Completely Free

The Moral and Political Vision of John Stuart Mill

John Peter DiIulio

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780691211237
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

An original, unified reconstruction of Mill's moral and political philosophy—one that finally reveals its consistency and full power Few thinkers have been as influential as John Stuart Mill, whose philosophy has arguably defined Utilitarian ethics and modern liberalism. But fewer still have been subject to as much criticism for perceived ambiguities and inconsistencies. In Completely Free, John Peter DiIulio offers an ambitious and comprehensive new reading that explains how Mill's ethical, moral, and political ideas are all part of a unified, coherent, and powerful philosophy.Almost every aspect of Mill's practical philosophy has been charged with contradictions, illogic, or incoherence. Most notoriously, Mill claims an absolute commitment both to promoting societal happiness and to defending individual liberty—a commitment that many critics believe must ultimately devolve into an either/or. DiIulio resolves these and other problems by reconsidering and reconstructing the key components of Mill's practical thought: his theories of happiness, morality, liberty, and freedom. Casting new light on old texts, DiIulio argues that Mill's Utilitarianism and liberalism are not only compatible but philosophically wedded, that his theories naturally emanate from one another, and that the vast majority of interpretive mysteries surrounding Mill can be readily demystified. In a manner at once sympathetic and critical, DiIulio seeks to present Mill in his most lucid and potent form.From the higher pleasures and moral impartiality to free speech and nondomination, Completely Free provides an unmatched account of the unity and power of Mill's enduring moral and political thought.

CHAPTER ONE

Noble Pleasures

MILL ON DESIRABILITY AND HAPPINESS

He courageously faces the difficulty by pronouncing in favour of a difference in kind or quality among pleasures; which difference he expands on through two or three eloquent pages, which I believe have received more attention from critics on the other side than all the rest of the book put together.

—ALEXANDER BAIN ON MILL’S UTILITARIANISM

The first question in regard to any man of speculation is, what is his theory of human life?

—MILL, “BENTHAM”

IN THIS CHAPTER, we examine the nature and foundations of Mill’s value theory—his theory of the good life. Unlike many contemporary liberal theorists, Mill grounds his entire practical philosophy on a definite theory of what constitutes human well-being. As a Utilitarian, Mill regards happiness as the summum bonum. But what is happiness for Mill? And how does he defend his conception of happiness?

The study of Mill’s value theory revolves around the issue of what his fundamental attitude is toward the nature of the good. In general, there have been two opposing schools of thought on this question. The traditional view says that Mill, like Bentham, defends some version of what can be called value subjectivism: the value of an object or end is merely a matter of subjective attitude, feeling, or preference. Most commonly, those who read Mill along these lines associate his theory of the good life with hedonism, the view that objects or ends are valuable only insofar as they cause pleasant feelings or sensations. Other scholars in this family associate his theory with desire-satisfaction, the view that objects or ends are valuable only insofar as they fulfill subjective wants or needs.¹

Now, unless all else fails, it would be wise to sideline desire-satisfaction. In Utilitarianism, the focal point of this debate, Mill appeals to desires as evidence of what is valuable, not as ends unto themselves. And indeed, it is precisely on this evidential basis that many nontraditional, or revisionist, scholars have read Mill as an exponent of value objectivism: an object or end is valuable insofar as it embodies or exhibits certain properties, features, or attributes that are inherently worthy or desirable. From the position of a value objectivist, it could very well be reasonable to declare that you ought to value or desire a given object or end, even if you experience no subjective inclination toward it, and vice versa.

The central passage in this debate is from the second chapter of Utilitarianism, where Mill proclaims his doctrine of the higher pleasures. For some traditional scholars, this doctrine is a workable if not welcome, albeit possibly abstruse, qualitative amendment to Bentham’s quantitative hedonism. However, for revisionist scholars, with this doctrine Mill sails into an altogether different ethical realm from Bentham, where it becomes impossible to call Mill a hedonist, and where a reader must look between and around the lines in order to comprehend what he actually believes and why. In short, the core controversy is over what significance pleasure has in Mill’s theory of the good life.

