1 Philosophy 13 Lecture Notes; Introduction to Mill's Utilit arianism Recap: So far we have distinguished some opposed views about the nature of ethical claims. Ethical claims are claims about how we ought to live, what actions we should choose, what character we should develop. Ethical claims include claims about what is good and choiceworthy in human life as well as claims about what is prudent to do and what is morally right (permissible or required) to do. Example of an ethical claim: Abortion is morally wrong. Cognitivism. Ethical claims make genuine assertions, capable of being true or false. Some significant ethical claims are true. Noncognitivism. Ethical claims do not make genuine assertions, capable of being true or false. There are varieties of noncognitivism. • According to emotivism/expressivism, ethical claims express the emotions or attitudes or commitments of the speaker. According to the emotivist, "Abortion is wrong" means roughly Boo on abortion! "Abortion is morally right" means roughly Yeah for Abortion! • According to prescriptivism, ethical claims are somewhat like commands or orders. The function of an ethical claim is not to state some purported truth but to induce people to behave as you want them to behave. The Error Theory. When we use ethical language, we commit ourselves to making genuine assertions. But when we do this, we are systematically in error. No ethical claims actually succeed in making genuine assertions that could be true or false. Our moral and ethical language as ordinarily understood by competent speakers embodies a big confusion. These and other possible views about the nature of moral claims don’t take a stand as to substantive ethical issues about what we ought to do, how we should live. You could be a cognitivist or a noncognitivist and believe, for example, that we should always keep our promises. Equally, you could be a cognitivist or a noncognitivist and deny that we should always keep our promises. One question is, what sort of thing is an ethical claim—what are doing when we make ethical claims. A different question is, what ethical claims should we accept. Our course authors are mostly addressing this second question. Mill. John Stuart Mill doesn’t say much in general terms about the nature of ethical claims, but of the views sketched above, he appears to be a cognitivist. He pretty much takes it for granted that are true moral claims. Moreover, we can have knowledge regarding some ethical claims, as to whether they are true or false. There can be a systematic body of ethical knowledge, an ethical science. John Stuart Mill published his short book Utilitarianism as a series of magazine articles in 1861. Mill himself was raised as a utilitarian. In England in the early nineteenth century, the utilitarians were a loose grouping of political and social reformers, followers of Jeremy Bentham. He proposed that government ought to seek “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”They opposed the domination of the aristocracy and aristocratic values, favored democracy and the emerging market economy. In chapter 1 Mill says all the major opposed viewpoints on morality all agree there is moral knowledge and there can be a science of morals. But the science of morals is presently in bad shape. Why? What's the problem? Mill: we lack "a criterion of right and wrong"--in other words, a principle that fixes or determines what is right and wrong. In this little book Mill will present and defend a proposed criterion of moral right and wrong--a moral theory. Right at the start important moves get made that shape Mill's entire discussion. First paragraph: Mill identifies the question of the summum bonum (highest good) with the problem of the foundations of morality--the quest for a2 criterion of right and wrong. What's the connection? Why does figuring out an answer to the question, what is the highest good, solve the problem that we need a criterion of right and wrong? Next page, a clue. Mill writes: "All action is for the sake of some end and rules of action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character and color from the end to which they are subservient." When we engage in pursuit, a clear and precise conception of what we are pursuing would seem to be the first thing we need." My suggested paraphrase. 1. Rationality in choice of conduct is maximizing the satisfaction of one's chosen goal (or the goal that is best to pursue). This conception of practical rationality is concisely expressed by the 19th century American labor leader Samuel Gompers. Asked, what does the American working man want, his answer was, "The American working man wants more." 2. Moral rationality is maximizing the fulfillment of the moral goal, the goal that morality tells us to pursue. Mill goes on to propose that the rational goal of human striving is happiness, and happiness consists in pleasure and the absence of pain. This is the rational goal of any individual who is trying to do the best she can for herself. If my goal is to do as well as I can for myself for me-now, I should do what maximizes happiness- for- me- now. If my goal is do as well as I can for myself over the entire course of my life, I should do what maximizes happiness-for-me-over-my-entire-life. Acting effectively to achieve this goal is being prudent. Prudence requires a kind of impartiality. To maximize happiness over my entire life, I must treat all times of my life the same, and give the same weight to pleasures and pains no matter when they occur in my life. Being prudent is being impartial in pursuing one's good over the course of one's life. So, if eating six ice cream cones right now gives me 2 units of happiness now at a cost of causing a stomach ache and 3 units of unhappiness later, prudence says I should not eat six ice cream cones now. According to Mill, morality involves a further degree of impartiality, beyond prudence. Prudence requires me to treat all times of my life the same and maximize my fulfillment over my entire life. Morality requires impartiality across all persons. According to morality, one person's good counts the same as the equal-sized good of any other person. So in addition to 1 and 2, Mill holds: 3. The rational goal of human striving is happiness, and happiness is pleasure and the absence of pain. 4. The moral goal involves impartiality. One person's good counts the same, in the