The falling point of utility — a utilitarian critique of Mill
November 8, 2008
Jiacui Li
Dr. Hélène Landemore
POLS0820D: Freedom
7 November 2008
Why is Mill’s defense of individuality so appealing? One reason is that he abstained from pure philosophical speculation and based his argument on utilitarian grounds. By “regard(ing) utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions” [1], he showed that individuality is not only desirable in theory, but also fruitful in practice. Compared with other abstruse theories on the same topic, Mill’s message communicates much more effectively to the masses: individualism is desirable, because it maximizes utility.
However, when approached from a completely utilitarian position, his theories are problematic. In this essay, I will first show that why Mill failed to meet truly utilitarian standards, and then introduce another way to evaluable the desirability of individualism.
For the society, free discussion – the interaction of individuality – “pushed to an extreme” [2] is far from desirable. Mill argued that the best decisions are made only “by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind”, including those with “peculiarity of taste” and “eccentricity of conduct”[3]. However, in practice, resource is scarce and we have to spend them wisely. Due to the limit of time and energy, it is simply impossible to “listen to all that could be said” until “all that the devil could say against him is known and weighed”. Under many circumstances, we have to achieve “the unity of opinion” without “the fullest and freest comparison of opposite opinions”. For an individual, critical thinking is certainly good for strengthening his “human faculties of judgment”, but it is both inefficient and unnecessary to question every established custom as Mill suggested. For the purpose of utility, we cannot consider only the benefit of outright curiosity but also the cost entailed. Thinking consumes time and energy. In reality, the life of a person is so short, his mind-power so limited, yet the world so immensely complex that he has to take many established wisdom as granted. Even philosophers – they certainly have more intelligence and more spare time – can only take into mind a sample of things, let alone ordinary people? When water is scarce, it should be directed away from inefficient uses; when time is limited, energy should be kept away from unfruitful queries. This is not to say a person shouldn’t question, but he should question with selection, and rely on dependable wisdoms – those tested laws, time-honored traditions and well-working customs are less questionable even though not unquestionable. Luckily, much of the guidance bequeathed by our predecessors is much truer than “half-truths”, and we don’t have to be over-suspicious. A historical prospective tells us, if individuals are to go further than their predecessors, they cannot afford to go over every established knowledge again. If a society is to move forward, its each generation has to stand confidently on the shoulders of their forefathers. Otherwise no progress is possible.
If utility is the truly “utmost appeal”, then individual expression is desirable only to an extent. Luckily, some insight can be derived from other disciplines. Economics – arguably the most utilitarian field of study – advises us to think at the margin. For every human action, we should examine both its marginal utility and its marginal cost; the true utility brought by the action is the former minus the latter. Obviously, it is only when the marginal utility exceeds the marginal cost does the action increase the overall good. Mill stated that every individual contributes to the overall utility, because he only considered the marginal utility in absolute terms and failed to think comparatively. For social decision making, he evaluated only the benefit of listening to one more person but not the energy it takes to do so; for individual improvement, he weighed only the gains from questioning an established custom but not the expenses. When marginal cost is also taken into account, the whole story is different.
How many individuals should the society give voice to in decision-making, and how critical should a person be? Where should the line be drawn? To answer this question, it must be first understood that the marginal utility declines in the long run. If the initial marginal utility exceeds the marginal cost, the act increases overall utility until it reaches the point where two marginal values equal each other. Let’s call such point “the falling point of utility”. Clearly, individualism does not bring benefits when “pushed to the extreme”, because it will finally cost more than it produces. Individualism increases utility only when exercised up to the falling point of utility.
Such concepts can be too abstract for people unfamiliar with economics, and I following example to be helpful. I’ve been writing for The Critical Review, a Brown University student organization that publishes reviews of undergraduate courses, based on responses from students and instructors to questionnaires [4]. I, as a writer, am supposed to read those questionnaires and weave those opinions into 250-word reviews to help future students make informed course choices. At the beginning of the process, I am usually so ignorant that every one of the first few feedbacks I read is helpful. They give me basic knowledge about the course I’m to write about. As I proceed, the more feedbacks I read, the clearer the whole picture is to me, and the less does one more feedback contribute to the whole assessment. This is to say that the marginal utility of reading feedback is declining. However, the marginal cost – my time and energy – needed to read one more questionnaire is constant if not increasing. Therefore, there must be a point when the marginal benefit of reading another survey is no longer worth the time spent on it. This process of forming opinion about a course is a model that can correspond both to the social situation and the individual case.
The other feedbacks are discarded, and reasonably so. Am I “silencing” a student’s individual expression by not reading his survey? Well, though I’m not “silencing” him de jure by forbidding him to respond, I’m surely “silencing” him de facto by not letting his voice reach anyone. No one will know what he writes, nor will a word of his be included in the final review. Mill’s argument that “every individual opinion carries utility” still holds but is not strong enough for me to read anymore. Do I lose anything by taking what I’ve got out of the questionnaires I’ve read as granted? Hardly.
Mill believes in individuality fervently and over-values it. This slight distortion may be attributed to his strong but tortuous pursuit of liberty. After all, his argument for individuality is not an end in itself, but a means to justify the protection of liberty. In On Liberty, he defended liberty by praising the supreme importance of individuality. The underlying logic is that, since individuality is so desirable, the prerequisite for its realization – personal liberty – must be desirable as well.
Having said so much, I’m not denying the importance of individuality. Individual originality was, is and will be the liveliest source of inspiration for humanity. However, a truly utilitarian examination tells us that individualism “pushed to extreme” is not the right way. As soon as a thing reaches its extremity, it reverses its course.
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References
[...] [1] Jiacui Li, “The falling point of Utility”. Available at http://eagerminds.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/the-falling-point-of-utility-a-utilitarian-critique-of-mi... [...]