sanction as the functional method of governing individuals’ happiness. Whereas, Mill is
interested on the importance of internal sanction as product of internalization process of
external sanction which is what makes the important remark of the existence of individuality as
social beings. That is, the individuality itself is the embodiment of moral sentiments of the
community—the incarnation of spirit of the communal morality in the individual’s consciousness.

Mill thinks that the realm of internal sanction is the feeling of pain, attendant on the
violation of duty, which is the essence of conscience. In a word, conscience is a sentinel
feeling against transgressions and violations of individual self which produces internal pain.It is
a superego which executes internal sanctions to vilify the sinful ego. As what Mill thought that
conscience is acquired—derived from sympathy, from love, and still more from fear; from all
forms of religious feeling; from the recollection of childhood and of all our past life; from self-
esteem, desire of the esteem of others, and occasionally even self-abasement. Thus, Mill thinks
that conscience is an internalization of the external sanctions complicated by various other
associated feelings (West 2004: 97).

These associated feelings are the aggregated moral sentiments of society in general
and, geographically, of a community where you belong. Those different aggregated moral
sentiments have different version of afflictions and contradicting inflictions which the negative
side of sanction appears to us as realm of supreme moral court. This negative experience of
sanctions becomes the moral motivation to act what is positive and pleasurable which is clearly
realized by the internal pain. In other words, conscience is another name for fear. Paradoxically,
fear is the powerful weapon of moral conscience to avoid social transgression and promote
what is good based on the community standard which is manifested in different types of social
sanctions. In the psychological sense, superego is a command to fear what is prohibited. The
positive role of fear is to motivate us to do good things and to avoid evil or bad actions. This is
the paradox of internal pain which creates external pleasurable actions.

What is crucial about Mill’s analysis on internal sanction as nucleus of conscience? Mill
believes that—despite of negative implications of internal sanction as feeling of pain—if a moral
feeling is acquired from society, then it is possible to use external sanction as apparatus for
conditioning the internal feeling of the individual which can change from internal pain to internal
pleasure. This is a positive view of Mill against the tormented version of internal sanction. Mill
sees no reason why conscience may not be cultivated as nucleus of utilitarian intensity. If
conscience has produced internal pain ruled by different morality, you could implant a new type
of conscience, or transform it, to produce internal pleasure as sanctions. It is here that Mill
fertilizes different forms of moral sentiments with utilitarian principles.

For Mill, despite differences, complexity, and diversity of moral sentiments, you should
know how to locate the nuclear energy of the utilitarian principle: the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, which connects the different individuals— a desire to be in unity with fellow
creatures, cooperation, and collective interest which strengthen the powerful principle of
human nature in advancing the human civilization. To simplify Mill’s point, your idea of
utilitarianism must not contradict the moral sentiments of the community and of every individual
but rather to locate the nucleus of utilitarian principle in every moral sentiment and cultivate it for
the promotion of happiness. For Mill, you should know how to locate the silver lining of
utilitarian principle which you could deliberately find in people’s moral sentiments.Hence, Mill
does not negate the diversity of opinions and moralities but confronts them and fertilizes them
with the principle of utilitarianism.

Sociologically,this is the fertile moment of Mill’s proper application and contextualization

of utilitarian ethics which differentiates him from Bentham. Mill wanted to transform the sadistic
conscience of old type of morality into a new pleasurable type of conscience which promotes
greatest happiness. Because conscience is externally structured which implanted to us and it is
coming from the external sanctions of society.
 Psychologically, the silver lining of utilitarian principle, which is covertly present in
different forms of moral sentiments, is the kernel of Mill’s notion of utilitarian moral motivation as
the driving force of individual’s ethics. Social feelings as moral sentiments of individuals could
be an ethical force to advance utilitarianism as universal principle of ethics of humanity. By this
process of internalization of sanctions, Mill believes that it is possible to swerve those sanctions
from rigidity and use them into the service of utilitarian ethics which promote happiness
especially the greatest happiness of the greatest number. It should be the intensity of happiness
which serves the individual moral motivation as primary ends of moral ethics.

Utility, Justice, Rights and Liberty

The connection between utility and justice in utilitarian ethics is very important to Mill’s
defense, especially on the idea of expediency of utilitarian principle. Mill argues that the criterion
of right and wrong has always been drawn from the idea of justice. The idea of justice supposes
two things: a rule of conduct (formally known as sanctioned rule), and a (moral) sentiment
which sanctions the rule. For instance, once an individual infringe the privacy of other individual
without proper consent, the desire to punish the violator based on the degree of violation may
be suffered under the prescriptive function of justice. It is here that the binding force of justice
must correspond to the protection of individual’s right especially the promotion of individual
liberty. It is unjust if it violates and infringes individual’s liberty especially their rights as
individuals. The punishment is the other form of justifiable retaliation where justice must be the
servant as moral court in protecting individual from others mischievousness.

