the cambridge companion to UTILITARIANISM Utilitarianism, the approach to ethics based on the maximization of overall well-being, continues to have great traction in moral philosophy and political thought. This Companion offers a systematic exploration of its history, themes, and applications.first,ittracestheorigins and development of utilitarianism via the work of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, and others. The volume then explores issues in the formulation of utilitarianism, including act versus rule utilitarianism, actual versus expected consequences, and objective versus subjective theories of well-being. Next, utilitarianism is positioned in relation to Kantianism and virtue ethics, and the possibility of conflict between utilitarianism and fairness is considered. Finally, the volume explores the modern relevance of utilitarianism by considering its practical implications for contemporary controversies such as military conflict and global warming. The volume will be an important resource for all those studying moral philosophy, political philosophy, political theory, and the history of ideas. ben eggleston is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas. He is co-editor (with Dale E. Miller and David Weinstein) of John Stuart Mill and the Art of Life (2011). dale e. miller is Professor of Philosophy at Old Dominion University. He is author of J. S. Mill: Moral, Social and Political Thought (2010) and co-editor of Morality, Rules, and Consequences (with Brad Hooker and Elinor Mason, 2000) and John Stuart Mill and the Art of Life (with Ben Eggleston and David Weinstein, 2011).
other volumes in the series of cambridge companions ABELARD Edited by jeffrey e. brower and kevin guilfoy ADORNO Edited by thomas huhn ANCIENT SCEPTICISM Edited by richard bett ANSELM Edited by brian davies and brian leftow AQUINAS Edited by norman kretzmann and eleonore stump ARABIC PHILOSOPHY Edited by peter adamson and richard c. taylor HANNAH ARENDT Edited by dana villa ARISTOTLE Edited by jonathan barnes ARISTOTLE S POLITICS Edited by marguerite deslauriers and paul destrée ATHEISM Edited by michael martin AUGUSTINE Edited by eleonore stump and norman kretzmann BACON Edited by markku peltonen BERKELEY Edited by kenneth p. winkler BOETHIUS Edited by john marenbon BRENTANO Edited by dale jacquette CARNAP Edited by michael friedman and richard creath CONSTANT Edited by helena rosenblatt CRITICAL THEORY Edited by fred rush DARWIN 2nd edition Edited by jonathan hodge and gregory radick SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Edited by claudia card DELEUZE Edited by daniel w. smith and henry somers-hall DESCARTES Edited by john cottingham DEWEY Edited by molly cochran DUNS SCOTUS Edited by thomas williams EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY Edited by a. a. long EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY Edited by donald rutherford EPICUREANISM Edited by james warren Continued at the back of the book
The Cambridge Companion to UTILITARIANISM Edited by Ben Eggleston University of Kansas Dale E. Miller Old Dominion University
University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. Information on this title: /9781107656710 Cambridge University Press, 2014 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2014 Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data The Cambridge companion to utilitarianism / edited by Ben Eggleston, University of Kansas; Dale E. Miller, Old Dominion University. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-02013-9 (alk. paper) 1. Utilitarianism. I. Eggleston, Ben, 1971 II. Miller, Dale E., 1966 b843.c36 2014 171 0.5 dc23 2013043752 isbn 978-1-107-02013-9 Hardback isbn 978-1-107-65671-0 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
contents Notes on contributors Acknowledgments page ix xiii Introduction 1 benegglestonanddalee.miller 1 Utilitarianism before Bentham 16 colin heydt 2 Bentham and utilitarianism in the early nineteenth century 38 james e. crimmins 3 Mill and utilitarianism in the mid-nineteenth century 61 henry r. west 4 Sidgwick and utilitarianism in the late nineteenth century 81 roger crisp 5 Utilitarianism in the twentieth century 103 krister bykvist 6 Act utilitarianism 125 ben eggleston 7 Rule utilitarianism 146 dale e. miller 8 Global utilitarianism 166 julia driver vii
viii contents 9 Objectivism, subjectivism, and prospectivism 177 elinor mason 10 Subjective theories of well-being 199 chris heathwood 11 Objective theories of well-being 220 ben bradley 12 Kantian ethics and utilitarianism 239 jens timmermann 13 What virtue ethics can learn from utilitarianism 258 daniel c. russell 14 Utilitarianism and fairness 280 brad hooker 15 Utilitarianism and the ethics of war 303 william h. shaw 16 Utilitarianism and our obligations to future people 325 tim mulgan Bibliography 348 Index 373
contributors ben bradley is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Syracuse University. He is the author of Well-Being and Death (2009) and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death (2012). krister bykvist is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University, Sweden. Before taking up this professorship he was a Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Jesus College, Oxford. He is the author of No Good Fit: Why the Fitting Attitude Analysis of Value Fails (Mind, 2009), Can Unstable Preferences Provide a Stable Standard of Well-Being? (Economics and Philosophy, 2010), and Utilitarianism: A Guide for the Perplexed (2010). james e. crimmins is Professor of Political Theory at Huron University College, Western University, Canada, and Fulbright Research Chair at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, 2013 2014. His publications include Religion, Secularization and Political Thought (1989, reprinted 2013), Secular Utilitarianism (1990), Utilitarians and Religion (1998), Jeremy Bentham s Auto-Icon and Related Writings (2002), On Bentham (2004), Utilitarians and Their Critics in America 1789 1914 (with Mark G. Spencer, 4 vols., 2005), Church-of-Englandism and Its Catechism Examined in the Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (with Catherine Fuller, 2011), Utilitarian Philosophy and Politics (2011, paperback 2013), and The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism (2013). roger crisp is Uehiro Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St. Anne s College, Oxford, and Professor of Moral Philosophy at the ix
