Mill: Specificity of Philosophy, Essay Example

Introduction

It is inevitable that, within the wide range of philosophies, certain thinkers simultaneously reflect and challenge others.  The science itself is one of gradation and development, as the thinking of an Aristotle, interpreted centuries later, is reinforced or adapted by the mind then pursuing the same truths or levels of understanding.  Consequently, similarities in philosophy are as common as diametrically opposed views, and philosophers typically go to great lengths to define and substantiate their thinking in both circumstances.  This is not easily achieved, as each philosophy usually focuses on the universal concerns of truth, ethics, and social and political  realities.  They also tend to exist to provide a framework for behavior; in determining what is right and not right, they guide as to what should and should not be done. At the same time, some  philosophers present genuinely unique voices, and among these is John Stuart Mill.  Mill’s work does delve into, and sometimes resemble, the thinking of Aristotle, Spinoza, and Kant. At the same time, Mill retains his own identity. As the following will explore, any similarities between the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and Aristotle, Spinoza, and Kant are greatly overshadowed by Mill’s philosophical specificity and pragmatism, which combine to set him apart from these others.

Mill and Aristotle

It is arguable that no philosopher better serves to illustrate, by contrast, the philosophical specificity of Mill more than Aristotle. The latter famously relies on virtue ethics and the conviction that the goal of all human living is the state of eudemonia, which is complete happiness derived from excellence of morality. For Aristotle, moral virtue is a core motivation, in that the individual is directed to do what is good because this will create the goodness of their own life, and sense of perfect well-being (Page 30).  This relies, however, on a universality of such motivation. Lecture 16 in fact indicates Aristotelian thinking in regard to one crucial element: the philosopher’s insistence on all as inherently motivated to operate from a moral point of view, which intrinsically supports a shared morality.  Put another war, Aristotle’s idea of virtue is such that it is a reality which must be recognized by all, and which then serves to guide human conduct in all circumstances (Kristjannson 168). The philosopher in a sense distances humanity from what will bring happiness to it, even as humanity must adhere to the concept of perfect virtue in order to achieve happiness; morality is the Aristotelian “lodestar” and humanity, identifying it uniformly, need only remain fixed upon this.  As is obvious, failures to observe the truth of moral virtue then bring misery to both individuals and societies, which in turn links to Aristotle’s emphasis on the individual’s duty to the state.

For Mill, however, the state of happiness is not so distanced from those seeking to create it.  It does not rely on a shared vision of moral virtue; rather, it derives from those multiple efforts human beings make to produce happiness for themselves, as they alone may know what is required for the state of being.  It is a consequence of a variety of behaviors and ways of thinking, and one exponentially generated by the individual’s accumulating knowledge of what components create the state for the self.  Mill’s Happiness Principle is criticized by some for being less than distinct.  He moves, it is argued, from desires for happiness to actual components of it, confusing the processes of thinking (Alican 160).  The criticism, however, is easily challenged because Mill consistently holds to what creates happiness as paramount, and motive and components may then be interchangeable.  More to the point, Mill is firmly apart from Aristotle in regard to how happiness is gained through pleasure.  For Aristotle, pleasure relies on behaving morally and is then “real” pleasure, as opposed to base or sensual pleasure. Mill does acknowledge morality as a universal truth to some extent, in that he believes there are extremes of conduct, such as murder, which trigger revulsion in all individuals.  This, however, is as far as he is willing to permit morality to guide human beings, and his own Happiness Principle, simultaneously pragmatic and psychological, is based on consequentialism.  People engage in those behaviors and actions which create types of happiness for them.

Moreover, Mill goes into detail Aristotle does not, in investigating the true nature of human happiness in the specific way mandated by his pragmatic view of it.  That is, he distinguishes it from a sense of nothing more than ongoing pleasure; happiness may in fact derive from pleasurable results combined with some creating pain, and this occurs because pleasure and pain are fleeting experiences, while happiness is an enduring and cumulative one (Alican  163).  This is then not only a carefully constructed idea of human happiness, it is one very much at variance with the Aristotelian, which relies on happiness as arising from the adherence to moral law and perfect virtue.  Equally importantly, the specificity of Mill adds weight to the thinking because of its utilitarian quality; it is based on human assessments of cause and effect.  It is important to note that this in itself fuels criticism of Mill; as Lecture 17 expresses, Williams objects to Mill because the conception of morality ignores the responsibility of what people do not do, and relies only on their actions.  He views Mill’s Happiness Principle as careless and self-indulgent (Williams 40), and Aristotle would likely agree.  Nonetheless, the objections remain based on ideas of idealized human conduct arising from a shared conviction in moral truth, and the reality remains that Mill, if his pragmatism offends, still confines himself to the known parameters of human behavior, which is reinforced by the psychological attributes of the Happiness Principle.  Mill and Aristotle are not as completely opposed as all of this indicates; that is, both insist on happiness as critical, and it is arguable that they differ only in approach, and not esteem of the principle itself.  At the same time, however, Mill and Aristotle vary because Mill insists on a practical approach contrasting the Aristotelian holding to perfect virtue as guiding human beings.