Mill believes that justice appears as animal desire to repel or retaliate. However, this
desire of retaliation derives from its moral sentiments. It is the latter which gives energy to
assert what is just and unjust. Justice in the name of individual’s right is always residing with
the injured and violated person. The idea of right would be invoked when a person has
experienced injury and violated by others. This element of transgressing person’s right demands
for the punishment of the offender or perpetrator. In other words, Mill speaks here of the idea of
the violation of a right. When you mention a person’s right, it means that he has a valid claim on
society to protect him in the possession of it, either by force of law, or by education and opinion
(Mill 1879: 96). This is the rule of justice system, to protect the individual’s right and once it is
violated, the force of law will be the instrument of retaliation in punishing the offender about the
consequences of his or her infringement against the injured victim. To a certain extent, Mill
understands justice as respect for rights directed towards society’s pursuit for the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. He expounds the idea of rights referred to the interest that
serves the general happiness. The right to due process, the right to free speech or religion,
and others that are justified which they can contribute to the general good or expediency of
society. Clearly, the idea of just and unjust has always been rooted on the status of person’s
moral sentiment. If you feel that you are morally violated, your right as individual has been
violated and you seek justice from that violation. Thus, the arbiter of justice is no other than the
assertion of moral sentiments as grounds of sanctioning the rule of law.
 Moreover, what is more interesting about Mill’s utilitarian principle of justice is, it is
legally invoked or call upon once an individual is oppressively injured. Justice as preservation of
rights is a legal instrument for protection and punishment. It governs the community to avoid any
forms of infringement of individual’s right. Hence, it looks like that justice serves the expediency
of every individual and to serve the general happiness of society as a whole; however, this idea
of general happiness has been developed by Mill in his monumental work on liberty and the
dream of liberal society. This work serves as an eye opener on how to promote greatest
happiness of the greatest number without neglecting the liberty of different individuals. It was a
revolutionary work because it promotes and propagates the inherited idea of enlightenment
project of the modern era known as liberty and equality.

A. Liberty: Self-protection

What is liberty? This is the culminating synthesis of Mill about the precious ethics of
utilitarian project started by Bentham and his father, James Mill. He wrote about liberty with the
highest degree of inspiration to his beloved, Harriet Taylor—the only woman of his life and the
one who revolutionized Mill’s intellectual development. On the contrary, the liberty of Mill is an
intellectual revolt against the tyrannical discipline that he had experienced from his cold and
stringent father. To a certain extent, it is a slight negation of Benthamite tradition in which he
deconstructed Bentham’s utilitarianism and developed the precious stone of utilitarian ethics
into a fresh system of thought known as liberalism. It is on this verge where Mill is famously
celebrated as the Father of Liberalism in the history of liberal thought in modern history.

First, Mill argues that liberty is not all about self-liberty of the will but rather this essay
examines the civil or social liberty. Social liberty is the nature and limits of the power which
can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual (Mill 1999: 43). This so-called limit
that Mill has been invoking is a defense of individual against the infringement of society. It is a
metaphor of breathing space, a margin of freedom. Meaning, liberty is an individual right
against the suppressive and oppressive pressure of different forms of tyranny.These tyrants are
the Benthamian sanctions known as moral, religious, and political sanctions. Society is
composed of these sanctions where they can affect and inflict the individual’s freedom
especially the freedom to decide, to think, and cause of obstruction for individual’s self-
development.

To understand the main threat of liberty, we should be heeded to Mill’s descriptive

explanation of authority. Mill defines liberty as a (self) protection against the tyranny of political
ruler, a dictator inside the government body. The rulers are conceived as in a necessary
antagonistic position to the people whom they rule (Mill 1999: 43). They consisted of a
governing One, or a governing tribe or caste, which derives their authority from inheritance or
conquest. Mill believes that their power is regarded as necessary, but also a highly dangerous;
as a weapon which they would attempt to use against their subjects (people), no less than
against the external enemies. Thus, for Mill, the role of a real patriot is to set limit to this power
which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation is what is
meant by liberty (Mill 1999: 44). This is the problematic issue in terms of political sanction
exercise by the individual or by the few especially the way they govern majority of people.

Second,the opposite tyranny which reverses the former is the tyranny of majority. Mill
is very critical of this sort of tyranny because what would be the issue here is the tendency of
repressive force of moral sentiments of society. For Mill, society itself is tyrant; society can and
does execute its own mandates and it leaves fewer means of escape. Society has a penetrating
power that pierce deeply into the details of life and enslaves the soul itself. Emphatically, this is
classical notion of ideology. For instance, the case of collective prejudice embedded in
customs which shapes the standardized decorum of the community.

