Better Socrates Dissatisfied than a Fool Satisfied? (Utilitarianism, Part 1)

In Part 1 of our discussion on John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, we welcome co-editor Peter Singer to discuss the author's life and other writings, to provide context on the philosophical tradition and historical era in which Mill wrote Utilitarianism, and to unpack the key arguments presented by this influential text.  

Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher, is currently Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is best known for Animal Liberation, first published in 1975 and widely considered to be the founding statement of the animal rights movement; and for The Life You Can Save, which led him to found the charity of the same name. His other books include Practical Ethics, The Most Good You Can Do, and the two books co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari- Radek. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People. 

To learn more or purchase a copy of the Norton Library edition of Utilitarianism, go to https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393441161.

Learn more about the Norton Library series at https://wwnorton.com/norton-library.

Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter at @TNL_WWN and Bluesky at @nortonlibrary.bsky.social. 

Transcript

[Music]  

[Mark]: You are listening to the Norton Library podcast where we explore classic works of literature and philosophy with the leading scholars of the Norton Library, a new series from W. W. Norton that introduces influential texts to a new generation of readers. I'm your host Mark Cirino with Michael von Cannon Producing. Today we present the first of our two episodes devoted to Utilitarianism by John Stewart Mill as we interview its co-editor, Peter Singer. In part one, we establish what utilitarianism means and how we might approach this philosophical concept. We also learn about John Stewart Mill’s life, background, other writings, the world in which he wrote, and how all of that contributed to Mill’s slim masterpiece that we discuss today. Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher that serves as the Ira W. DeCamp professor of bioethics at Princeton University. He is the author of Animal Liberation: The Life You Can Save, along with publications co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek. In 2005, TIME named him one of the world's 100 most influential people. It is a delight to have him with us today. Peter Singer, welcome to the Norton Library podcast.  

[Peter]: Thank you. It's good to be with you.  

[Mark]: Well, it's a pleasure to have you here to talk about your edition of John Stewart Mill’s Utilitarianism. And Peter, maybe we can start just by talking about John Stewart Mill, about the background of this man, what we might like to know about him as we approach this work. 

[Peter]: Right. Well, John Stewart Mill was a 19th century thinker in England. Interestingly, his father was a close associate of Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the utilitarian school of thought. They were called the philosophical radicals sometimes in England, in the early 19th century. And Mill was actually, John Stewart Mill was actually Bentham's godchild. He almost had this predestined background, you could say, to grow up as an advocate of utilitarianism. And he did, although he had some issues, as I think we'll get to, in fully feeling that this was the right view. But he did, and he became a major utilitarian thinker. He wrote important works. We're going to be talking about his essay “Utilitarianism,” but I would say that it's not the most important work he wrote. I would give that title to On Liberty, a famous essay defending the right to freedom of expression, which is very relevant today, and also to individual liberty. And he also—and it's a sign of how advanced he was in his thinking—he also wrote a book called Subjection of Women, objecting to the inferior position that women had in 19th century England. And in fact, he was the first ever to move in, certainly in the British Parliament but maybe in any parliament, legislation to give women the right to vote. 

[Mark]: In your introduction to Utilitarianism, what I am gleaning from John Stewart Mill is that his education was prodigious and precocious for such a young boy growing up with his father's associates and his father really seemed to stress learning and learning widely in language and culture and mathematics, everything. 

[Peter]: Yes, that's true. He got a very intense home education, you could say, from his father and, was reading Greek and Latin at an early age and, went through many of the classical texts, but also as you say, was educated in the sciences as they were in his day and in mathematics. So, a very intense education, that might have triggered some psychological problems, but on the whole, he seemed to get through them and have a reasonably––well I don't know about a normal life but have a well-balanced life.  

[Mark]: What psychological problems are you referring to? 