Mill and Spinoza

With Spinoza, there is far more in the way of direct contrast with Mill in specific arenas of thinking. This is then all the more interesting because Spinoza expresses specificity in keeping with Mill. For Mill, to begin with, moral motivation is a complex matter, relying on both internal and external forces.  Individuals are motivated to behave in certain ways by the responses behavior is known to generate, and this motivation is in turn enhanced by the broader structures in place within a society or moral culture.  That is, Mill recognizes that social sanctions, such as laws prohibiting and punishing harmful actions, are important in providing moral motivation. He also, however, interestingly reflects Spinoza, at least to an extent, in further citing the moral imperative of conscience. As Lecture 19 reveals, Spinoza has an abiding belief in an intrinsic awareness of morality within human beings.  If he does not reflect Aristotle’s complete faith in virtue as a fixed and external reality, he nonetheless holds that there is a knowledge of moral truth within human beings.  He perceives, for example, that pleasure and pain are powerfully connected to the concepts of good and evil; they exist as signals of the qualities, alerting individuals to violations or adherence to moral duty (De Dijn 246).  This in turn goes to the human conscience, which defines moral truth and may then be said to be a crucial motivator of human behavior.

Mill also points to conscience as an important force in human affairs, individually and collectively, but he departs from the almost Aristotelian view of Spinoza viewing it as an acknowledgment of an external and moral reality.  Mill contrasts with Spinoza here because he perceives conscience, not as an innate knowledge of good and evil, but as an acquired sense (West 97). It is what people “learn,” or a moral framework in which wider knowledge of expectations and results combine to create the foundation. This is a crucial distinction, and one further validating the pragmatic, or utilitarian, core of Mill combined with a specific focus on human reality. Mill does not, again, utterly refute that a certain moral sens guides human beings.  What is more important, however, is how this sense is expanded by people in collective ways.  As the idea of a thing as wrong or right is confirmed by others, the idea gains in moral validity and thus becomes both a component of the individual conscience and the basis of the social sanctions emphasizing it.  In terms of moral motivation, then, Mill and Spinoza are significantly distanced.  The latter holds to motive as deriving from the formula of pleasure and pain translating to morality and immorality; people are guided by this visceral understanding presented through the manifestations.  Mill, conversely, keeps moral motivation more firmly within the realm of real, human experience, as that experience generates the knowledge of morality itself.

In turning to more “individual” aspects of philosophy, there is the matter of how Mill’s Utilitarianism contrasts or reflects Spinoza’s conception of the self.  To begin with, it is perhaps unreasonable to refer to one aspect of Spinoza’s philosophy as “egoism,” because his thinking goes beyond the typical associations of the term.  For Spinoza, the need to assert the self is far more visceral; as Lecture 19 makes clear, everything in nature is possessed of a “conatus,” which is the drive to continue to exist and which is as well the essence of the thing.  There is nothing in anything of nature which may defy the conatus because it is the fundamental will to continue to be, and everything within the thing must express and advance this visceral reality  (De Dijn 242).  On first sight, this then appears, not as a contrast to Utilitarianism, but as virtually irrelevant to it.  However, this is not the case.  In a very real sense, Mill affirms the Spinoza conatus by virtue of his philosophy’s insistence on the drive for happiness as achieved through recognition of consequences.  More exactly, it is arguable that Mill merely extends the conatus of Spinoza; that is, if all things exist to perpetuate their own states of being, it is only rational to affirm that they desire that being as “fulfilled” as possible.  In human terms, in fact, happiness is a state wherein the self achieves the strongest sense of itself.  In knowing and satisfying what fulfills it, it promotes is core existence, so Spinoza and Mill are not necessarily divergent in this arena.

In terms of self-interest, however, differences emerge between the philosophers.  Then, and interestingly, it is the Utilitarian Mill who is more “moral” in his views, and chiefly because Spinoza’s Determinism tends to neglect what lies beyond the self.  As noted in Lecture 19, Spinoza perceives the ultimate goal of life as the maintaining of existence (De Dijn 205).  He brings into play God, as well as effects of the conatus generating varieties of moral possibilities, but the “egoism” eclipses all else.  For Mill, life is simply not that confined, nor is how moral realities occur.  As pragmatic as Utilitarianism ultimately is, it is as well a philosophy largely opposed to the pursuit of self-interest, no matter the urgency of the drive.  For example, there is the critical matter of justice, which is central to Utilitarianism.  It is possible in Mill to see the standard claims of justice as arising from self-interest, but the more important aspect of justice is that it promotes the greater happiness of all, which in turn demands a lessened emphasis on the self.  Justice gains its moral authority from the recognition that the society, and not the individual interest, is served, even as such interest may go to the evolution of justice (West 154).  Importantly, neither philosopher disallows self-interest or altruism.  Mill’s view on justice, in fact, support self-interest as a valid component of enhancing the society when it is thus directed.  Similarly, Spinoza never goes so far as to assert that the conatus is inherently unhelpful to others; this would be irrational, as human interactions based on self-interest commonly go to serving the interests of others. Of greater import here, however, is that once again Mill is not content to rely on a fixed principle, as Spinoza and Aristotle do, of a single force – conatus or perfect virtue – as dominating behavior.  Mill, again, specifies in Utilitarianism, and through observing how complex human behaviors may go to “moral” ends.

