Rawls J. Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy

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judgments.) At the same time, this principle corrects our pre-reﬂective judg-

ments and so criterion B: (5): (c): viii is also satisﬁed. Sidgwick assumes that

our pre-reﬂective judgments (or some of them) have some prima facie valid-

ity, and so bringing order into them is further conﬁrmation of the principle

of utility. (See Bk. IV, Ch. 2, pp. 419–422.)

§5. Sidgwick’s Critique of Natural Freedom as an Illustration

(1) In §4 of Bk. III, Ch. 5, Sidgwick argues that the Principle of Free-

dom—the principle that the whole of what people owe to one another,

apart from contracts (including the enforcement of these), is freedom from

interference—cannot be the ﬁrst principle of a rational method of ethics.

For one thing, (a) it contains arbitrary restrictions: for it does not itself ac-

count for why it doesn’t apply to children and the mentally deﬁcient and

the like, but must tacitly invoke another principle, e.g. the utilitarian princi-

ple (ME, p. 275).

(2) Again, (b) it is ambiguous as between freedom of action allowing for

all kinds of annoyances but barring constraint, or as including as well free-

dom from certain annoyances at least, although not presumably from all.

But to ﬁnd the mean between these two unacceptable extremes, some fur-

ther principle is required, again, e.g. the utilitarian principle (pp. 275f ).

(3) If a social order is to be possible using this principle, the Principle of

Freedom must allow the right to limit one’s freedom by contract. But this

right itself must be limited since it hardly allows the right to sell oneself

into slavery; yet to derive an appropriate limited right to limit one’s free-

dom by contract from the Principle of Freedom alone seems impossible.

We need some additional principle, which may then be superior in validity,

etc. (p. 276).

(4) Turning to the question of the appropriation of material things and

especially land (and here Sidgwick seems to have Locke in mind; in 1–3

above he has perhaps Spencer in mind), he argues that the principle of free-

dom would be best realized without any appropriation. If, in a society

where all land is appropriated and some inherit no landed property, the ar-

gument is that everyone in society is nevertheless better off with appropria-

tion than without, then the view is that interference with freedom can be

compensated for. But this is, in effect, to appeal to another principle, and so

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the realization of freedom cannot be “the one ultimate end of distributive

justice” (pp. 276ff).

§6. Further Points Concerning Deﬁnition of the Principle of Utility

(1) The phrase “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” seems

to occur ﬁrst in Hutcheson’s Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil (1725):

see III, §8. This phrase has led some to regard the principle as nonsense,

since it presents two aims (happiness and numbers) to maximize. But this is

a misunderstanding: the principle is to maximize total happiness, and this

means that the distribution of happiness among existing people, or over gen-

erations, as well as the number of people (so far as social policy affects this),

are all to be decided by what maximizes total (not average) utility. Sidgwick

is clear on these points: see ME, pp. 415f (see also A Theory of Justice,

pp. 161ff ).

(2) Note that the principle of utility puts no weight at all on equality (in

the sense of an equal distribution of utility): the only thing that counts is to-

tal utility. This is implied by the additive nature of the principle (to maxi-

mize a linear sum of the u

’s). Observe that if the principle were said to

multiply utilities, there would be a push in favor of equality. Thus the math-

ematical form already incorporates an ethical notion: namely, distribution is

not signiﬁcant.

(3) In practice, regarding, e.g., legislation, utilitarians often assume peo-

ple have similar capacities for pleasure and pain, and that the principle of di-

minished marginal utility holds: all this implies equality, ceteris paribus, in

distributing the means of happiness.

lecture iii

Sidgwick’s Utilitarianism (Fall 1975)

§1. Introduction to Utilitarianism

(1) As I have said before, utilitarianism is the longest (oldest) continuous

tradition in English moral philosophy. By English I mean: written in the

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English language; many of the important utilitarian writers are Scottish—

Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and Adam Smith—and in this century it

has had strong representatives in the United States. It is no exaggeration to

say, I think, that beginning with the second quarter of the 18th century util-

itarianism has more or less succeeded in dominating English moral philoso-

phy. By dominating, I mean:

(a) It counts among its representatives an extraordinary sequence of

writers—Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, Bentham, the two Mills, Sidgwick, and

Edgeworth—who in numbers and intellectual power surpass that of any

other line of moral philosophy, including social contract theory, idealism,

intuitionism, and perfectionism. (Keep in mind that I am talking about

English moral philosophy, and not that of the continent: Germany, France,

etc.)