[Peter]: Mill went through a sort of mental crisis as he describes it in an autobiography that he wrote, and as we were saying, he was brought up to be an advocate for utilitarianism, a follower of Jeremy Bentham's views and his father's views. He in his––I think it was his late teens or his early 20s––he had the thought that “Suppose that everything that utilitarians wanted were to come to pass, would he really be satisfied with that, would it be what he really wanted?” and he had this feeling that it wouldn't satisfy him and it's not quite clear from the description in the autobiography whether this was just an emotional response but it left him, as he describes it in in some sense of despair. And he started reading some of the non-utilitarian thinkers of his day, Coleridge in particular was one, and sort of, if you like a more romantic view of life and what's important in life. And eventually, he came through that, he assimilated some of those ideas, and I think you could say he incorporated some of those ideas into his later work. So you might say he broadened what could be taken within utilitarian thinking. It was a little bit less purely the calculating, rational calculations and more responding to what we humans are like and what we feel in various ways. But he did get through it, and, as I said, he did write really significant and important works later in his career. 

[Mark]: One more thing about Mill’s background: you write in your introduction that at age 16, he formed a little group where he wanted to be a reformer in the world, where he actually wanted to change the world, I guess through philosophy and activism. You mentioned that he was having an intense upbringing and education. This seems like a lot of pressure for a young man to be putting on himself. 

[Peter]: Yes, it is a lot of pressure but actually, he delivered on that, you know, he did change the world in various ways and wrote as I said some important books. Became a for a short time a member of Parliament, had had an influence on people. So it was a lot of pressure but, it wasn't pressure that broke him and that devastated him. He assimilated it as we said, he went through a difficult mental period, but he got over that and did go on with that idea of changing the world making the world a better place and I think contributed to that.  

[Mark:] If you can take us through kind of the timeline of philosophy, does Mill’s entrance with utilitarianism, does that extend what has already been said about utilitarianism or does it revolutionize it in a sense? How does the era and the historical context give rise to this text?  

[Peter:] You have to think about the way in which Mill developed and furthered the  utilitarian tradition, which, as I said was from the start, not simply a philosophical movement, but was a reforming movement. So, Jeremy Bentham was a great reformer in many ways. He felt his aim was to make utilitarianism the dominant ethical view. That is the view that we should try to increase the well-being of everyone…and reduce suffering. And the philosophical radicals which he was part were advocates of voting reform initially because until 1832 the ballot in England was limited to property owners, people who had a significant amount of property, in fact, so it was very much a kind of elite domination of British parliament and hence of British politics because it was a constitutional monarchy at that time. Bentham and his associates advocated for reform, more democratic reform on the grounds that, if the people as a whole elect parliament, it's more likely to actually further the interests of the people as a whole. Now, while Bentham was doing that, there's actually a letter that he wrote which shows that he also thought that women should have the vote, but he thought that that would simply doom the prospects of a reform bill if he advocated that. So, he didn't publicly advocate that. It's significant that by the time Mill was writing — when so things had moved on from the 1820s and early 1830s, by the 1860s — that Mill felt that he could advocate votes for women. So that was one example of the way in which Mill could develop the utilitarian reforming ideas. And he did so in in other ways as well. He was—so Bentham had already said in just in a brief footnote something about extending rights to animals to nonhumans. Mill also advocated that and did so publicly. So that's another example of a change. Bentham wanted to reform prisons. He thought the prisons of his day were simply terrible. Convicts were taken to these kind of —  they're called hulks. They were old boats that were tied up in the river and they were locked in these damp horrendous conditions. And Bentham wanted penal reform, and Mill also supported those kinds of humane ideas. So there – it was a broad reforming movement that Mill was part of. And he was a much better writer than Bentham, who you know wrote fluently. Bentham published a number of works, but they're not terribly readable today. They're sort of point-by-point statements. And Mill translated that into essays which were a pleasure to read. So, he certainly developed and contributed to the utilitarian tradition in several ways.  

[Mark:] I'm interested that you're saying that Mill’s philosophy and his philosophical writings had a political and social impact at the time in which he wrote it. Is this true? Has he been influential ever since this book was published through the later part of the 19th century and into the 20th century? Has this always been a canonical philosophical text?  

[Peter:] Oh, certainly. Mill’s Utilitarianism has been the most widely read work of utilitarian thinking for—well, since soon after he wrote it. It's relatively short as I say, it's much easier to read than any of Bentham's work. There was another important utilitarian thinker later in the 19th century. His name was Henry Sidgwick. And he wrote a wonderful book called The Methods of Ethics. But in contrast to this rather short account of utilitarianism that Mill gave, Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics is 500 pages long. And it's written in a – it's written in a in a way that I've come to like, but the sentences are long and complex and at first glance most readers who are not academics would be put off. And Cedric was in fact an academic all his life. He was a professor or lecturer at Cambridge University. So, his is a, you know, I would think is a, is a better philosophical work than Mill’s. But certainly does not have the public reach and Mill was much more involved in the world in various — as I said — he went into politics and was elected a member of the House of Commons. So he had a different kind of life and one that was more accessible I think to ordinary people not to professional academic philosophers.  

