Moral and Non-Moral Appraisals of Conduct
n arguing that Mill’s liberty principle is inconsistent with utilitarianism, I have assumed that utilitarianism is a moral doctrine about the rightness or wrongness of actions. But some recent interpretations of Mill have argued that, although he subscribed to a principle of utility, his version of it is not that of a moral principle but rather a more general principle on the basis of which all appraisals of conduct, whether moral or non-moral, are made. Moral appraisals of conduct are merely one type of evaluations derivable from the principle of utility, and Mill has a more restricted theory of morality than is commonly assumed. How does this account of Mill’s principle of utility and his theory of morality affect the nature of his case for liberty? The pioneering work of Alan Ryan in this area has illuminated previously neglected aspects of his thought.1 Ryan’s thesis is that the distinction between self- and other-regarding conduct "is at the heart of the distinction between moral and non-moral appraisal of actions" (The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, 236). Self-regarding conduct belongs to the areas of prudence and aesthetics and not those of morality and law which are concerned with other-regarding conduct. It in only in the other-regarding sphere that sanction or punishment may be applied. In deciding whether to use legal sanctions or the sanction of pubic opinion and social disapproval to deter wrongful acts, we take account of the relative social costs involved. Moral judgements are based on the harm the agent knowingly does to others. But self-regarding conduct, which does not harm others, lies outside this moral realm. Such conduct may not therefore be punished, or subjected to compulsions although it is "a fit matter for entreaty, expostulation, exhortation" (The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, 236).
Ryan's work has led to important developments in the interpretation of Mill.4 It is necessary to examine in greater detail the distinction between the moral and the non-moral [42/43] spheres of conduct to see whether it provides a new basis for Mill’s defence of individual liberty. I shall begin by outlining Mill’s theory of "the Art of Life" as propounded in A System of Logic, Book VI, Chapter xii. This will help in the understanding of his division between the moral and the non-moral spheres.
II. The Art of Life
ill distinguishes between science and art, and he regards morality as an art. Science is concerned with matters of fact, whereas art is concerned with rules and precepts which enjoin or recommend that something should be the case. The propositions of art are about what ought to be or should be the case; those of science are expressed in the indicative mood and are about what is or will be. Every particular art has an end or purpose:
The builder’s art assumes that it is desirable to have buildings; architecture (as one of the fine arts), that it is desirable to have them beautiful or imposing. The hygienic and medical arts assume, the one that preservation of health, the other that the cure of disease, are fitting and desirable ends. [Schneewind, 165]
Once a particular art has proposed a certain end as desirable, science investigates the means by which this end can be attained. The performance of those actions constituting the means is then pronounced by art as desirable, and rules or precepts are generated. Thus the relation between art and science can be characterized in the form of a deductive model with the major premiss supplied by art and the minor premiss by science. From these a conclusion in the form of a rule or precept is drawn. Mill’s thesis can be roughly represented as follows:6
Major Premiss: E is desirable (where E is defined by a particular art).
Minor Premiss: Actions of type a will bring about E (theorem of science).
Conclusion: Therefore a is desirable.
Mill points out that the rules or precepts for guiding conduct are to be considered provisional: "But they do not all supersede the propensity of going through (when circumstances permit) the scientific process requisite for framing a rule from the data of the particular case before us" (Schneewind, 162). In a particular case, because of unusual circumstances, following a rule may not attain the desirable end. Again, in certain situations, following a rule will lead to a conflict with some other end which is more desirable.
The possibility of conflict between the ends of various arts points to the need for determining the relative importance of these ends, or the order of precedence between them. This is the province for that body of doctrine which Mill calls variously the Art of Life, Teleology, the Doctrine of Ends, and the Principles of Practical Reason. The function of the Art of Life is to justify the ends of subordinate arts, and to establish an order of priority among them. The Art of Life has three departments: "Morality, Prudence or Policy, and Aethetics, the Right, the Expedient, and the Beautiful or Noble, in human conduct and works" (Schneewind, 166). Elsewhere, in Utilitarianism, Mill distinguishes morality from "the remaining provinces of Expediency and Worthiness" (Utilitarianism, 46, cited by Brown, "Mill on Liberty and Morality," 154). And in the essay on Bentham he refers to the various aspects possessed by actions: "moral aspect, that of its right and wrong; its aesthetic aspect, or that of its beauty; its sympathetic aspect or that of its lovableness" (cited by Ryan, The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, 215). But what is clear is that moral appraisals are not the only appraisals of conduct. There are also prudential and aesthetic appraisals.
