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Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Utilitarianism, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Utilitarianism, Happiness, and The Good Life
Criticism and the Principles of Utility
The Common Good
Meta-Ethics
Summary
Analysis
Any moral philosophy must explain why people should be obligated to undertake the actions it considers right—in other words, where its “binding force” comes from. People raise this question whenever they are forced to consider adjusting to a new concept of morality, even though they tend to unquestioningly accept the morality they learn at an early age from “education and opinion.” In fact, this popular morality—like the idea that it is wrong “to rob or murder, betray or deceive,” is made of secondary, not primary, moral principles. So while people believe in a number of rules that help maximize happiness, they ironically do not believe in the fundamental rule behind these secondary rules: maximizing happiness. Mill hopes that people can start learning to accept this first principle with the ease that they learn the secondary ones.
What makes people act morally? And specifically, what makes people act morally according to utilitarian rules? It is uniquely important for Mill to establish this because other doctrines have an answer to this question built in: religious morality says that following the rules is God’s will (and/or will be rewarded in the afterlife), and even Kant says that everyone must follow the common rules of reason because it is a requirement of their very humanity. In other words, these rule-based moralities vest their power in the source of the rules. This allows philosophers to justify telling people to follow them, and it gives the people who are asked to follow them a convincing reason to do so. But utilitarianism needs to look elsewhere to justify itself to people in this way, even if there is no question about the truth of its first principle (that happiness, and nothing but happiness, is good).
Themes
Literary Devices
Mill returns to utilitarianism’s “sanctions” or “binding force.” There are two kinds: “external” and “internal.” External sanctions are outside punishments: for example, people think that, if they act immorally, their reputations will be destroyed or God will punish them. For utilitarians, these external sanctions express the ultimate moral principle of maximizing utility: good reputation is a reward for acting for the common good, and God wants to maximize his creatures’ happiness. In contrast, an internal sanction is the actor’s own feeling of pain and displeasure at the idea of acting immorally: their moral conscience. Mill admits that some people lack conscience and only act morally due to external sanctions, but thinks that most people’s consciences can be “cultivated” in accord with utilitarianism, as with any other moral ideas.
In short, Mill thinks people follow moral rules either because other people force them to, or because they feel good when they do what is right and bad when they do what is wrong. He thinks that a good society needs both these “sanctions,” which encourage people to do what is right, and that therefore utilitarians should actively promote both of them—this means fighting for a morally better system of laws and public accountability (to spread external sanctions) and building a culture in which people see their actions as morally important and internalize principles of right and wrong (to “cultivate” internal sanctions).
Themes
Some people contrast their own “objective” moral principles, which they see as coming from God or some other nonhuman source, with utilitarianism’s “subjective” principle, which is thought up by humans themselves. Mill says this does not matter: ultimately, people only obey “objective” principles because of their “subjective” feelings about those principles. Similarly, it does not matter where conscience comes from (if it is innate or learned). If conscience is innate, people should immediately learn to be utilitarians, because the most “intuitively obligatory” moral idea is feeling empathy for other people’s pleasure and pain. If moral conscience is learned, as Mill happens to believe, this means it can “be[] cultivated in almost any direction,” including quite easily to the utilitarian principle.
Mill looks at these two criticisms in order to establish that nothing makes either internal sanctions (moral conscience) or external sanctions (praise and punishment from others) inherently better than the other. As he is preparing to argue that internal sanctions are more important than external ones when it comes to promoting moral behavior, this allows him to clear the air and preempt the criticisms of those who simply trust more in the rules that others give them. Mill sees the debate over “objective” and “subjective” principles as meaningless: people just call something “objective” when they very strongly believe in it. And the question of conscience’s origins is similarly unimportant, because conscience is a tool for promoting the greater good—Mill is more interested in using the tool than in thinking about where it comes from.
Themes
Whereas people can dismiss particularly wacky moral beliefs by analyzing them away, they cannot do this to utilitarianism. This is because utilitarianism’s real power is the “basis of powerful natural sentiment” behind it: “the social feelings of mankind.” Everyone recognizes that they are part of a society. Society must look at “the interests of all,” and because people are equal, they must treat everybody’s interests as equal—those who look down on others face “constant protest,” and getting anything done politically or socially requires working with others toward collective goals. As societies grow more equal through history, this tendency only accelerates.
Mill again returns to instinct, which he continues to see as a valuable tool because common moral instincts largely agree with utilitarianism’s conclusions: people are naturally social beings with social instincts, and therefore they can harness these instincts (and those of others) to promote “the interests of all.” He also takes the opportunity to again emphasize the centrality of equality for utilitarians, who cannot see happiness as inherently valuable without in turn realizing that everyone’s happiness is equally valuable. Finally, it is important to note that Mill clearly believes in a continuous narrative of human progress throughout history, which he explains by suggesting that more equal societies tend to believe more strongly in collective moral responsibility and therefore are more willing to fight to maintain their equality. Of course, these ideas are no longer as widely accepted as they might have been in Mill’s time.
Themes
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When cultivated properly, Mill concludes, a person’s social feelings lead them to picture themselves “as a being who of course pays regard to others.” Through education and social interaction, Mill argues, everyone can gain a “feeling of unity with all the rest.” Indeed, Mill thinks this feeling should be “taught as a religion.” Once this moral conscience takes root, it is difficult for people to get rid of it: when morally conscientious people meet injustice and selfishness, they become more, not less, dedicated to justice and equality. They hope to make selfish and unjust people happier by spreading the “feeling of unity” and sense of moral conscience to them, too. Even though Mill thinks a majority of humanity remains selfish and morally unconscientious, he also thinks moral conscience will continue to grow, as it is far stronger than external sanctions and can even use them for its benefit.
Mill ties his previous observations into a powerful conclusion: utilitarians should try to convert internal sanctions into external ones. In other words, they can harness people’s moral instincts to build moral institutions that in turn cultivate those same moral instincts, and so on in a cycle—like an equal society that continues to demand equality, Mill believes, these moral sanctions are self-reinforcing. Although proposing one’s ideas be “taught as a religion” might seem arrogant today, Mill’s ideas certainly align with those of many religious and social movements that emphasize fighting for equality and standing up for the powerless. Indeed, it is worth considering what his call for a religion of social justice can offer to contemporary politics.
Themes
