Of the Principle of Utility 17

An Introduction to the Principles of

Morals and Legislation
by Jeremy Bentham

Chapte r I
Of the Principle of Utility

1. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters,
pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well
as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and
wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne.
They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can
make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.
In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will
remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility1 recognises this subjec-
tion, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to
rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which
attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of senses, in caprice instead of
reason, in darkness instead of light.

1
Note by the Author, July 1822.
To this denomination has of late been added, or substituted, the greatest happiness or greatest felicity
principle: this for shortness, instead of saying at length that principle which states the greatest
happiness of all those whose interest is in question, as being the right and proper, and only right
and proper and universally desirable, end of human action: of human action in every situation, and
in particular in that of a functionary or set of functionaries exercising the powers of Government.
The word utility does not so clearly point to the ideas of pleasure and pain as the words happiness and
felicity do: nor does it lead us to the consideration of the number, of the interests affected; to the
number, as being the circumstance, which contributes, in the largest proportion, to the formation of
the standard here in question, the standard of right and wrong, by which alone the propriety of human
conduct, in every situation, can with propriety be tried. This want of a sufficiently manifest
connexion between the ideas of happiness and pleasure on the one hand, and the idea of utility on
the other, I have every now and then found operating, and with but too much efficiency, as a bar
to the acceptance, that might otherwise have been given, to this principle.
 General Remarks 181

Utilitarianism

1
General Remarks

1. There are few circumstances among those which make up the present con-
dition of human knowledge, more unlike what might have been expected, or
more significant of the backward state in which speculation on the most import-
ant subjects still lingers, than the little progress which has been made in the
decision of the controversy respecting the criterion of right and wrong. From
the dawn of philosophy, the question concerning the summum bonum, or, what
is the same thing, concerning the foundation of morality, has been accounted
the main problem in speculative thought, has occupied the most gifted intellects,
and divided them into sects and schools, carrying on a vigorous warfare against
one another. And after more than two thousand years the same discussions
continue, philosophers are still ranged under the same contending banners, and
neither thinkers nor mankind at large seem nearer to being unanimous on the
subject, than when the youth Socrates listened to the old Protagoras, and asserted
(if Plato’s dialogue be grounded on a real conversation) the theory of utilitarian-
ism against the popular morality of the so-called sophist.
2. It is true that similar confusion and uncertainty, and in some cases similar
discordance, exist respecting the first principles of all the sciences, not excepting
that which is deemed the most certain of them, mathematics; without much
impairing, generally indeed without impairing at all, the trustworthiness of the
conclusions of those sciences. An apparent anomaly, the explanation of which is,
that the detailed doctrines of a science are not usually deduced from, nor depend
for their evidence upon, what are called its first principles. Were it not so, there
would be no science more precarious, or whose conclusions were more insuf-
ficiently made out, than algebra; which derives none of its certainty from what
are commonly taught to learners as its elements, since these, as laid down by
some of its most eminent teachers, are as full of fictions as English law, and
of mysteries as theology. The truths which are ultimately accepted as the first
principles of a science, are really the last results of metaphysical analysis, practised
182 Utilitarianism

on the elementary notions with which the science is conversant; and their rela-
tion to the science is not that of foundations to an edifice, but of roots to a tree,
which may perform their office equally well though they be never dug down to
and exposed to light. But though in science the particular truths precede the
general theory, the contrary might be expected to be the case with a practical
art, such as morals or legislation. All action is for the sake of some end, and
rules of action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character
and colour from the end to which they are subservient. When we engage in a
pursuit, a clear and precise conception of what we are pursuing would seem to
be the first thing we need, instead of the last we are to look forward to. A test
of right and wrong must be the means, one would think, of ascertaining what is
right or wrong, and not a consequence of having already ascertained it.
3. The difficulty is not avoided by having recourse to the popular theory of
a natural faculty, a sense or instinct, informing us of right and wrong. For –
besides that the existence of such a moral instinct is itself one of the matters in
dispute – those believers in it who have any pretensions to philosophy, have
been obliged to abandon the idea that it discerns what is right or wrong in the
particular case in hand, as our other senses discern the sight or sound actually
present. Our moral faculty, according to all those of its interpreters who are
entitled to the name of thinkers, supplies us only with the general principles of
moral judgments; it is a branch of our reason, not of our sensitive faculty; and
must be looked to for the abstract doctrines of morality not for perception of it
in the concrete. The intuitive, no less than what may be termed the inductive,
school of ethics, insists on the necessity of general laws. They both agree that
the morality of an individual action is not a question of direct perception, but
of the application of a law to an individual case. They recognize also, to a great
extent, the same moral laws; but differ as to their evidence, and the source from
which they derive their authority. According to the one opinion, the principles
of morals are evident à priori, requiring nothing to command assent, except that
the meaning of the terms be understood. According to the other doctrine, right
and wrong, as well as truth and falsehood, are questions of observation and
experience. But both hold equally that morality must be deduced from prin-
ciples; and the intuitive school affirm as strongly as the inductive, that there is
a science of morals. Yet they seldom attempt to make out a list of the à priori
principles which are to serve as the premises of the science; still more rarely do
they make any effort to reduce those various principles to one first principle,
or common ground of obligation. They either assume the ordinary precepts of
morals as of à priori authority, or they lay down as the common groundwork of
those maxims, some generality much less obviously authoritative than the maxims
themselves, and which has never succeeded in gaining popular acceptance. Yet
 General Remarks 183

to support their pretensions there ought either to be some one fundamental

principle or law, at the root of all morality, or if there be several, there should be
a determinate order of precedence among them; and the one principle, or the
rule of deciding between the various principles when they conflict, ought to be
self-evident.
4. To inquire how far the bad effects of this deficiency have been mitigated
in practice, or to what extent the moral beliefs of mankind have been vitiated
or made uncertain by the absence of any distinct recognition of an ultimate
standard, would imply a complete survey and criticism of past and present
ethical doctrine. It would, however, be easy to show that whatever steadiness
or consistency these moral beliefs have attained, has been mainly due to the
tacit influence of a standard not recognised. Although the non-existence of an
acknowledged first principle has made ethics not so much a guide as a consecra-
tion of men’s actual sentiments, still, as men’s sentiments, both of favour and of
aversion, are greatly influenced by what they suppose to be the effects of things
upon their happiness, the principle of utility, or as Bentham latterly called it, the
greatest happiness principle, has had a large share in forming the moral doctrines
even of those who most scornfully reject its authority. Nor is there any school
of thought which refuses to admit that the influence of actions on happiness is
a most material and even predominant consideration in many of the details
of morals, however unwilling to acknowledge it as the fundamental principle
of morality, and the source of moral obligation. I might go much further, and
say that to all those à priori moralists who deem it necessary to argue at all,
utilitarian arguments are indispensable. It is not my present purpose to criticize
these thinkers; but I cannot help referring, for illustration, to a systematic treatise
by one of the most illustrious of them, the Metaphysics of Ethics, by Kant. This
remarkable man, whose system of thought will long remain one of the land-
marks in the history of philosophical speculation, does, in the treatise in ques-
tion, lay down an universal first principle as the origin and ground of moral
obligation; it is this: – ‘So act, that the rule on which thou actest would admit
of being adopted as a law by all rational beings.’ But when he begins to deduce
from this precept any of the actual duties of morality, he fails, almost grotesquely,
to show that there would be any contradiction, any logical (not to say physical)
impossibility, in the adoption by all rational beings of the most outrageously
immoral rules of conduct. All he shows is that the consequences of their universal
adoption would be such as no one would choose to incur.
5. On the present occasion, I shall, without further discussion of the other
theories, attempt to contribute something towards the understanding and ap-
preciation of the Utilitarian or Happiness theory, and towards such proof as it is
susceptible of. It is evident that this cannot be proof in the ordinary and popular
184 Utilitarianism

