The Importance of the Moral Sentiments and
Community in Mill’s Philosophy, As Seen In
His Criticisms of Jeremy Bentham
Mill adorns a famous tradition of thought and he cannot be seen in perspective
until we stop regarding him as the man who tried and failed to spiritualize
utilitarianism. He was not merely the heir of Bentham.1
Morality consists of two parts. One of these is self-education; the training by the
human being himself, of his affections and will. That department is a blank in
Bentham’s system.2
I. Introduction
Mill had a sophisticated view of the self, which saw sympathy and imagination as
important in the process of cultivating socially-sympathetic sentiments through
instrumental means such as religion. Mill’s view of the moral agent is social and
communal rather than isolated and atomistic, and we can obtain ample historical support
for this social view of his moral agent by pointing out exactly what Mill criticizes about
Bentham’s view of moral agents and morality. We will understand more clearly Mill’s
social view of the moral agent as we explore the following claims which he makes: a)
Bentham’s view of self was too simple, b) Bentham neglected the value of cultivating
imagination, c) Bentham failed to see the positive uses of sympathy as a positive means
of generating important social moral sentiments, and d) Bentham undervalued the
importance of the communal effect of religion. By examining these issues, we can gain a
historically and systematically sensitive understanding of Mill’s concern with the social
development of moral sentiments.
There are very important practical outcomes from this realization. What we see in
Mill’s critique of Bentham is strong evidence against the common view that Mill’s moral
agent is an isolated, atomistic self.3 This should radically alter the way we present Mill
and Bentham’s utilitarianism when we teach, and force us to take a second look at the
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way we think about Mill and his Utilitarian theory. Mill agrees with Bentham on the
principle of utility as a standard, but his view of human nature-- the relationship between
the individual and society, the role of imagination, sympathy and religion—are quite
different than Bentham and many other utilitarians. Relatedly, Mill also has a much more
developed understanding of moral development-- something akin to Aristotle’s. Unlike
Bentham, Mill provides some understanding of how one might eventually develop
sentiments by which one would actually associate one’s own happiness with the
happiness of the many, and in that case, we can understand more clearly why one would
want to follow the principle of utility in the case of self sacrifice. While these practical
applications fall outside the sphere of this paper, they nevertheless provide the backdrop
when raising this issue of Mill’s view of moral sentiments and his communal view of the
moral agent.
II. Mill’s Break With Bentham’s Rationalistic Utilitarianism
It has often been said that Mill transformed Bentham’s utilitarianism beyond
recognition, and it is thought that Mill’s “additions” to Benthamite utilitarianism are the
elements of his philosophy which cause him problems of inconsistency. Mill himself
saw his thought as being made up of a fourfold matrix of influences -- Bentham,
Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Christianity. 4 F.E.L. Priestly, in his introduction to volume
10 of the Collected Works of J.S. Mill calls Mill a ‘heretic’ in the eyes of the Utilitarian
tradition which preceded him because he so radically altered utilitarianism.5 Yet, many
are not aware of the non-utilitarian influences which shaped Mill’s ethics. Some typical
readings of Mill portray him as simply having added ‘new things’ to Benthamism -qualitative distinction and some other vaguely sentimental baggage -- but this reading
generally neglects to note how important the classic Greek and Christian elements are in
his philosophy, and it fails to understand his view of the socially influenced self.
2
Not all agree with this opinion that Mill added things to Bentham, but instead
claim that, Mill’s problems arose when he tried to overlay a Benthamite-style ethics upon
Mill’s earlier exposure to Aristotle, Plato, and the Greeks. Geriant Williams claims that
“It was Benthamite Utility which caused Mill problems and not those elements up to now
seen as new grafts on the older plant.”6 Chronologically, Mill certainly was learning
Greek and reading Greek classics earlier than he read Bentham. It is also known that in
general he also read a great deal of Greek writings in his youth. But he was certainly
influenced by Bentham and his father’s rationalistic or anti-sentimentalistic utilitarianism
in his teens. Reflecting back upon those days he realizes how their rationalistic
utilitarianism was seen by its critics:
Utility was denounced as cold calculation; political economy as hard-hearted;
anti-population doctrines as repulsive to the natural feelings of mankind. We
retorted by the word “sentimentality,” which, along with “declamation” and
“vague generalities,” served us as common terms of opprobrium. Although we
were generally in the right, as against those who were opposed to us, the effect
was that the cultivation of feeling (except the feelings of public and private duty)
was not in much esteem among us, and had very little place in the thoughts of
most of us, myself in particular. What we principally thought of, was to alter
peoples opinions; to make them believe according to evidence, and know what
was their real interest, which when they once knew, they would, we thought, by
the instrument of opinion, enforce a regard to it upon one another. While fully
recognizing the superior excellence of unselfish benevolence and love of justice,
we did not expect the regeneration of mankind from any direct action on those
sentiments, but from the effect of educated intellect, enlightening the selfish
feelings.7
Mill certainly counted himself as one of these anti-sentimentalist utilitarians in his earlier
days. He says that this general disregard for the cultivation of proper feelings lead to a
disdain for poetry and imagination, among other things:
From this neglect both in theory and in practice of the cultivation of feeling,
naturally resulted among other things an undervaluing of poetry, and of
Imagination generally as an element of human nature. It is, or was, part of the
popular notion of Benthamites, that they are enemies of poetry: this was partly
true of Bentham himself; he used to say that “all poetry is misrepresentation” but,
in the sense in which he said it, the same might have been said of all impressive
3
speech, of all representation or inculcation more oratorical in its character than a
sum in arithmetic.8
Besides being taught by his father and influenced by Bentham, Mill was also drawn into
thinking like Bentham in his younger days when he edited some of Bentham’s writings.
