Reading 1: John Stuart Mill – Utilitarianism (excerpts)

The Problem: Can Morality Be Based on Happiness Alone?

Mill’s central philosophical concern is justifying the Greatest Happiness Principle (GHP)—the claim that actions are right insofar as they promote happiness, wrong as they produce the reverse. He inherits this view from Bentham, but he aims to refine it in response to powerful objections:

• Is pleasure really the only thing desirable as an end?
• Do some pleasures have more value than others?
• Does utilitarianism demand too much from moral agents?
• Can it explain the value of virtue, justice, and sacrifice?

Mill’s project is to answer these criticisms and defend utilitarianism as a comprehensive moral theory.

Mill’s Core Argument: The Greatest Happiness Principle

What is happiness?

For Mill, it means pleasure and the absence of pain. But unlike Bentham, he does not treat all pleasures as equal in value.

Key Innovations in Mill’s Utilitarianism

1. Qualitative Hedonism

Mill argues that some pleasures are higher than others—not just more intense or longer-lasting, but better in kind.

• Pleasures that engage the higher faculties (e.g., intellect, imagination, moral sentiments) are superior.
• He uses a famous comparison:

  “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied”.

• Those “competently acquainted” with both types of pleasure invariably prefer the higher, even if they come with more suffering.

Takeaway: Mill introduces a normative hierarchy of pleasures, challenging Bentham’s purely quantitative approach.

2. Distinction Between Agent’s Happiness and General Happiness

Mill clarifies that utilitarian morality is not about maximizing one’s own happiness, but the happiness of all.

This aspect makes Mill’s utilitarianism altruistic and universalist, echoing the “golden rule” of morality.

3. Defense of Self-Sacrifice and Virtue

Mill accepts that people can—and should—sacrifice their own happiness, but only when this benefits others.

• Self-renunciation is instrumentally good, not intrinsically:

  “A sacrifice which does not increase… the sum total of happiness… is wasted”.

He also addresses virtue:

• People often value virtue (or truth, freedom, etc.) for their own sake.
• Mill argues this does not refute utilitarianism: these values are “parts of happiness”, internalized through psychological association.

Mill’s Responses to Major Objections

Objection 1: Utilitarianism is a “doctrine fit for swine”

Response: Only if one assumes all pleasures are base. Mill insists human pleasures (e.g., reading, friendship, creativity) are of a higher nature than bodily gratification.

Objection 2: Humans can’t be happy

Response: Mill distinguishes sustainable happiness (tranquility and excitement in balance) from rapture. He argues that happiness is attainable and that social reform can expand access to it.

Objection 3: Utilitarianism is too demanding

Response: Mill separates the standard of rightness from motive. People need not always act from utility, but their actions should conform to it. Most right actions serve private, not public, utility.

Objection 4: Utility is “mere expediency”

Response: Mill distinguishes true utility from short-term expediency. Lying might be expedient now, but undermines long-term trust—thus failing the utility test.

Mill’s “Proof” of the Principle of Utility (Chapter 4)

Mill acknowledges that first principles of ethics can’t be “proven” in the ordinary sense. His strategy is analogical:

• Just as visible things are those we see, desirable things are those we actually desire.
• People desire happiness; thus, it is desirable.
• And since people also desire virtue, money, etc., these are desirable as parts of happiness, not independent goods.

This is often called a naturalistic fallacy, but it forms the core of Mill’s empirical ethics.

Reading 2: Judith Jarvis Thomson – The Trolley Problem

The Problem: Why Is It Permissible to Kill One to Save Five Sometimes, But Not Others?

Judith Jarvis Thomson revisits a moral puzzle first introduced by Philippa Foot. At the center of this puzzle is a contrast:

• Case 1 – Trolley Driver: You are driving a trolley headed toward five people. You can divert it onto another track, where it will kill one. Most people say this is permissible.
• Case 2 – Transplant: A surgeon can save five patients by killing a healthy person and distributing his organs. Most people say this is not permissible.

The challenge: Why is it morally permissible to kill one to save five in Trolley Driver but not in Transplant? Both involve sacrificing one to save five, yet our intuitions diverge.

This puzzle—why do our moral intuitions distinguish these cases?—is what Thomson calls The Trolley Problem.

Thomson’s Goal and Method

Thomson’s goal is not merely to describe intuitions, but to find a principled explanation that tracks them. She critiques and expands on Philippa Foot’s original solution, using an analytic method: constructing variations of the cases to isolate morally relevant features.

I–II. The Setup and Foot’s View

• Foot distinguishes between killing and letting die, arguing that killing is worse. Therefore, in Transplant, the surgeon would be killing, which is worse than letting die in Trolley Driver.
• Thomson accepts this distinction, initially—but begins to question whether it explains our judgments adequately.

III. Bystander at the Switch

A new case:

• You are not the driver, but a bystander with access to a switch. If you do nothing, five will die. If you flip the switch, one will die.
• Most still say it’s permissible to flip the switch.

Thomson argues that this undermines Foot’s thesis: the bystander is not already involved in the harm (unlike the driver), yet may still act. So the distinction between killing and letting die can’t do all the work.

IV. Using as a Means

She explores Kantian ideas: it’s wrong to treat people as mere means. In Transplant, the healthy man is used to save others. But in Bystander, the one person is not used as a means—his death is a side-effect, not a tool.

Proposed test: Would the plan to save the five work if the one person disappeared? If yes, the one is not used as a means.

• In Transplant: if the healthy man disappears, the plan fails → he is used as a means.
• In Bystander: the plan still works → the one is not used as a means.

But complications arise: Loop variants of the trolley case show the one is needed to stop the trolley. So perhaps the “means” test is insufficient.

V–VII. The Distributive Principle and Rights

Thomson introduces two new principles:

1. Distributive Principle: It’s sometimes permissible to redirect an existing threat from many to fewer, as long as you don’t use impermissible means.
2. Rights-Based Constraint: You cannot infringe someone’s stringent rights (e.g., bodily integrity) to save others.

This explains:

• Why Bystander is permissible: the redirection doesn’t violate stringent rights.
• Why Transplant and Fat Man are not: they involve direct, intentional infringement of bodily rights.

VIII. Degree of Rights Infringement

Thomson also introduces a spectrum of rights:

• Some rights are trivial (e.g., property rights).
• Others are stringent (e.g., the right not to be killed).

She uses variants where the bystander must:

• Cross the one person’s property (trivial right): many say this is permissible.
• Push a fat man off a bridge (stringent right): clearly impermissible.

Implication: permissibility depends not just on numbers saved, but the kind of right being infringed.

IX–X. Limitations and Implications

Thomson emphasizes moral ambiguity: some cases resist clear-cut answers because the concepts of “threat,” “means,” and “rights” involve degrees and context.

• Moral intuition is sensitive to these subtleties, even if our theories are not.
• She resists pure consequentialism, insisting that certain actions are morally impermissible even when they maximize lives saved.