meaning of the term. Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct
proof. Whatever can be proved to be good, must be so by being shown to be a
means to something admitted to be good without proof. The medical art is
proved to be good, by its conducing to health; but how is it possible to prove
that health is good? The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that
it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good?
If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things
which are in themselves good, and that what ever else is good, is not so as an
end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject
of what is commonly understood by proof. We are not, however, to infer that
its acceptance or rejection must depend on blind impulse, or arbitrary choice.
There is a larger meaning of the word proof, in which this question is as
amenable to it as any other of the disputed questions of philosophy. The subject
is within the cognizance of the rational faculty; and neither does that faculty deal
with it solely in the way of intuition. Considerations may be presented capable
of determining the intellect either to give or withhold its assent to the doctrine;
and this is equivalent to proof.
6. We shall examine presently of what nature are these considerations; in
what manner they apply to the case, and what rational grounds, therefore, can
be given for accepting or rejecting the utilitarian formula. But it is a preliminary
condition of rational acceptance or rejection, that the formula should be cor-
rectly understood. I believe that the very imperfect notion ordinarily formed
of its meaning, is the chief obstacle which impedes its reception; and that could
it be cleared, even from only the grosser misconceptions, the question would
be greatly simplified, and a large proportion of its difficulties removed. Before,
therefore, I attempt to enter into the philosophical grounds which can be given
for assenting to the utilitarian standard, I shall offer some illustrations of the
doctrine itself; with the view of showing more clearly what it is, distinguishing
it from what it is not, and disposing of such of the practical objections to it
as either originate in, or are closely connected with, mistaken interpretations of
its meaning. Having thus prepared the ground, I shall afterwards endeavour to
throw such light as I can upon the question, considered as one of philosophical
theory.
 Its Meaning 185

2
What Utilitarianism Is

1. A passing remark is all that needs be given to the ignorant blunder of sup-
posing that those who stand up for utility as the test of right and wrong, use the
term in that restricted and merely colloquial sense in which utility is opposed
to pleasure. An apology is due to the philosophical opponents of utilitarianism,
for even the momentary appearance of confounding them with anyone capable
of so absurd a misconception; which is the more extraordinary, inasmuch as
the contrary accusation, of referring everything to pleasure, and that too in its
grossest form, is another of the common charges against utilitarianism: and, as
has been pointedly remarked by an able writer, the same sort of persons, and
often the very same persons, denounce the theory ‘as impracticably dry when
the word utility precedes the word pleasure, and as too practicably voluptuous
when the word pleasure precedes the word utility.’ Those who know anything
about the matter are aware that every writer, from Epicurus to Bentham, who
maintained the theory of utility, meant by it, not something to be contra-
distinguished from pleasure, but pleasure itself, together with exemption from
pain; and instead of opposing the useful to the agreeable or the ornamental, have
always declared that the useful means these, among other things. Yet the com-
mon herd, including the herd of writers, not only in newspapers and periodicals,
but in books of weight and pretension, are perpetually falling into this shallow
mistake. Having caught up the word utilitarian, while knowing nothing what-
ever about it but its sound, they habitually express by it the rejection, or the
neglect, of pleasure in some of its forms; of beauty, of ornament, or of amuse-
ment. Nor is the term thus ignorantly misapplied solely in disparagement, but
occasionally in compliment; as though it implied superiority to frivolity and the
mere pleasures of the moment. And this perverted use is the only one in which
the word is popularly known, and the one from which the new generation are
acquiring their sole notion of its meaning. Those who introduced the word, but
who had for many years discontinued it as a distinctive appellation, may well
186 Utilitarianism

feel themselves called upon to resume it, if by doing so they can hope to con-
tribute anything towards rescuing it from this utter degradation.*
2. The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the
Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they
tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of hap-
piness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness,
pain, and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard
set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things
it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is left an
open question. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of
life on which this theory of morality is grounded – namely, that pleasure, and
freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable
things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are
desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the pro-
motion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.
3. Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds, and among them in
some of the most estimable in feeling and purpose, inveterate dislike. To sup-
pose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than pleasure – no better and
nobler object of desire and pursuit – they designate as utterly mean and grovel-
ling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine, to whom the followers of Epicurus
were, at a very early period, contemptuously likened; and modern holders of the
doctrine are occasionally made the subject of equally polite comparisons by its
German, French and English assailants.
4. When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it is not
they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light; since
the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those
of which swine are capable. If this supposition were true, the charge could not
be gainsaid, but would then be no longer an imputation; for if the sources of
pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the rule of life
which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other. The
comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely
because a beast’s pleasures do not satisfy a human being’s conceptions of happiness.

* The author of this essay has reason for believing himself to be the first person who brought
the word utilitarian into use. He did not invent it, but adopted it from a passing expression in
Mr Galt’s Annals of the Parish. After using it as a designation for several years, he and others
abandoned it from a growing dislike to anything resembling a badge or watchword of sectarian
distinction. But as a name for one single opinion, not a set of opinions – to denote the recognition
of utility as a standard, not any particular way of applying it – the term supplies a want in the
language, and offers, in many cases, a convenient mode of avoiding tiresome circumlocution.
 Its Meaning 187

Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when
once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does
not include their gratification. I do not, indeed, consider the Epicureans to have
been by any means faultless in drawing out their scheme of consequences from
the utilitarian principle. To do this in any sufficient manner, many Stoic, as well
as Christian elements require to be included. But there is no known Epicurean
theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feel-
ings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures
than to those of mere sensation. It must be admitted, however, that utilitarian
writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures
chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, &c., of the former – that
is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And on
all these points utilitarians have fully proved their case; but they might have taken
the other, and, as it may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is
quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact, that some kinds
of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd
that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity,
the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.
5. If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what
makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except
its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures,
if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give
a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer
it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are
competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer
it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent,
and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature
is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superior-
ity in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small
account.
6. Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted
with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most
marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher
faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the
lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast’s pleasures; no
intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would
be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base,
even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is
better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. They would not resign
what they possess more than he, for the most complete satisfaction of all the
188 Utilitarianism

desires which they have in common with him. If they ever fancy they would, it
is only in cases of unhappiness so extreme, that to escape from it they would
exchange their lot for almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes.
A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable prob-
ably of more acute suffering, and is certainly accessible to it at more points, than
one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish
to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence. 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 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 to
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 human beings
possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact, pro-
portion 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. Whoever supposes
that this preference takes place at a sacrifice of happiness – that the superior
being, in anything like equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior –
confounds the two very different ideas, of happiness, and content. It is indisput-
able that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest
chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always
feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is
imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable;
and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the
imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imper-
fections qualify. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied;
better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig,
is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the
question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.
7. It may be objected, that many who are capable of the higher pleasures,
occasionally, under the influence of temptation, postpone them to the lower.
But this is quite compatible with a full appreciation of the intrinsic superiority of
the higher. Men often, from infirmity of character, make their election for the
nearer good, though they know it to be the less valuable; and this no less when
the choice is between two bodily pleasures, than when it is between bodily
and mental. They pursue sensual indulgences to the injury of health, though
perfectly aware that health is the greater good. It may be further objected, that
many who begin with youthful enthusiasm for everything noble, as they advance
 Its Meaning 189