Mill says that in his early days, “ . . . indeed I had never contemplated coming forward in
my own person; and, as an anonymous editor of Bentham, I fell into the tone of my
author, not thinking it unsuitable to him or to the subject, however it might be so to me.”9
Because of this influence of his father and Bentham, Mill says that he became for a time
quite critical of poetic or passionate writing: “Perhaps at that time poetical composition
of any higher type than eloquent discussion in verse, might not have produced a similar
effect on me; at all events I seldom gave it an opportunity. This, however was a mere
passing state.” 10 But at the age of 20, Mill had a breakdown, and what brought him out
of his depression was not arguments but literature and poetry. This was a turning point
for Mill, and made a powerful impact on the direction of his ethical thought:
I ceased to attach almost exclusive importance to the ordering of outward
circumstances, and the training of the individual for speculation and for action. I
had now learnt by experience that the passive susceptibilities needed to be
cultivated as well as the active capacities, and required to e nourished and
enriched as well as guided. I did not, for an instant, lose sight of or undervalue,
that part of the truth which I had seen before; I never turned recreant to
intellectual culture, or ceased to consider the power and practice of analysis as an
essential condition both of individual and of social improvement. . . . I now began
to find meaning in the things which I had read or heard about the importance of
poetry and art as instruments of human culture.1
Bentham died in 1832, and it is almost as though his death gave Mill feedom to express
his differences with Bentham. From 1933-1940 --from his mid-twenties to mid-thirties-Mill wrote a number of essays on poetry, and the relation to of poetry and philosophy.11
This was of course long before he ever wrote Utilitarianism; and even at the end of his
career he was still speaking of the importance of art in moral education, so we know that
1
Mill, “Autobiography” CW I, 147.
4
this was a longlasting substantial conviction.12 So, having begun with a thoroughly
classic education, then influenced strongly with his father’s and Bentham’s utilitarianism
which neglected the importance of passions and sentiments, he eventually came to value
the sentiments and see the importance of nurturing the nobler poetic feelings.
In his later critical writings on Bentham, Mill points out that Bentham’s particular
dislike of poetry had led Bentham to say “somewhere in his works, that, ‘quantity of
pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry;’”13 Mill quickly points out that
Bentham did love music and other arts, and perhaps thought they provided a greater
quantity of pleasure in some cases, but still criticizes Bentham for his limited aesthetic
abilities, saying, “Here is a philosopher who is happy within his narrow boundary as no
man of indefinite range ever was; . . .”14 Certainly in Mill’s opinion, Bentham’s primary
failure was to neglect to distinguish between various qualities of pleasure-- higher and
lower. But the reasons why Bentham failed to accentuate particular higher pleasures
over others really have to do with the fundamental differences between Mill and Bentham
on the importance of feelings and imagination. These differences are clearly brought out
in Mill’s 1838 essay on Bentham.15
What is of special interest to us here is that Mill has a number of criticisms of
Bentham’s philosophy which reflect to us some fundamental truths about the importance
of social development of the sentiments in Mill’s own philosophy. Insofar as Mill is
critical of Bentham’s simplistic view of self, it can be seen that a rich view of self which
takes into account the passions and feelings is essential to Mill’s view of morality.
Insofar as Mill is critical of Bentham’s glaring lack of development of the importance of
imagination, one sees that imagination is central for Mill. Insofar as Mill is critical of
Bentham’s distrust of sympathy and antipathy (and passions in general) one can see in the
thought of Mill the importance of nurturing such feelings for moral behavior. And insofar
as Mill is critical of Bentham’s anti-religious sentiments, one sees that Mill believes that
5
the instrumental value of religion to help foster good feelings and habits towards others in
general is very important.
1. Problem One: Bentham’s Simplistic Self
In Mill’s view, Bentham’s philosophy had a number of weaknesses which led to
its inability to account for differences in kinds of pleasure, and ultimately unable to lead
society toward true utility. First, Bentham’s view of the self is too simplistic. Mill says
(speaking of Bentham’s position),
Man, that most complex being, is a very simple one in his [Bentham’s]
eyes. Even under the head sympathy, his recognition does not extend to
the more complex forms of the feeling-- . . . If he thought at all of any of
the deeper feelings of human nature, it was but as idiosyncrasies of taste,
with this the moralist no more than the legislator had any concern, further
than to prohibit such as we mischievous among the actions to which they
might chance to lead.16
Bentham does not take proper account of the complex feelings of human beings, their
psychological habits, and the relation of these feelings and habits to morality and
considerations of utility. “Knowing so little of human feelings, he [Bentham] knew still
less of the influences by which those feelings are formed; all the more subtle workings
both of the mind upon itself, and of external things upon the mind, escaped him.”17
Bentham’s lack of insight into feelings led him to neglect the importance of habituation
and education of the sentiments. Mill says that Bentham could not conceive of a human
being “as a being capable of pursuing spiritual perfection as an end; of desiring, for its
own sake, the conformity of his own character to his standard of excellence, without hope
of good or fear of evil from other sources than his own inward consciousness.”18 For
Mill, this lack of Bentham’s concern for the power of conscience to direct behavior was
astonishing: “Nothing is more curious than the absence of recognition in any of his
writings of the existence of conscience, as a thing distinct from philanthropy, from
affection for God or man, and from self-interest in this world or the next.”19 This is
strange to Mill because he himself thought that internal sanction of the conscience was
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the “ultimate sanction”.20 While Bentham focused primarily on the sanction of
governmental threats of punishment, Mill thought that the internal sanction of conscious
was much more powerful, and could be built up through the nurturing work of society.
