Moore's Criticism of Mill's Proof of Utilitarianism

Moore's Criticism of Mill's Proof of Utilitarianism
Ok, in the previous post we looked at Sidgwick's criticisms of Mill's proof of utilitarianism.  As the title might suggest, we will now turn to Moore's criticisms.  For a more detailed explanation of Mill's proof, check out the previous post.  For this post I'll just present Mill's proof in its skeleton form so we are easily able to refer back to specific premises.

(I will write a post within a week about how Mill might reply to Sidgwick and Moore)
Favourite Quote:
"Happiness, as we saw, has been defined by Mill, as 'pleasure and the absence of pain'.  Does Mill mean to say that 'money,' these actual coins, which he admites to be desired in and for themselves, are a part either of pleasure or of the absence of pain?  Will he maintain that those coins themselves are in my mind, and actually a part of my pleasant feelings?  If this is to be said, all words are useless:  nothing can possibly be distinguished from anything else; if those two things are not distinct, what on earth is?  We shall hear next that this table is really and truly the same thing as this room; that a cab-horse is in fact indistinguishable from St Paul's Cathedral..." (Moore, p.71)

Quick Sketch of Mill's Proof
Proof of Part 1: Happiness is a Good

(P1)  The only evidence that something is desirable (i.e. good) is that people desire it.
(P2)  People desire their own happiness.
(P3)  Thus, a particular person's happiness is desirable to them (and therefore an end),
(P4)  Thus, happiness (as conceived by each person) is an end and (therefore) a good to that person.
(C1)  So, the general happiness is a good to the aggregate of all people.

Proof of Part 2:  Happiness is the only good.
All desires are either a means to happiness or a component of a compound notion of happiness.  Since we identify ends by whether they are desirable, (C2) happiness is the only thing desired as an end in itself.

Grand Conclusion
Because happiness is the sole end of human action "and the promotion of it the test by which to judge of all human contact," it must be the standard of morality (Mill, p. 125).  In other words, utilitarianism is true.  

Moore's Criticisms of Mill's Proof
Moore identifies most of the same problems that Sidgwick does, however, his account of why Mill went wrong differs.

Argument 1: Naturalistic Fallacy Via Fallacy of Equivocation
Recall that Sidgwick also accuses Mill of the fallacy of equivocation (failing to hold constant the meaning of a term through out the premises to the conclusion).  Moore makes the same claim against Mill but explains the equivocation as causing Mill to commit the naturalistic fallacy.  

The naturalistic fallacy is committed anytime the property of moral good is equated with a natural property, and Mill commits this fallacy when he tells us that 'good' means 'desirable'.  To make his argument, Moore relies on the same disanalogy Sidgwick recognized in Mill's analogy between 'visible' and 'desirable'.  Mill tells us that to know what is is visible we observe what is able to be seen and so, to know what is desirable we observe what people desire.  The problem is that 'visible' means 'able to be seen' but 'desirable' doesn't mean 'able to be desired': it means something ought to be desired or is worthy of being desired.

However, if we simply follow Mill's analogy and interpret 'desirable' as the descriptive 'able to be desired' then it follows that just about anything can be good.  Because, it seems just about anything can, in a descriptive sense, be desired--including 'bad' things.  Well, that's not going to help Mill's case....

But that's not the main problem.  The main problem that arises from attributing the descriptive interpretation to 'desirable' is that what we ought to do (the normative rule of action) collapses into the descriptive claim about what we do do.  

In other words, he established his normative (i.e. , what we ought to do) conclusion that "the general happiness is good because it is desirable"  through the descriptive claim that people do desire their own happiness.  But if we hold the descriptive meaning constant throughout the premises and apply it to the conclusion, then the conclusion itself becomes descriptive--i.e., the general happiness is good because we are able to desire it.  

But that doesn't tell us that we ought to desire it or that it ought to be desired, which is what Mill wants to say.  Furthermore, as we have seen, being able to desire something doesn't imply it is what we ought to desire, nor does it make it the standard by which to judge all human conduct.  

By equating 'desirable' with 'the good' and holding Mill to the descriptive meaning of desirable (established in the premises), he cannot derive the normativity he wants in his conclusion.   His alternative is to equivocate on the meaning of 'desirable', which invalidates his argument because it commits the fallacy of equivocation.  

Argument 2:  Means-Ends vs Psychological Hedonism
Like Sidgwick, Moore also rejects Mill's psychological hedonism--i.e., that the only thing we desire  (i.e., the sole end of action) is pleasure/happiness because everything is either a means to or a component of happiness.  Moore's two general arguments are that (a) Mill psychological model of the relationship between desires and pleasure is wrong and that (b) Mill conflates what it is to be a means and what it means to be an end.

