Ethics Discussion Project: Applying Mill’s Utilitarianism

Return again to your case. Last time we tried to apply a simple version of act-utilitarianism. This time we will try to apply Mill’s version of utilitarianism, which seems to be a kind of rule-utilitarianism.

1. Mill supposes that, most of the time, we will be able to decide what to do by applying what he calls ‘secondary principles’. These seem to be commonly understood rules of morality like “Don’t lie”; “Don’t cheat”; “Treat others courteously”; and the like. Would one or more such rules apply to your case? Would they give a clear answer as to what to do?

2. Mill also says that sometimes more than one of these familiar principles applies, and then, if the rules tell us to do different things, we can have a difficulty, a moral dilemma. In such cases, he suggests, the principle of utility can serve as a ‘court of appeal’ – away of settling the dispute between secondary principles. Would this be helpful in your case?

3. Is there some way to bring the distinction between higher and lower pleasures into a consideration of your case?