Chapter 3 of Mill’s Utilitarianism is about sanctions, or motivations, for moral
behavior. He discusses external sanctions, the outward motivations we have to behave
morally such as ‘hope of favour’, ‘fear of disppleasure’ etc. Bentham had spoken of four
moral sanctions in chapter 3 of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation-- the physical, political, moral (or popular), and the religious-- these are all
essentially external influences. Mill, in contrast, finds the external sanctions to be of less
importance and focuses on the power of internal sanctions. His mental crisis lead Mill to
place more importance on the internal sanctions. What makes internal sanctions different
from external sanctions is that they are disinterested and matters of duty-- but what that
means for Mill is that they are done without concern for reward and punishment from
external sources. One could say that the internal sanctions are those which arise not out
of fear of punishment or reward from others, but rather, their power comes from our own
conscience. Mill defines internal sanction as “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.”2 This type of
feeling, says Mill, is the essence of Conscience. Going beyond mere external sanctions,
Mill gained a newfound understanding of the very important role that ones inner
consciousness and desires play in sponsoring moral behavior.
I, for the first time, gave its proper place, among the prime necessities of human
well-being, to the internal culture of the individual. I ceased to attach almost
exclusive importance to the ordering of outward circumstances, and the training
of the human being for speculation and for action.3
Utilitarianism 1.4.1 (74)
2
J.S. Mill, Autobiography, 100.
3
7
Mill thought that through habituation and proper training of the conscience, one could
seek this sort of excellence simply on the basis of internal sanctions, without the more
crude threats of external sanctions. He took the psychological and emotional
development of the human being seriously in his ethical theory, something which
Bentham’s theory seems to have ignored for the most part.
2. Problem Two: Bentham’s Lack of Imagination
Second, while Bentham places little importance upon the imagination,
imagination is one of the founts of higher pleasure for Mill.21 Mill says of Bentham on
imagination,
The Imagination which he [Bentham] had not, . . . enables us, by a voluntary
effort, to conceive the absent as if it were present, the imaginary as if it were real,
and to clothe it in the feelings which, if it were indeed real, it would bring along
with it. This is the power by which one human being enters into the mind and
circumstances of another.22
According to Mill, one enters into the mind and circumstances of another through
imagination. Moral imagination is essential for making ethical decisions, according to
Mill, because through imagination, one is able to consider ourselves from another
perspective, and think of how our actions might affect others, both presently and in the
future.23
Mill himself says that this power of imagination constitutes the poet, the
dramatist, the historian, and is the foundation of self reflection and cultural reflection. He
says, “Without it, nobody knows even his own nature, further than circumstances have
actually tried it and called it out; nor the nature of his fellow-creatures, beyond such
generalizations as he may have been enabled to make from his observation of their
outward conduct.”24 Through the fine arts, one becomes attuned to the feelings and
desires of others, but one also becomes attuned to our own feelings. The poem that
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makes us sad, or the story which makes us laugh bring out our emotions and help us to
know ourselves better as one identifies with the feelings or situations of others. The
reflective individual cultivates that reflective capacity by being exposed to himself in the
light of other people’s experiences. This is not only a very important source of pleasure,
but also helps us to sympathize with others, and to think from their perspective.
When Bentham does mention the pleasure of imagination, he uses the word
synonymously with fantasize. Bentham says, “The pleasures of the imagination are the
pleasures which may be derived from the contemplation of any such pleasures as may
happen to be suggested by the memory, but in a different order, and accompanied by
different groups of circumstances.”25 Mill claims that Bentham did not have much of an
imagination, and that this led to consequences in his philosophical system:
By these limits, accordingly, Bentham’s knowledge of human nature is bounded.
It is wholly empirical; and the empiricism of one who has had little experience.
He has neither internal experience nor external; the quiet, even tenor of his life,
and his healthiness of mind, conspired to exclude him from both. . . . He was a
boy to the last. Self-consciousness, that daemon of the men of genius of our time,
from Wordsworth to Byron, from Goethe to Chateubriand, and to which this age
owes so much both of its cheerful and its mournful wisdom, never was awakened
in him.26
Bentham’s lack of imagination was, to Mill’s mind, responsible for his lack of insight
into human emotions and their relation to morality of society.27
Bentham’s view of the
world was childlike in its lack of appreciation of higher pleasures and unrefined in its
crass positivisitic empicism. His criticism of Bentham on this count demonstrates the
importance which Mill places on the moral imagination and its effects for the social
good.