In addition,Mill argues that the protection against the tyranny of the magistrate is not
enough: there needs to be protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling,
and against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas
and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them (Mill 1999: 47). Mill states
that there is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual
independence: and to find limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a
good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism (Mill 1999: 47).

Lastly, Mill elaborates the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the
liberty of inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience; liberty of thought
and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative,
scientific, moral, or theological. Secondly, the principle requires liberty of taste and pursuits; of
framing the plan of your life to suit your own character; of doing as you like without impediment
from your fellow-creatures, so long as what you do does not harm them, even though they
should think your conduct as foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, the liberty among individuals
such as: in terms of the freedom to unite, to form an organization or association, which a person
is supposed to be of full age, and not force or deceived (Mill 1999: 55). All of these are the
liberal measure in promoting individual’s liberty against the tyranny of the state and of the
majority.

B. Liberty of Thought: Free Speech

Mill’s main thesis about liberty has emphasized two things: the importance of the liberty
of the press as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government and the
significance of the expression of opinion. When he accentuates these two, Mill believes that it
is hard to separate the act of thinking from writing because both of them are inseparable in
terms of expressing individual’s opinion especially the function of free press as public eye of
society.
In liberating the press from the clutch of tyranny in public as field of public exchange of
opinion, Mill posits the proper place of expressing different forms of dissents where he
emphatically values the practice of dissention: “we agree to disagree” as expression of
freedom of speech. As what Mill stated about the role of a patriot, a patriot should strengthen
this sort of liberty as protection of every individual where every one of us has a proper place to
think critically. It is a defense against political despotism of a ruling opinion in our society and a
response against a tyrant ruler in the government. A patriot should use solely the power of
persuasion and should vehemently denounce those despotic interventions of restriction and
pressure from different forms of despotism. Free press is a public sphere where individuals are
obliged to debate and express ideas for the betterment and greater good of our society. It is a
place where the new development and progression of society happens through public
discussion. For Mill, if the function of government is for the stability of society, the function of
free press is to articulate reformation and social progression against the conservative tendency
of the state government. However, Mill emphasizes that it is better to combine these two
apparatuses for social development, that is, the freedom of the press as reformative in nature
should be used for the improvement social stability, which is guarded by the government. Thus,
the government should limit their power so that every individual can speak freely about social
predicament, and the role of the state is to be critically perceptive of the criticism of individuals
by virtue of their freedom of expression and protected by the power of the freedom of speech.

Furthermore, the freedom of speech has an ethical implication for the improvement of
human civilization which serves the fundamental principle of utilitarianism: the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. Mill has always been thinking about utilitarian ethics when he
fought the value of the liberty of thought as instrument for human happiness in society. It is
always directed about the usefulness of expression where the beneficiaries are always the
individual and the society itself. Thus, silencing any opinion is a social error. We have to
recognize the necessity of freedom of opinion for the well-being of mankind. Freedom of
expression is a risk yet it is also a moment where you can practically encourage yourself to think
individually and use reason in guiding yourself as critical citizen of our society.

C. Of Individuality: Well-being and ill-being

In the imperative of allowing human beings to be free to form opinion, and to express
their opinions without reserve, is the preservation of individuality as social being, especially the
quality of individual’s creativity in terms of intellectual development and the nurturing arts of
imagination. For Mill, as long as your liberty does not create harmful effects or mischievousness
to your fellow men both in moral and physical; as long as you do not put them at the state of risk
and dangerous situation, it is reasonable to defend the liberty of the self. However, this liberty
must be limited; you must not make yourself a nuisance to other people.Your liberty for self-
development must not be the cause of its own contradictory outcomes such as the violation of
infringement, encroachment, interference, and molesting other people’s boundary. In the course
of Mill’s ethical premise, this is the duty of a patriot liberal individual, to be conscious of its own
contradiction when he or she executes liberty for himself or herself. Supposedly, this is the
culminating point of Mill’s qualitative model of utilitarian ethics of individual’s happiness— that is
the care for the self, of the very being of your individuality, is the steam engine of human’s
happiness.However, your happiness must be guarded carefully in order to avoid its tyrannical
tendency which contradicts the fundamental function of liberty to the individual’s wellness.
 Liberty of individuality which functions as point of limitation or border line against any
forms of tyranny or despotism has an active function of advancing the well-being of every
individual which secures the interest of the individual, the welfare of the community, and the
healthiness of human creativity especially the physical and mental condition. However,there are
social structures such as the government (anti-people policy), the schools (the standardization
of learning), the tyranny of opinion in social media (cultural pressure of the market), family and
peer-group pressures (expectations), the normalization of alienation (lack of belongingness),
and the social pressure of economic depression and the deprivation of the people in terms of
social services which all reinforce the worsening condition of destroying the individual’s
happiness especially the happiness of the majority. And the worst of all of these, social
problems are trying to kill your body gradually especially your critical consciousness.