The next step Mill takes is to argue that there must be only one ultimate principle or standard for assessing the value of various ends and their order of precedence. If there were more than one ultimate principle, then the same action might be derived from one principle while running foul of another. It would then be necessary to appeal to yet another principle to settle conflicts between these two principles. So the Art of Life has only one ultimate principle, and this principle is common to all the departments of the Art. Mill then asserts that
the general principle to which all rules of practice ought to conform, and the test by which they should be tried, is that of conduciveness to the happiness of mankind or rather of all sentient beings; in other [44/45] words, that the promotion of happiness is the ultimate principle of Teleology. [Schneewind, 168]
In a A System of Logic he does not attempt to justify this claim, but he inserts a footnote which draws attention to his famous "proof" of utility in Utilitarianism. So for Mill the principle of utility is the ultimate principle of the whole Art of Life, and is therefore the ultimate basis for moral as well as non-moral appraisals of conduct.
Mill’s account of the Art of Life raises several problems. D. G. Brown has drawn attention to the serious difficulty of stating the principle of utility in such a way as to enable it to perform the important role Mill has cast for it. Brown himself favours the formulation, “Happiness is the only thing desirable as an end" ("Mill on Liberty and Morality," 156; see also: "What is Mill’s Principle of Utility?"). Another problem is how exactly the different departments of the Art of Life are to be demarcated from one another. Mill says much more about the province of morality than he does about the other areas, and I shall focus on one detailed interpretation of his theory of morality which takes account of these divisions within the Art of Life. My purpose is to ascertain whether, assuming the correctness of this theory of morality, we have here a new weapon within the utilitarian armoury for defending the individual’s liberty to engage in self-regarding actions.
III. Lyons on Mill's Theory of Morality
avid Lyons has recently developed a complex, though apparently still incomplete, interpretation of Mill’s theory of morality (see "Mill on Liberty and Morality," 156ff., and "What is Mill’s Principle of Utility?"). Lyons places great weight on a passage in Utilitarianism which in part reads:
We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow-creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience. This seems the real turning point of the distinction between morality and simple expediency. It is part of the notion of Duty in every one of its forms, that a person may rightfully be compelled to fulfil it. Duty is a thing which may be exacted from a person, as one exacts a debt.... Reasons of prudence, or the interest of other people, may militate against actually exacting it; but the person himself, it is clearly understood, would not be entitled to complain. There are other things, on the contrary, which we wish that people should do, which we like or admire them for doing, perhaps dislike or despise them for not doing, but yet admit that they are not [45/46] bound to do; it is not a case of moral obligation; we do not blame them, that is, we do not think that they are proper objects for punishment. [Utilitarianism, 45]
Here Mill is linking the notion of morality with "punishment" or sanctions. Morality is concerned with right and wrong, with duty and obligation, and when we call an action wrong we imply that "punishment" of it, or some sort of sanction against it, would be justified. But sanctions are of different types. Legal penalties and social disapprobation are external sanctions, whereas guilt feelings, or the reproaches of one’s conscience, are internal sanctions. Lyons observes that Mill’s point here is a conceptual one about the concept of moral wrongness, and is independent of his subscription to utilita- rianism. But utilitarianism is invoked in determining when sanctions are justifiably applied, and the type of sanctions to be applied.
