Mill, Greatest Happiness Principle

The Greatest Happiness Principle

  In search of a precise formulation 

Key Concepts 

  • Utilitarianism & the Greatest Happiness Principle
  • Hedonistic View of Instrinsic Goodness
  • Focus on Consequences Alone in Defining Right/Wrong Action
  • Utility and its maximization 

Utilitarianism 

In Utilitarianism (1863), J.S. Mill argues that morality is based on a single principle he calls ‘The Principle of Utility’ or ‘the Greatest Happiness Principle’ (GHP). Roughly speaking, this is principle that the rightness or wrongness of an act is a entirely function of the happiness and unhappiness produced by it, not just the happiness and unhappiness of the person whose action it is, but the happiness and unhappiness of everyone affected by the action. And what does Mill mean by “happiness”? His answer:  

“By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness pain, and the privation of pleasure.”

John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1863

According to Mill, happiness, thus understood, is the only thing that is good in itself:

Pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; . . . all desirable things . . . are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.

Mill, Utilitarianism, 1863

Historical Basis of the GHP

Mill’s identification of pleasure and the absence of pain with happiness can be traced back to the Greek hedonists Aristippus and Epicurus, however, Mill was chiefly inspired by Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), who had used a version of the Greatest Happiness Principle in developing arguments for legal and political reform. 

Why is the principle called ‘the greatest happiness principle’ and not simply ‘the happiness principle’? The answer has to do with its implications for the rightness and wrongness of actions. Mill writes: 

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. 

Mill, Utilitarianism (1863)

In other words, actions are right or wrong, better or worse based on the amount of happiness they produce. The theory of rightness/wrongness encapsulated by the GHP is commonly called utilitarianism. Two of its most distinctive features are:

  1. The moral weight it places on consequences to the exclusion of all else. 
  2. Its impartiality: the happiness concerned is the sum total of happiness for everyone affected by an action. 

Thus Utilitarianism

a. takes happiness to consist in pleasure and the absence of pain;

b. takes happiness in this sense to be the only thing that is “intrinsically good” (good for its own sake);

c. takes the moral rightness or wrongness to be of an act to be a function of the amount of general happiness and unhappiness that results from it (“general” in the sense that everyone’s happiness is to be taken into account, not just that of the agent and not just people other than the agent).

And that, in short, is the basic thrust of Utilitarianism.

But in Philosophy we are rarely content to state the basic thrust of a position; instead we want to formulate controversial positions as precisely as possible, so that we can absolutely clear what they do and don’t entail. And when it comes to utilitarianism’s criterion for morally right action, this turns out to be a bit tricky, as we’ll see.

Formulating the Theory 

We will now seek to come up with a precise formulation of the conditions under which an act is right/wrong according to utilitarianism. We might try: 

U1. An act is morally right iff (if and only if) it produces pleasure. 

At first glance, one might worry that U1 misses half the picture. It seems to say nothing about when an act is morally wrong. But this appearance is misleading. U1 tells us two things about the relation between rightness and pleasure:

  1. An act is right if it produces pleasure, i.e., if an act produces pleasure, then the act is right
  2. An act is right only if it produces pleasure, i..e., if an act is right, then it produces pleasure 

Applying the law of contraposition to (1), it follows that if an act is not right, then it does not produce pleasure. Applying the law of contraposition to (2), it follows that if an act does not produce pleasure, then it is not right. Putting these together: an act is morally wrong if and only if it does not produce pleasure. Assuming that being morally wrong is equivalent to not being morally right, U1 entails a criterion of moral wrongness: an act is morally wrong iff it does not produce pleasure. 