in years sink into indolence and selfishness. But I do not believe that those who
undergo this very common change, voluntarily choose the lower description of
pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that before they devote them-
selves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other.
Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily
killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in
the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which
their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown
them, are not favourable to keeping that higher capacity in exercise. Men lose
their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not
time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior
pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either
the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any
longer capable of enjoying. It may be questioned whether any one who has
remained equally susceptible to both classes of pleasures, ever knowingly and
calmly preferred the lower; though many, in all ages, have broken down in an
ineffectual attempt to combine both.
8. From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there can be
no appeal. On a question which is the best worth having of two pleasures, or
which of two modes of existence is the most grateful to the feelings, apart from
its moral attributes and from its consequences, the judgment of those who are
qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among
them, must be admitted as final. And there needs be the less hesitation to accept
this judgment respecting the quality of pleasures, since there is no other tribunal
to be referred to even on the question of quantity. What means are there of
determining which is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of two pleasur-
able sensations, except the general suffrage of those who are familiar with both?
Neither pains nor pleasures are homogeneous, and pain is always heterogeneous
with pleasure. What is there to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth
purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and judgment
of the experienced? When, therefore, those feelings and judgment declare the
pleasures derived from the higher faculties to be preferable in kind, apart from
the question of intensity, to those of which the animal nature, disjoined from
the higher faculties, is susceptible, they are entitled on this subject to the same
regard.
9. I have dwelt on this point, as being a necessary part of a perfectly just
conception of Utility or Happiness, considered as the directive rule of human
conduct. But it is by no means an indispensable condition to the acceptance of
the utilitarian standard; for that standard is not the agent’s own greatest happiness,
but the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and if it may possibly be doubted
190 Utilitarianism

whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be
no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is
immensely a gainer by it. Utilitarianism, therefore, could only attain its end by
the general cultivation of nobleness of character, even if each individual were
only benefited by the nobleness of others, and his own, so far as happiness is
concerned, were a sheer deduction from the benefit. But the bare enunciation
of such an absurdity as this last, renders refutation superfluous.
10. According to the Greatest Happiness Principle, as above explained, the
ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are
desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people),
is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in
enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality; the test of quality, and the
rule for measuring it against quantity, being the preference felt by those who,
in their opportunities of experience, to which must be added their habits of
self-consciousness and self-observation, are best furnished with the means of
comparison. This, being, according to the utilitarian opinion, the end of human
action, is necessarily also the standard of morality; which may accordingly be
defined, the rules and precepts for human conduct, by the observance of which
an existence such as has been described might be, to the greatest extent possible,
secured to all mankind; and not to them only, but, so far as the nature of things
admits, to the whole sentient creation.
11. Against this doctrine, however, arises another class of objectors, who say
that happiness, in any form, cannot be the rational purpose of human life and
action; because, in the first place, it is unattainable: and they contemptuously
ask, What right hast thou to be happy? a question which Mr Carlyle clenches
by the addition, What right, a short time ago, hadst thou even to be? Next, they
say, that men can do without happiness; that all noble human beings have felt
this, and could not have become noble but by learning the lesson of Entsagen,
or renunciation; which lesson, thoroughly learnt and submitted to, they affirm
to be the beginning and necessary condition of all virtue.
12. The first of these objections would go to the root of the matter were
it well founded; for if no happiness is to be had at all by human beings, the
attainment of it cannot be the end of morality, or of any rational conduct.
Though, even in that case, something might still be said for the utilitarian
theory; since utility includes not solely the pursuit of happiness, but the preven-
tion or mitigation of unhappiness; and if the former aim be chimerical, there
will be all the greater scope and more imperative need for the latter, so long at
least as mankind think fit to live, and do not take refuge in the simultaneous act
of suicide recommended under certain conditions by Novalis. When, however,
it is thus positively asserted to be impossible that human life should be happy,
 Its Meaning 191

the assertion, if not something like a verbal quibble, is at least an exaggeration.

If by happiness be meant a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement, it is
evident enough that this is impossible. A state of exalted pleasure lasts only
moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions, hours or days, and is
the occasional brilliant flash of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame.
Of this the philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of life were
as fully aware as those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was
not a life of rapture; but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and
transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of
the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to
expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing. A life thus composed, to
those who have been fortunate enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy
of the name of happiness. And such an existence is even now the lot of many,
during some considerable portion of their lives. The present wretched educa-
tion, and wretched social arrangements, are the only real hindrance to its being
attainable by almost all.
13. The objectors perhaps may doubt whether human beings, if taught to
consider happiness as the end of life, would be satisfied with such a moderate
share of it. But great numbers of mankind have been satisfied with much less.
The main constituents of a satisfied life appear to be two; either of which by
itself is often found sufficient for the purpose: tranquillity, and excitement. With
much tranquillity many find that they can be content with very little pleasure:
with much excitement, many can reconcile themselves to a considerable quan-
tity of pain. There is assuredly no inherent impossibility in enabling even the
mass of mankind to unite both; since the two are so far from being incompatible
that they are in natural alliance, the prolongation of either being a preparation
for, and exciting a wish for, the other. It is only those in whom indolence
amounts to a vice, that do not desire excitement after an interval of repose; it is
only those in whom the need of excitement is a disease, that feel the tranquillity
which follows excitement dull and insipid, instead of pleasurable in direct pro-
portion to the excitement which preceded it. When people who are tolerably
fortunate in their outward lot do not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make
it valuable to them, the cause generally is, caring for nobody but themselves. To
those who have neither public nor private affections, the excitements of life are
much curtailed, and in any case dwindle in value as the time approaches when
all selfish interests must be terminated by death: while those who leave after
them objects of personal affection, and especially those who have also cultivated
a fellow feeling with the collective interests of mankind, retain as lively an
interest in life on the eve of death as in the vigour of youth and health. Next to
selfishness, the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory, is want of mental
192 Utilitarianism

cultivation. A cultivated mind – I do not mean that of a philosopher, but any

mind to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has
been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties – finds sources
of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it; in the objects of nature, the
achievements of art, the imaginations of poetry, the incidents of history, the ways
of mankind past and present, and their prospects in the future. It is possible,
indeed, to become indifferent to all this, and that too without having exhausted
a thousandth part of it; but only when one has had from the beginning no moral
or human interest in these things, and has sought in them only the gratification
of curiosity.
14. Now there is absolutely no reason in the nature of things why an
amount of mental culture sufficient to give an intelligent interest in these objects
of contemplation, should not be the inheritance of every one born in a civilized
country. As little is there an inherent necessity that any human being should be
a selfish egotist, devoid of every feeling or care but those which centre in his
own miserable individuality. Something far superior to this is sufficiently com-
mon even now, to give ample earnest of what the human species may be made.
Genuine private affections, and a sincere interest in the public good, are possible,
though in unequal degrees, to every rightly brought up human being. In a
world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also
to correct and improve, every one who has this moderate amount of moral and
intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable;
and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others,
is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not
fail to find this enviable existence, if he escape the positive evils of life, the great
sources of physical and mental suffering – such as indigence, disease, and the
unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. The main
stress of the problem lies, therefore, in the contest with these calamities, from
which it is a rare good fortune entirely to escape; which, as things now are,
cannot be obviated, and often cannot be in any material degree mitigated. Yet
no one whose opinion deserves a moment’s consideration can doubt that most
of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if
human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow limits.
Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extinguished by the
wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and providence of individuals.
Even that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be indefinitely reduced in
dimensions by good physical and moral education, and proper control of noxious
influences; while the progress of science holds out a promise for the future of
still more direct conquests over this detestable foe. And every advance in that
direction relieves us from some, not only of the chances which cut short our
 Its Meaning 193