According to Lyons, Mill regards the internal sanction as basic.15 Hence an act is wrong when guilt feelings for it would be warranted. The application of external sanctions to wrong acts will not always be appropriate as there are additional disutilities involved. But when the stakes are high, then the use of external sanctions can be justified on utilitarian grounds. The external sanctions applied to wrong acts operate not only after the acts have been done, but also before the acts in the form of threats to discourage the acts from being committed. To discourage wrong acts, sanctions will be at- tached to coercive rules which serve to direct conduct. The external sanctions are attached to legal rules and to informal social rules which embody the conventional morality of the society. In the case of internal sanctions, the link is not directly with social rules but with a person’s conscience. The personal values, violation of which produces guilt feelings, can be conceived of as guides to conduct. But the more important way in which personal values produce directives for conduct is through their connection with the community’s moral code. The common morality is constituted by the shared personal values of its members. So the internal sanctions will, to some extent at least, be attached to the same set of rules as the external sanctions of social disapproval. Both the existence of informal social rules and their effectiveness in directing conduct depend on the widespread internalization [46/47] within the community of the relevant values ("Mill’s Theory of Morality," 108; "Human Rights and the General Welfare," 122).
Since even the internal sanctions are linked, in the way described, to social rules, it follows that if we are to show that an act is wrong, we have to show that a coercive social rule against it is justified. The justification of a coercive social rule establishes a moral obligation to act in accordance with it. In the absence of another overriding obligation, it is wrong to breach the rule.
The justification for the coercive rule must always be on utilitarian grounds. But Mill’s position, on Lyon’s interpretation, is unlike that of the act utilitarian who justifies particular acts by their utility. According to the act utilitarian, an act is wrong if, compared to all alternative acts, it does not maximize utility. In Mill’s theory of morality, on the other hand, it is not just the utility of the act which has to be taken into account. One has also to determine the utility of regulating actions of that type by means of a coercive social rule. There are therefore acts which the act utilitarian would regard as wrong, but which Mill will not.
It is also clear that there are acts which one has a moral obligation to perform even though they do not maximize utility. This is because Lyons’s account of Mill’s theory of morality makes it into a version of rule utilitarianism. But it differs from ordinary versions of rule utilitarianism in that the latter subjects only rules, and never acts directly, to the utilitarian test. In ordinary versions of rule utilitarianism, an act is right if it falls under a rule that, if generally adopted or followed, will produce maximum utility, as compared with alternative rules. But, according to Lyons, it is only Mill’s theory of morality which conforms to this rule utilitarian structure. Non-moral evaluations of conduct are made, not via their conformity to maximally useful rules, but by a direct appeal to the principle of utility.
On Lyons’s interpretation, Mill’s principle of utility does not lay down a moral requirement or obligation always to maximize utility. Like Brown, Lyons believes that the principle of utility refers to an end, happiness, in terms of which all conduct must be evaluated. Mill would prefer one act to another if it promoted greater utility or happiness. An act is regarded as "inexpedient" when it fails to maximize utility. [47/48] But an inexpedient act is not necessarily a wrong act. When the principle of utility is applied directly to acts, it does not yield a moral judgement about the acts, but rather evaluations of their expediency.
As we have noted, Lyons’s account allows for the possibility of a conflict between a requirement of morality and the end of maximizing happiness. Lyons himself raises this problem but he expresses uncertainty about how Mill would solve it. He is unsure whether Mill’s commitment to the end of happiness necessarily implies the subordination of all other values ("Mill’s Theory of Morality," 118—19). But it looks as if, even on Lyons’s own interpretation of Mill’s principle of utility, this uncertainty is misplaced. For Lyons maintains: "Mill is committed fundamentally to the end of happiness, and thereby to whatever means best serve that end" ("Mill’s Theory of Morality," 117; Lyons’s italics). The end is that of maximizing happiness. Suppose now that the best means of serving the end of maximizing happiness is to perform a morally wrong act. Surely Mill is committed to sacrificing morality in the interests of serving this end. Mill’s principle of utility is the sole ultimate principle of the Art of Life, and it must therefore be the final court of appeal in all conflicts between other principles belonging to the various departments of the Art of Life. If the principle of utility requires the maximization of happiness, then morality must give way if it hinders this ultimate end. Morality is only one generally effective means of promoting the end of maximizing happiness.
