John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863), Chapter 2, excerpts from the following website:
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/mill1863.pdf
- Happiness as an Aim·
According to the greatest happiness principle as I have
explained it, the ultimate end. . . ., for the sake of which
all other things are desirable (whether we are considering
our own good or that of other people) is an existence as free
as possible from pain and as rich as possible in enjoyments.
This means rich in quantity and in quality; the test of
quality, and the rule for measuring it against quantity,
being the preferences of those who are best equipped to
make the comparison—equipped, that is, by the range of
their experience and by their habits of self-consciousness
and self-observation. If the greatest happiness of all is (as
the utilitarian opinion says it is) the end of human action, is
must also be the standard of morality; which can therefore
be defined as:
the rules and precepts for human conduct such that:
the observance of them would provide the best possible
guarantee of an existence such as has been
described—for all mankind and, so far as the nature
of things allows, for the whole sentient creation.
Against this doctrine, however, another class of objectors
rise up, saying that the rational purpose of human life and
action cannot be happiness in any form. For one thing, it is
unattainable, they say; and they contemptuously ask ‘What
right do you have to be happy?’, a question that Mr. Carlyle
drives home by adding ‘What right, a short time ago, did you
have even to exist?’. They also say that men can do without
happiness; that all noble human beings have felt this, and
couldn’t have become noble except by learning the lesson
of . . . .renunciation. They say that thoroughly learning and
submitting to that lesson is the beginning and necessary
condition of all virtue.
If the first of these objections were right, it would go to
the root of the matter; for if human beings can’t have any
happiness, the achieving of happiness can’t be the end of
morality or of any rational conduct. Still, even if human
beings couldn’t be happy there might still be something to
be said for the utilitarian theory, because utility includes not
solely the pursuit of happiness but also •the prevention or
lessening of unhappiness; and if the former aim is illusory
there will be all the more scope for —and need of —the •latter.
At any rate, that will be true so long as mankind choose to
go on living, and don’t take refuge in the simultaneous act
of suicide recommended under certain conditions by ·the
German poet· Novalis. But when someone positively asserts
that ‘It is impossible for human life to be happy’, if this isn’t
something like a verbal quibble it is at least an exaggeration.
If ‘happiness’ is taken to mean a continuous state of highly
pleasurable excitement, it is obvious enough that this is
impossible. A state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments,
or—in some cases and with some interruptions—hours or
days. Such an experience is the occasional brilliant flash
of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame. The
philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of
life were as fully aware of this as those who taunt them. The
‘happiness’ that they meant was not a life of rapture; but
a life containing some moments of rapture, a few brief
pains, and many and various pleasures; a life that is
much more active than passive; a life based on not
expecting more from life than it is capable of providing.
A life made up of those components has always appeared
worthy of the name of ‘happiness’ to those who have been
fortunate enough to obtain it. And even now many people
have such an existence during a considerable part of their
lives. The present wretched education and wretched social
arrangements are the only real hindrance to its being attainable by almost everyone.
‘If human beings are taught to consider happiness as
the end of life, they aren’t likely to be satisfied with such a
moderate share of it.’ On the contrary, very many people
have been satisfied with much less! There seem to be two
main constituents of a satisfied life, and each of them has
often been found to be, on its own, sufficient for the purpose.
They are tranquillity and excitement. Many people find that
when they have much tranquillity they can be content with
very little pleasure; and many find that when they have much
excitement they can put up with a considerable quantity of
pain. It is certainly possible that a man—and even the mass
of mankind—should have both tranquillity and excitement.
So far from being incompatible with one another, they are
natural allies: prolonging either of them is a preparation
for the other, and creates a wish for it. The only people
who don’t desire excitement after a restful period are those
in whom laziness amounts to a vice; and the only ones
who dislike the tranquillity that follows excitement—finding
it dull and bland rather than pleasurable in proportion
to the excitement that preceded it—are those whose need
for excitement is a disease. When people who are fairly
fortunate in their material circumstances don’t find sufficient
enjoyment to make life valuable to them, this is usually
because they care for nobody but themselves. If someone
has neither public nor private affections, that will greatly
reduce the amount of excitement his life can contain, and
any excitements that he does have will sink in value as the
time approaches when all selfish interests must be cut off
by death. On the other hand, someone who leaves after him
objects of personal affection, especially if he has developed a
fellow-feeling with the interests of mankind as a whole, will retain as lively an interest in life on the eve of his death as
he had in the vigour of youth and health. Next to selfishness,
the principal cause that makes life unsatisfactory is lack of
mental cultivation. I am talking here
not about minds that are cultivated as a philosopher’s is,
but simply minds that have been open to the fountains
of knowledge and have been given a reasonable amount
of help in using their faculties. A mind that is cultivated
in that sense will find inexhaustible sources of interest in
everything that surrounds it—in the objects of nature, the
achievements of art, the imaginations of poetry, the incidents
of history, human events in the past and present as well
as their prospects in the future. It is possible to become
indifferent to all this, even when one hasn’t yet exhausted a
thousandth part of it; but that can happen only to someone
who from the beginning has had no moral or human interest
in these things, and has looked to them only to •satisfy his
curiosity.