Mill and Kant

If Mill and Aristotle diverge in crucial ways, the same is more true of Mill and Kant.  The latter’s deontological system of ethics, as outlined in Lecture 12, goes to an inflexible process or fundamental law: nothing is good that does not derive from the will to do good, and a thing may only be good if it originates from moral law (Atwell 104).  This is as clear an example of a priori thinking as may be conceived, and Mill has absolutely no patience for it.  He counters Kant directly, and in the form of teleological discourse.  Mill begins with Kant’s “beginning,” or First Principle, which is that the rule upon which people act must be the rule all rational human beings would adopt.  This to Mill is absurd, because it utterly fails to take into account morality itself; all that matters in Kant, to Mill, is that the results of actions conform to universally accepted ideas as to what the results should be (West 30).  It is in fact interesting how this offends the pragmatic Mill, so typically less concerned with morality.  Then, Mill’s teleology actually reverses Kant’s deontology.  He believes that the nature or quality of actions is determined by the results which they create, and this profoundly emphasizes the pragmatism in Utilitarianism.  In plain terms, Kant’s ethics defy reason to Mill because they make assumptions based on no evidence beyond an indication of a sense of correctness guiding them.

Upon consideration, it is difficult to refute Mill’s thinking here, and essentially because he so powerfully insists on a recognition of reality.  Kant relies too much on a concept of good, in that he attributes a foundational quality, and the more likely reality is that good is far too subjective a thing to be identified until consequences arise.  This is in fact the core dilemma within Kantian ethics because, and as Mill also notes, moral law and/or motivations to do good are inherently and consistently relative.  Equally importantly, and affirming the noted specificity of Mill, Kant ignores how individual cases present limitless opportunities for determining a good intent or the lack thereof (West 33).  If those supporting Kant would charge that Mill then disregards moral worth, it is necessary to note, and reflecting the differences between Mill and Aristotle, that Mill’s Utilitarianism does not of itself obviate morality.  This is the key distinction, and its import cannot be overstated.  The issue, and as Mill himself would likely argue, is not that he dismisses morality as a component in human behavior; it is that he refuses to rely upon it as fundamentally dictating action.  The essence of Utilitarianism itself very much goes to moral worth, the pragmatism of the philosophy notwithstanding, because it is a system in place to promote the greatest good for the greatest numbers of people.  It is in the means to this end that Mill does not focus upon moral worth which, it is certainly reasonable to argue, is a dangerously subjective and relative strategy.  Put differently, Mill is unwilling to sacrifice specific and identified trajectories of human conduct in order to support an idea of morality as – somehow – solely responsible for how individuals and societies conduct themselves.  As with his differences with the other philosophers, then, Mill insists upon pragmatism and specificity, as opposed to conceptual affirmations of the force of morality.

Conclusion

It is interesting, and somewhat unfortunate, that the contrasts between Mill and the other philosophers discussed do not admit to certain similarities. In essence, all to some extent hold to an idea of morality as critical in human affairs, and Mill is certainly among these; Utilitarianism is very much about securing good.  Nonetheless, Mill refuses to adopt the thinking expressed to some degree by all, which relies on morality as a core component in guiding human affairs. For him, this is irresponsible and irrational, and Mill’s views are potent in their teleological practicality. There is good and evil in Mill, as he certainly affirms that people are directed to gain for themselves that which is good.  At the same time, he maintains a strikingly realistic view of how that good is achieved, in both individual and collective terms, as he sensibly regards the human conscience as both an individual and social construction. Ultimately, and as has been revealed in the above analysis, the few similarities between the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and Aristotle, Kant, and Spinoza are vastly overshadowed by Mill’s philosophical specificity and pragmatism, which combine to set him apart from these others.

Works Cited

Alican, Necip F. Mill’s Principle of Utility: A Defense of John Stuart Mill’s Notorious Proof. New York, NY: Rodopi, 1994.  Print.

Atwell, John E.  Ends and Principles in Kant’s Moral Thought.  New York, NY: Springer, 1986. Print.

De Dijn, Herman.  Spinoza: The Way to Wisdom. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1996.  Print.

Kristjannson, Kristjan.  Aristotle, Emotions, and Education.  Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2012.  Print.

Page, James.  Peace Education: Exploring Ethical and Philosophical Foundations. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2008. Print.

West, Henry R.  An Introduction to Mill’s Utilitarian Ethics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print.

Williams, Bernard.  Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973-1980.  New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Print.