Review - Mill's Utilitarianism
A Reader's Guide
by Henry R. West
Continuum, 2007
Review by Bob Lane, MA
http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=4553
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1 comment:
“Should we murder a dozen to save millions? Would a utilitarian ethic justify these murders?”
Aha, great way to close the book’s review!: Motivation to read the book and also to answer the question!
In “Utilitarianism” Mill responds to the objection that, just as the Perfume case seems to show, the utilitarian view imposes too high a standard for humanity. It asks us to go ahead and sacrifice innocent life to benefit the greatest number. Mill then responds that “It is the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we know them; but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a feeling of duty…” “[u]tilitarian moralists have gone beyond almost all others in affirming that the motive has nothing to do with the morality of action, though with the worth of the agent. He who saves a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his trouble: he who betrays the friend that trust him, is guilty of a crime, even if this object be to serve another friend to whom he is under greater obligations.”
Mill separates the moral value of the action and the moral value of the agent. The problem I see is that the idea of “good” is not used consistently. Good is something when refers to an action: it means beneficial for the greatest number. On the other hand good when it refers to the agent means that the agent has good intentions. But what exactly are good intentions? By his example it seems to me Mill brings the deontological meaning of good back into the game: betrayal is bad (no matter what), lying is bad (no matter what) and so on.
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