A more practical downfall resulting in Bentham’s lack of imagination was an
inability to see other points of view, a trait which Mill brings up repeatedly, even in his
otherwise eulogistic obituary which he wrote on Bentham:
He frequently contemplates a subject only from one or a few of its aspects;
though he very often sees further into it, from the one side on which he
looks at it, than was seen before . . . There is something very striking,
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occasionally, in th eminute elaborateness with which he works out, into its
smallest details, one half-view of a question, contrasted with his entire
neglect of the remaining half-view, though equally indispensable to a
correct judgment of the whole.28
3. Problem Three: Bentham’s Lack of Sympathy
Third, while Mill sees sympathy with others to be the foundation of moral
motivation, Bentham considers sympathy, among other sentiments and feelings, to have
a detrimental value, not positive value, for achieving utility. Bentham says,
Among principles adverse to that of utility, that which seems to have most
influence in matters of government, is what may be called the principle of
sympathy and antipathy. By the principle of sympathy and antipathy, I mean that
principle which approves or disapproves of certain actions, not on account of their
tending to augment the happiness, nor yet on account of their tending to diminish
the happiness of the party in question, but merely because a man finds himself
disposed to approve or disapprove of them: . . .29
Sympathy then, according to Bentham, is a liking, or approval, while antipathy is
disapproval. In this setting, Bentham is also claiming that sympathy is a liking based
simply upon disposition without thought. Sympathy appears to be dogmatism in
Bentham’s view. Mill would not, of course, approve of dogmatism, which is what
Bentham means by the principle of sympathy and antipathy, but Mill has a positive view
of the importance of sentiments and sympathy in particular. Sympathy is for Mill the
fellow-feeling of sympathy which is the root of our love, pity, or dislike, as seen in
chapter one. Again, Bentham neglects these elements of moral education, and is able to
see sympathy only as mere prejudicial favor, not something which may help strengthen
and encourage moral behavior. Bentham does not think sympathy will help promote
moral behavior, while Mill does. For Mill one can train and develop sympathies-harness them towards positive ends. Through education one’s sympathies can be
developed to draw us towards right moral decisions. This again shows us that Mill places
a great importance on the internal sanctions of conscience, which Bentham evidently
neglected.
10
Bentham appeared to hold that morality was not a matter of good habits, feelings,
or sentiments, but of logical decisions. Morality was not helped but hindered by
confusions of non-rational motivators. Indeed, Bentham was not concerned with internal
sanctions or what some might call spirituality much at all, but was primarily concerned
with external sanctions. Mill found this to be a great deficit in Bentham. It in fact made
it impossible for Bentham to write useful moral theory, according to Mill:
Morality consists of two parts. One of these is self-education; the training by the
human obeying himself, of his affections and will. That department is a blank in
Bentham’s system. The other and coequal part, the regulation of his outward
actions, must be altogether halting and imperfect without the first; for how can we
judge in what manner many an action will affect even the worldly interests of
ourselves or others, unless we take in, as part of the question, its influence on the
regulation of our, or their, affections and desires?
Mill didn’t think that Bentham’s philosophy was adequate to give us real moral directives
for our lives, at least not in the classical sense of ethics as the science of practical
wisdom:
A moralist on Bentham’s principles may get as far as this, that he ought not to
slay, burn or steal; but what will be his qualifications for regulating the nicer
shades of human behavior, or for laying down even the greater moralities as to
those facts in human life which tend to influence the depths of the character quite
independently of any influence on worldly circumstances-- such, for instance, as
the sexual relations, or those of family in general, or any other social and
sympathetic connexions of an intimate kind? The moralities of these questions
depend essentially on considerations which Bentham never so much as took into
the account; and when he happened to be in the right, it was always, and
necessarily, on wrong or insufficient grounds.30
The reason why Bentham’s philosophy was wrongly grounded, was because he only took
account of external sanctions. It was fine for organizing political arrangements, but not
morality. Mill says,
We have arrived, then, at a sort of estimate of what a philosophy like Bentham’s
can do. It can teach the means of organizing and regulating the merely business
part of the social arrangements. Whatever can be understood or whatever done
without reference to moral influences, his philosophy is equal to; where those
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influences require to be taken into account, it is at fault. He committed the
mistake of supposing that the business part of human affairs was the whole of
them; all at least the legislator and the moralist had to do with. Not that he
disregarded moral influences when he perceived them; but his want of
imagination, small experience of human feelings, and ignorance of the filiation
and connexion of feelings with one another made this rarely the case.31
In Mill’s eyes, Bentham was to morality as the law is to morality. Bentham was fixated
on the external sanctions, the punitive and pleasurable sanctions, and never could fully
grasp the importance of moral motivation, or the pleasures of the non-sensual feelings
and sentiments. While he mentioned 4 sanctions, for Bentham physical sanction is the
basis of all of them though: “Of these four sanctions the physical is altogether, one may
observe, the ground-work of the political and the moral: so is it also of the religious . . .”32
In all cases, sanctions are punishments. For example, a political sanction would be jail.
