Utilitarianism

by

John Stuart Mill

A term for the most fundamental principles of a discipline or field of knowledge. First principles are fundamental assumptions on which the rest of a discipline is based. In philosophy, this essentially means a priori arguments that can be neither proven nor disproven through logic, and from which other secondary principles are to be derived. For Mill, the first principle of ethics is the idea that what is good is simply maximizing utility, whereas secondary principles would be specific rules about what to do and avoid doing in order to maximize utility.

First Principles Quotes in Utilitarianism

The Utilitarianism quotes below are all either spoken by First Principles or refer to First Principles. 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:
Utilitarianism, Happiness, and The Good Life Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

It is not my purpose to criticize these thinkers; but I cannot help referring, for illustration, to a systematic treatise by one of the most illustrious of them, the Metaphysics of Ethics by Kant. This remarkable man, whose system of thought will long remain one of the landmarks in the history of philosophical speculation, does, in the treatise in question, lay down a universal first principle as the origin and ground of moral obligation; it is this: “So act that the rule on which thou actest would admit of being adopted as a law by all rational beings.” But when he begins to deduce from this precept any of the actual duties of morality, he fails, almost grotesquely, to show that there would be any contradiction, any logical (not to say physical) impossibility, in the adoption by all rational beings of the most outrageously immoral rules of conduct. All he shows is that the consequences of their universal adoption would be such as no one would choose to incur.

Related Characters: John Stuart Mill (speaker), Immanuel Kant (speaker)
Page Number: 3-4
Explanation and Analysis:

Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof. Whatever can be proved to be good must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof. The medical art is proved to be good by its conducing to health; but how is it possible to prove that health is good? The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good is not so as an end but as a means, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof. We are not, however, to infer that its acceptance or rejection must depend on blind impulse or arbitrary choice. There is a larger meaning of the word “proof,” in which this question is as amenable to it as any other of the disputed questions of philosophy.

Related Characters: John Stuart Mill (speaker)
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize 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 pleasure should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.

If I am asked what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.

Related Characters: John Stuart Mill (speaker)
Page Number: 8
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible is that people hear it; and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that people do actually desire it. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince any person that it was so. No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.

Related Characters: John Stuart Mill (speaker)
Page Number: 35-6
Explanation and Analysis:

Happiness is not an abstract idea but a concrete whole; and these are some of its parts.

Related Characters: John Stuart Mill (speaker)
Related Symbols: Money
Page Number: 37-8
Explanation and Analysis:
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First Principles Term Timeline in Utilitarianism

The timeline below shows where the term First Principles appears in Utilitarianism. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2: What Utilitarianism Is
Utilitarianism, Happiness, and The Good Life Theme Icon
Criticism and the Principles of Utility Theme Icon
The Common Good Theme Icon
...perfecting themselves and their moral rules infinitely, there is no need to return to straightforward first principle s before every decision. Everyone “go[es] out upon the sea of life with their minds... (full context)
Criticism and the Principles of Utility Theme Icon
Meta-Ethics Theme Icon
...different “secondary” moral principles when they come in conflict: people can appeal to the “ first principle ” of utility. (full context)
Chapter 3: Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility
Utilitarianism, Happiness, and The Good Life Theme Icon
The Common Good Theme Icon
...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. (full context)
Chapter 4: Of What Sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible
Utilitarianism, Happiness, and The Good Life Theme Icon
Meta-Ethics Theme Icon
Mill reminds the reader that first principle s cannot be proven in normal ways. First principles about knowledge can be proven through... (full context)