Those aforesaid social pressures are the accentuation of Mill’s notion of the tyranny of
magistrate and of society which causes your existence as an individual to dissipate. They are
harmful in terms of the well-being of the people, especially the assertion of individuality. We
could relate this with the aggravating issue on mental health problems in our society, where
those aforesaid social pressures could be one of the fundamental factors of the decline of
critical consciousness of the youth. The unprecedented growth of mental depressions and
actual suicides are the manifestation of the unbreathable condition of individuality which it might
be the cue of lack of freedom or absence of individual’s liberty where it leads the people into the
road of despair and misery. This suffering of individuality connotes unhappiness and
displeasures where the body and the mind are under the valley of ill-being of human condition.
For Mill, utilitarianism as ethical system should not allow individual to be fettered bodily and
stifled mentally by those social tyrannies. All of those pressures are a worst manifestation of
social injustices and social errors which everyone has been subjected to the stagnation of social
regression where individuals are left out and abandoned.

D. Threshold of Liberative Ethics of Utilitarianism

On the culminating defense of Mill about individual liberty, he talks about the union of
freedom and variety of situations. This union would raise the vigorous power of an individual’s
adaptability in various situations which reinforces the notion of originality—the pure virtue of
consequentialist ethics known as spontaneity. This originality directly discusses the re-
evaluation of human nature especially the accentuation of the spontaneity of desire and
impulse (trieb). This is the margin of error of human existence, the negated aspect of life, and
the prohibited or outlawed side of human existence as social being. The assertion of this
spontaneous desire of human nature as productive impulse has been the edge of utilitarian
ethics of liberalism. Mill supports and encourages the people to take this road of liberty, a road
to creative desire, and rights to enjoy your own impulses and embrace them as part of your
human nature, the locomotor of individual’s productivity. This is the original contribution of
utilitarian ethics in history, the courage of not giving up your desire. The right to express is
always the reflection of not giving up on what you desire as a human being.
 For Mill, the human being is not a machine to be built after a model and set to do easily
the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides,
according to the tendency of the inward forces which makes it a living thing (Mill 1999: 105).
People should exercise their understanding, or even occasionally an intelligent deviation from
custom, is better than a blind and simply follow the mechanical activity of tradition.

Mill appreciates desires and impulses as the most perfect human expression and as
natural connection of the raw materials of human nature. Strong impulses are but another name
of energy; sometimes it may be turned to bad use, but more good may always be made of that
energetic nature than impassive and indolent one (Mill 1999: 105). Those who have the most
natural feeling are always the most cultivated feelings.

Mill has rejected the idea of treating natural impulse as sign of human deficiency which
were always disciplined, controlled, and repressed by society. In relation to Freudian discovery,
this is the idea of repressing natural impulse by culture and social customs in society. They
induce men with strong body and mind to pay obedience to any rules and require them to
control their impulses. In fact, this is murder. For instance, have you watched “Three Idiots?”
One of the moral lessons of the story in the said film talks about the murderous act of social
pressures (family and academic pressures) which indirectly murder the student’s creativity.
Aamir Khan known as Rancho in the film proves to the viewers that every one of us has his own
talents, skills, and creativity in relation to the process of knowledge development.

In our times, from the highest class of society down to the lowest, lives are being
monitored by hostile eyes and dreaded censorship. On the assertion of energetic natural
impulses against social censorship, Mill celebrates the creativity of individual’s natural impulse
which encourages deviation from the norm and assertion of nonconformity against the
repressiveness of society. This is the reason why Pope Francis encourages the youth to swim
against the tide, to think differently and fight radically against any forms of oppression and
exploitation while helping the poor and saving the world from misery.

Thus, human nature should not be treated as corrupt and should not be killed by society.
But rather, impulse and desire should be subjected to cultivation and used as drive for creativity.
Human impulse is not evil; it is a human energy for self-creating activity and self-development.
Mill urges not giving up your faculty and capacity but use them for the service of the greater
good, in serving the people, the greatest happiness of the majority. Utilitarian ethics had been
designed by Bentham and Mill as ethical teachings and they are your guides on how to serve
the people’s welfare using the power of your individuality known as the creativity of impulsive
desire.