(b) Again, utilitarianism has tended to control the course of philosophi-

cal debate insofar as other traditions have labored to construct an alterna-

tive to it, often unsuccessfully. While intuitionism or idealism may succeed

in establishing various weaknesses in utilitarianism, they fare less well in

formulating an equally systematic doctrine that can match that of the best

utilitarian writers. Primary among the intuitionists I have in mind are But-

ler, Price, Reid, and Whewell, while the main 19th-century British Idealists

are Hamilton, Bradley, and Green.

its leading representatives have also been major political theorists and econ-

omists. Consider this striking fact: of all the great classical political econo-

mists, every single one—with the exception of Ricardo—has an equally im-

portant place in utilitarianism as a tradition of moral philosophy! One has

only to list the names: thus,

18th century: Hume, Adam Smith, and Jeremy Bentham.

19th century: James and J. S. Mill, Edgeworth, and Sidgwick (the latter

two more in economics and philosophy, respectively, but they had both

interests). Sidgwick’s third book, The Principles of Political Economy (1884;

3rd ed. 1901), is a short treatise in utilitarian welfare economics, in a sense

the ﬁrst.

In the 20th century, utilitarianism has had far more inﬂuence in eco-

nomics than any other moral philosophy, where it was represented by Mar-

shall and Pigou; only with the 1930s did the hold of the classical doctrine

fail. But still today many economists hold what they call a very general

form of utilitarianism. More on this later.

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It is, therefore, absolutely necessary to give utilitarianism careful atten-

tion. A tradition of this force cannot be without great merit.

(2) Now, a few brief comments about the beginnings of utilitarianism

in modern times. Like so much else of modern English moral philoso-

phy and social theory, it is convenient to say: it starts with Hobbes and

the reaction to Hobbes. We must keep in mind that Hobbes is an over-

whelming ﬁgure—a marvelous writer with a vigorous style, and seem-

ingly a perfect form of expression of his peculiarly deep, and somewhat

terrifying, vision of political life. Hobbes aroused a violent intellectual

reaction: to be regarded as a Hobbist was somewhat dangerous, and the

reasons are easy to see: Hobbes was the chief representative of modern

inﬁdelity.

Consider and compare with Hobbes an orthodox Christian moralist like

Cudworth, who espoused roughly the philosophical views shown in the left

column of Figure 9.

Compare this with how he [Cudworth] interpreted Hobbes (as did

much of the age (right column).

To see what Hobbes meant to his age,

what violence he did to the Christian moral and philosophical tradition,

there is no better source than Cudworth’s True Intellectual System (1671) (im-

primatur), (1678) (date of publication).

(3) However, the reaction of the leading utilitarians to Hobbes was, of

course, very different from Cudworth’s. (Here I leave aside the theological

utilitarians—Gay, Paley, and Austin—as special cases; and some were theo-

logians or theists, such as Hutcheson and Smith.) For the most part, what

bothered them about Hobbes was not his atheism, if atheist he was, or his

materialism, determinism, and individualism. In some reasonable sense,

Hume, Bentham, the two Mills, and Sidgwick also held these views. What

they rejected in Hobbes rather (or in what Hobbes was taken to mean or

represent) was:

(i) The doctrine of psychological egoism and ethical egoism.

(ii) The idea that political authority is legitimated by superior power

(though this is doubtfully Hobbes’s view), or by agreements made in the

face of superior power, or indeed that it rests on a social contract at all, or

on any kind of contract (in the usual sense).

(iii) The thesis of ethical relativism.

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10. John Passmore, Ralph Cudworth (1951), pp. 11f.

