1st year Moral Philosophy

Reading list 2024–25

Weeks 1 and 2: Accounts of well-being

Mill says that “by happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain”. One of utilitarianism's intuitive attractions is the idea that happiness or well-being is ultimately what matters morally. But does Mill’s understanding of happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain do justice to that intuitive motivation? Don’t things other than pain and pleasure contribute to happiness and well-being? If so, shouldn’t they too be included in the account of utility that is at the foundation of utilitarianism? In our first two weeks, we review some alternatives and ask whether Mill should have adopted one of them instead.

Week 3: The ‘proof’ of the principle of utility

In Chapter 4 of Utilitarianism, Mill gives what has come to be known as his ‘proof’ of the Principle of Utility. Our aim this week is to arrive at a clear understanding of what (if anything) Mill is trying to prove, what sort of proof he aims to give and how it is supposed to work, and what we should think about it.

Week 4: Integrity and Alienation

The utilitarian moral requirement of utility-maximisation looks straightforwardly very demanding, at least in the sense that it appears to call for large sacrifices of resources on the part of those who have many. Critics of utilitarianism have also argued that it is demanding in other senses: it alienates people from one another, from their relationships, from their deepest commitments, and from morality itself. Indeed, many claim that it is too demanding to be plausible, and reject it for that reason. This week, we consider and evaluate some of these arguments.

Week 5: Justice

Another widespread concern about utilitarianism has to do with justice. In the most general sense, justice concerns what is due to people, what they have a right to, and it is taken to be of fundamental moral importance. Notoriously, utilitarianism seems to have no place for rights, which it seems to disregard at least insofar as they stand in the way of maximising utility. Mill devotes the rich fifth chapter of Utilitarianism to this subject, giving an analysis of the concepts of morality in general and justice in particular before arguing that utilitarians can make sense of the priority of justice. This week, we review the objections from justice and consider utilitarian responses.

Week 6: Forms of utilitarianism and consequentialism

Act utilitarianism is only one possible form that utilitarianism can take. Others include multi-level utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, motive utilitarianism, sanction utilitarianism, scalar utilitarianism, and satisficing utilitarianism—some of which you have already encountered in earlier weeks. Each form has its own theoretical motivation, and each may avoid some of the objections to utilitarianism we have considered in preceding weeks. Yet some of these forms may not satisfy the motivations for utilitarianism, and adopting one as a way to avoid the objections may itself be objectionably ad hoc. This week, we consider these questions.

Further study: Interpreting Mill

Utilitarianism is a dense and complex text, and it is not the only work of moral and political philosophy that Mill wrote. So different parts of the book and of Mill's corpus more generally may suggest different accounts of utilitarianism. Part of the art of scholarly interpretation involves trying to identify a view to attribute to an author that seems to capture the author's meaning in a plausible way, accounting for apparent inconsistencies either by explaining them away or by diagnosing their source in a way that makes them understandable. As further work, try undertaking that task in the case of Mill.