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John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism and the social ethics of sustainable

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Article  in  European Journal of the History of Economic Thought · September 1997

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M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PAGE 1

Abstract
John Stuart Mill's
Utilitarianism This paper considers the writings of John Stuart
and the Mill in political philosophy and political economy as
a prototype for ideals of a "sustainable
Social Ethics of development" grounded in a norm of justice and
social solidarity.
Sustainable Development
Mill's conception of a just "stationary state" of
society is examined alongside his attempts to
reconcile precepts of non-interference (individual
freedom) and private property, with the constraints
© MARTIN O'CONNOR and obligations of social, economic, and ecological
Professeur en Sciences Economiques coexistence.
It is shown that notwithstanding vacillations, Mill
CENTRE INTERNATIONAL REEDS, UNIVERSITE
ends up espousing an ethical norm of reciprocity
DE VERSAILLES ST QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES
and solidarity that is quite different from the
(UVSQ) RAMBOUILLET, FRANCE premise of self-interest axiomatised in most
economic models of competitive market
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE : economies.

Martin.O-Connor@reeds.uvsq.fr These intuitions about a duty of care

complementary to the non-interference principle,
when systematised, are shown to find a new
contemporary application to questions of economic
justice and environmental sustainability.

Table of Contents NOTE: This document is a slightly abridged

version of the paper published under the
Table of Contents ..................................................... 1 same title, "J.S. MILL’S UTILITARIANISM AND THE
Abstract ..................................................................... 1 SOCIAL ETHICS OF SUSTAINABLE
1. John Stuart Mill and the paradigm of DEVELOPMENT", THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF
"sustainable development" ..................................... 2 THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT, 4(3),
PP.478-506, 1997. It reflects thus the state of
2. Sustainable development and inter-temporal
solidarity .................................................................... 2 the literature at the time of writing (1995).
3. John Stuart Mill's ideal (stationary-state) No attempt has been made to update the
society........................................................................ 4 paper; however the List of References has
4. Liberty, individuality and solidarity (in a been amended to correct small errors and to
civilised society) ....................................................... 6 specify the published versions of papers
5. Individuality and reciprocity: the Hegelian and articles not yet in print when the paper
critique of utilitarianism ......................................... 10 was submitted in 1995.
6. From an ethic of solidarity to policies for A French version, whose argument is
sustainability ........................................................... 11
substantially the same, was published as
7. Acknowledgements ........................................... 12 O’CONNOR M., "LA RECIPROCITE INTROUVABLE :
8. References.......................................................... 13 L'UTILITARISME DE JOHN STUART MILL ET LA
9. Notes ................................................................... 15 RECHERCHE D'UNE ETHIQUE POUR LA
SOUTENABILITE" ECONOMIE APPLIQUEE 48 (2),
PP. 273-305, 1995.
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
1. John Stuart Mill and the paradigm
of "sustainable development"
The writings of John Stuart Mill in political
philosophy and political economy constitute a
sophisticated attempt to furnish a libertarian principle as
the cornerstone of a just and progressive
social/economic order. For Mill this ideal society is,
broadly speaking, an economic "stationary state", of a
society whose ethics and politics are informed by a
mature appreciation and practice of utilitarian principles.
And these principles are, he further proposes, grounded
in some fundamental laws or characteristics of human
nature. So, as was argued more than 20 years ago by
Herman Daly (1973), Mill provides, in the synthesis of
his writings, a sort of prototype of the ideals of a
"sustainable development" grounded in a norm of justice
and solidarity embracing all of humanity.
Ethics and economics have never entirely
gotten divorced from each other (see Sen 1987); and
questions of ethics and the environment, and of
intergenerational fairness in particular, have been
canvassed extensively over the past two decades (see
Page 1977, 1991; Howarth 1994, 1997; Faucheux &
O’Connor (eds) 1997; and Brown Weiss 1989 for
indicative references). Yet newer is not necessarily
better. Most of the founding contributors to political
economy, from Mandeville to Marx, were at pains to
elucidate ethical pre-requisites for the good (or bad)
functioning of the emerging liberal-capitalist economies.