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Thus, it is useful to think of classical utilitarianism (the line of writers

from Hutcheson-Hume to Sidgwick-Edgeworth) roughly in this way, namely,

as the attempt to formulate in reaction to Hobbes:

(a) a moral and political conception that gave an account of the

grounds of political authority, not as based on power but on moral princi-

ples; and one that was not relativistic, nor based on psychological egoism,

nor ethical egoism.

At the same time, classical utilitarianism accepted as conditions of the

state of modern culture that a moral and political conception must be secu-

lar, that is:

(b) classical utilitarianism does not base moral ﬁrst principles in the di-

vine will, and it is fully compatible with the denial of theism (in the tradi-

tional sense). It is compatible also with: materialism, determinism, and indi-

vidualism, and so with what are thought to be the conclusions of social

theory and natural sciences.

In sum: classical utilitarianism was the ﬁrst tradition to develop a sys-

tematic moral conception under the assumption of a secular society under

modern conditions. Much of the effort of utilitarian writers is devoted to

opposing the orthodox moral tradition and to establishing a moral basis for

political institutions entirely free from any theological background; and de-

signed to be compatible with secular assumptions and the trends of the

modern world.

You will observe that the notion of a truly based well-ordered society as

a reasonable political criterion rests on the same idea. So we may accept

this objective: we can do this without implying that the orthodox [theologi-

cal] assumptions are false. It sufﬁces to develop a moral doctrine that does

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Figure 9.

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not presuppose this [theological] basis (if this is possible). I shall assume

that all the views we discuss accept this background objective.

§2. The Statement of the Classical Principle of Utility (Sidgwick)

(1) Sidgwick gives a careful statement of the principle in Methods of Eth-

ics, Bk. IV, Ch. I. I shall go over the main points, making a few comments

for purposes of clariﬁcation: I deﬁne utilitarianism (“Universalistic Hedo-

nism,” as he sometimes says) as the ethical conception that holds that the

(objectively) right institution or set of institutions, or the objectively right

conduct (of individuals), in any given circumstances is that which will pro-

duce the greatest amount of happiness on the whole. Or which will lead to

the greatest net balance of happiness (agreeable feeling).

In this sum of happiness that is to be maximized, we are to include all

individuals (persons), whoever they are, that are affected by the institution

or conduct (that is, whose happiness is affected positively, or negatively).

Actually, the classical utilitarians thought that in principle it was necessary

to include all sentient beings and therefore all animals or living things that

can experience pleasure and pain. Capacity and liability for these feelings re-

quires them to be included. This is an important aspect of utilitarianism

that we shall note later; for the moment let’s suppose that the conse-

quences of institutions and actions are limited to human individuals and

subsequent generations of individuals.

Formally, we can write the utilitarian principle the following way: Let

,...,u

be the utilities (numbers representing the degree of happiness) of

the n individuals affected by the institution (or system of institutions) or the

actions in question: say the n individuals in society, or whatever [group]. Let

,...,a

be the weight of these utilities. Then, the principle is:

To maximize:

au au a u

ii nn

=++

∑

...

That is: the right alternative (institution or act (or whatever)) is that al-

ternative (institution or act) which belongs to the set of feasible (possible)

alternatives that maximizes this function. (Assume for the moment that

there are no ties.)

It is immediately obvious that this principle is not that of ethical ego-

ism: everyone’s happiness is taken into account and given some weight (as-

suming all the a

> 0).

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(2) Let us at this point notice a very important feature of this principle:

the u

’s are numerical measures of happiness, and for Sidgwick the ulti-

mate good is agreeable feelings or agreeable experiences (or consciousness)

(more on this later). These are states of mind or aspects thereof, and they

are known, as it were directly, by introspection: they are, so to speak, com-

plete in themselves (over a certain interval of time) and good in themselves (or

in the case of pain, bad in themselves). The recognition of these feelings

does not presuppose, or use, any principle that involves the concept of

right, or justice, etc., or any concepts that fall under these. Thus, classical

utilitarianism uses a notion of happiness and of ultimate good that is de-

ﬁned independently and, as it were, prior to all other moral notions, or at any

rate, prior to those of right and justice and of moral virtue and moral

worth. This is characteristic of teleological conceptions, and so utilitarianism

is a teleological doctrine.

