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James and John Stuart Mill on The Felicific Calculus: Two Close Views?
Victor Bianchini
Abstract: Though John Stuart Mill took care to distinguish his conception of hedonism from
that of his precedecessors, he surprisingly claimed that his father shared his understanding of
pleasure, so that the question of knowing whether John Stuart was a kind of “heterodox” or
“orthodox” Utilitarian is still opened. By recalling and reconstructing their psychological
associationist background, this paper suggests that the three departments of what John Stuart
called “the art of life” – morality, expediency, and aesthetics – cannot bypass the part the
felicific calculus plays in the decision process. I argue that it is in and by the felicific calculus,
resting upon the emergence of ideas which found the distinction between the higher and the
lower pleasures, that morality and expediency are based on, and that aesthetics or
“disinterested” actions may paradoxically presuppose an unconscious calculation formed by
deeply rooted habits.
Keywords: James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Felicific Calculus, Classical Utilitarianism,
Psychological Associationism, Art of Life.
Introduction
At John Stuart Mill’s time – and to some extent again today –, Utilitarians are often
criticized for being unsympathetic and cold calculators, caring only for the consequences of
an interest or hedonic calculus, and not for the character or the moral qualities which give
birth to human action. After his mental crisis and the deaths of his predecessors –, Jeremy
Bentham and James Mill, his father –, he will respond to such critics in his famous essay
Utilitarianism published in 1861. Better: he will take into account them in order to provide a
complete and more satisfying definition of Utilitarianism than that of his predecessors.
Because, though John Stuart Mill considered himself as a Utilitarian, he considered himself as
Universitary Centre of Mayotte; CHROME, University of Nîmes.
Email : victor.bianchini@univ-mayotte.fr
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a kind of “heterodox” in that school of thought: it is well-known that after his mental crisis, he
many times explicitly distanced himself with the teaching of standard Utilitarianism.
John Stuart Mill praised Bentham as a jurist, but disqualified him as a philosopher, claiming
that he propagates at best the “petite morale” of interest. “It is fortunate for the world”, John
Stuart Mill wrote, “that Bentham’s taste lay rather in the direction of jurisprudential than of
properly ethical inquiry” (John Stuart Mill 1838, p. 98). Nevertheless, John Stuart Mill painted
a much more ambiguous intellectual portrait of his father. On the one hand, despite his
Utilitarian, precocious and intensive education supervised by his father, he viewed himself as
a “deserter” from his legacy (John Stuart Mill 1873, p. 189). On the other hand, he especially
praised him where he disqualified Bentham. He considered, indeed, that his father was far
from being “a mere follower or disciple” of Bentham, speculating that “he will be known to
posterity as one of the greatest names in that most important branch of speculation [analytic
psychology], on which all the moral and political sciences ultimately rest” (John Stuart Mill
1873, p. 213).
While James Mill is today considered as an author in the shadow of his close intellectual
environment
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, one can assume the opposite view. For instance, it is possible that, despite “the
intellectual revolution” of John Stuart Mill, he still followed to a certain extent the moral
convictions of his father. We should not forget, for example, that John Stuart Mill viewed him
as a Socratici viri (John Stuart Mill 1873, p. 49). Regardless the question of knowing whether
such a picture is pertinent, it likely explains why his readings of Socrates constituted for him
important memories from his domestic education, and why he was in search of ideal
excellence. Individuals and things are important not because they are useful only, but because
of their “intrinsic usefulness” (John Stuart Mill 1873, p. 49; my italics). Surprisingly, this idea is
directly related to the way in which John Stuart Mill understood his father’s hedonism, when
he claimed that “He [James Mill; VB] never varied in rating intellectual enjoyments above all
others, even in value as pleasures, independently of their ulterior benefits” (John Stuart Mill,
1873, p. 50; my italics).
Since the publication of John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism, a lot have been said about his
qualitative hedonism, and it is usually agreed that his distinction in kind between the higher
and the lower pleasures, leading to a sort of eudemonistic conception of happiness, is what
fundamentally distinguishes him from orthodox Utilitarians (see, for example, J. B.
Schneewind 1976; R. W. Hoag 1987, 1992; M. C. Naussbaum 2004; D.E. Miller 2010; Jonathan
Riley 2010b). However, this interpretation may raise a concern in light of John Stuart Mill’s
aforementioned quote. If one believes John Stuart Mill, indeed, his so-called “qualitative
hedonism” would not be so specific to him, but also surprisingly to the propagator and
spokesman of Classical Utilitarianism; the man who gave to Bentham a school of thought. The
picture of classical utilitarianism would then appear more complex than it seems to be. Two
other interpretations may see the light of day. First, John Stuart Mill would be not sincere
when he wrote on his father. However, since he did not also hesitate to criticize him in his
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As Alexander Bain ― the biographer of both Mill ― wrote: “[I]t will be said of James Mill that his greatest
contribution to human progress was his son, whom he educated to be his fellow-worker and successor.”
(Alexander Bain 1882b, p. 1). We could have the same kind of idea when considering the relation between David
Ricardo and James Mill, when the latter coached the former on the art of composition (Mill to Ricardo, 9 Nov
1815, pp. 320-321) and political involvement (Terrence. W. Hutchison 1953). As for the relation between
Bentham and James Mill, Élie Halévy’s famous quote according to which “Bentham gave Mill a doctrine, and Mill
gave Bentham a school” (E. Halévy (1904, p. 249) is explicit enough in the field. Though partial, this overall view
corresponds to the one James Mill himself wanted to give when claiming, for instance, that he was more an
enlightened schoolmaster than an original thinker (see, for example, James Mill 1826, pp. iii-iv).