The first part of Mill's objection is to counter Mill's psychological model.  For Moore pleasure is what motivates action toward some particular object; and that particular object is included in the ultimate end of my desire.  For Mill when I desire some object, it's actually not that object that I desire but only the anticipated pleasure I will get from it.  But for Moore the way it works is that the idea of that object causes in me a thought of pleasure which in turn causes me to desire the object.  So, as well as the pleasure I hope to attain, I also desire the object.  Therefore, pleasure isn't the only thing we desire because we also desire the object. 

The second argument concerns a confusion of means and ends.  Recall that Mill acknowledges that some might counter his psychological hedonism by pointing out that people pursue things like virtue, power, fame, money etc as ends in themselves.  His reply is that in such cases those 'ends', through habit or education, have become components of a compound notion of happiness, thereby supporting his hypothesis that the only thing people desire is happiness.

To illustrate Moore's objections, lets take money as an example.  Recall that for Mill happiness is 'pleasure and the absence of pain'.  Some people view money as an intermediate means to some pleasure.  But as Mill suggests, for some people, money can be an end it itself.  That is, they just want money for money's sake.  Not to buy anything...but just to have it: think Scrooge McDuck or Mr. Burns.  

In the latter case money has become part of that person's compound notion of happiness.  And, if money is part of someone's compound notion of happiness then money is pleasure because happiness is pleasure.  But in what sense can money be pleasure?  This doesn't seem to make sense at all.  Mill is just defining words to suit his purpose.

Mill told us that everything except pleasure is but a means, which seems to imply that everything except pleasure is precluded from being an end.  But now he tells us that some other things that were previously means--that by any reasonable use of language are distinct from pleasure--can also be ends.  

So, either Mill must maintain the ridiculous position that money is pleasure or that there are things besides pleasure that people desire as ends.  If he doesn't want to appear kressy he's going to have to take the latter, but then he has to give up psychological hedonism.

Sidgwick's Criticisms of Mill's Proof of Utilitarianism

Sidgwick's Criticisms of Mill's Proof of Utilitarianism 
Ok, apparently I can only write if it's in my blog so, instead of staring at a blank screen trying to rewrite my paper, I'll write down the basic ideas up in herr first.

Here we will examine Sidgwick's criticisms of Mill's Proof of Utilitarianism.  With that in mind, it will probably do some good to lay out Mill's (in)famous proof which I've done in more detail elsewhere.  I'm too lazy to figure out how to put a link to it but it was last month.  What I've laid out below should be sufficient for our purposes.  But first a lets clarify the terminology...

Definitions
Utilitarianism:  From the most general point of view utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory, which means the the goodness/rightness or badness/wrongness of an action/thing is measured according to the consequences it produces.  More specifically, it is the moral theory that the 'rightness' of an action is measured in direct proportion to the happiness it produces.  In other words, if you want to know how 'right' or 'good' an action is, you need to count up how much happiness it produced.

Happiness:  Generally speaking, Mill equates happiness with pleasure or diminution of pain.


Moral good: is what ever the ultimate end our actions is (ought to be?)--that is, happiness.

Mill's Proof of Utilitarianism
The utilitarianism is about ultimate ends--and that end is happiness.  To prove that something is an ultimate end we need to determine if that thing is desirable.  The principle that Mill seeks to prove is that "happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being desirable as means to that end."

Mill's conclusion about happiness being the only desirable end can be divided into two main sections.  The first is to prove that happiness is an end, and second that happiness is the ultimate end.  Since knowing whether something is an ultimate end depends on whether it is desirable, the proof will require establishing that happiness is not only desired and an end but is the only thing desired as an end.

With this in mind, lets lay out the first part of the proof:
(P1)  The only evidence that something is desirable (i.e. good) is that people desire it.
(P2)  People desire their own happiness.
(P3)  Thus, a particular person's happiness is desirable to them (and therefore an end),
(P4)  Thus, happiness (as conceived by each person) is an end and (therefore) a good to that person.
(C1)  So, the general happiness is a good to the aggregate of all people.

Up to here Mill's given a proof for the first half of what he needs--that happiness is desirable as an end.  But he still needs the second half of the proof--that happiness is the only thing desirable as an end, and that all other things are desirable only in so far as they are a means to happiness.

This argument I've covered this in a previous post so I'll go though it quickly.  The basic idea behind this part of the proof is psychological hedonism: the idea that all possible objects of desire are in fact merely a means to happiness or a component of a compound notion of happiness.

The argument goes like this:  Sure it's true that people desire things other than happiness such as virtue, fame, honour, power, and so on, but they only desire these things because they are means to achieving the ultimate end of happiness.