Where it differs from other teleological conceptions is in its deﬁnition

of good—of what it is that is to be maximized. Thus perfectionism says

that we are to maximize certain forms of excellence (human and other

perfections) or certain other values: beautiful things, or knowledge of the

world (or the main structural parts, etc. thereof ), or some mix of these.

(Sometimes the term “ideal utilitarianism” is used for this view, but this is

a misnomer.) Examples of perfectionism are found in G. E. Moore and

Hastings Rashdall and many other writers who give some weight to perfec-

tionist values.

But classical utilitarianism deﬁnes the good to be maximized subjec-

tively, that is, in terms of agreeable feelings or experiences (consciousness)

of (human) individuals.

(3) This may seem like an overly narrow deﬁnition of good. I have used

it ﬁrst because it has a certain clarity and simplicity about it; and second, be-

cause it is Sidgwick’s (and Bentham’s and Edgeworth’s) view; and Sidgwick

has several interesting arguments for it (which I shall mention later). His

view is the sharpest statement of the strict classical doctrine and he resists

all efforts to depart from it, especially those of Mill (whom we take up

next); and Moore, etc.

If we wish, however, the utilitarian notion of goodness can be inter-

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11. [See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,

rev. ed., 1999), pp. 21–23, 35–36, 490–491, 495–496, for a discussion of teleological doctrines

and their contrast with contract doctrines. —Ed.]

12. [See A Theory of Justice, section 50, on the Principle of Perfection. —Ed.]

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preted much more widely; thus as the satisfaction or fulﬁllment of non-he-

donistic human interests; or as the satisfaction or fulﬁllment of rational

(human) interests, imposing certain tests of rationality, provided that these

do not involve the other moral concepts (rights and moral worth, etc.): that

is, we allow for a certain appropriately limited class of corrections to hu-

man interests or desires (by rational deliberation, etc.). Or more generally,

we may think of the good as happiness deﬁned as the successful execution

of a rational plan of life (again with “rational” appropriately deﬁned).

Util-

itarianism can be enlarged to include these variations, and many common

objections to the doctrine are not as plausible against these forms of utili-

tarianism. Certainly Mill, for example, wants to categorize the good to be

maximized in this sort of way (at least).

The crucial feature of the deﬁnition of the good in utilitarianism is this:

(a) that it deﬁnes the good independently (from concepts of right and

moral worth); and (b) subjectively: what is good is (i) agreeable feeling (or

consciousness) (pleasure), or (ii) the satisfaction of rational individual inter-

ests—deﬁned relative to people’s actual interests—(with “rational” suitably

limited), or (iii) execution of rational plans of life (happiness); and (c) it is in

a certain sense individualistic: ultimate good is attributed solely to the con-

scious experience of individual persons and presupposes no objective rela-

tions. In any case, (d) it is the sum of this good (these goods of individuals)

that is to be maximized. Perhaps the best way to be clear about what this

sense of individualism amounts to is to contrast it with other views.

(4) Permissible Variations or Reﬁnements: Let’s explain in more detail

the notion of a permissible variation (or reﬁnement) of classical utilitarian-

ism: namely, what is the point of this notion and what do we mean by it?

First its point: there is a tendency to use the term “utilitarianism” extremely

loosely, so that there are many distinctly different kinds of moral concep-

tions said to be utilitarian. This looseness has an unfortunate effect: it ob-

scures the structure of different moral doctrines, and we fail to keep in

mind what is special about each. So we need a notion of permissible varia-

tion of utilitarianism to specify those variations all of which share the char-

acteristic or special structure of the classical utilitarian view.

Now what is this characteristic structure? (a) First, it is the characteristic

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13. [See here Rawls’s account of a person’s good in terms of the rational plan of life

that a person would choose under conditions of deliberative rationality, taking into ac-

count the Aristotelian Principle. A Theory of Justice, sections 63–66. —Ed.]

