348 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

goods." This collection is the sum referred to in premise (1). This sum is a
kind of ideal or "universal" good which cannot be actualized. The conflic-
ting nature of human goods, based on the conflicting nature of human
desires, makes it conceptually or theoretically impossible for all of them to
be realized. Given the nature of human desires, the properties of the univer-
sal good cannot be instantiated.
This perhaps deviant notion of conceptual possibility should not be
confused with two other notions of possibility relevant here-logical
possibility and factual possibility. The collection of all individual goods (the
universal good) is logically possible since there is no inconsistency in the
idea that all human desires and goods could be, or could have been,
realizable. In other words, there could have been no conflicts at all. The
universal good exists in some possible worlds. The maximum happiness is
both logically and conceptually possible, but it is not factually possible.
Unlike the universal happiness, it could in principle be brought about.
However, lacks of the requisite skills, knowledge, and motivation render it
factually impossible.
The maximum happiness requires a variety of things that satisfy some
people but not others, that make some happy and others unhappy, that
please some much more than others, that perhaps satisfy some even beyond
their desires and dreams. It is that combination of partial, complete, small,
and large satisfactions that answers to the description "the greatest hap-
piness for the greatest number." This happiness cannot be composed by
adding up the separate goods of independently considered individuals. It is
not a simple sum of individual goods. Its parts are not the same as those of
the universal happiness. The crucial premise (3) is false. Mill's argument
does not show that the maximum happiness, the "second best," is a good.23
It is no doubt quite natural to think that if the universal happiness is an
(unfortunately) unobtainable good, then the obtainable good "nearest to
it" or "most like it" is a good. But Mill's argument supplies no basis for ac-
cepting this. There is, furthermore, good reason for believing that the max-
imum happiness is not always an end worthy to be pursued. Philosophers
have been quite adept at producing examples of wrong acts which are
nonetheless conducive to the maximum happiness. If the universal happi-

23 In chapter two of Utilitarianism, Mill argues that some pleasures are better than others
and more worthy as ends to be sought by human beings. This element of quality complicates
matters even further, and makes it even harder to construct the utilitarian end. If people only
desire pleasure and yet some pleasures are better than others, then what some people desire is
better than what others desire. For this further reason, one cannot construct the utilitarian end
simply by adding together all the objects of actual individual desires.

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 MILL'S ARGUMENT FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY 349

ness, inherently involving the maximal satisfaction of every human desire,

were attainable, it might be much more difficult to devise counterexamples
to utilitarianism. Many of the most frequently discussed examples involve
the frustration of some persons' desires for the sake of the production of the
maximum happiness. One plausible, if partial, explanation for the
wrongness of the acts involved is their frustration of these desires. The
wrongness of any acts conducive to the universal happiness would require a
different, perhaps much more complex, explanation. But the utilitarian is
stuck with the more easily attackable doctrine that the greatest attainable
happiness is the supreme good.
There is a further difficulty. Mill is committed to the view that the
"sole evidence" of a thing's desirability is its being desired. If the argument
for the desirability of the maximum happiness is evidence, it is obviously
not the sole evidence to which one is restricted. That argument does not
assume, nor does it purport to show, that the utilitarian end is desired. If we
are to take Mill's evidentiary claim seriously, evidence of the desirability of
the general happiness requires that it be desired. One can readily admit that
some people desire it, but surely most do not. The evidence is quite weak at
best. In any case, the argument discussed above is logically quite indepen-
dent of any of this sort of evidence.24
The maximum happiness is probably desired by only a few of those
whom Mill would have admiringly regarded as enlightened, unselfish, and
cultivated. It would not even have been enough for him to have shown that
almost no one is completely egoistic and that virtually everyone desires the
happiness of some others. The maximum happiness, not merely happiness
of others, must be desired. In view of the discussion of sanctions in chapter
three, it may be desirable to arrange a society's legal and educational struc-
ture so that persons come to desire the general happiness. Mill wanted them
to desire it, and he believed they should be encouraged to do so. The argu-
ment might be persuasive after a program of utilitarian social and educa-
tional reform has been successful in causing people to desire the utilitarian
end. But, by his own stringent criteria, Mill was prevented from showing the
desirability of such a program. Assuming that it is not desired, its desirabili-

24 It is useful to note Sidgwick's criticism: ". . . an aggregate of actual desires, each

directed toward a different part of the general happiness, does not constitute an actual desire
for the general happiness, existing in any individual . . ." and "There being no actual
desire-so far as this reasoning goes-for the general happiness, the position that the general
happiness is desirable cannot be in this way established .....Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of
Ethics (New York: Dover, 1966), p. 388.