A moral sanction would be loss of respect, and a religious sanction would be threat of the
fires of hell. This way of thinking of promoting moral behavior is obviously quite
annotated in comparison with Mill’s conception of sanctions, which includes positive
sanctions, and considers the most important sanctions to be the non-physical internal
sanctions.33 Mill, in contrast to Bentham, held that moral agents make many of their
decisions on the basis of feeling and sentiment, and so he sought to develop these
emotions in directions which would bring about the greatest happiness.
4. Problem Four: Bentham’s Anti-Religious Tendencies
One can see, by examining the differences between Mill and Bentham, a marked
difference in their respective consideration of the moral value of affecting and directing
the emotions. But Mill also differs from Bentham in his attitude towards religion, and the
useful role religion can play in affecting the sentiments of moral agents.34 Bentham
seemed to have thought that religion generally led to an aversion to pleasure, and that
religion was the superstitious and so more vulgar way to sanction morality.35
Distinguishing the religious and the philosophical, he says that “The philosophical party
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have scarcely gone further than to reprobate pleasure; the religious party have frequently
gone so far as to make it a matter of duty and merit to court pain.”36
In his “Analysis of the influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness
of Mankind, Part One” (which is devoted to showing the uselessness of religion)
Bentham says “On the truth of religion much has been urged; on its usefulness and
beneficial tendency, comparatively little-- little, at least, which can be termed
argumentative or convincing.”37 Bentham defines religion as “belief in the existence of
an almighty Being, by whom pains and pleasures will be dispensed to mankind, during
and infinite and future state of existence.”38
Bentham was an active critic of
Anglicanism and organized religion-- there is no question about that, and since his dislike
of Anglicanism was well established, Bentham wanted in this essay merely to determine
the value of natural religion, or that religion of which “there exists no written and
acknowledged declaration, from which it an acquaintance with the will and attributes of
this almighty Being may be gathered.”39 Bentham meticulously provides thorough
arguments leading to his conclusion at the end of the essay:
The foregoing search into the nature and action of those posthumous expectations
which unassisted natural religion furnishes, has evinced, I trust conclusively: 1.
That in the absence of any authorized directive rule, the class of actions which our
best founded inference would suggest as entitling the performer to post-obituary
reward, is one not merely useless, but strikingly detrimental, so mankind in the
present life; while the class conceived as meriting future punishment, is one
always innocuous, often beneficial, to our fellow-creatures on earth. 2. That from
the character and properties of posthumous inducements, they infallibly become
impotent for the purpose of resisting any temptation whatever, and efficient only
in the production of needless and unprofitable misery. 3. That the influence
exercised by these inducements is, in most cases, really derived from the popular
sanction, which they are enabled to bias and enlist in their favor.”40
Bentham does admit that there may be a few in which religion produces good
actions, but thinks this is by far an exception, and not worth considering for moral theory,
For if it [natural religion] ever does produce benefit, this must be owing to casual
and peculiar associations in the minds of some few believers, who form an
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exception to the larger body. It is by no means my design to question the
existence of some persons thus happily born or endowed. But it would be most
unsafe and perilous to build our general doctrine on a few such instances of rare
merit.41
Bentham sees religion as detrimental in part because he only sees it as an external
sanction based on superstitious beliefs about the afterlife, rather than as a fruitful means
of fostering sentiments of community and concern for others. This idea of positive
associations created by religion is to him peculiar, not normal, and not worthy of
attention.42
Mill agrees with Bentham on this, at least: that when religion’s external sanctions
threaten hell or punishment, it is not a very noble function of religion. Mill says
The value of religion as a supplement to human laws, a more cunning sort of
police, an auxiliary to the thief-catcher and the hangman, is not that part of its
claims which the more highminded of its votaries are fondest of insisting on and
they would probably be as ready as any one to admit, that if the nobler offices of
religion in the soul could dispensed with, a substitute might be found for so coarse
and selfish a social instrument as the fear of hell.43
Mill also says that “there is a very real evil consequent on ascribing a supernatural origin
to the received maxims of morality.”44 In other words, religious belief is not necessary to
establish ethical maxims. But Mill, in speaking about Bentham’s critique of religious
external sanctions, points out that they do really help establish moral behavior, and not
always with the harm Bentham ascribes them.45 But beyond the external sanctions of
religion, Mill thinks religion has an important role to play in sponsoring the internal
sanctions. Mill thinks that “some of the precepts of Christ as exhibited in the Gospels-. . . carry some kinds of moral goodness to greater height than had ever been attained
before . . .”46 Mill saw the revealed teachings of Jesus to be utilitarian doctrine. He says
“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.”47
14
Mill sees in the teachings of Christ a desire for all people to be united in a feeling
of mutual sympathy and concern:
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.48
It is through education that this sentiment of unity will be nurtured and strengthened. It is
not simply an innate feeling, but a potential feeling which should be intentionally directed
towards the good of the community
In contrast to Bentham’s dismissive attitude towards religion, Mill’s exposure to
Sainte-Simone and Auguste Comte’s writings helped him to see the instrumental value of
religion in developing one’s moral capabilities and in directing one’s passions and
sentiments. Known as the originator of positivism, Comte had rejected belief in a
transcendent being, yet recognized the value of religion in contributing to social stability.