In this age of rapid obsolescence (and also post-
modern nostalgia for all things lost) we can benefit from
reconsidering contemporary preoccupations in historical
1
perspective. The object of this paper is to show is that
John Stuart Mill (and, as it happens, also Hegel before
him) anticipated cogently some of the key contradictions
in the vision of a liberal society founded on self-
interested utilitarian principles. Mill's work is particularly
pertinent to contemporary problems of the environment
and public policy because he addressed at length the
problem of how to reconcile ethical norms of individual
freedom with requirements of social solidarity in a finite
(planetary) living space. He provides a much more
sophisticated "libertarianism" than one finds in, for
example, the axiomatic normative formulations of
"market-led" social change, minimalist government, and
entrepreneurial-consumer sovereignty of the Austrian
and Chicago Schools of economics. Moreover his
discursive, yet clear, style of argumentation furnishes an
antidote to the mathematical axiomatisation that has
become de rigeur in much of the "social choice theory"
of today.
So, by reconsidering how Mill sought to salvage
a just yet liberal society out of the rudeness and
excesses of 19th century capitalism, we can get some
insights into the problem of whether, and on what basis,
the collective social objectives of distributional justice
and of economic and ecological sustainability, might be
PAGE 2
reconcilable with norms of freedom and "self-interest" so
much valorised in the West.
Section 2 gives a brief recapitulation of the
emergence, since the 1960s, of the environmental crisis
as a problem of inter-temporal distributional justice or of
social and economic solidarity.
Section 3 outlines Mill's conception of a just
"stationary state" of society as he articulates it in his
Principles of Political Economy
Section 4 examines his attempts to reconcile
his favoured precepts of non-interference (individual
freedom) and private property, with the constraints and
obligations of social, economic, and ecological
coexistence. It is shown that he ends up, especially in
his final essay on Utilitarianism (written in 1861),
espousing an ethical norm of reciprocity and solidarity
that is fundamentally different from the premise of self-
interest axiomatised in most economic models of
competitive market economies.
Section 5 discusses critically some of the
lacunae of Mill's theory of justice and solidarity,
particularly relating to his conception of reciprocity in a
utilitarian society.
Section 6 concludes by showing how his
intuitions about a duty of care complementary to the
non-interference principle, may be fleshed out in
application to contemporary questions of economic
justice and environmental sustainability.
2. Sustainable development
and inter-temporal solidarity
Human concern for degradation of the living
environment is not a new phenomenon, nor peculiar to
Western industrial economies. However, the form taken
by "environmental crisis" is distinctive in each society,
for reasons of culture, technology and scale. The
contemporary environmental crisis is, increasingly,
recognised as "global" in character and as distinctively
associated with the dynamism of the West. Today's
"problems of the environment" arise primarily in the
context of the expansion, on a world scale, of industrial
production, mass-commodity-consumption, and various
forms of rapid transport and telecommunication. The
1960s saw a growing agitation across the affluent North
countries at the poisoning of urban and rural habitats
occasioned by economic growth and consumerism.
This "habitat" and quality-of-life concern was overtaken
in the 1970s by the oil-supply "energy crisis," and
related preoccupations with natural resource depletion.
People of the South countries, meanwhile, were
mounting wide-ranging protests at the depredation of
their natural resource base (including renewable
sources such as fisheries and forests as well as mineral
wealth) -- a sort of "ecological unequal exchange" that
has helped fuel economic growth in the North without
distributing very fairly the so-called gains-from-trade.
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PAGE 3

The 1990s look to be the decade of "global ecology" achieving an "optimal [ = Pareto-efficient] use of scarce
issues, partly because of the planetary proportions of resources" (cf. the widely used text by Pearce & Turner
some of the ecological impacts (climate change, ozone 1990). However, while allocative efficiency may
layer depletion, accumulation of metal toxins, nuclear generally speaking be desirable, the primary issues are
waste disposal, etc.), and also because of the inter- distributional in character. What is the appropriate
nationalisation of the politics of the environment as distribution of "rights" to use of the environment --
epitomised by the UNCED Rio de Janeiro Conference in between rich and poor; between present and future;
2
1992 and the wrangles over the greening of the GATT. between tribal versus industrial users; for subsistence
versus exports; and so on? Such questions must,
The question of economic and ecological
strictly speaking, be addressed prior to efforts to
sustainability poses major challenges to the established
improve social efficiency of resource use, because
economic analysis traditions, and also to political
"correct" resource and environmental amenity valuation
institutions for the resolution of conflicts associated with
-- that is, assessment of the opportunity costs on-the-
management of the environment as a scarce and
margin -- will, according to established theory, depend
contested domain. In this respect, the contemporary
significantly on the assumptions made about "rights" or
environmental problems represent not only a major
"endowment" distribution (for example the rights of
economic crisis of raw materials and services supply,
indigenous social groups to maintain a viable natural
but also a new crisis of legitimacy for the market system
resource base outside of the monetary economy, and
and for liberal political philosophy.