own lives, but, what concerns us still more, which deprive us of those in whom
our happiness is wrapt up. As for vicissitudes of fortune, and other disappoint-
ments connected with worldly circumstances, these are principally the effect
either of gross imprudence, of ill-regulated desires, or of bad or imperfect social
institutions. All the grand sources, in short, of human suffering are in a great
degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort;
and though their removal is grievously slow – though a long succession of
generations will perish in the breach before the conquest is completed, and this
world becomes all that, if will and knowledge were not wanting, it might easily
be made – yet every mind sufficiently intelligent and generous to bear a part,
however small and unconspicuous, in the endeavour, will draw a noble enjoy-
ment from the contest itself, which he would not for any bribe in the form of
selfish indulgence consent to be without.
15. And this leads to the true estimation of what is said by the objectors
concerning the possibility, and the obligation, of learning to do without happi-
ness. Unquestionably it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involun-
tarily by nineteen twentieths of mankind, even in those parts of our present
world which are least deep in barbarism; and it often has to be done voluntarily
by the hero or the martyr, for the sake of something which he prizes more than
his individual happiness. But this something, what is it, unless the happiness
of others, or some of the requisites of happiness? It is noble to be capable of
resigning entirely one’s own portion of happiness, or chances of it: but, after all,
this self-sacrifice must be for some end; it is not its own end; and if we are told
that its end is not happiness, but virtue, which is better than happiness, I ask,
would the sacrifice be made if the hero or martyr did not believe that it would
earn for others immunity from similar sacrifices? Would it be made, if he
thought that his renunciation of happiness for himself would produce no fruit
for any of his fellow creatures, but to make their lot like his, and place them also
in the condition of persons who have renounced happiness? All honour to those
who can abnegate for themselves the personal enjoyment of life, when by such
renunciation they contribute worthily to increase the amount of happiness in
the world; but he who does it, or professes to do it, for any other purpose, is no
more deserving of admiration than the ascetic mounted on his pillar. He may be
an inspiriting proof of what men can do, but assuredly not an example of what
they should.
16. Though it is only in a very imperfect state of the world’s arrangements
that any one can best serve the happiness of others by the absolute sacrifice of
his own, yet so long as the world is in that imperfect state, I fully acknowledge
that the readiness to make such a sacrifice is the highest virtue which can be
found in man. I will add, that in this condition of the world, paradoxical as the
194 Utilitarianism

assertion may be, the conscious ability to do without happiness gives the best
prospect of realizing such happiness as is attainable. For nothing except that
consciousness can raise a person above the chances of life, by making him feel
that, let fate and fortune do their worst, they have not power to subdue him:
which, once felt, frees him from excess of anxiety concerning the evils of life,
and enables him, like many a Stoic in the worst times of the Roman Empire,
to cultivate in tranquillity the sources of satisfaction accessible to him, without
concerning himself about the uncertainty of their duration, any more than about
their inevitable end.
17. Meanwhile, let utilitarians never cease to claim the morality of self-
devotion as a possession which belongs by as good a right to them, as either to
the Stoic or to the Transcendentalist. The utilitarian morality does recognize in
human beings the power of sacrificing their own greatest good for the good
of others. It only refuses to admit that the sacrifice is itself a good. A sacrifice
which does not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness, it con-
siders as wasted. The only self-renunciation which it applauds, is devotion to the
happiness, or to some of the means of happiness, of others; either of mankind
collectively, or of individuals within the limits imposed by the collective inter-
ests of mankind.
18. I must again repeat, what the assailants of utilitarianism seldom have the
justice to acknowledge, that the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard
of what is right in conduct, is not the agent’s own happiness, but that of all con-
cerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires
him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the
golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of
utility. To do as one would be done by, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself,
constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. As the means of making
the nearest approach to this ideal, utility would enjoin, first, that laws and social
arrangements should place the happiness, or (as speaking practically it may be
called) the interest, of every individual, as nearly as possible in harmony with the
interest of the whole; and secondly, that education and opinion, which have
so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish
in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association between his own
happiness and the good of the whole; especially between his own happiness and
the practice of such modes of conduct, negative and positive, as regard for the
universal happiness prescribes: so that not only he may be unable to conceive
the possibility of happiness to himself, consistently with conduct opposed to the
general good, but also that a direct impulse to promote the general good may
be in every individual one of the habitual motives of action, and the sentiments
connected therewith may fill a large and prominent place in every human being’s
 Its Meaning 195

sentient existence. If the impugners of the utilitarian morality represented it to

their own minds in this its true character, I know not what recommendation
possessed by any other morality they could possibly affirm to be wanting to it:
what more beautiful or more exalted developments of human nature any other
ethical system can be supposed to foster, or what springs of action, not accessible
to the utilitarian, such systems rely on for giving effect to their mandates.
19. The objectors to utilitarianism cannot always be charged with rep-
resenting it in a discreditable light. On the contrary, those among them who
entertain anything like a just idea of its disinterested character, sometimes find
fault with its standard as being too high for humanity. They say it is exacting too
much to require that people shall always act from the inducement of promoting
the general interests of society. But this is to mistake the very meaning of a
standard of morals, and to confound the rule of action with the motive of it. It
is the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may
know them; but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do
shall be a feeling of duty; on the contrary, ninety-nine hundredths of all our
actions are done from other motives, and rightly so done, if the rule of duty
does not condemn them. It is the more unjust to utilitarianism that this particu-
lar misapprehension should be made a ground of objection to it, inasmuch as
utilitarian moralists have gone beyond almost all others in affirming that the
motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with
the worth of the agent. He who saves a fellow creature from drowning does
what is morally right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for
his trouble: he who betrays the friend that trusts him, is guilty of a crime, even
if his object be to serve another friend to whom he is under greater obligations.*

* An opponent, whose intellectual and moral fairness it is a pleasure to acknowledge (the Rev.
J. Llewellyn Davies), has objected to this passage, saying, ‘Surely the rightness or wrongness of
saving a man from drowning does depend very much upon the motive with which it is done.
Suppose that a tyrant, when his enemy jumped into the sea to escape from him, saved him from
drowning simply in order that he might inflict upon him more exquisite tortures, would it tend to
clearness to speak of that rescue as “a morally right action?” Or suppose again, according to one of
the stock illustrations of ethical inquiries, that a man betrayed a trust received from a friend,
because the discharge of it would fatally injure that friend himself or some one belonging to him,
would utilitarianism compel one to call the betrayal “a crime” as much as if it had been done from
the meanest motive?’
I submit, that he who saves another from drowning in order to kill him by torture afterwards,
does not differ only in motive from him who does the same thing from duty or benevolence; the
act itself is different. The rescue of the man is, in the case supposed, only the necessary first step of
an act far more atrocious than leaving him to drown would have been. Had Mr Davies said, ‘The
rightness or wrongness of saving a man from drowning does depend very much’ – not upon the
motive, but – ‘upon the intention,’ no utilitarian would have differed from him. Mr Davies, by an
196 Utilitarianism