In his four-volume Systeme de Politique Positive (1854), Comte proposed a religion of
humanity, aimed at encouraging socially beneficial behavior. Mill’s fascination with the
German thinkers, as well as the British Romanticists, made him take seriously the
importance of soliciting the emotions and sentiments to help promote moral behavior
through the influence of poetry, religion and other cultural instruments of influence.
In Utilitarianism Mill speaks of M. Comtes Systeme de Politique Positive, saying,
“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 . . .”49
Mill is in most respects a secularist, as was Comte, but he saw great
value in religion and the church as a means of helping to nurture feelings of sympathy for
15
the common good. This positive attitude towards the instrumental value of religion is
demonstrated in his positive comments about Coleridge, the romanticist, as well.50 It is
interesting to see that Mill drew similar inspiration for the instrumental value of religion
from a romanticist and a positivist. Mill praised Coleridge for defending religion:
But [Coleridge’s) greatest object was to bring into harmony Religion and
Philosophy. He laboured incessantly to establish that ‘the Christian faith--in
which . . . I include every article of belief and doctrine professed by the first
reformers in common’-- is not only divine truth, but also ‘the perfection of
Human Intelligence.51
As James Crimmins has pointed out, Bentham had “abhorrence” for Comte’s or SaintSimon’s attempts to retain religious commitment for political and ethical ends.
“Bentham’s desire to eliminate the idea of religion, to the end of constructing a new
society unhampered by myth, contrasts with the efforts of the French, particularly Comte,
to construct a secular equivalent to Christian belief and practice-- a secular “religion of
Humanity: stripped of other-worldly-referents.”52 In contrast, Mill found Comte’s project
to have many positive attributes.53 Mill saw positive social value in religion directing our
desires. Bentham, in contrast, considered only the external sanctions of religion, and
found those to be worse than worthless.
Mill supported the instrumental role which religion can play in fostering social
sympathy. Mill was essentially interested in religion—particularly Protestant
Christianity’s power to help mold social sentiments. There is no question that Mill was
quite interested in the benefits and utility of religion.54 He spoke highly of Coleridge’s
attempts to bring philosophy and religion together55, and he became friends with August
Comte, who helped Mill to see the benefits of religion for society.
But at the same time, there is no question that Mill felt that creedal Christianity-a Christianity which affirmed the ancient Creeds regarding Christ’s deity, the resurrection
and miracles, authority of Scripture, or Trinity-- while popular still to the mainstream
public, was passe and out of touch with contemporary scientific and historical data. His
16
essay on Coleridge provides a glimpse of his feelings regarding Christian literalists and
absolutists as it contains criticisms of “bibliolatry,” or the “idolatry of the words of
Scripture . . .”56 His essay on Whewell responds to Whewell’s attacks on utilitarianism
with a variety of responses, but Mill ultimately characterizes Whewell’s conservative
theistic position as “the very essence of religious intolerance . . .”57 In his essay
“Auguste Comte and Posititivism” he supports the notion of an a-theistic religion
(religion without a real God) when he writes, “Though conscious of being in an
extremely small minority, we venture to think that a religion may exist without belief in a
God, and that a religion without a God may be, even to Christians, an instructive and
profitable object of contemplation.”58 This points us to why Mill thinks religion is so
important—not for its theological content, but for its instrument power-- it is a powerful
source of sympathy and social sentiment.
What Mill immediately goes on to say is that an essential element of any religion,
be it theistic or not, is its sentiment which commands authority over human conduct-- and
this is the very positive fruit and strength of religion, from Mill’s point of view. While
the traditional object of such pietistic sentiments is God, Mill claims that “the condition
may be fulfilled, if not in a manner strictly equivalent, by another object. It has been said
that whoever believes in ‘the Infinite nature of duty,’ even if he believe in nothing else, is
religious.”59
Mill goes so far as to commend Comte’s idea that a broad notion of
humanity can substitute for the traditional God as an object which provokes the
appropriate sentiments of religiosity:
That the ennobling power of this grand conception may have its full efficacy, we
should, with M. Comte, regard the Grand Etre, Humanity, or Mankind, as
composed, in the past, solely of those who, in every age and variety of position,
have played their part worthily in life . . . the Grand Etre in its completeness ought
to include not only all whom we venerate, but all sentient beings to which we owe
duties, and which have a claim on our attachment.”60
17
While Mill had religious sympathies, that must be qualified a great deal by
recognizing that he often sounds like Hume, for instance, when he denies miracles, denies
the necessity of heaven for moral behavior, denies the adequacy of any naturalistic proofs
for God’s existence, and suggests that polytheism is more natural and popular than
monism.61 Mill even verges on a sort of process-theology not unlike that of some of
William James’ writings, who suggested that God is finite.62 Mill suggests that those who
do not believe God is omnipotent in fact have some advantages over traditional believers:
One elevated feeling this form of religious idea admits of, which is not open to
those who believe in the omnipotence of the good principle in he universe, the
feeling of helping God-- of requiting the good he has given by a voluntary cooperation which he, not being omnipotent, really needs, and by which a somewhat
nearer approach may be made to the fulfillment of his purposes.63
It is in fact quite difficult, as it is with many complex thinkers, to pinpoint exactly where
Mill stands religiously, and what he means by “God” when he uses that word. Whatever
Mill’s beliefs about God’s characteristics and existence, it is obvious that he goes to great
lengths to try to explain that he thinks utilitarianism can coexist with either the skeptic’s,
the believer’s, or the half-believer’s metaphysics.