[Mark:] Peter, I think you defined utilitarianism in a previous answer, but I'm wondering if you could state it again. How is Mill using this term utilitarianism?  

[Peter:] So Mill is using the term utilitarianism much as Bentham used it to refer to the ethical view that the right action is the one that will have the best consequences for all of those affected by it. And by best consequences, utilitarians, certainly the classical utilitarians, which includes Bentham and Mill, mean the consequences for our well-being. You could, as they would put it, the maximization of pleasure or happiness and the minimization of pain or suffering. So, Utilitarian aims to produce the greatest net positive balance of happiness over suffering.  

[Mark:] Now is this an intuitive obvious aim or is there something controversial about it?  

[Peter:] I think everyone would agree that it's better for people to be happy rather than miserable. And for non-human animals to not be suffering. But what's controversial about it is the idea that it's the sole test of right and wrong, because many people would say, you must never do injustice even if well there's a Latin saying you know “do justice even if the heavens fall.” And utilitarians would say, well, no, if the heavens fall, meaning by that I suppose that that's the end of the world. It would not be right to do justice if that's the consequence. So that's the controversy and other people would say, well, you know, we have rights. You must never violate individual rights. Bentham said quite forcefully that rights are things that we humans recognize and develop and they have a certain use in legal rights for example have a certain use and he suggested constitutions that gave people legal rights but they're not something that is sort of naturally there and that is always inviolable. They're a human creation. So they don't – they have a utilitarian justification to prevent them. They don't stand in the way of doing what is clearly going to have the best consequences, all things considered.  

[Mark:] So are there moral issues to this in the sense of if three criminals would be happy versus two good guys would be happy, it's better to have three than two. Or is that immorality taken into consideration?  

[Peter:] It's certainly better to have three happy guys rather than two. But, if criminals in general are happy and are not punished for their crimes, then the utilitarians will say that will encourage more people to become criminals and you have to think about the victims of the crimes of course. So, utilitarians were in favor of punishment of criminals as a deterrent and perhaps as a preventive so that you might have to put them somewhere where they can't continue to commit crimes. But on the other hand, they would not be retributionists. They would not say, even if it had no good consequences, you should still punish people for their crimes because that's somehow inherently just. That would not be a utilitarian view of punishment. I think it was Immanuel Kant who said even if a society is going to dissolve and break up, you should still hang the last murderer in prison before you do it. I think probably utilitarians would have said, well, if this person is never going to commit any other crimes because society is not going to continue, why hang him?  

[Mark:] One of the components of Utilitarianism, the book is that Mill’s seems to anticipate or acknowledge some of the arguments against utilitarianism. Are any of those interesting to consider? Are there are any of the arguments and counterarguments good illustrations of where he's going with this?  

[Peter:] Yes. Mill was certainly aware of counter arguments — and to some extent that was maybe due to the readings that he did when he had had this mental crisis —  and was starting to question utilitarianism and look at other views. He was more troubled than Bentham by these objections. Bentham was fairly dogmatic and thought that, “Well, utilitarianism is just obviously right and people who don't see this are misguided.” Mill tried to accommodate some of the criticisms. In particular, for example, there was the objection I think it came from Carlyle who was – Thomas Carlyle was a historian and important writer at the period, that Utilitarianism is a philosophy “fit for swine” and for pigs. In other words, right, because pigs can be perfectly happy wallowing in the mud, and utilitarianism seems to think that happiness was what was important so, you know, if we could be happy wallowing in the mud or doing whatever for similar things, then that's what Utilitarianism should want and, humans have higher faculties and, there are things more important than that. So to try to accommodate that Mill produced one of his most controversial arguments in which he distinguished between higher and lower pleasures, so the higher pleasures the more intellectual pleasures the ones that I hope listeners are having now listening to this philosophical conversation, and the lower pleasures well you can imagine they might be wallowing in the mud — but if we don't enjoy that, they would be physical pleasures of all kinds, eating good food, sexual pleasures I suppose were mentioned — although the Victorians, didn't you know, what I should say sexual pleasures perhaps weren’t what some people would have had in mind as the Victorians tended not to talk about that so much. And Mill then produced the argument that Utilitarians should support the higher pleasures because they're actually more pleasurable. And he claimed that those who have experience of both would acknowledge that the higher pleasures are more pleasurable. And so he has this couple of famous lines where he says something like, “better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” We could question whether Mill was really right about that. Whether in fact these higher pleasures do give greater pleasure … Mill thought that that was necessary to defend utilitarianism and in some way to make it more respectable.  