But to speak only of actions done from the motive of duty, and in direct
obedience to principle: it is a misapprehension of the utilitarian mode of thought,
to conceive it as implying that people should fix their minds upon so wide a
generality as the world, or society at large. The great majority of good actions
are intended, not for the benefit of the world, but for that of individuals, of
which the good of the world is made up; and the thoughts of the most virtuous
man need not on these occasions travel beyond the particular persons con-
cerned, except so far as is necessary to assure himself that in benefiting them he
is not violating the rights – that is, the legitimate and authorized expectations –
of any one else. The multiplication of happiness is, according to the utilitarian
ethics, the object of virtue: the occasions on which any person (except one in
a thousand) has it in his power to do this on an extended scale, in other words,
to be a public benefactor, are but exceptional; and on these occasions alone is
he called on to consider public utility; in every other case, private utility, the
interest or happiness of some few persons, is all he has to attend to. Those alone
the influence of whose actions extends to society in general, need concern
themselves habitually about so large an object. In the case of abstinences indeed
– of things which people forbear to do, from moral considerations, though the
consequences in the particular case might be beneficial – it would be unworthy
of an intelligent agent not to be consciously aware that the action is of a class
which, if practised generally, would be generally injurious, and that this is the
ground of the obligation to abstain from it. The amount of regard for the public
interest implied in this recognition, is no greater than is demanded by every
system of morals; for they all enjoin to abstain from whatever is manifestly
pernicious to society.
20. The same considerations dispose of another reproach against the doctrine
of utility, founded on a still grosser misconception of the purpose of a standard
of morality, and of the very meaning of the words right and wrong. It is often
affirmed that utilitarianism renders men cold and unsympathizing; that it chills
their moral feelings towards individuals; that it makes them regard only the dry
and hard consideration of the consequences of actions, not taking into their

oversight too common not to be quite venial, has in this case confounded the very different ideas
of Motive and Intention. There is no point which utilitarian thinkers (and Bentham pre-eminently)
have taken more pains to illustrate than this. The morality of the action depends entirely upon the
intention – that is, upon what the agent wills to do. But the motive, that is, the feeling which makes
him will so to do, when it makes no difference in the act, makes none in the morality: though it
makes a great difference in our moral estimation of the agent, especially if it indicates a good or a
bad habitual disposition – a bent of character from which useful, or from which hurtful actions are
likely to arise.
 Its Meaning 197

moral estimate the qualities from which those actions emanate. If the assertion
means that they do not allow their judgment respecting the rightness or wrong-
ness of an action to be influenced by their opinion of the qualities of the person
who does it, this is a complaint not against utilitarianism, but against having any
standard of morality at all; for certainly no known ethical standard decides an
action to be good or bad because it is done by a good or a bad man, still less
because done by an amiable, a brave, or a benevolent man, or the contrary.
These considerations are relevant, not to the estimation of actions, but of per-
sons; and there is nothing in the utilitarian theory inconsistent with the fact that
there are other things which interest us in persons besides the rightness and
wrongness of their actions. The Stoics, indeed, with the paradoxical misuse
of language which was part of their system, and by which they strove to raise
themselves above all concern about anything but virtue, were fond of saying
that he who has that has everything; that he, and only he, is rich, is beautiful, is
a king. But no claim of this description is made for the virtuous man by the
utilitarian doctrine. Utilitarians are quite aware that there are other desirable
possessions and qualities besides virtue, and are perfectly willing to allow to all of
them their full worth. They are also aware that a right action does not neces-
sarily indicate a virtuous character, and that actions which are blameable often
proceed from qualities entitled to praise. When this is apparent in any particular
case, it modifies their estimation, not certainly of the act, but of the agent. I
grant that they are, notwithstanding, of opinion, that in the long run the best
proof of a good character is good actions; and resolutely refuse to consider any
mental disposition as good, of which the predominant tendency is to produce
bad conduct. This makes them unpopular with many people; but it is an
unpopularity which they must share with every one who regards the distinction
between right and wrong in a serious light; and the reproach is not one which
a conscientious utilitarian need be anxious to repel.
21. If no more be meant by the objection than that many utilitarians look
on the morality of actions, as measured by the utilitarian standard, with too
exclusive a regard, and do not lay sufficient stress upon the other beauties of
character which go towards making a human being lovable or admirable, this
may be admitted. Utilitarians who have cultivated their moral feelings, but not
their sympathies nor their artistic perceptions, do fall into this mistake; and so
do all other moralists under the same conditions. What can be said in excuse
for other moralists is equally available for them, namely, that if there is to be
any error, it is better that it should be on that side. As a matter of fact, we may
affirm that among utilitarians as among adherents of other systems, there is every
imaginable degree of rigidity and of laxity in the application of their standard:
some are even puritanically rigorous, while others are as indulgent as can possibly
198 Utilitarianism

be desired by sinner or by sentimentalist. But on the whole, a doctrine which

brings prominently forward the interest that mankind have in the repression
and prevention of conduct which violates the moral law, is likely to be inferior
to no other in turning the sanctions of opinion against such violations. It is
true, the question, What does violate the moral law? is one on which those who
recognize different standards of morality are likely now and then to differ. But
difference of opinion on moral questions was not first introduced into the world
by utilitarianism, while that doctrine does supply, if not always an easy, at all
events a tangible and intelligible mode of deciding such differences.
22. It may not be superfluous to notice a few more of the common mis-
apprehensions of utilitarian ethics, even those which are so obvious and gross
that it might appear impossible for any person of candour and intelligence to fall
into them: since persons, even of considerable mental endowments, often give
themselves so little trouble to understand the bearings of any opinion against
which they entertain a prejudice, and men are in general so little conscious of
this voluntary ignorance as a defect, that the vulgarest misunderstandings of
ethical doctrines are continually met with in the deliberate writings of persons
of the greatest pretensions both to high principle and to philosophy. We not
uncommonly hear the doctrine of utility inveighed against as a godless doctrine.
If it be necessary to say anything at all against so mere an assumption, we may
say that the question depends upon what idea we have formed of the moral
character of the Deity. If it be a true belief that God desires, above all things, the
happiness of his creatures, and that this was his purpose in their creation, utility
is not only not a godless doctrine, but more profoundly religious than any other.
If it be meant that utilitarianism does not recognize the revealed will of God
as the supreme law of morals, I answer, that an utilitarian who believes in the
perfect goodness and wisdom of God, necessarily believes that whatever God
has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals, must fulfil the requirements of
utility in a supreme degree. But others besides utilitarians have been of opinion
that the Christian revelation was intended, and is fitted, to inform the hearts and
minds of mankind with a spirit which should enable them to find for themselves
what is right, and incline them to do it when found, rather than to tell them,
except in a very general way, what it is: and that we need a doctrine of ethics,
carefully followed out, to interpret to us the will of God. Whether this opinion
is correct or not, it is superfluous here to discuss; since whatever aid religion,
either natural or revealed, can afford to ethical investigation, is as open to the
utilitarian moralist as to any other. He can use it as the testimony of God to the
usefulness or hurtfulness of any given course of action, by as good a right as
others can use it for the indication of a transcendental law, having no connexion
with usefulness or with happiness.
 Its Meaning 199