Someone might reply that, wait, that's too easy.  You're just defining the problem in such a way that your desired conclusion isn't falsifiable.  To this Mill introduces the compound notion of happiness.  This is the idea that different things can be included in different people's notion of happiness.  Sure, he says, there are things like virtue that you pursue in their own right from which you do not expect a happiness pay-off.  But what has happened is that being virtuous has come to be included (by habit and/or education) in your concept of happiness.  Now, unless you live virtuously, you will not be able to be happy.

So, virtue-- just like eating donuts--has come to comprise the cluster of things that are contained in your concept of happiness.  By desiring virtue as an end, you are not desiring something distinct from happiness because virtue is just an aspect of happiness for you.  Finally, with psychological hedonism Mill has proven the second half of the conjunction:  (C2) since everything either is desirable as a means to happiness or is contained within it, happiness is the only thing desirable as an end.

Lets turn to Sidgwick's criticisms of Mill's proof.

Sidgwick's Criticism of Mill's Proof

Argument 1: The Aggregation Step
Sidgwick's first criticism concerns Mill's aggregation step which is the move from (P4) to (C1).  The general argument is that just because individuals desire their own respective happiness it does not follow necessarily that the aggregate of people (i.e. humanity together) desires the general happiness.  If there is no desire for the general happiness, then it cannot be and end nor a good.

Lets grant Mill that everyone desires their own happiness and that their particular happiness is a good to them.  Now consider two people, Bob and Mary, who live on an island.  Bob desires his own happiness and considers it a good and Mary desires her own happiness and considers it a good.  If we somehow add together their concepts of happiness into a "general happiness" it does not follow that Bob and Mary desire the general happiness; in fact, they (still) only desire their particular happiness.

Neither Bob nor Mary necessarily have a desire for the general happiness.  Add together happinesses on a society or world-wide scale and the problem becomes even more pronounced--people's desires for happiness only correspond to their own.  Since no individual desires the general happiness (just their respective individual happiness), there exists no desire for it, so--contra Mill--the general happiness is not an end, and therefore not a good.

Argument 2:  Fallacy of Equivocation
The fallacy of equivocation is committed when a key term (that has more than one meaning) doesn't maintain a consistent meaning throughout the argument.  Mill tells us in (P1) that we can know what is desirable by observing what people desire.  He uses an analogy to make this point:  the proof that something is visible is that people see it, and the proof that something is audible is that people hear it.  So, it follows that we can know that something is desirable if people desire it.  But the analogy doesn't work.  'Desirable' doesn't usually mean 'able to be desired', it usually means that there is something we ought to desire or that is worthy of desire.  In short, it is usually employed as a normative term, but 'able to desire' is a descriptive term.

So, what's the problem?  Well, Mill's conclusion--utilitarianism--is a normative theory; it purports to tell us that we ought to desire the general happiness.  But his supporting premises contain 'desirable' in the descriptive sense, i.e., (P2) people do desire their happiness.  Therefore, Mill is not justified in  arguing for a ethical conclusion from psychological facts.  More generally stated: the proof suffers from the fallacy of equivocation because 'desirable' isn't used consistently throughout the premises and the conclusion.

Argument 3:  Vs Psychological Hedonism In order to prove (C2) that happiness is the only thing desirable as an end, Mill appealed to psychological hedonism: i.e., the theory that all possible objects of desire are in fact either a means to happiness or a component of a compound notion of happiness.  Sidgwick rejects this psychological model and consequentially the conclusion (C2) that follows from it.

Lets do a quick analysis of Mill's psychological model.  For Mill, the relationship between "desiring a thing and finding it pleasant" is one of equivalence; "they both name the same psychological fact" (Mill, pp. 125-126).  But is this true?  Perhaps, if by decree we define our words this way, but this semantic equivalence doesn't accord with common or psychological usage.  Sidgwick suggests one possible disequivalence is that phrases like "at his pleasure" or "as he pleases" denote something akin to voluntary choice rather than the chooser's objective being some "prospective feeling" (Sidgwick, p. 44).

Butler psychological model suggests a more extreme disequivancence between desiring a thing and finding it pleasant.  On his model, we necessarily desire things other than pleasure.  Pleasure is the consequence of pursuing things like honour, power, and virtue.  If we do not already have the additional desire for (in addition to the desire for pleasure)  the thing that gives us pleasure, we can not pursue the pleasure (quoted in Sidgwick, Ibid).  

While Sidgwick doesn't endorse Butler's view that we could never pursue pleasure at all without first desiring some other object, he agrees with the general point against Mill:  Not all of our desires are directed at pleasure.

So, if we accept some version of this psychological model it is not clear that everything we desire we also will find pleasant.  It then follow that  (C2) cannot be derived from the proof--i.e., happiness might not be the only desirable end.