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 350 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

ty could be established only by showing that its prospective results-in the

form of increased general happiness-are desirable. But the only basis for
that-certain requisite desires-is just what is badly lacking.

VI

These conclusions have a significant bearing on recent efforts to defend

Mill's proof. Everett W. Hall thinks the argument involves an implicit
appeal to persons' intellectual honesty and to their considered judgments
about what is good and right. On this account, the Millian position is better
than certain other ethical theories because it passes a test that
they fail: "A theory that sets up, as ends desirable in themselves (i.e., good,
not simply capable of being desired), states of affairs that nobody ever
desires, is just being academic and unrealistic."2 The test of
"psychological realism" condemns such theories. Whatever faults it may
have, Mill's discussion does maintain close connection with some actual
desires. But, one may ask, desires for what? Hall suggests that only the
principle of utility passes the test because happiness is the only thing people
ever desire. The desires to which Mill appeals are individuals' desires for
their own happiness. The theory of utility, however, sets up, as an end
desirable in itself, a state of affairs called "the maximum happiness."
Though probably not very many persons desire this, it would be surprising
if no one did. So it seems that Mill's utilitarianism will pass, if barely, Hall's
test. But it might easily fail. A collection of separate goods might fail the
test even if each of its parts passed with no difficulty. Whether the theory of
utility passes or fails, it seems clear that no part of Mill's proof would be
seriously affected. He is committed to the argument discussed in section V.
If that argument is sound, then the maximum happiness is desirable. And its
desirability is quite independent of its being desired. The desiredness of the
utilitarian end is actually irrelevant to its desirability. In view of the fact
that failing the test of psychological realism would not weaken the theory,
its passing of that test can hardly strengthen it. And if this is so, the test can-
not be used as a basis for rational preference of utilitarian theories to other
theories.
Norman Kretzmann defends Mill's position on the grounds that .... it
is strictly incredible that a thing be desired by the human majority ... and

25 Hall, p. 161. Cf. Mandelbaum, p. 231.

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 MILL's ARGUMENT FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY 351

be at the same time undesirable, or even indifferent."" Like Hall, he insists

that an ethical theory must be attentive to close connections between actual
desires and that which is desirable. Hall thinks a thing cannot be desirable if
never desired; and Kretzmann thinks a thing is desirable if desired (by the
majority). The latter seems clearly false. In any case, it fails to support the
Millian position. It is clearly conceivable, and not at all incredible, that a
human majority desire a most undesirable war-a war which contributes far
more greatly to pain and suffering than to pleasure and satisfaction. Also,
most people probably desire amounts of happiness which are considerably
smaller than the maximum happiness. Though the states of affairs con-
stituting these quantities of happiness are variously composed, these dif-
ferent objects of desire share the property of being less than the greatest at-
tainable happiness. Since a utilitarian thinks the maximum happiness to be
the supreme human good, such lesser quantities must be regarded as less
desirable, and perhaps as undesirable. So some things which are desired are
less desirable than, and undesirable as compared with, a thing which may be
desired by no one.
These lesser quantities may, of course, not be desired under the
description "less than the maximum happiness." (Certain states of affairs
are desired, they constitute certain quantities of happiness, and these quan-
tities are less than the maximum.) Conceivably, their being desired at all
might be attributable to desirers' ignorance that they fall short of the
greatest happiness. And coming to this realization may cause some to cease
to desire the quantities. Frequent, widespread changes of this sort seem
unlikely in view of human propensities to pursue self-interest. So even if the
quantities' being less than the maximum does not constitute part of the con-
tent of the original desires, these desires are very important. Their impor-
tance in the present context is dependent on two facts: (1) There would have
been desires for the lesser quantities even if they had been described as such,
and (2) Attaching such descriptions to them would not cause them to cease
to be desired. If (1) and (2) are facts, there is a significant class of objects of
desire all of whose members turn out to be less desirable than a thing (the

26 Kretzmann, p. 241. G. C. Clark poses the following rhetorical questions: "Could

something be desirable which no one ever did or will desire?" and "Could all who ever lived or
will live desire something which nevertheless is not desirable?" Such questions are answerable
in a quite straightforward way from a utilitarian point of view. The answer to the first is "Yes,
the maximum happiness." The answer to the second is "Yes, a quantity of happiness less than
the maximum." The questions are devised so as to lend support to the theory of utility, but
they offer no such support unless the answers to them are "No." ("Mill's 'Notorious
Analogy'," Journal of Philosophy, vol. 56 (1959), p. 655.)

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