There is nothing in Mill’s analysis of the concept of morality to show that the requirements of morality must take precedence over all non-moral considerations. In any case, the question of what one should ultimately do has to be settled in the light of one’s substantive values. A conceptual analysis of the notion of moral obligation can determine only the terms in which we state what we should do; it cannot settle for us the choice between alternative courses of action. Thus we may not have a moral obligation always to maximize happiness, but from this alone it does not follow that we should not always act to maximize happiness, even when this involves the violation of our moral obligations.[48/49]
Self-Regarding Conduct and the Non-Moral Sphere
he upshot of the foregoing discussion is that even if self-regarding conduct belongs to the non-moral sphere, this is not a reason why it should always be exempted from intervention. If intervention maximizes happiness, then the utilitarian is committed to it, whether or not it can be said to be morally required, or even to be morally wrong. This crucial point cannot be avoided even if we modify Mill’s theory of morality so that there will be no conflict between moral and non-moral values. No matter how one carves out the territory between morality and the rest of the Art of Life, there can be no secure refuge from intervention for self-regarding conduct so long as Mill’s principle of utility is regarded as seeking the end of maximizing happiness, and happiness is interpreted along classical or preference utilitarian lines. I shall briefly illustrate this.
Suppose that morally obligatory acts are a sub-class of acts which maximize happiness. We may then add that "self- regarding faults" consist of failures to maximize happiness outside the morally required area. But this will not help unless the application of sanctions is restricted to failures to perform morally required acts. But why should the utilitarian accept that? If the ultimate end is to maximize happiness, then sanctions should be applied whenever it will maximize happiness to apply them, irrespective of the type of acts to which they are applied. So either we restrict the scope of morality, in which case some sanctions may be applied to non-moral acts; or else we allow morality to have the monopoly of the use of sanctions, in which case we have to extend morally required conduct to all cases where the application of sanctions will maximize happiness.
If we adopt the latter position, then we get the following theory of morality. Acts are morally wrong when it will maximize happiness to apply sanctions to them. So some acts which fail to maximize happiness are again not morally wrong. It also does not follow from this theory that only acts which fail to maximize happiness are morally wrong, for on perhaps rare occasions it may maximize happiness to apply sanctions to acts which themselves maximize utility. But [49/50] what is the difference between this revised utilitarian theory and ordinary act uiilitarianism? We have here a distinction without a practical difference.
We saw in the previous chapter that the act utilitarian distinguishes between the morality of an act and the morality of praising, or blaming, or punishing someone for the performance of the act. For example, because of the additional costs of inflicting punishment, happiness may not be maximized in a particular case by punishing someone for a wrong act. So the act utilitarian is not committed to applying sanctions to all acts that he regards as morally wrong. He will apply sanctions only when it maximizes utility to do so, and in this the practical implication of his view is exactly the same as that of revised utilitarianism. Some acts which act utilitarianism regards as wrong, the revised utilitarianism does not, but for the act utilitarian the application of sanctions is a further question. Revised utilitarianism, on the other hand, by regarding as morally wrong only acts to which the application of sanctions will maximize happiness, settles the issue of applying sanctions when it determines the act to be wrong. There is for a supporter of revised utilitarianism no further question to be raised. But on both views, sanctions are only applicable when happiness is maximized. Both doctrines will apply sanctions to exactly the same acts, and refrain from doing so on exactly the same occasions. So on both views, if applying sanctions to self-regarding conduct will maximize happiness, then it should be done. However, if it is assumed that it will never maximize happiness to interfere with self- regarding conduct, then on the revised utilitarian view, such conduct will never be wrong. In that case the act utilitarian will also support non-intervention, whether or not on his own view self-regarding conduct is morally wrong. But we have come a full circle and have to face all the same problems discussed in the previous chapter of showing that the assumption is well based. What we need, and do not have, is an argument to demonstrate that it will never maximize happiness to interfere with, or to apply sanctions to, self-regarding actions.
Last modified 15 May 2026