x contributors University of Oxford. He is the author of Mill on Utilitarianism (1997) and Reasons and the Good (2006). For several years, he edited Utilitas, and he is an associate editor of Ethics. He has edited the Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics (2013). julia driver is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of Uneasy Virtue (2001), Ethics: The Fundamentals (2006), and Consequentialism (2012), as well as articles in a variety of journals such as Journal of Philosophy, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Hypatia, and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. She is an associate editor of Ethics and a co-editor of Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy. ben eggleston is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas. He is the author of several articles on utilitarianism and related topics in journals such as Utilitas, Mind, and Philosophical Quarterly. He is also a co-editor, with Dale E. Miller and David Weinstein, of John Stuart Mill and the Art of Life (2011). chris heathwood is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he works mainly in theoretical ethics. He has written on well-being, the nature of pleasure, and various topics in metaethics. He also has interests in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. colin heydt is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Florida. His work focuses on the history of ethics, with special attention to seventeenth- through nineteenthcentury British thought. He is the author of Rethinking Mill s Ethics: Character and Aesthetic Education (2006) as well as chapters in edited collections and articles published in Journal of the History of Philosophy, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, History of Philosophy Quarterly, and Hume Studies. brad hooker is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading. He is the author of Ideal Code, Real World: A Ruleconsequentialist Theory of Morality (2000) and a co-editor (with Dale E. Miller and Elinor Mason) of Morality, Rules, and Consequences (2000). His paper Fairness appeared in Ethical
contributors xi Theory and Moral Practice (2005) and his Fairness, Needs, and Desert appeared in M. H. Kramer, C. Grant, B. Colburn, and A. Hatzistavrou (eds.), The Legacy of H. L. A. Hart (2008). elinor mason is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. She is a co-editor (with Brad Hooker and Dale E. Miller) of Morality, Rules, and Consequences (2000), and her work has appeared in numerous journals including American Philosophical Quarterly, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Ethics, Philosophical Studies, and Utilitas. dale e. miller is Professor of Philosophy at Old Dominion University. He is the author of J. S. Mill: Moral, Social and Political Thought (2010). He is also a co-editor of Morality, Rules, and Consequences (with Brad Hooker and Elinor Mason, 2000) and John Stuart Mill and the Art of Life (with Ben Eggleston and David Weinstein, 2011). tim mulgan is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, and Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of The Demands of Consequentialism (2001), Future People (2006), Understanding Utilitarianism (2007), and Ethics for a Broken World (2011). daniel c. russell is Professor of Philosophy in the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom at the University of Arizona, and the Percy Seymour Reader in Ancient History and Philosophy at Ormond College, University of Melbourne. His research focuses on ancient and contemporary ethics. He is the author of Plato on Pleasure and the Good Life (2005), Practical Intelligence and the Virtues (2009), and Happiness for Humans (2012), and the editor of the Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics (2013). william h. shaw is Professor of Philosophy at San Jose State University. In addition to essays in various professional journals, he is the author of Marx s Theory of History (1980), Moore on Right and Wrong (1995), Contemporary Ethics: Taking Account of Utilitarianism (1999), Business Ethics (8th edn., 2013), and Moral Issues in Business (with Vincent Barry, 12th edn., 2012). He has
xii contributors edited or co-edited six books, including G. E. Moore s Ethics (2005), Philosophy of Law (5th edn., 2009), and Social and Personal Ethics (7th edn., 2012). jens timmermann is Reader in Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Sittengesetz und Freiheit (2003) and of Kant s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals : A Commentary (2007). He is the editor of, inter alia, Kant s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals : A Critical Guide (2009), Kant s Critique of Practical Reason : A Critical Guide (jointly with Andrews Reath, 2010), and the first German English edition of Kant s Groundwork (2011). henry r. west is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Macalester College, USA. His recent works on John Stuart Mill and utilitarianism include An Introduction to Mill s Utilitarian Ethics (2004); editor, Blackwell Guide to Mill s Utilitarianism (2006); Mill s Utilitarianism: A Reader s Guide (2007); John Stuart Mill [Addendum], in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (2nd edn., 2006); Mill s Case for Liberty, in Mill s On Liberty: A Critical Guide (2008); John Stuart Mill, in the Routledge Companion to Ethics (2010); Mill and Rawls, in Mill on Justice (2012); J. S. Mill, in the Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics (2013); and Utilitarianism, in the International Encyclopedia of Ethics (2013).
acknowledgments We would like to thank all of the authors who have written chapters for this book. We appreciate not only their initial contributions, which were very skillfully done, but also their patience with an intensive editing process through which we tried to make the final manuscript as clear and accessible as possible. We would also like to thank Hilary Gaskin and Anna Lowe, of Cambridge University Press, for their support of this book and their guidance through the production of it. Finally, we would like to thank Monica Shafii, a student at the University of Kansas, for her assistance with the checking and compilation of the bibliography entries; Robert Vinten, for his assistance with the compilation of the index; the College of Arts and Letters at Old Dominion University, for subsidizing Vinten s work; and Martin Barr, for his conscientious copy-editing. xiii