[Mark:] Mill writing this in 19th century England — is there an economic application to this where the more people who could achieve economic satisfaction the better? If this were read in an economic way, wouldn't it be somewhat threatening to the establishment in England at the time?  

[Peter:] Well, Mill was prepared to be reforming on those questions. He did write about economics — not in utilitarianism, but in other works. And he advocated what might be seen as social welfare reforms or even called socialism by some. So things like the state provision of universal education was something that Mill advocated. He advocated conditions for taking care of the poor that were improvements on his day. So were they – was that a threat to the establishment? Well, it wasn't a threat in the sense of revolutionary overthrow of the establishment. You got to remember that the French Revolution happened earlier in the late 19th century. Mill was not a revolutionary in that sense. And there were some revolutionary movements like that around, even in England. But Mill certainly was progressive in his ideas of the role of government in improving society and in promoting happiness for all.  

[Mark:] With that in mind, one of the longer chapters of Mill’s book is chapter five, which draws the connection between utility and justice. And your edition offers some pretty expansive annotations about some of the points that Mill is making. Can you explain how he's drawing this argument about justice in utilitarianism?  

[Peter:] Yes. So, this is another important criticism of utilitarianism. In fact, I mentioned it before that ... many people wanted to say that justice is an intrinsic value, that we should always create, um, we should always act justly, irrespective of the consequences. And  Mill is again trying to accommodate this idea. He's trying to say, “well Utilitarianism would not really push against ideas of justice.” And he's appealing to the long-term consequences of maintaining just institutions. In that way he’s trying to, trying to reconcile the more radical implications of Utilitarianism with the more conventional views about the role of justice in society. And again, you could question whether he was successful in doing that, whether he compromised Utilitarianism too far, refused to accept some of the implications, in order to accommodate these ideas.  

[Mark:] We talked a little bit about the context in which Mill wrote, the historical context and the field of philosophy. What about 21st-century philosophy or late 20th-century philosophy? How do contemporary philosophers engage with Mill and Utilitarianism?  

[Peter:] I think the answer to that is they engage in various ways, and to some extent there appear to be cultural differences as to how sympathetic philosophers are to utilitarianism. So if we just for the moment focus on the English-speaking world, in the United States there's been a strong tradition of individual rights. That goes back to the founding fathers goes back perhaps to the fact that the United States of America was formed in opposition to the rule of England —  and particularly the rule of George III — who was seen by the American colonists as a tyrannical ruler. And so, the American tradition goes back to people like John Locke, with the role of very limited government and individual rights, and that was embodied in the Constitution and in the Bill of Rights which was passed separately, and is very much part of the American judicial system that there is this Bill of Rights that is part of the law of the land and the Supreme Court interprets in various ways. Whereas, in the United Kingdom, in Australia as well, and in some extent, I say in Scandinavia particularly in Sweden, there is a different view which places less emphasis on individual rights and is more positive about what the government can do, and the role of the government. So, I think those countries are more sympathetic to Utilitarianism on the whole and the Utilitarianism exerts a stronger influence, on the culture in to say the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, and some other countries than it does in the United States.  

[Mark:] Peter Singer, thank you so much for joining us on the Norton Library podcast to discuss your edition of John Stewart Mill’s Utilitarianism.  

[Peter:] You're very welcome. I'm happy to have had this opportunity to discuss it.  

[Mark:] The Norton Library edition of Utilitarianism by John Stewart Mill, edited by Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer, is available now in paperback and ebook. Check out the links in the description to this episode for ordering options and more information about the Norton Library, including the full catalog of titles.