23. Again, Utility is often summarily stigmatized as an immoral doctrine by

giving it the name of Expediency, and taking advantage of the popular use of
that term to contrast it with Principle. But the Expedient, in the sense in which
it is opposed to the Right, generally means that which is expedient for the
particular interest of the agent himself; as when a minister sacrifices the interest
of his country to keep himself in place. When it means anything better than this,
it means that which is expedient for some immediate object, some temporary
purpose, but which violates a rule whose observance is expedient in a much
higher degree. The Expedient, in this sense, instead of being the same thing
with the useful, is a branch of the hurtful. Thus, it would often be expedient,
for the purpose of getting over some momentary embarrassment, or attaining
some object immediately useful to ourselves or others, to tell a lie. But inasmuch
as the cultivation in ourselves of a sensitive feeling on the subject of veracity,
is one of the most useful, and the enfeeblement of that feeling one of the most
hurtful, things to which our conduct can be instrumental; and inasmuch as any,
even unintentional, deviation from truth does that much towards weakening
the trustworthiness of human assertion, which is not only the principal support
of all present social well-being, but the insufficiency of which does more than
any one thing that can be named to keep back civilization, virtue, everything
on which human happiness on the largest scale depends; we feel that the viol-
ation, for a present advantage, of a rule of such transcendent expediency, is not
expedient, and that he who, for the sake of a convenience to himself or to some
other individual, does what depends on him to deprive mankind of the good,
and inflict upon them the evil, involved in the greater or less reliance which
they can place in each other’s word, acts the part of one of their worst enemies.
Yet that even this rule, sacred as it is, admits of possible exceptions, is acknow-
ledged by all moralists; the chief of which is when the withholding of some fact
(as of information from a malefactor, or of bad news from a person dangerously
ill) would preserve some one (especially a person other than oneself ) from great
and unmerited evil, and when the withholding can only be effected by denial.
But in order that the exception may not extend itself beyond the need, and
may have the least possible effect in weakening reliance on veracity, it ought to
be recognised, and, if possible, its limits defined; and if the principle of utility
is good for anything, it must be good for weighing these conflicting utilities
against one another, and marking out the region within which one or the other
preponderates.
24. Again, defenders of utility often find themselves called upon to reply to
such objections as this – that there is not time, previous to action, for calculating
and weighing the effects of any line of conduct on the general happiness. This
is exactly as if any one were to say that it is impossible to guide our conduct by
200 Utilitarianism

Christianity, because there is not time, on every occasion on which anything has
to be done, to read through the Old and New Testaments. The answer to the
objection is, that there has been ample time, namely, the whole past duration of
the human species. During all that time mankind have been learning by experi-
ence the tendencies of actions; on which experience all the prudence, as well as
all the morality of life, is dependent. People talk as if the commencement of this
course of experience had hitherto been put off, and as if, at the moment when
some man feels tempted to meddle with the property or life of another, he had
to begin considering for the first time whether murder and theft are injurious
to human happiness. Even then I do not think that he would find the question
very puzzling; but, at all events, the matter is now done to his hand. It is truly
a whimsical supposition that if mankind were agreed in considering utility to
be the test of morality, they would remain without any agreement as to what
is useful, and would take no measures for having their notions on the subject
taught to the young, and enforced by law and opinion. There is no difficulty in
proving any ethical standard whatever to work ill, if we suppose universal idiocy
to be conjoined with it; but on any hypothesis short of that, mankind must by
this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their
happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of morality
for the multitude, and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding
better. That philosophers might easily do this, even now, on many subjects; that
the received code of ethics is by no means of divine right; and that mankind
have still much to learn as to the effects of actions on the general happiness, I
admit, or rather, earnestly maintain. The corollaries from the principle of utility,
like the precepts of every practical art, admit of indefinite improvement, and, in
a progressive state of human mind, their improvement is perpetually going on.
But to consider the rules of morality as improvable, is one thing; to pass over
the intermediate generalizations entirely, and endeavour to test each individual
action directly by the first principle, is another. It is a strange notion that the
acknowledgment of a first principle is inconsistent with the admission of second-
ary ones. To inform a traveller respecting the place of his ultimate destination,
is not to forbid the use of landmarks and direction-posts on the way. The pro-
position that happiness is the end and aim of morality, does not mean that no
road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons going thither should not
be advised to take one direction rather than another. Men really ought to leave
off talking a kind of nonsense on this subject, which they would neither talk
nor listen to on other matters of practical concernment. Nobody argues that the
art of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to
calculate the Nautical Almanack. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it
ready calculated; and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their
 Its Meaning 201

minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong, as well as on

many of the far more difficult questions of wise and foolish. And this, as long
as foresight is a human quality, it is to be presumed they will continue to do.
Whatever we adopt as the fundamental principle of morality, we require sub-
ordinate principles to apply it by: the impossibility of doing without them, being
common to all systems, can afford no argument against any one in particular:
but gravely to argue as if no such secondary principles could be had, and as
if mankind had remained till now, and always must remain, without drawing
any general conclusions from the experience of human life, is as high a pitch, I
think, as absurdity has ever reached in philosophical controversy.
25. The remainder of the stock arguments against utilitarianism mostly con-
sist in laying to its charge the common infirmities of human nature, and the
general difficulties which embarrass conscientious persons in shaping their course
through life. We are told that an utilitarian will be apt to make his own par-
ticular case an exception to moral rules, and, when under temptation, will see
an utility in the breach of a rule, greater than he will see in its observance. But is
utility the only creed which is able to furnish us with excuses for evil doing, and
means of cheating our own conscience? They are afforded in abundance by all
doctrines which recognize as a fact in morals the existence of conflicting con-
siderations; which all doctrines do, that have been believed by sane persons. It is
not the fault of any creed, but of the complicated nature of human affairs, that
rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to require no exceptions, and that
hardly any kind of action can safely be laid down as either always obligatory or
always condemnable. There is no ethical creed which does not temper the
rigidity of its laws, by giving a certain latitude, under the moral responsibility of
the agent, for accommodation to peculiarities of circumstances; and under every
creed, at the opening thus made, self-deception and dishonest casuistry get in.
There exists no moral system under which there do not arise unequivocal cases
of conflicting obligation. These are the real difficulties, the knotty points both
in the theory of ethics, and in the conscientious guidance of personal conduct.
They are overcome practically with greater or with less success according to the
intellect and virtue of the individual; but it can hardly be pretended that anyone
will be the less qualified for dealing with them, from possessing an ultimate
standard to which conflicting rights and duties can be referred. If utility is the
ultimate source of moral obligations, utility may be invoked to decide between
them when their demands are incompatible. Though the application of the
standard may be difficult, it is better than none at all: while in other systems,
the moral laws all claiming independent authority, there is no common umpire
entitled to interfere between them; their claims to precedence one over another
rest on little better than sophistry, and unless determined, as they generally are,
202 Utilitarianism

by the unacknowledged influence of considerations of utility, afford a free scope

for the actions of personal desires and partialities. We must remember that only
in these cases of conflict between secondary principles is it requisite that first
principles should be appealed to. There is no case of moral obligation in which
some secondary principle is not involved; and if only one, there can seldom be
any real doubt which one it is in the mind of any person by whom the principle
itself is recognized.
 Its Sanctions 203

