Some of the many arguments against Mill’s Utilitarianism are given below:
(1) Arguments against hedonism:
Mill’s theory being hedonistic, all the arguments against Hedonism apply to it Hedonism becomes partial due to its excessive emphasis only on the sentiment aspect of human life. In the overall or complete satisfaction of the self, the satisfaction of both reason and feeling is necessary.
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(2) Difference between Pleasure and happiness:
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Mill treated happiness as the ultimate goal but then made a blunder by calling it pleasure. There is difference between pleasure and happiness. According to Dewey, “Pleasure is transitory and relative, enduring while some specific activity endures, and having reference only to that activity.
Happiness is permanent and universal. It results only when the act is such a one as will satisfy all the interests of the self concerned, or will lead to no conflict, either present or remote. Happiness is the feeling of the whole self, as opposed to the feeling of some one aspect of the self. Pleasure is the result of a compounding of pleasures.
(3) Defects of psychological hedonism:
Because of its being based on psychological Hedonism, Mill’s theory becomes liable to all those objections.
(4) Principles contrary to psychological hedonism:
Some of Mill’s principles run contrary to his Psychological Hedonism. According to Mill fame, wealth, good qualities etc. are originally means but they, in the end, themselves become ends. If this is true, then this theory is disproved that man always wants pleasure,
(5) Contradiction between Psychological Hedonism and Utilitarianism:
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Psychological Hedonism and Utilitarianism are two mutually contradictory theories. There is no way of passing from selfishness to unselfishness. On the one hand Mill concedes man’s natural yearning for pleasure, while on the other hand he makes Utilitarianism the ultimate aim.
He vacillates between social and individual pleasure. It becomes impossible to pass from individual to social good if selfishness and unselfishness are treated as mutually contradictory.
(6) Fallacy of figure of speech:
The logic presented in favour of Ethical Hedonism by Mill is blemished by the fallacy of figure of speech. That which can be desired is not necessarily desirable. Desirable means that which ought to be desired.
Each object of our desires is not desirable. The word desirable should be applied to an object which seems right to reason. In the words of Mackenzie, “When we say that anything is desirable, we do not usually mean merely that it is able to be desired
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What we mean is rather that it is reasonable to desire it, or that it ought to be desired.’ Dewey and Tufts also lend Macke nice their support. In the words of Moore, “The fact is that desirable does not mean ‘able to be desired’ as ‘visible’ means ‘able to be seen’.
The desirable simply means what ought to be desired or deserves to be desired, just as the detestable means not what can be but what ought to be detested and the definable what deserves to be damned.”
(7) Qualitative distinctions are contrary to Hedonism:
According to Seth, “Quality is an extra-hedonistic criterion; the only hedonistic criterion is quantity (i.e. the intensity of pleasure). The so-called difference of quality will be found to resolve itself so for as pleasure is concerned into a difference of quantity for the higher nature.
Quality is ethical quality and to look upon qualitative distinctions as the criterion of desirability is to mean that the determinant right and wrong is morality, not pleasure.
Qualitative distinctions are inconsistent even with psychological hedonism. If we make quality the criterion, it then means that we want quality not pleasure. As Rashdall puts it, desire for superior quality of pleasure is not really a desire for pleasure.” Qualitative distinctions lead in the direction of Perfectionist.
(8) Judgment of capable judges is the judgment of reason:
The capable judges will judge either by reason or by feeling. By judging with the latter, their decisions will be different because feeling is based upon personal interest only by judging with reason will they achieve concurrence in their judgments.
Secondly, Mill asserts that these judges have experienced both kinds of pleasures and are consequently capable of judging the superior of them. This work of distinguishing between different feelings and judging is the province of reason.
(9) Human sense of dignity contradicts hedonism:
Green says and correctly too, that sense of dignity is not desire of pleasure. As Mill would have it, a man would not like to become an animal for the enjoyment of pleasure. This means that humanity is superior to pleasure. This humanity in mankind is due to reason.
Mill says that a dissatisfied man is better than a satisfied pig and a dissatisfied Socrates is superior to a satisfied man. It is obvious that to be satisfied and foolish is worse than to be dissatisfied and intelligent.
Thus, working according to reason is superior to desire fulfillment. In this way, adopting ‘sense of dignity Mill abandons Hedonism and comes to Rationalism.
(10) Fallacy of composition:
The logic, for Ethical Hedonism, given by Mill, is guilty of the fallacy of composition. According to Mill, the pleasure of an individual is good for him and it, therefore, follows that the pleasure of everybody is good for everybody.
In the words of Mackenzie, “It is forgotten that neither the pleasures nor the persons are capable of being made into an aggregate. A sum of pleasures is not pleasure, any more than sum of men is man.
(11) Hedonism cannot be altruistic:
Mill presented a great deal by including social Utilitarianism into his theory but this ideal, and then does not remain hedonism. Hedonism cannot be altruistic. In the words of Martineau, “There is no road from each to himself to each for all.”
If I desire my own pleasure as is natural and my ultimate aim is search for pleasure then there is no reason why I should be service to others
(12) Fallacious description of sympathy and brotherliness:
The description of the feelings of sympathy and brotherliness rendered by Mill is incorrect. According to Mill, if assistance is rendered in the furtherance of one’s own pleasure, then personal pleasure can be relative to service of others, but the altruistic feeling can never intrude into this pleasure.
In tact the altruistic feeling is as natural to man are the feeling of selfishness. According to, Rashdall, “Human beings and animals have always possessed both the instincts of rare preservation and self reservation. In developed human beings, altruism develops from social and race preservation instincts and egoism from self-preservation instincts.”
(13) Internal orders lead in the directions of Intellectualism:
By the assimilation of internal order, Mill’s theory becomes Intellectualistic instead of hedonistic. Mill explains the internal conscience as “the feeling of pain attendant on the violation of duty.”
This repentance is due to violation of duty. Violation of duty implies the violation of moral or intellectual laws. In this way internal orders are the voice of reason. At, some places Mill treats it as corresponding sympathy, brotherliness, feeling of unity with the human society etc.
But morality cannot be subjective and neither can subjective feeling be the criterion of morality in this way, the internal conscience (or order) voices the reason, all other external orders being useless for morality.
(14) Contradiction between quality and quantity:
By assimilating qualities into Bentham’s quantitative Moral Arithmetic, Mill has made it even more impractical quantity cannot be judged by qualities and neither can qualities be evaluated by quantity.
Then how can the value, combining quality and quantity, of one object be compared to the value, combining quality and quantity, of some other object? In the words of Mackenzie, “Qualities cannot be estimated against quantities, unless, in some way, they can be reduced to quantities-and this, on Mill’s supposition, is not the case
Actually the very theory of the calculation of pleasures is redoubtable. Neither individual nor social pleasures lend themselves to measurement. Pleasure is a feeling. It cannot be measured either in regard to quantity or value because feeling is changeable according to time, place and the person.