My first contention in this chapter is that the revisionist interpretation is right to dissociate Mill from hedonism, but wrong to go looking for excuses to abjure, or reasons to amend, his affirmation of pleasure as the end of life. Pleasure is the proper end of life for Mill, yet in a non-hedonistic sense. Mill’s unambiguous appeal to pleasure—far from being confused, coy, or obscure—is perfectly in keeping with his value objectivism. Indeed, what I offer below is a new revisionist reading of Mill’s value theory, one that vindicates his value-objectivist commitment to pleasure, and that thereby avoids coherent but erroneous value-subjectivist readings interpreting Mill as a qualitative hedonist.

However, my subsequent and overarching thesis is that Mill’s theory of the good life is better explained and more cogently justified by turning away from his doctrine of the higher pleasures and toward his psychology of human desire. As we will see, Mill develops and defends his value theory by examining our psychological experience of the good; he contends that we desire only what is attractive to our mind’s eye, and that we are attracted to certain goods or activities because they are inherently worthy or desirable. With this empirical approach, he ultimately advances a conception of happiness that embraces both individuality and sociality in a more-Aristotelian-than-not vision of human flourishing.

Again, the role of pleasure is fundamental here. If Mill’s doctrine of the higher pleasures is his testament to pleasure as the final good of a noble life, then Mill’s psychology of human desire is his meditation on pleasure as the first evidence as to what makes life noble. As we will see, Mill’s theory is that the mind’s eye takes subjective pleasure in the thought or idea of various goods or activities for objective reasons; that these hedonic reasons can withstand critical scrutiny; and that these goods or activities include both self-regarding (individual) and other-regarding (social) pursuits and ideals.

This distinction between individuality and sociality begs the question of what we are morally obliged to do or refrain from doing, which leads us into the thicket of chapter 2. However, we must first lay the seeds by tackling the first principal question of Mill’s value theory: what, if anything, is generally desirable?

The Higher Pleasures

In the fourth chapter of Utilitarianism, Mill lays down the first principle of his practical philosophy: “The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being desirable as means to that end.”² Happiness is the summum bonum; the highest or ultimate good. When asked “Why do you eat chocolate?” or “Why do you listen to opera?” or “Why do you foster friendships?” the final answer, according to a Utilitarian, always is and/or should be the same: happiness. In the abstract, Mill’s basic notion of happiness is the same as that of every ethicist from Aristotle to Bentham; namely, a life “inclusive of all that has intrinsic value.”³ An intrinsic value is a noninstrumental good: it is valued or valuable not as a means to an end but as an end unto itself; it is attractive or desirable for its own sake and thus constitutes a sufficient motive or reason for action. Thus, a happy life is one defined by the enjoyment of intrinsic values—the “ingredients of happiness.”⁴ But, of course, this begs the question: what is intrinsically valuable?

Mill develops his most famous (or infamous) answer in response to Bentham’s hedonism. A hedonist believes that pleasure is not just one but the only intrinsic value (our sole raison d’être), and thus that happiness and pleasure are, in effect, synonymous. As Bentham declares, “benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, [and] happiness” all mean “the same thing.”⁵ (Chocolate, opera, and friendship are valuable only if and because they are pleasurable.) For Bentham, pleasure refers to any agreeable mental or bodily sensation: “No refinement, no metaphysics.… Pain and pleasure are what everybody feels to be such.”⁶ Pleasure is whatever feels good—indeed, whatever feels good, such that we would desire, on balance, to prolong, intensify, or repeat the experience. (Chocolate, opera, and friendship count as pleasures insofar as they produce appealing sensations.) In addition, or perhaps as a corollary to his hedonism, Bentham declines to evaluate pleasure by any standard that might be called qualitative. Rather, his evaluative criteria are strictly quantitative, such as intensity, duration.⁷ To be happier is to have more pleasure; our helping of happiness is equiv...