U1 implies that any act that produces pleasure is right, even if it produces only a little pleasure and an incredible amount of pain. This doesn’t square with Mill’s claim about proportionality: “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” 

The Unscrupulous Leader 

Consider the following scenario: the leader of a country knows that in a time of crisis her polls go up. She discovers a terrorist plot that will cause an incredible amount of suffering and pain if it is not prevented. She has it in her power to stop the terrorists, but she chooses not to. As a result they execute their plan and the leader’s polls go up. She experiences some pleasure from this. According to U1, her act is morally right. But her act causes an incredible amount of pain and suffering. The consequences are, on the whole, terrible. This is inconsistent with the utilitarian idea, according to which any pain that results from an action is just as relevant to its rightness or wrongness as any pleasure that results from it. 

The moral is that an adequate formulation of the utilitarian idea must take into account the balance of pleasure-minus-pain that results from an action. As a first step, let’s define the Utility of an act as the amount of pleasure produced minus the amount of pain produced. This is illustrated in the equation below:

We are now in a position to offer a second formulation of the conditions under which an act is right/wrong: 

  U2. An act is morally right iff it has positive Utility. 

This yields the correct result in the unscrupulous leader case discussed above. Because the leader’s act produces far more pain than pleasure, it has negative utility and so it’s wrong. 

But there are other cases where U2 runs into trouble. Suppose you run a small company that has come upon hard times. You’re a compassionate boss and you’d like to keep as many people employed as possible, but if you don’t cut some jobs now the entire company will go bankrupt and there won’t be any jobs at all. Cutting jobs has negative utility. It causes lots of suffering for those whose jobs are cut and no pleasure for you. According to U2, your action is wrong. But this seems to be the wrong result. In the circumstances, you’ve done as much as you can “to promote happiness.” (Recall that happiness is defined as: “pleasure and the absence of pain.” Your act may have produced no pleasure, but it did minimize the pain. So, according to the utilitarian standard, your action should be right. 

Here’s a second case that gets U2 into trouble. 

The Lost Watch 

Let’s say that my friend has a watch that belonged to her deceased grandfather. The watch is not worth very much, but it has great sentimental value to my friend. Unfortunately, she misplaces the watch. After a thorough search, she gives it up as lost. Years later, I find it under the seat in my car. If I were to return it to her, she would be incredibly pleased, but instead I decide to pawn it for fifty bucks. The money gives me a moderate amount of pleasure. Moreover, my friend never finds out about this and so my act causes her no pain. According to U2, my act of pawning the watch was permissible. 

I had a choice between two actions: returning the watch and pawning it. Each act produces some amount of utility, but pawning produces much less utility than returning the watch. I have missed a great opportunity to “promote happiness.” I could have done drastically better than I did. My act of pawning the watch is a failure in the utilitarian project of promoting happiness. The lesson to be learned from this example is that our formulation must take account of the relevant alternatives available to an agent. If she chooses to do something that has positive effects in a situation where she could have done something else that would have drastically better effects, her act is wrong. We need a formulation that will reflect this idea. 

We begin with an acknowledgement that an act only maximizes utility if there is no alternative act with a higher utility. We can then formulate the theory as:

U3. An act is morally right iff it maximizes utility. 

This formulation seems to get the watch case right. Since pawning the watch produces less utility than returning it, pawning the watch fails to maximize utility and is therefore morally wrong. 

Evaluating the Theory 

Even if U3 provides a suitable interpretation of Mill’s theory, we might wonder whether the theory is true. 

Can you think of any counterexamples to U3 (cases in which some act which maximizes utility is intuitively morally wrong, or cases in which some act failing to maximize utility is intuitively morally right)? 

Does Mill’s account extend to nonhuman animals? If so, how are non-human concerns weighed? Does duck pleasure outweigh bee pleasure? How many bees would need to be kept alive and happy to equate to one duck? Or one human?

Does future happiness or pain factor into the GHP? Would it be acceptable in Mill’s eyes to prevent someone from living at all if their prospective life had a high probability of more pain than pleasure (a negative utility)? 

What would Mill say about “sacrificial lamb” cases: situations in which it’s possible to bring a lot of happiness to a group of people by inflicting pain on just one person?