Religious practice can aid ethics in its fight against nature. That, in fact, is what
ethics is-- Man’s attempt to go against or ‘fix’ nature: “ . . . the duty of man is to cooperate with the beneficent powers, not by imitating but by perpetually striving to amend
the course of nature-- and bringing that part of it over which we can exercise control,
more nearly into conformity with a high standard of justice and goodness.”64 This is
comparable to the traditionally Christian view that Christians are on earth to bring a
healing grace to the world around them through subduing the earth, etc.
5. Conclusion
From my evaluation of Mill’s criticisms of Bentham, it has been seen that Mill
thought that a) Bentham’s view of self was too simple; b) Bentham undervalued the
importance of the communal effect of religion; c) Bentham neglected the value of
cultivating imagination, and d) Bentham failed to see the positive uses of sympathy as a
18
positive internal sanction. These lacks in Bentham’s philosophy leave his utilitarianism
able only to protect material interests, but unable to help a society in its ‘spiritual
development.’ As Mill says,
It [Bentham’s utilitarianism] will enable a society which has attained a certain
state of spiritual development, and the maintenance of which in that state is
otherwise provided for, to prescribe the rules by which it may protect its material
interests. It will do nothing (except sometimes as an instrument in the hands of a
higher doctrine) for the spiritual interests of society; nor does it suffice of itself
even for the material interests.65
Bentham’s calculus may work fine in a society which has properly developed desires and
sentiments, but Bentham does nothing to help insure this, nor does he even seem to give
these issues much thought. The problem then, with Bentham’s philosophy, is that it
leaves us with a despotic majority rule by people governed primarily through external
governmental sanctions. This is a wanting state, and one which threatens to deny the
liberties of individuals as well. As Mill comments, “Is it, at all times and places, good for
mankind to be under the absolute authority of the majority of themselves?”66 Mill thinks
that the majority, left to themselves without some positive reinforcement of the
appropriate sentiments and desires, will become a despotic majority, which will
inevitably decrease the possibility for real happiness. This is why higher pleasures are to
be encouraged and pursued, even by organized religion.
In examining Mill’s response to and use of Bentham, I have shown in Mill’s
writings the moral importance of nurturing particular types of sentiments. One can see
what he believed to be important by noting what he criticized in Bentham’s utilitarianism.
Mill sees social-consciousness, moral imagination, sympathy and religion to be important
in moral development, and criticized Bentham for failing to understand this. Mill,
although rejecting traditional Christianity, found religion to have great instrumental value
in promoting social sympathy. In other words, the redeeming value of religious stories
and traditions, in Mill’s view, was that they established and nurtured the right kind of
moral-social sentiments and sympathies.
ENDNOTES
19
Noel Annan, “John Stuart Mill,” in Mill: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. By J.B
Schneewind, (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press, 1969), 28.
2
J.S. Mill, “Bentham” Collected Works of J.S. Mill X, ed. By J.M. Robson, (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1969) 98.
3
John Gray, (Liberalisms: Essays in Political Philosophy, (New York: Routledge, 1989),
225), Robert Paul Wolff (The Poverty of Liberalism, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), 142),
and Anschutz Anschutz (The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1953), 25) all hold the view that Mill’s moral agent is a radically atomistic self.
4
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, Roger Crisp, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press,
1998), 2.4.15.
5
F.E.L. Priestley, “Introduction,” Collected Works of J.S. Mill X, (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1963), xvii.
6
Geraint Williams, “The Greek Origins of J.S. Mill’s Happiness”, 5.
7
Mill, Autobiography in Collected Works V 1, 113.
8
J.S. Mill, Autobiography, 115.
9
J.S. Mill, Autobiography, 118-19.
10
J.S. Mill, Autobiography, 115.
11
J.S. Mill, “Thoughts on Poetry and its Varieties” (1833), “Writings of Junius
Redivivus” (1833), “Tennyson’s Poems” (1835), “The Writings of Alfred De Vigny”
(1938), “Milnes Poems” (1938), “Milnes’s Poetry for the People” (1840), all in Collected
Works I (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1969).
12
J.S. Mill, “Inaugural Address at St. Andrews” in James and John Stuart Mill on
Education, Cavanagh, ed, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1936).
13
J.S. Mill, “Bentham” Collected Works of J.S. Mill X, ed. By J.M. Robson, (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1969) 113. Mill is refering here to Bentham’s Rationale of
Reward, in WorksVol. II, p. 253.
14
J.S. Mill, “Bentham”, 114.
15
J.S. Mill, "Bentham”, 75-116.
16
J.S. Mill, “Bentham”, 96.
17
J.S. Mill “Bentham”, 93.
18
J.S. Mill, “Bentham”, 95.
19
J.S. Mill, “Bentham”, 95.
20
J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, 3.5.1, 75.
21
Mill agrees with Epicurus in assigning “to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings
and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to
those of mere sensation.” (Mill, Utilitarianism, 1.4.17)
22
J.S. Mill, “Bentham”, 92.
