9
terms of pleasure. Their recipe sounds simple. The more experiences we get, the more
associations of ideas we make, and therefore the more enlighted we are for being a
“competent judge”
12
of our interest. The history of mankind is then successively built on
“progressive” experience.
13
And it is thanks to such experience that we can know that the fact
of focusing only on bodily pleasures amounts to saying that we choose to remain animals (John
Stuart Mill 1861, p. 211).
2.
Calculation and expediency
We have seen that morality emerges in the intended and foreseen consequences of our
actions. Expediency is what allows to attain the desired ends. To do so, the role of virtues,
especially that of prudence, is fundamental to have a good knowledge of the causes of
pleasure, and therefore to rise the capacity of the felicific calculus to produce the desired ends
(§2.1.). However, what is true for the distinction between pleasures seems also true for the
distinction between the two following and different expediencies. When expediency is related
narrowly to self interest, regardless of its effects on others, simple expediency is at stake
(§2.2.), and is not related to morality. By contrast, when expediency includes other regarding
aspects, general expediency is at stake (§2.3.), and is related to morality.
2.1.
The causes of pleasure and the art of calculating
An individual who does not care about the consequences of his actions is an individual
who cannot pursuit a plan of actions. “Uncertain or certain”, John Stuart Mill wrote, “we are
able to guide ourselves by them, otherwise human life could not exist” (John Stuart Mill 1852,
pp. 180–181). From this point of view, pursuing a plan of actions without a clear and precise
conception of what we are pursuing – the consequences – makes no sense. How, then, can
we properly follow the principle of expediency?
The “mother” of the ancient Greek virtues is first and foremost essential. Indeed, prudence
allows “a correct foresight of consequences, a just estimation of their importance to the object
in view, and repression of any unreflecting impulse at variance with the deliberate purpose”
(John Stuart Mill 1843, p. 107). In a slight different way, James Mill insisted that this virtue
allows to surely increase our interest, even if “in its common acceptation, it is more employed
to denote the acts by which we avoid evils” (James Mill 1829, vol. 2, p. 282). Some years
before, he employed the notion of “intelligence”, denoting the knowledge of nature’s events
depending on pleasure and pain, but also of “temperance” for recalling the importance of
controlling our desire (Mill 1819, p. 16). More generally, such virtues “acquire when duly
cultivated, a power of controlling the solicitations of appetite, and are esteemed a more
valuable constituent of happiness than all that sense can immediately bestow” (James Mill
1829, vol. 2, p. 366; James Mill 1805, p. 387; see also Loizides 2014, p. 310; and Robert Fenn,
1987, 176). They will contribute, in other words, to form and develop knowledge and the
12
To my knowledge, James Mill did not use the phrase “competent judge”.
13
Again, I will come back and develop this point in what John Stuart Mill called “the general experience of
mankind” (§3.2.).
10
character to go after the ‘great purposes’ of life, to pursue what one ‘deliberately approves’
(James Mill 1829, vol. 2, pp. 376-7; James Mill 1819, p. 15; see also Loizides 2014, p. 310; and
Fenn 1987, p. 51). Anyway, besides the importance of not overestimating desire and to pursue
what we deliberately approve, the knowledge of the hedonistic events of nature is obviously
crucial for the felicific calculation, since it constitutes the informational basis through which
we take our decision. This is why the matter of the causes of pleasure was crucial for the Mills.
Two kinds of causes of pleasure exist: the immediate, and the remote ones. From a
Associationist point of view, the latter are more interesting and useful than the former, insofar
as the remote causes include the immediate ones – they can be associated with the pleasures
of almost every class. Food, for instance, is an immediate cause of pleasure. In a commercial
society, the money with which I have bought the food is a remote one. Such reasoning may
be reiterated in another class of pleasures. “The sound of the violin”, James Mill wrote, “is the
immediate cause of the pleasure of my ear; the performance of the musician, the cause of
that sound; the money with which I have hired the musician, the cause of that performance”
(James Mill 1829, vol. 2, 187). An individual who cares about the art of calculating should
anyway care about the different causes of pleasures, and above all, therefore, the remote
ones: in a way, they give him informations about the experience of mankind. However, certain
causes have a tendency to descend to self-centredness. Others, by contrast, have a more
other-regarding aspect.
2.2.
Simple expediency
Like many others, James Mill was already explicit enough on the field. “How completely
are the lives of most men absorbed”, he wrote, “in the pursuits of wealth and ambition! With
how many men does the love of Family, of Friend, of Country, of Mankind, appear completely
impotent, when opposed to their love of Wealth, or of Power!” (Mill 1829, vol. II, p. 215).
Some years later, John Stuart Mill will remark that the love of money and of power are usually
the most persistent passions of human nature (John Stuart Mill 1869a, p. 220). To a point such
as they can be desired for themselves, whereas they are mere remote cause pleasures.
14
Power and wealth, thus, will constitute our instances of simple expediency here.
The case of power does not need to be developed a lot. What James Mill said about it
makes echo to what his elder son said about the well-known case wherein he envisaged a
minister sacrificing the well being of his nation for the sake of his own place in society (John
Stuart Mill 1861, p. 223). From the point of view of simple expediency, his calculation for
assuring his place is good, though the action deteriorates general utility, and therefore is
immoral.
The case of the pursuit of wealth is perhaps more delicate, since John Stuart Mill decided
to make it a science of political economy, based on his concept of the economic man – concept
which will be largely used in various scenarios afterwards –, acting from self-interested
motives and without any reference to moral feelings. Without going into further obvious
details, calculation plays a considerable part for accumulating wealth. In his Elements, James
Mill already underlined our ability to calculate, through the prism of prudent saving, when he
claimed that “There are two sets of men; one, in whom the reasoning power is strong, and
14
I will return to this point in the third part of this paper.