14. See the Appendix to this lecture on permissible variations of utilitarianism.

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structure that utilitarianism shares with teleological doctrines generally:

namely, that the notion of the good is deﬁned prior to and independent

from the right (and all the concepts that fall under it); and then right is de-

ﬁned as maximizing the good. This way of introducing the right is one as-

pect of the natural intuitive idea that underlies utilitarianism. It is the idea

that rational conduct and decision is maximizing the good: striving for the

greatest good. (Contrast Social Contract Theory.)

(b) Second, the characteristic feature of utilitarianism as distinct from

other teleological conceptions is that it deﬁnes the good subjectively, roughly

speaking from the point of view of the subject: the individual human

agent. What this means in this case is this:

(i) The good is deﬁned as agreeable or desirable consciousness; or plea-

sure rather than pain; or as the satisfaction of desire, according to its inten-

sity and duration.

(ii) The capacities for pleasure and pain, or the relevant desires and aver-

sions, are those which, at any given time, people actually have. We start at

each moment in our deliberations from those aspects of people as they are,

or can be foreseen to be. Practical reason is based upon given propensities

and desires.

Thus what is characteristic of classical utilitarianism is that it treats the

person according to its capacities for pleasure and pain, satisfaction, etc. Its

claims upon social resources depend upon these. And this is in contrast

with some other views which regard the claims of the person differently,

e.g. Social Contract Theory, Kant’s theory.

Now to deﬁne a permissible variation of utilitarianism: namely, one

that preserves these features and does not introduce elements inconsistent

with them. The idea is that in examining utilitarianism, we want to see if

any view that has these features can be correct. It would be progress to

show that all views with these features must be unsatisfactory.

For this reason, we might be willing (as I suggested earlier) to permit

the view—when it strengthened its case and made it a better conception—

to suppose that the good is deﬁned as satisfaction of rational desires, where

these are the desires individuals would have if they subjected their present

actual desires to certain forms of rational assessment (by the principles of

rational choice). This gives a different view (a variation), but we might

want to count it as a permissible variation within the same structure.

The point is: we would not have found the basic fault of utilitarianism

if we did not allow it this variation when it made the view better. (As dis-

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cussed below, limits on actual desires via constraints of the concept of right

are not allowed.)

§3. Points about Interpersonal Comparisons

(1) It is clear that the notion of summing up the pleasures (for simplic-

ity) or degrees of happiness of different individuals presupposes that we

have some way of comparing and estimating the pleasures experienced by

distinct persons. We can say, for example, that individual A has twice the

pleasures as individual B, etc.

Let us make a few observations about these points:

First, we assume that the a

’s are all equal and so let them be 1. This pre-

sumably is what Bentham meant (as quoted by Mill in Utilitarianism, Ch. V,

par. 36) by: “everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one.” Mill

interprets this weighting rule correctly: it does not imply, as Spencer argues

in Social Statistics, an equal right to happiness; instead it follows from the in-

dependent deﬁnition of good as pleasure, or satisfaction, etc. As Mill says: it

supposes only that equal amounts of happiness (pleasure) are equally desir-

able (good) whether felt by the same or different persons. All of this is im-

plicit in the idea of measurement applied to pleasures. It is part of the prin-

ciple of utility itself, not a premise needed to support it.

So Mill says. This

is fair enough given the understanding of good as pleasure (satisfaction)

and nothing but pleasure. (Contrast Maine’s Brahmin, who would weight

the pleasure of one who is a Brahmin 20 times that of those who are not;

he needs to modify the strict classical principle in some way to reach his

conclusion.)

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15. Mill says: “Mr. Herbert Spencer ...saystheprinciple of utility presupposes the an-

terior principle that everybody has an equal right to happiness. It may be more correctly

described as supposing that equal amounts of happiness are equally desirable, whether felt

by the same or different persons. This, however, is not a presupposition, not a premise

needful to support the principle of utility, but the very principle itself; for what is the prin-

ciple of utility if it be not that ‘happiness’ and ‘desirable’ are synonymous terms? If there is

any anterior principle implied, it can be no other than this, that the truths of arithmetic are

applicable to the valuation of happiness, as of all other measurable quantities.” Utilitarian-

ism, ch. V, footnote to paragraph 36.

16. Henry Maine, Lectures on the Early History of Institutions (London: Murray, 1897),

pp. 397ff.

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