the interests of future generations who are not
3
The challenges to economic analysis may be represented in today's marketplaces).
understood as relating to the requirement of
In the economics literature, the environmental
internalisation of a domain which had, until recently,
and economic sustainability objective is usually stated
axiomatically been excluded from the scope of
as an objective of ensuring that the needs or interests of
economic value theory. Recall, for example, what David
"future generations" are, in some sense of the words,
Ricardo wrote at the beginning of the 19th century, 4
fairly or adequately provided for. In this respect,
describing (Ricardo 1951, p.69) not only the
sustainability embodies a normative criterion of inter-
"indestructible" powers of the land but also the
generational equity of access to natural resources,
abundance of nature's free gifts. "The brewer, the
environmental amenity, and life-support services (cf.
distiller, the dyer," he said, "make incessant use of their
Page 1997, 1991; Daly 1989, 1992; Faucheux, Muir &
air and water for the production of their commodities;
O’Connor 1997; Howarth 1994, 1997; Norgaard &
but as the supply is boundless, they bear no price."
Howarth 1991; Howarth & Norgaard 1993; Marini &
Modern price theory has been constructed on the
Scaramozzini 1996; Pezzey 1997). There exist very
foundation of this axiomatic free-gift/free-disposal
real scientific difficulties in trying to give reliable
assumption (see Perrings 1987; O'Connor 1993a,
quantitative estimates of the sorts of "trade-offs"
1994b, 1996). But it is no longer remotely plausible to
involved in pursuing this goal, in view of ecosystem
treat the raw materials and "services" -- source, site,
complexities and uncertainties of many sorts. The
scenery, and sink -- furnished by nature as
challenges posed at the level of political process,
indestructible and/or non-scarce.
decisionmaking, and institutions for conflict resolution,
This requirement for "internalisation" may be are even greater.
considered in both political and economic dimensions.
In particular, the question arises of the extent to
The political dimension refers to the need for institutional
which collective social objectives of equity and
mechanisms for resolution of conflicts over access to
environmental sustainability -- which must be expressed
raw materials and environmental services generally (see
not just locally but also at the level of whole societies
for example Opschoor & van der Straaten 1993; van
and of the international community as a whole -- can be
der Straaten 1997; Dragun & O'Connor 1993; O’Connor
reconciled with norms of freedom and "self-interest"
1997). This requirement at the political level will be the
widely valorised in the West. This is an old question of
underlying theme of this paper. Economists, however,
individual rights and duties, virtue and vice, licence and
have typically approached the problem of
public order, that has preoccupied Western political
"internalisation" in terms of the idea of "correct prices"
philosophy for many centuries. The widespread appeal
for environmental goods and services reflecting the
of the modern "market economy" lies in the freedoms it
opportunity costs of their use. For example, exploitation
provides for individual choices, wealth accumulation,
of a natural resource today implies a reduction in what is
entrepreneurship, and innovation. But in the
or might be available for use tomorrow. Similarly,
sustainability context, this is also liberty to withhold or
destruction of a habitat or of life-support functions of an
withdraw from the legacy to the future without giving
ecosystem through pollution discharges, whether on a
anything back -- except perhaps piles of toxic wastes
global or on a local scale, impairs the capacity of that
(see Catton 1989; O'Connor 1993b, 1994b).
