Abstract

The utilitarian fallacy, most egregiously committed by J. S. Mill but perpetuated ever since, consists of supposing that “pleasure”, being a noun, is, in every true statement in which it occurs, the name of a feeling, and that “pleasant”, in any such statement, means that whatever is so described is conducive to that feeling. In fact, “pleasant” is more commonly used as a positive term of appraisal, indicating that the thing so described is liked, and usually liked for its own sake, and “pleasure” typically has a similar use. These terms thus resemble words like “awful”, “wonderful” and so on, which typically do not mean evocative of awe, wonder and so on. What follows from this is that the feeling of pleasure, while perhaps good for its own sake, is not uniquely so. Almost anything correctly described as pleasant is apt to be such. Similar observations apply to the term “happiness”. Therefore utilitarianism, according to which there is only one thing good as an end, or for its own sake - namely, pleasure or happiness - is false as a philosophical theory of ethics.