Key terms and concepts
Observations on the way terms are being used in this course and on how to avoid common errors.
Utilitarianism
Pushpin and poetry
Simplification leads to error. This is unavoidable and sometimes, in order to avoid confusing detail, may be even be desirable. Nevertheless, it is good to be aware of when it is happening. With regard to pushpin and poetry the following can be noted.
- It is a commonplace to assert that Mill wants us to consider the quality of pleasure in addition to its quantity but Bentham is concerned with quantity alone. This isn't strictly true. In the hedonic calculus Bentham doesn't use the word 'quantity' but instead uses the word 'value'. Bentham writes forensically and this is not an oversight. Bentham wants us to consider the intensity of the pleasure and duration of the pleasure. These are both to do with quantity but he also wants us to consider its certainty and its propinquity. Neither of these are to do with quantity. So, it is not true that Bentham is concerned with quantity alone. Bentham himself makes precisely this point later in the book when writing about punishment.
- Some caution needs to be exercised when comparing what Bentham says about pushpin and poetry and what Mill says about higher and lower pleasures. Mill is concerned with what should be appealing to the individual whereas, in context, Bentham is discussing what is valuable to society. It is quite possible that Bentham and Mill did have different attitudes to poetry and Bentham does seem somewhat grudging in his evaluation of its benefits but, although neither Bentham or Mill say this, it is not inconsistent to say that the individual should aspire to the more intellectual pursuits whilst at the same time acknowledging that, because of the way so many people are actually incapable of appreciating fine poetry, pushpin has a greater value to society.
- When Mill introduces the importance of considering the quality of the pleasure it is to counter the charge that utilitarianism is a 'philosophy fit for swine'. However, he is not accepting that this is a legitimate charge against earlier utilitarians. Mill is not saying, 'In contrast to earlier utilitarians I think there are reasons for preferring the more intellectual and noble pursuits'. What he is saying is, 'The earlier utilitarians have given plenty of good reasons for pursuing the more intellectual and noble pursuits, now I'm going to give you one more'. Mill is quite clear about this.
Bentham on the distinction between 'value' and 'quantity': [Chp XIV para XVI]
Let us look back a little. The first rule, in order to render it more conveniently applicable to practice, may need, perhaps, to be a little more particularly unfolded. It is to be observed, then, that for the sake of accuracy it was necessary, instead of the word quantity, to make use of the less perspicuous term value. For the word quantity will not properly include the circumstances either of certainty or proximity: circumstances which, in estimating the value of a lot of pain or pleasure, must always be taken into the account. Now, on the one hand, a lot of punishment is a lot of pain; on the other hand, the profit of an offence is a lot of pleasure, or what is equivalent to it. But the profit of the offence is commonly more certain than the punishment, or, what comes to the same thing, appearsso at least to the offender. It is, at any rate, commonly more immediate. It follows, therefore, that, in order to maintain its superiority over the profit of the offence, the punishment must have its value made up in some other way, in proportion to that whereby it falls short in the two points of certainty and proximity. Now, there is no other way in which it can receive any addition to its value, but by receiving an addition in point of magnitude. Wherever, then, the value of the punishment falls short, either in point of certainty, or of proximity, of that of the profit of the offence, it must receive a proportionable addition in point of magnitude.
Mill on the general superiority of the mental over bodily pleasures:
...there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect; of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. It must be admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, &c., of the former—that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And on all these points utilitarians have fully proved their case; but they might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.