ecosystem to deliver services such as amenity, clean air
and water, and thriving plant and animal populations into The argument in this paper will be that
the future. Thus, the future generations' access to achieving sustainability would depend on resource
environmental sources of well-being is neither management choices made on behalf of future
"exogenously given" nor indestructible. Economists will generations, investments whose payoff is diffusely
often speak, in this sort of context, of the importance of distributed into the future. The delivery of such benefits
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
requires conscious policy action. It cannot be expected
as an outcome of competitive markets, partly because
the benefits are diffusely distributed (and hence hard to
quantify as well as hard to capture payment for), but
more particularly because under competitive pressures
there are strong commercial incentives to engage in
"beggar the future" behaviour in order to reduce costs
(and thus improve cash flow or profitability) or augment
individual benefits in the present. The idea of market
prices supporting an intertemporal efficient resource
allocation depends on the "internalisation" of all costs
and benefits by actors in the marketplace. This
presumes (inter alia) the existence of markets allowing
trades of all goods and use rights amongst all
consumers/owners. For the timescales, resources, and
effects of relevance to environmental sustainability,
supposing we were to accord future generations some
"property rights," real markets linking the future to the
now cannot exist. If we accept that future generations
do have an "interest" in present-day resource use even
though these interested parties do not bid in markets
today, then the onus is on us, the present generation, to
make purposeful provision for those to come. The
question we ask here, taking impetus from John Stuart
Mill, is how such an ethical commitment can be framed
and given practical expression within an avowedly
"liberal" type of society.
3. John Stuart Mill's ideal
(stationary-state) society
John Stuart Mill's writings can be understood as,
in part, an elaborate apology for "the private property
system" and the freedoms of the individual, in reaction
to some currents in 19th century socialism. In his guise
as a social philosopher, he expounds a clear view of the
underlying ethical precepts for governance and
5
institutional arrangements in a just society. But his
notion of legitimate freedoms is complex, and requires
careful interpretation. What will interest us first is how
Mill portrays the material (economic) basis for his
"liberal" society, and why he falls upon the notion of a
"stationary state" economy. Following from that, we will
look more closely at the ethical underpinnings of this
ideal.
At the economic level, the institution of private
property consists, says Mill (PPE, p.219), in "the
recognition, in each person, of a right to the exclusive
disposal of what he or she have produced by their own
exertions, or received either by gift or by fair agreement,
without force or fraud, by those who produced it." On
this point Mill is close to his English precursor John
6
Locke, in proposing that: "The foundation of the whole
is in the right of producers to what they themselves have
produced" (ibid.) On the other hand, in reality the
prevailing social arrangements throughout the world are
arbitrary and unjust. So, Mill says (ibid., pp.201-202), "If
private property were adopted, we must presume that it
would be accompanied by none of the initial inequalities
PAGE 4
and injustices" of existing societies. The ideal would be
that a division deemed equitable be made, and
thereafter "individuals would be left to their own
exertions and to the ordinary chances, for making an
advantageous use of what was assigned to them"
(ibid.). Moreover, even if the legitimacy of a system of
private property hinges on "that equitable principle, of
proportion between remuneration and exertion" (ibid.,
p.209), this is not an end in itself. Rather, proposes Mill
(ibid., p.210), it has merely an instrumental justification
in relation to the desire for individual liberty:
"After the means of subsistence are
assured, the next in strength of the
personal wants of human beings is
liberty; and (unlike the physical wants,
which as civilization advances become
more moderate and more amenable to
control) it increases instead of
diminishing in intensity as the
intelligence and the moral faculties are
more developed."
From this, it follows that the proper goal of
public policy and institutional design is the research of
"the greatest amount of human liberty and spontaneity"
(ibid.):
"The perfection both of social
arrangements and of practical morality
would be, to secure to all persons
complete independence and freedom
of action, subject to no restriction but
that of not doing injury to others: and
the education which taught or the
social institutions which required them
to exchange the control of their own
actions for any amount of comfort or
affluence, or to renounce liberty for the
sake of equality, would deprive them of
one of the most elevated
characteristics of human nature."
Similarly, in the introductory paragraphs of his
later essay On Liberty (1859, p.135), he asserts the
principle:
" .... that the sole end for which
mankind are warranted, individually or
collectively, in interfering with the
liberty of action of any member of their
number, is self-protection. That the
only purpose for which power can be
rightfully exercised over any member of
a civilized community, against his will,
is to prevent harm to others. His own
good, either physical or moral, is not a
sufficient warrant. .... The only part of
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
the conduct of any one, for which he is
amenable to society, is that which
concerns others. In the part which
merely concerns himself, his
independence is, of course, of right
absolute. Over himself, over his own
body and mind, the individual is
7
sovereign."
