Editing Utilitarianism (section)

==== 'Proving' the principle of utility ====
In Chapter Four of ''[[Utilitarianism (book)|Utilitarianism]]'', Mill considers what proof can be given for the principle of utility:<ref>{{cite book |last = Mill | first = John Stuart |editor-first= Roger |editor-last= Crisp |title = Utilitarianism |place=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1998 |page = 81 |isbn = 978-0-19-875163-2}}</ref>

{{blockquote|The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it.{{nbsp}}... In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.{{nbsp}}... No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness...we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.|author=|title=|source=}}

It is usual to say that Mill is committing a number of [[Fallacy|fallacies]]:<ref name="Popkin, Richard H. 1950, p. 66">{{cite journal|last=Popkin|first=Richard H.|year=1950|title=A Note on the 'Proof' of Utility in J. S. Mill|journal=Ethics|volume=61|pages=66–68|doi=10.1086/290751|s2cid=170936711}}</ref>

* [[naturalistic fallacy]]: Mill is trying to deduce what people ought to do from what they in fact do; 
* [[equivocation fallacy]]: Mill moves from the fact that (1) something is desirable, i.e. is capable of being desired, to the claim that (2) it is desirable, i.e. that it ought to be desired; and 
* the [[fallacy of composition]]: the fact that people desire their own happiness does not imply that the aggregate of all persons will desire the general happiness.

Such allegations began to emerge in Mill's lifetime, shortly after the publication of ''Utilitarianism'', and persisted for well over a century, though the tide has been turning in recent discussions. Nonetheless, a defence of Mill against all three charges, with a chapter devoted to each, can be found in Necip Fikri Alican's ''Mill's Principle of Utility: A Defense of John Stuart Mill's Notorious Proof'' (1994). This is the first, and remains{{when|date=January 2019}} the only, book-length treatment of the subject matter. Yet the alleged fallacies in the proof continue to attract scholarly attention in journal articles and book chapters.

Hall (1949) and Popkin (1950) defend Mill against this accusation pointing out that he begins Chapter Four by asserting that "questions of ultimate ends do not admit of proof, in the ordinary acceptation of the term" and that this is "common to all first principles".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Hall|first=Everett W.|year=1949|title=The 'Proof' of Utility in Bentham and Mill|journal=Ethics|volume=60|pages=1–18|doi=10.1086/290691|s2cid=145767787}}</ref><ref name="Popkin, Richard H. 1950, p. 66"/> Therefore, according to Hall and Popkin, Mill does not attempt to "establish that what people do desire is desirable but merely attempts to make the principles acceptable."<ref name="Popkin, Richard H. 1950, p. 66" /> The type of "proof" Mill is offering "consists only of some considerations which, Mill thought, might induce an honest and reasonable man to accept utilitarianism."<ref name="Popkin, Richard H. 1950, p. 66" />

Having claimed that people do, in fact, desire happiness, Mill now has to show that it is the ''only'' thing they desire. Mill anticipates the objection that people desire other things such as virtue. He argues that whilst people might start desiring virtue as a ''means'' to happiness, eventually, it becomes part of someone's happiness and is then desired as an end in itself.

{{blockquote|The principle of utility does not mean that any given pleasure, as music, for instance, or any given exemption from pain, as for example health, are to be looked upon as means to a collective something termed happiness, and to be desired on that account. They are desired and desirable in and for themselves; besides being means, they are a part of the end. Virtue, according to the utilitarian doctrine, is not naturally and originally part of the end, but it is capable of becoming so; and in those who love it disinterestedly it has become so, and is desired and cherished, not as a means to happiness, but as a part of their happiness.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mill |first=John Stuart |editor-first=Roger |editor-last=Crisp |title=Utilitarianism |place=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1998 |page=82 |isbn=978-0-19-875163-2}}</ref>}}

{{blockquote|We may give what explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to pride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to some of the least estimable feelings of which is mankind are capable; we may refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an appeal to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for the inculcation of it; to the love of power, or the love of excitement, both of which do really enter into and contribute to it: but its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all humans beings possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact, proportion to their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them.<ref>Mill, ''Utilitarianism'', Chapter 2.</ref>}}