- These two prime requirements of happiness—mental
cultivation and unselfishness—shouldn’t be thought of as
possible only for a lucky few·. There is absolutely no reason
in the nature of things why an amount of •mental culture
sufficient to give an intelligent interest in science, poetry, art,
history etc. should not be the inheritance of everyone born
in a civilised country; any more than there’s any inherent
necessity that any human being should be a selfish egotist
whose only feelings and cares are ones that centre on his
own miserable individuality. Something far superior to this
is, even now, common enough to give plenty of indication
of what the human species may become. Genuine private
affections and a sincere interest in the public good are possible,
though to different extents, for every rightly brought up
human being. In a world containing so much to interest us,
so much for us to enjoy, and so much needing to be corrected
and improved, everyone who has a moderate amount of
these moral and intellectual requirements—·unselfishness
and cultivation·—is capable of an existence that may be
called enviable; and such a person will certainly •have this
enviable existence as long as
he isn’t, because of bad laws or conditions of servitude,
prevented from using the sources of happiness that
are within his reach; and
he escapes the positive evils of life—the great sources
of physical and mental suffering—such as poverty,
disease, and bad luck with friends and lovers (turning
against him, proving to be worthless, or dying young).
So the main thrust of the problem lies in the battle against
these calamities. In the present state of things, poverty
and disease etc. can’t be eliminated, and often can’t even
be lessened much; and it is a rare good fortune to escape
such troubles entirely. Yet no-one whose opinion deserves
a moment’s consideration can doubt that most of the great
positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and
will (if human affairs continue to improve) eventually be
reduced to something quite small. Poverty, in any sense
implying suffering, could be completely extinguished by the
wisdom of society combined with the good sense and generosity
of individuals. Even that most stubborn of enemies,
disease, could be indefinitely reduced in scope by good
physical and moral education and proper control of noxious
influences; while the progress of
science holds out a promise of still more direct conquests
over this detestable foe. And every advance in that direction
reduces the probability of events that would cut short our
own lives or —more important to us—the lives of others
in whom our happiness is wrapped up. As for ups and
downs of fortune, and other disappointments connected with
worldly circumstances, these are principally the effect of gross foolishness, of desires that got out of control, or of bad or imperfect social institutions.
In short, all the large sources of human suffering are
to a large extent —and many of them almost entirely—
conquerable by human care and effort. Their removal is
grievously slow, and a long succession of generations will
perish in the battle before the conquest is completed and
this world becomes what it easily could be if we had the will
and the knowledge to make it so. Yet despite this, every mind
that is sufficiently intelligent and generous to play some part
(however small and inconspicuous) in the effort will draw a
noble enjoyment from the contest itself—an enjoyment that
he couldn’t be induced to give up by any bribe in the form of
selfish indulgence.
And this leads to the right response to the objectors
who say that we can, and that we should, do without
happiness. It is certainly possible to do without happiness;
nineteen-twentieths of mankind are compelled to do without
it, even in those parts of our present world that are least deep
in barbarism. And it often happens that a hero or martyr
forgoes it for the sake of something that he values more than
his individual happiness. But what is this ‘something’ if
it isn’t the happiness of others or something required for
- their· happiness? It is noble to be capable of resigning
entirely one’s own share of happiness, or the chances of it;
but no-one engages in self-sacrifice just so as to engage in
self-sacrifice! He must have some end or purpose. You may
say: ‘The end he aims at in his self-sacrifice is not ·anyone’s·
happiness; it is virtue, which is better than happiness.’ In
response to this I ask: Would the sacrifice be made if the hero
or martyr didn’t think it would spare others from having to
make similar sacrifices? Would it be made if he thought that
his renunciation of happiness for himself would produce
no result for any of his fellow creatures except to make
their situation like his, putting them in also in the position of
persons who have renounced happiness? All honour to those
who can give up for themselves the personal enjoyment of life,
when by doing this they contribute worthily to increasing the
amount of happiness in the world; but someone who does
it, or claims to do it, for any other purpose doesn’t deserve
admiration any more than does the ascetic living on top of
his pillar. He may be a rousing proof of what men can do,
but surely not an example of what they should do….
I must again repeat something that the opponents of
utilitarianism are seldom fair enough to admit, namely that
the happiness that forms the utilitarian standard of what
is right in conduct is not the agent’s own happiness but
that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and
that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly
impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator.
In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility.
To do as you would be done by, and to love your neighbour as yourself
constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. As
the practical way to get as close as possible to this ideal,
the ethics of utility would command two things. (1) First,
laws and social arrangements should place the happiness
(or what for practical purposes we may call the interest) of
every individual as much as possible in harmony with the
interest of the whole. (2) Education and opinion, which
have such a vast power over human character, should use
that power to establish in the mind of every individual an
unbreakable link between his own happiness and the good
of the whole; especially between his own happiness and
the kinds of conduct (whether doing or allowing) that are
conducive to universal happiness. If (2) is done properly,
it will tend to have two results: (2a) The individual won’t
be able to conceive the possibility of being personally happy
while acting in ways opposed to the general good. (2b) In
each individual a direct impulse to promote the general good
will be one of the habitual motives of action, and the feelings
connected with it will fill a large and prominent place in
his sentient existence. This is the true character of the
utilitarian morality. If those who attack utilitarianism see it
as being like this, I don’t know what good features of some
other moralities they could possibly say that utilitarianism
lacks, what more beautiful or more elevated developments
of human nature any other ethical systems can be supposed
to encourage, or what motivations for action that aren’t
available to the utilitarian those other systems rely on for
giving effect to their mandates.