Achieving this ideal is not easy. First of all, the
possibility of "non-interference" between independent
economic agents in Mill's private property-based liberal
society presumes the existence of a controllable and
exploitable external domain of nature. In this respect
Mill is squarely in the Enlightenment tradition: the
continual development of new technologies and
scientific knowledge will ensure the progressive mastery
of nature, which will allow the possibility of Pareto-
improvements through time, namely that one man's
obtaining of further improvements/property need not be
at the direct expense of another's interests. Building on
this mastery premise, the non-interference precept
expressly stipulates not an absolute "right" over private
property, but rather the freedoms of use and of
expression subject to the obligation of avoidance of
significant injury occasioned to one individual in the
course of another's activity. Social progress is
8
conceived in these terms.
In effect, Mill (as Locke before him: see
Leclercq 1985), inveighs against delinquancy of both
nature and human nature, and exhorts the progressive
institution, in and by society, of the moral good (justice)
grounded in an "improved" and subservient nature and a
"perfected" human nature. But standing in the way of
this idea is the problem, clearly foreshadowed by
Thomas Hobbes (1651), of inter-personal and inter-
society conflicts in the face of material scarcity. These
are, in modern terminology, the difficulties of: (1)
exhaustion and/or monopolisation of access to scarce
natural capital (what Mill refers to as the "common
heritage of all mankind") meaning likely inequities in
access to the finite "free gifts of nature"; (2) spillover
effects from one appropriation, production, or
consumption activity on another; and (3) the
distributional conflicts that come as part and parcel of
these resource control and externality resolution issues.
Mill's attempted resolution of these difficulties is
located at the ethical rather than technical level, and this
is what makes his thought on the matter still interesting
today. In particular, he develops a vision of the human
individual as object of personal cultivation, proposing
that it is only through recourse to this dimension of
"inner development" of the human individual that society
can ensure justice for all notwithstanding the constraints
imposed by material scarcity.
At various points in the PPE , Mill looks at limits
and qualifications to the proper domain of private
property and its use. The most striking is in regard to
land, which for Mill is not just a factor of production but
also a natural presence having aesthetic significance
PAGE 5
alongside its productive powers. This rich view of the
land must be kept in mind when we read, for example
(PPE , pp.229-230):
"The essential principle of property
being to assure to all persons what
they have produced by their labour and
accumulated by their abstinence, this
principle cannot apply to what is not the
produce of labour, the raw material of
the earth."
For this reason,
"When the `sacredness of property' is
talked of, it should always be
remembered, that any such
sacredness does not belong in the
same degree to landed property. No
man made the land. It is the original
inheritance of the whole species.
When private property in land is not
expedient, it is unjust. It is no hardship
to any one to be excluded from what
others have produced : they were not
bound to produce it for his use, and he
loses nothing by not sharing in what
otherwise would not have existed at all.
But it is some hardship to be born into
the world and to find all nature's gifts
previously engrossed, and no place left
for the newcomer...."
On the one hand, security in the rights to use of
land, and compensation in the event of expropriation,
should take account of the fact that "though land is not
the produce of industry, most of its valuable qualities are
so" (PPE, p.230). But on the other hand, "from the very
nature of the case, whoever owns land, keeps others
out of the enjoyment of it" (PPE, p.235). What is the fair
resolution of this antinomy? Mill doesn't give a full
answer. His own suggestion of making an equitable re-
distribution of land -- as a "new start" for society -- would
imply either finding a substantial new domain of non-
appropriated territory, or the repudiation of pre-existing
property rights and privileges. More significantly, the
question of justice in access resurfaces with the
appearance of every newcomer and every new
generation, inasmuch as they make new claims on the
society's wealth base.
The scarcity and newcomer problems are
partially addressed by Mill through his theory of a
desirable population control and of the economic
stationary state. It is this conception which has inspired
many "sustainability" theorists, notably Herman Daly
(1973). Mill arrives upon his ideal of the "stationary
state" through an estimation of where, ultimately, the
"progress of social improvement" is destined to take
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
humankind. In Book IV of the PPE (pp.695-792) he lays
out his attempt at a "Dynamics" or a "theory of motion"
to complement the statical mode of analysis of the bulk
of his political economy. This is presented as an
enquiry into the "ultimate tendencies" of the various
"progressive changes" visible in the society around him.
