Will, Utilitarianism, Emotivism

While Mill contends that the value of an action is a function of its consequences, the only consequence that, for his Utilitarianism, is ultimately decisive in the determination of the value of an action, is whether or not it is liked. Hence, the more accurate classification of his doctrine is 'Emotivist', rather than 'Consequentialist'. If it were the latter, he would further question the consequences of liking or disliking an action, which might lead him to the discovery that like and dislike, are, in turn, prompts to either a repetition of or an alternative to, respectively, the object of those feelings. In other words, it would reveal that Will, the activation of any subsequent behavior, is the ground of Emotivist evaluation, which even Stevenson does not seem to consider.

Will and Quantifying Pleasure

As previously demonstrated here, Will can be heuristically quantified, i. e. in terms of volitional units, or 'Vols'. So, insofar as Pleasure is a feeling of Will, as has been proposed, it, too, is quantifiable. Now, Will is also the principle of Diversification in Experience, and Diversification ranges from bare repetition and replication, to indefinitely extensive novelty and creation. Accordingly, one measure of Pleasure is the degree of creativity of the felt act along the range of Diversification. One application of that criterion is to a problem that vexes Mill--how to quantify the distinction between 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures. For, 'lower' pleasure can, accordingly, be analyzed as the feeling of an effort to merely continue its ephemeral occasion, e. g. the savoriness of food, while it is characteristic of a higher one that it is the feeling of an irresistible creative impulse. However, even if such an explanation improves on Mill's factually questionable observation--that everyone who has enjoyed both types prefers the higher ones--its non-Consequentialist interpretation of Pleasure is not one that Mill is likely to embrace.

Will, Pleasure, Happiness

Mill's attempt to reduce Kantianism--primarily its thesis that a rational being is an end-in-itself who deserves Happiness--to Utilitarianism suffers from an equivocation. For, what Kant means by 'Happiness' is a 'totality of satisfactions of need', whereas Mill's equation of 'happiness' and 'pleasure' implies that the former, like the latter, can obtain as a discrete localized experience. Furthermore, the distinction is not merely quantificational, for, while Happiness arrives as the moment of closure of a process, Pleasure, which, as previously argued here, is the feeling of Will, or, in Kant's system, of Freedom, occurs at a moment of experiential destabilization, i. e. at the moment of self-activation. So, sharpening the distinction between Pleasure and Happiness does not eliminate Consequentialism from Kant's doctrine, but it helps demonstrate that the latter is not Hedonist.

Will, Pleasure, Teleology

The traditional concept of Pleasure, to which Mill subscribes, is teleological, i. e. it understands Pleasure to occur subsequent to some process. Spinoza, in contrast, suggests a non-teleological alternative, which Nietzsche develops--that Pleasure is the feeling of an increase in strength. On that basis, Pleasure is distinct from the feeling of a replenishment of strength, or from relief from discomfort, each of which can be more accurately characterized as 'Satisfaction'. Now, while the replenishment of strength and the relief from discomfort, as completions of what precedes them, are plainly teleological, an upsurge in strength occurs, to the contrary, at the outset of a process, i. e. it is the moment of self-activation. In other words, Pleasure is the feeling of Will. Furthermore, the thought of Pleasure is a powerful motivator not as an anticipation of some eventuality, as it is usually conceived to be, but as itself a sufficient enough replication of the feeling of an upsurge of strength to initiate Motility.

Will and the Hedonistic Fallacy

Moore's charge that Utilitarianism commits a 'naturalistic fallacy' is perhaps fatally compromised by his question-beggingly positing a distinction between 'natural' and 'non-natural', one that Mill can easily reject. It also obscures a converse issue, one that can be called the 'Hedonistic Fallacy'. For, Mill's equation of 'pleasant' and 'good', rather than reducing the latter to the former, can be interpreted as reducing the former to the latter, thereby ascribing to 'x is pleasant' an evaluative connotation lacking in mere Hedonism. Entailed in that ascription is a denial of the teleological concept of Pleasure--for, an evaluation is at least partly prescriptive, and, hence, is preparatory to subsequent behavior, i, e, is no mere End. That denial, in turn, opens Pleasure to the analysis, following Spinoza, that it is a surplus of strength, and, thus, is incipient Motility, i. e. Will. So, the 'Hedonistic Fallacy' is the interpretation of Pleasure as a mere End, a fallacy which Mill partly exposes when he presents 'pleasant' as equivalent to an evaluative term.

Will, Utilitarianism, Descriptive Ethics

The claim that a Moral principle is descriptive is vulnerable to two challenges. First, it does not suffice to defend against the assertion that such a principle ought to be prescriptive. Second, it presupposes the objectivity of the Good, absent which, it is susceptible to the charge that it is an expression of 'bad faith', i. e. of a disowning of one's own creation. On the other hand, the exhortation 'Act!' is ironic--to fulfill it involves the self-activation of Will, for which any antecedent, including an exhortative utterance, can be no more than a describable phenomenon. Thus, it is unclear whether Mill's insistence that his Utilitarian principle merely describes the Good is an expression of naivety, of irresponsibility, or of an appreciation of the irony entailed in the alternative.

Will and Promoting Greater Happiness

Mill often seems to insist that his Utilitarianism is a descriptive theory, not a prescriptive doctrine. Nevertheless, implicit in his efforts to explain that the 'Good' is the 'greatest happiness for the 'greatest number, is the presumption that awareness of the correct thesis of the true nature of the Good conduces to the promotion of that Good. Now, it seems unlikely that he believes that such knowledge qua merely theoretical suffices to that end. Hence, he must project that the value of his thesis is practical, i. e. that it consists in its potential influence on behavior. Furthermore, insofar as his concept of Utilitarianism rivals that of Bentham, i. e. the thesis that one must promote one's own happiness, the influence on behavior that Mill projects must entail extending oneself, beyond one's self-interest, to that of others. But, Will is the other-oriented principle of Experience. Hence, Mill's Utilitarianism formulates a cultivation of Will.