3
Of the Ultimate Sanction of
the Principle of Utility

1. The question is often asked, and properly so, in regard to any supposed
moral standard – What is its sanction? what are the motives to obey it? or more
specifically, what is the source of its obligation? whence does it derive its binding
force? It is a necessary part of moral philosophy to provide the answer to this
question; which, though frequently assuming the shape of an objection to the
utilitarian morality, as if it had some special applicability to that above others, really
arises in regard to all standards. It arises, in fact, whenever a person is called on
to adopt a standard, or refer morality to any basis on which he has not been
accustomed to rest it. For the customary morality, that which education and
opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the mind with
the feeling of being in itself obligatory; and when a person is asked to believe
that this morality derives its obligation from some general principle round which
custom has not thrown the same halo, the assertion is to him a paradox; the sup-
posed corollaries seem to have a more binding force than the original theorem;
the superstructure seems to stand better without, than with, what is represented
as its foundation. He says to himself, I feel that I am bound not to rob or murder,
betray or deceive; but why am I bound to promote the general happiness? If my
own happiness lies in something else, why may I not give that the preference?
2. If the view adopted by the utilitarian philosophy of the nature of the
moral sense be correct, this difficulty will always present itself, until the influences
which form moral character have taken the same hold of the principle which
they have taken of some of the consequences – until, by the improvement of
education, the feeling of unity with our fellow creatures shall be (what it cannot
be doubted that Christ intended it to be) as deeply rooted in our character,
and to our own consciousness as completely a part of our nature, as the horror
of crime is in an ordinarily well-brought-up young person. In the mean time,
however, the difficulty has no peculiar application to the doctrine of utility, but
is inherent in every attempt to analyse morality and reduce it to principles;
204 Utilitarianism

which, unless the principle is already in men’s minds invested with as much
sacredness as any of its applications, always seems to divest them of a part of
their sanctity.
3. The principle of utility either has, or there is no reason why it might
not have, all the sanctions which belong to any other system of morals. Those
sanctions are either external or internal. Of the external sanctions it is not
necessary to speak at any length. They are, the hope of favour and the fear of
displeasure from our fellow creatures or from the Ruler of the Universe, along
with whatever we may have of sympathy or affection for them, or of love and
awe of Him, inclining us to do his will independently of selfish consequences.
There is evidently no reason why all these motives for observance should not
attach themselves to the utilitarian morality, as completely and as powerfully as
to any other. Indeed, those of them which refer to our fellow creatures are sure
to do so, in proportion to the amount of general intelligence; for whether there
be any other ground of moral obligation than the general happiness or not, men
do desire happiness; and however imperfect may be their own practice, they
desire and commend all conduct in others towards themselves, by which they
think their happiness is promoted. With regard to the religious motive, if men
believe, as most profess to do, in the goodness of God, those who think that
conduciveness to the general happiness is the essence, or even only the criterion,
of good, must necessarily believe that it is also that which God approves. The
whole force therefore of external reward and punishment, whether physical or
moral, and whether proceeding from God or from our fellow men, together
with all that the capacities of human nature admit, of disinterested devotion to
either, become available to enforce the utilitarian morality, in proportion as the
morality is recognized; and the more powerfully, the more the appliances of
education and general cultivation are bent to the purpose.
4. So far as to external sanctions. The internal sanction of duty, whatever
our standard of duty may be, is one and the same – a feeling in our own mind;
a pain, more or less intense, attendant on violation of duty, which in properly-
cultivated moral natures rises, in the more serious cases, into shrinking from it
as an impossibility. This feeling, when disinterested, and connecting itself with
the pure idea of duty, and not with some particular form of it, or with any
of the merely accessory circumstances, is the essence of Conscience; though in
that complex phenomenon as it actually exists, the simple fact is in general all
encrusted over with collateral associations, derived from sympathy, from love, and
still more from fear; from all the forms of religious feeling; from the recollec-
tions of childhood and of all our past life; from self-esteem, desire of the esteem
of others, and occasionally even self-abasement. This extreme complication is, I
apprehend, the origin of the sort of mystical character which, by a tendency of
 Its Sanctions 205

the human mind of which there are many other examples, is apt to be attributed
to the idea of moral obligation, and which leads people to believe that the
idea cannot possibly attach itself to any other objects than those which, by a
supposed mysterious law, are found in our present experience to excite it. Its
binding force, however, consists in the existence of a mass of feeling which
must be broken through in order to do what violates our standard of right, and
which, if we do nevertheless violate that standard, will probably have to be
encountered afterwards in the form of remorse. Whatever theory we have of the
nature or origin of conscience, this is what essentially constitutes it.
5. The ultimate sanction, therefore, of all morality (external motives apart)
being a subjective feeling in our own minds, I see nothing embarrassing to those
whose standard is utility, in the question, what is the sanction of that particu-
lar standard? We may answer, the same as of all other moral standards – the
conscientious feelings of mankind. Undoubtedly this sanction has no binding
efficacy on those who do not possess the feelings it appeals to; but neither will
these persons be more obedient to any other moral principle than to the utilitarian
one. On them morality of any kind has no hold but through the external
sanctions. Meanwhile the feelings exist, a fact in human nature, the reality of
which, and the great power with which they are capable of acting on those in
whom they have been duly cultivated, are proved by experience. No reason has
ever been shown why they may not be cultivated to as great intensity in con-
nexion with the utilitarian, as with any other rule of morals.
6. There is, I am aware, a disposition to believe that a person who sees
in moral obligation a transcendental fact, an objective reality belonging to the
province of ‘Things in themselves,’ is likely to be more obedient to it than one
who believes it to be entirely subjective, having its seat in human consciousness
only. But whatever a person’s opinion may be on this point of Ontology, the
force he is really urged by is his own subjective feeling, and is exactly measured
by its strength. No one’s belief that Duty is an objective reality is stronger than
the belief that God is so; yet the belief in God, apart from the expectation of
actual reward and punishment, only operates on conduct through, and in pro-
portion to, the subjective religious feeling. The sanction, so far as it is disin-
terested, is always in the mind itself; and the notion therefore of the transcendental
moralists must be, that this sanction will not exist in the mind unless it is
believed to have its root out of the mind; and that if a person is able to say to
himself, This which is restraining me, and which is called my conscience, is only
a feeling in my own mind, he may possibly draw the conclusion that when the
feeling ceases the obligation ceases, and that if he find the feeling inconvenient,
he may disregard it, and endeavour to get rid of it. But is this danger confined
to the utilitarian morality? Does the belief that moral obligation has its seat
206 Utilitarianism

outside the mind make the feeling of it too strong to be got rid of ? The fact is
so far otherwise, that all moralists admit and lament the ease with which, in the
generality of minds, conscience can be silenced or stifled. The question, Need I
obey my conscience? is quite as often put to themselves by persons who never
heard of the principle of utility, as by its adherents. Those whose conscientious
feelings are so weak as to allow of their asking this question, if they answer it
affirmatively, will not do so because they believe in the transcendental theory,
but because of the external sanctions.
7. It is not necessary, for the present purpose, to decide whether the feeling
of duty is innate or implanted. Assuming it to be innate, it is an open question
to what objects it naturally attaches itself; for the philosophic supporters of that
theory are now agreed that the intuitive perception is of principles of morality,
and not of the details. If there be anything innate in the matter, I see no reason
why the feeling which is innate should not be that of regard to the pleasures and
pains of others. If there is any principle of morals which is intuitively obligatory,
I should say it must be that. If so, the intuitive ethics would coincide with the
utilitarian, and there would be no further quarrel between them. Even as it is,
the intuitive moralists, though they believe that there are other intuitive moral
obligations, do already believe this to be one; for they unanimously hold that a
large portion of morality turns upon the consideration due to the interests of our
fellow creatures. Therefore, if the belief in the transcendental origin of moral
obligation gives any additional efficacy to the internal sanction, it appears to me
that the utilitarian principle has already the benefit of it.
8. On the other hand, if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not
innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason the less natural. It is natural to
man to speak, to reason, to build cities, to cultivate the ground, though these are
acquired faculties. The moral feelings are not indeed a part of our nature, in the
sense of being in any perceptible degree present in all of us; but this, unhappily,
is a fact admitted by those who believe the most strenuously in their transcen-
dental origin. Like the other acquired capacities above referred to, the moral
faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a natural outgrowth from it; capable, like
them, in a certain small degree, of springing up spontaneously; and susceptible
of being brought by cultivation to a high degree of development. Unhappily it
is also susceptible, by a sufficient use of the external sanctions and of the force
of early impressions, of being cultivated in almost any direction: so that there is
hardly anything so absurd or so mischievous that it may not, by means of these
influences, be made to act on the human mind with all the authority of con-
science. To doubt that the same potency might be given by the same means to
the principle of utility, even if it had no foundation in human nature, would be
flying in the face of all experience.
 Its Sanctions 207