The most evident amongst the tendencies identified by
Mill is: (1) "a progress in wealth; and advancement of
what is called material prosperity"; and this in turn is a
product of two others: (2) "the perpetual, and so far as
human foresight can extend, the unlimited, growth of
man's power over nature"; and (3) "a continual increase
in the security of person and property." The effect of
the two latter is to bring about "a great increase of
production and of accumulation" (PPE, pp.695-699).
However, says Mill (ibid.), the translation of this
accumulation into general prosperity is menaced by a
countervailing tendency that is "as long continued, as
indefinite, and possibly even as rapid" as the first:
(4) that for population to increase.
Here Mill calls upon social good sense -- in
particular the "cultivated intelligence" -- to save (human)
nature from its own worst nature. He admits on the one
hand that the "stationary state .... itself flies before us"
under the impetus of improvements in the productive
arts and through "overflow of capital .... into the
uncultivated and ill-cultivated regions of the earth," and
that there remains room in the world still "for a great
increase of population, supposing the arts of life to go
on improving, and capital to increase" (PPE,
pp.746-751). Yet, he insists (ibid.), saturation of the
globe with people, even if well-fed, would be a world
"from which solitude is extirpated" and "with nothing left
to the spontaneous activity of nature." In other words,
Mill cherishes what later generations of scholars and
environmentalists will call wilderness and existence
values. Population and production growth will,
increasingly, bring social and environmental costs; so
what is desirable is a society that would "be content to
be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it."
For this state, he insists, is in another and more
important respect not stationary at all, but one
compatible with the flowering of that most precious of
values, the liberty of the individual. The best state of
society is (ibid.):
"that in which, while no one is poor, no
one desires to be richer, nor has any
reason to fear being thrust back by the
efforts of others to push themselves
forward."
And from there,
"There would be as much scope as
ever for all kinds of mental culture, and
moral and social progress; as much
room for improving the Art of Living,
and much more likelihood of its being
PAGE 6
improved, when minds ceased to be
engrossed by the art of getting on...."
This vision of the economic stationary state
constitutes the means by which Mill seeks to reconcile
his view of social progress and individual liberty, with the
constraining factor of finite material basis for economic
production activity. The key ingredient for achievement
of this best of possible worlds will be the self-regulation
exercised by the members of the society. Each
individual will abstain from excessive production of
population and also from competitive pursuit of material
wealth -- practices which, in their accumulation, tend to
menace the security of everyone.
The avowed ideal, thus, is to allow the
"individual" to prosper in the full expression of "human
liberty and spontaneity". Yet this freedom of the
individual is paradoxical, because it depends on having
the respect by all participants in society, of the same
basic ground rules. The benefits of the stationary state
cum liberal order will be realised only if the same self-
regulating behaviour is adopted by all (or, at least, the
great majority). There are, in other words, "spillover
benefits" from self-regulating behaviour, and "increasing
returns to scale" when such behaviour becomes
sufficiently widespread. But conversely, adoption of
self-regulating behaviour by a single individual depends
on a sort of "higher" motivation to self-improvement
which may bring little or no material reward to that
individual. Mill leaves himself here with a dilemma --
one that we can see echoed today in debates over
national sovereignty, over the "right to cultural
difference," over the relative merits of democratic/liberal
versus authoritarian versus ethnic autonomy
approaches to Third World societies' development, and
over the authority for pursuit of global environmental
sustainability goals. To what extent can the pursuit of a
supposed social progress (for example, environmental
sustainability defined by some criterion), be a warrant
for cutting across individuals' and collectivities' own
notions of what is right and acceptable, in favour of a
privileged notion of the greater good of humanity
(present and future)?
Mill himself manages to resolve this
contradiction only partially, after a tortuous passage that
culminates in the formulation of his "Happiness Morality"
in the essay Utilitarianism. But although he leaves
various questions unanswered, the issues he raises
point clearly towards the nature of a solution that may
be proposed.