23
For example, people who leave or break beer bottles on the beach more likely than not
do not think about the way their actions affect others who come to the beach after them,
nor do they consider how their actions appear to others. Such stupid acts are partially to
blame on an underdeveloped imagination, which cannot see beyond the immediate
present to the longer-term effects of the present act.
24
J.S. Mill, “Bentham”, 92.
25
Bentham, “Principles”, 71.
26
J.S. Mill, “Bentham”, 92.
1
20
For a more complete evaluation of Mill’s view of imagination, see chapter 1. Whether
or not Mill’s opinion of Bentham’s view of imagination is correct, it is important to our
purposes to see this criticism insofar as it shows the importance which Mill placed on the
imagination.
28
Mill, “Obituary of Bentham” Collect5ed Works X, (Appendix B) 498.
29
Bentham, “Principles”, 45-46.
30
J.S. Mill, “Bentham”, 98.
31
J.S. Mill, “Bentham”, 99-100.
32
Bentham, “Principles”, 62.
33
For more on moral sanctions, see chapter three which deals specifically with Mill’s
teaching on this topic in the third chapter of Utilitarianism.
34
There are a number of essays written by Mill on the positive value of religion,
particularly “The Utility of Religion” found in Volume X of Mill’s Collected Works. I
deal with that essay a great deal in part four of this chapter of the dissertation.
35
Jeremy Bentham, “Principles”, Utilitarianism, On Liberty, Bentham, and Other Essays,
(New York: New American Library, 1962), 43.
36
Bentham, “Principles”, 41-42.
37
Jeremy Bentham, “Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal
Happiness of Mankind, Part One” Utilitarians and Religion ed. James E. Crimmins
(Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1998) 345.
38
Bentham, “Analysis”, 346.
39
Bentham, “Analysis”, 346.
40
Bentham, “Analysis”, 382-83.
41
Bentham, “Analysis”, 383.
42
This anti-religious attitude of Bentham has not escaped scholars attention. James
Steintrager notes that “A strong opposition to religion was built into the very fibre of
[Bentham’s] utilitarian system almost from the very beginning in 1768" (James
Steintrager, “Morality and Belief: The Origin and Purpose of Bentham’s Writings On
Religion” Mill News Letter, V6, 1971, 7).
43
Mill, “The Utility of Religion” Collected Works X, 415.
44
Mill, “The Utility of Religion” Collected Works X, 417.
45
Mill, “The Utility of Religion” Collected Works X, 414.
46
Mill, “The Utility of Religion” Collected Works X, 417.
47
Mill, Utilitarianism, 64 (2.18.6).
48
Mill, Utilitarianism, 73 (2.18.6).
49
Mill, Utilitarianism, 3.10.65, 79.
50
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth were at the center of romanticism–
the movement from the mid-1700's through 1870 which gave primary importance to
feeling, imagination, and poetic creation. Romantic literature praised imagination over
reason, emotions over logic, and intuition over science. The preface to the second
edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800) is a good induction into their thought.
51
Mill, “Coleridge” Collected Works of J.S. Mill X, 159.
52
James E. Crimmins, “Bentham on Religion: Atheism and the Secular Society” Journal
of the History of Ideas, V47, 1986, 108. Crimmins, in this same article, has a fascinating
discussion of Bentham’s last published work, a small pamphlet, Auto-Icon; Or, Farther
Uses of the Dead To The Living (written in 1831, printed in 1842), in which Bentham
27
21
suggests that we could have a “Temple of Fame” where the bodies of those we had
admired would be put on display, and a temple of dishonour, where those out of favor in
public opinion would be placed. He even goes so far as to suggest an “Auto-Icon
purgatory”(Crimmins, 107). In addition, “dialogues of the dead” would be held for
educational purposes, where, by aid of actors using mechanical devices, the dead could
converse before large audiences. All of this was may have been a joke, but it is
interpreted by Crimmins to be evidence that Bentham thought this may be a secular
utilitarian’s way to ensure reward and punishment after death (Crimmins, 108). Of
course, Bentham seems to have had a peculiar fascination with maintaining a presence
after death, which is evidenced by his “presence” at London College in the form of the
auto-icon which was preserved by direct expression of his will.
53
J.S. Mill, “Auguste Comte and Positivism” Collected Works of J.S. Mill X, 263-368.
54
See Mill’s “Utility of Religion”Collected Works X (Toronto: Toronto University Press,
1963).
55
Mill, “Coleridge”, Collected Works X (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1963), 15960.
56
Mill, “Coleridge”, 144-45; 162.
57
Mill, “Whewell on Moral Philosophy”,Collected Works X (Toronto: Toronto University
Press, 1963), 200.
58
Mill, “Auguste Comte and Positivism” in Collected Works of J.S. Mill X, 332.
59
Mill, “Auguste Comte and Positivism”, 333.
60
Mill, “Auguste Comte and Positivism”, 334.
61
Mill, “The Utility of Religion” Collected Works X (Toronto: Toronto University Press,
1963).
62
To see James’ views on God as finite, see William James, A Pluralist Universe, (1936)
311.
63
Mill, Three Essays, Collected Works X (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1963), 488.
64
Mill, “Nature”, 402.
65
J.S. Mill, “Bentham,” 99.
66
J.S. Mill, “Bentham”, 106.
22