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Utility
A now-uncommon term for what is convenient or advantageous. Mill carefully distinguishes between two interpretations of this word: in popular discourse, something is usually “expedient” if it is good for the doer, but not necessarily the right thing to do. In chapter two, Mill clarifies that utilitarians are against that kind of “expediency.” But in the rest of the book, Mill reclaims the term to mean simply the most advantageous or best thing to do—namely, the course of action that maximizes utility.
Expediency Quotes in Utilitarianism
The Utilitarianism quotes below are all either spoken by Expediency or refer to Expediency. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 5
Quotes
The principle, therefore, of giving to each what they deserve, that is, good for good as well as evil for evil, is not only included within the idea of justice as we have defined it, but is a proper object of that intensity of sentiment which places the just human estimation above the simply expedient.
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All persons are deemed to have a right to equality of treatment, except when some recognized social expediency requires the reverse. And hence all social inequalities which have ceased to be considered expedient assume the character, not of simple inexpediency, but of injustice, and appear so tyrannical that people are apt to wonder how they ever could have been tolerated—forgetful that they themselves, perhaps, tolerate other inequalities under an equally mistaken notion of expediency, the correction of which would make that which they approve seem quite as monstrous as what they have at last learned to condemn. The entire history of social improvement has been a series of transitions by which one custom or institution after another, from being a supposed primary necessity of social existence, has passed into the rank of a universally stigmatized injustice and tyranny. So it has been with the distinctions of slaves and freemen, nobles and serfs, patricians and plebeians; and so it will be, and in part already is, with the aristocracies of color, race, and sex.
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Expediency Term Timeline in Utilitarianism
The timeline below shows where the term Expediency appears in Utilitarianism. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2: What Utilitarianism Is
Other critics call utilitarianism “expedient,” a word that usually means putting private benefit above the public interest. But this is...
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Chapter 5: On the Connection between Justice and Utility
...also dictates equality, but not absolutely, because everyone wants equality “except where [one] thinks that expediency requires inequality.” Everyone has a different sense of what counts as expedient, ranging from “those...
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...bad (but not enforceable as such). This question of punishment, Mill argues, divides morality from “expediency and worthiness” in general. He now turns to the two kind of moral duties: imperfect...
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...question of where it comes from. He declares that, while justice is not all about expediency, the moral dimension of justice is. He summarizes that justice means “the desire to punish...
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...But none of this makes justice any less important, or makes it the same as expediency. Justice “concern[s] the essentials of human well-being,” which can be thought about in terms of...
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...are deemed to have a right to equality of treatment, except when some recognized social expediency requires the reverse.” Accordingly, “all social inequalities” that are not expedient are unjust, especially if...
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...real difficulty in the utilitarian theory of morals.” Doing what is just is obviously always expedient, and in this chapter he has explained why cases of justice feel different from cases...
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