9. But moral associations which are wholly of artificial creation, when

intellectual culture goes on, yield by degrees to the dissolving force of analysis:
and if the feeling of duty, when associated with utility, would appear equally
arbitrary; if there were no leading department of our nature, no powerful class
of sentiments, with which that association would harmonize, which would
make us feel it congenial, and incline us not only to foster it in others (for which
we have abundant interested motives), but also to cherish it in ourselves; if there
were not, in short, a natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality, it might
well happen that this association also, even after it had been implanted by
education, might be analysed away.
10. But there is this basis of powerful natural sentiment; and this it is which,
when once the general happiness is recognized as the ethical standard, will con-
stitute the strength of the utilitarian morality. This firm foundation is that of the
social feelings of mankind; the desire to be in unity with our fellow creatures,
which is already a powerful principle in human nature, and happily one of
those which tend to become stronger, even without express inculcation, from
the influences of advancing civilization. The social state is at once so natural, so
necessary, and so habitual to man, that, except in some unusual circumstances
or by an effort of voluntary abstraction, he never conceives himself otherwise
than as a member of a body; and this association is riveted more and more,
as mankind are further removed from the state of savage independence. Any
condition, therefore, which is essential to a state of society, becomes more and
more an inseparable part of every person’s conception of the state of things
which he is born into, and which is the destiny of a human being. Now, society
between human beings, except in the relation of master and slave, is manifestly
impossible on any other footing than that the interests of all are to be consulted.
Society between equals can only exist on the understanding that the interests of
all are to be regarded equally. And since in all states of civilization, every person,
except an absolute monarch, has equals, every one is obliged to live on these
terms with somebody; and in every age some advance is made towards a state in
which it will be impossible to live permanently on other terms with anybody. In
this way people grow up unable to conceive as possible to them a state of total
disregard of other people’s interests. They are under a necessity of conceiving
themselves as at least abstaining from all the grosser injuries, and (if only for their
own protection) living in a state of constant protest against them. They are also
familiar with the fact of co-operating with others, and proposing to themselves
a collective, not an individual, interest, as the aim (at least for the time being)
of their actions. So long as they are co-operating, their ends are identified with
those of others; there is at least a temporary feeling that the interests of others
are their own interests. Not only does all strengthening of social ties, and all
208 Utilitarianism

healthy growth of society, give to each individual a stronger personal interest

in practically consulting the welfare of others; it also leads him to identify his
feelings more and more with their good, or at least with an ever greater degree
of practical consideration for it. He comes, as though instinctively, to be con-
scious of himself as a being who of course pays regard to others. The good of
others becomes to him a thing naturally and necessarily to be attended to, like
any of the physical conditions of our existence. Now, whatever amount of this
feeling a person has, he is urged by the strongest motives both of interest and
of sympathy to demonstrate it, and to the utmost of his power encourage it in
others; and even if he has none of it himself, he is as greatly interested as anyone
else that others should have it. Consequently, the smallest germs of the feeling
are laid hold of and nourished by the contagion of sympathy and the influences
of education; and a complete web of corroborative association is woven round
it, by the powerful agency of the external sanctions. This mode of conceiving
ourselves and human life, as civilization goes on, is felt to be more and more
natural. Every step in political improvement renders it more so, by removing
the sources of opposition of interest, and levelling those inequalities of legal
privilege between individuals or classes, owing to which there are large portions
of mankind whose happiness it is still practicable to disregard. In an improving
state of the human mind, the influences are constantly on the increase, which
tend to generate in each individual a feeling of unity with all the rest; which
feeling, if perfect, would make him never think of, or desire, any beneficial
condition for himself, in the benefits of which they are not included. If we now
suppose this feeling of unity to be taught as a religion, and the whole force of
education, of institutions, and of opinion, directed, as it once was in the case of
religion, to make every person grow up from infancy surrounded on all sides
both by the profession and by the practice of it, I think that no one, who can
realize this conception, will feel any misgiving about the sufficiency of the
ultimate sanction for the Happiness morality. To any ethical student who finds
the realization difficult, I recommend, as a means of facilitating it, the second
of M. Comte’s two principal works, the Système de Politique Positive. I entertain
the strongest objections to the system of politics and morals set forth in that
treatise; but I think it has superabundantly shown the possibility of giving to the
service of humanity, even without the aid of belief in a Providence, both the
psychical power and the social efficacy of a religion; making it take hold of
human life, and colour all thought, feeling and action in a manner of which
the greatest ascendancy ever exercised by any religion may be but a type and
foretaste; and of which the danger is, not that it should be insufficient, but that
it should be so excessive as to interfere unduly with human freedom and
individuality.
 Its Sanctions 209

11. Neither is it necessary to the feeling which constitutes the binding

force of the utilitarian morality on those who recognize it, to wait for those
social influences which would make its obligation felt by mankind at large. In
the comparatively early state of human advancement in which we now live, a
person cannot indeed feel that entireness of sympathy with all others, which
would make any real discordance in the general direction of their conduct in life
impossible; but already a person in whom the social feeling is at all developed,
cannot bring himself to think of the rest of his fellow creatures as struggling
rivals with him for the means of happiness, whom he must desire to see defeated
in their object in order that he may succeed in his. The deeply-rooted concep-
tion which every individual even now has of himself as a social being, tends to
make him feel it one of his natural wants that there should be harmony between
his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creatures. If differences of opinion
and of mental culture make it impossible for him to share many of their actual
feelings – perhaps make him denounce and defy those feelings – he still needs to
be conscious that his real aim and theirs do not conflict; that he is not opposing
himself to what they really wish for, namely, their own good, but is, on the
contrary, promoting it. This feeling in most individuals is much inferior in
strength to their selfish feelings, and is often wanting altogether. But to those
who have it, it possesses all the characters of a natural feeling. It does not present
itself to their minds as a superstition of education, or a law despotically imposed
by the power of society, but as an attribute which it would not be well for them
to be without. This conviction is the ultimate sanction of the greatest-happiness
morality. This it is which makes any mind, of well-developed feelings, work
with, and not against, the outward motives to care for others, afforded by what
I have called the external sanctions; and when those sanctions are wanting, or
act in an opposite direction, constitutes in itself a powerful internal binding force,
in proportion to the sensitiveness and thoughtfulness of the character; since few
but those whose mind is a moral blank, could bear to lay out their course of
life on the plan of paying no regard to others except so far as their own private
interest compels.