4. Liberty, individuality and solidarity
(in a civilised society)
Any appraisal of Mill's political philosophy and
normative theory of the just society must offer a view on
the adequacy (or not) of his "non-interference principle"
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
as a precept of right action and governance. A first
concern is that the category over which this principle
provides specific and positive guidance -- defining
absolute liberty with regard to what Richard Wollheim
(1973) terms purely self-regarding actions -- is relatively
negligible. As summarised by Wollheim (1973, pp.3-4),
this is the argument that: "Every action that occurs
within a society and rises at all above the level of
triviality is bound to impinge upon other members of that
society," so that "the only actions that are
unconditionally exempt from the jurisdiction of the state
are of the order of brushing one's teeth". In this view,
Mill's demarcation of actions that concern "the individual
only" hardly serves any purpose, and further precepts
would have to be advanced to protect the individual from
possible encroachment by others or by the state. A
second concern, thus, is that even if significant content
can be given to the "self-regarding" category, Mill's non-
interference principle furnishes no positive guidance as
to appropriate manners of resolving conflicts of interest
9
in the matter of "other-regarding actions".
The same difficulties are encountered today
with regard to current environmental externality and
sustainability debates -- that is, with the respective
problems (i) of spillover damages on the environmental
"commons" at local as well as global levels; and (ii) of
providing for the needs of future generations. In both
cases, in one way or another the welfare of others is
partially in "our" hands, meaning that resource use
choices involve, in the first instance, decisions about
(re)distribution that are not solvable in terms of a "non-
interference" precept.
It seems that only reluctantly did Mill admit the
need for some sort of generic precepts complementary
to his non-interference principle. But there is no doubt
that he does admit it. His reluctance to enunciate
systematically these complementary precepts -- of, as
we will see, solidarity and care -- was perhaps partly
due to his awareness of the ease with which they could
be perverted for paternalistic, sectarian, or totalitarian
motivations. Perhaps he was hesitating, feeling his way,
a sorrt of tatonnement. At any rate, his method of
exposition is rather subtle, often to the point of being
Jesuitical and ambiguous. What we find throughout his
writings is that a principle is enunciated in seeming
purity, but then qualified in a manner that wholly
changes the principle's real meaning.
For example, Mill persistently complements his
non-interference principle by a normative theory of
moral progress in society. It moreover becomes clear in
reading his work (and it was clear enough to Mill
himself) that this normative moral theory needs also to
be expressed as the level of specific public policy and
governance mechanisms for resolving distributional
conflicts as they emerged. So in effect, Mill gives a
normative perspective in which one might conduct
institutional analysis (norms of solidarity, respect, and
reciprocity, as we will see), even though he does not
offer much himself in the way of practical institutional
design.
First, let us recall what he has to say in the PPE
PAGE 7
Book V, Chapter XI, on "the Grounds and Limits of the
Laisser-Faire or Non-interference Principle". Here he
refers (PPE, p.943) to "a part of the life of every person
who has come to years of discretion, within which the
individuality of that person ought to reign uncontrolled
either by any other individual or by the public
collectively". This autonomous domain, he says (ibid.),
".... ought to include all that part which
concerns only the life, whether inward
or outward, of the individual, and does
not affect the interests of others, or
affects them only through the moral
influence of example."
We see the line being drawn, with the
acceptance of "the moral influence of example" as a
legitimate impact made upon others. Similarly, as he
later asserts in the essay On Liberty (p.205), proper
conduct in society "consists, first, in not injuring the
interests of one another;" with the quid pro quo of,
second, "each person's bearing his share (to be fixed on
some equitable principle) of the labours and sacrifices
incurred for defending the society or its members from
injury and molestation".
And again, in the PPE (p.977), he proposes that
"anything which it is desirable should be done for the
general interests of mankind or of future generations, or
for the present interests of those members of the
community who require external aid [the indigent, sick,
etc.], but which is not of a nature to remunerate
individuals or associations for undertaking it, is in itself a
suitable thing to be undertaken by government". Yet the
legitimacy of fiscal measures needed for implementing
this sort of policy, would have to arise through
consensus and "moral influence," since elsewhere in the
same work he insists, "the only cases in which
government agency involves nothing of a compulsory
nature, are the rare cases in which, without any artificial
monopoly, it pays its own expenses" (PPE, p.944).
Finally, as we have already seen, a similar
vacillation is evident with respect to land, and more
particularly "the function of the law in defining property"
(PPE, p.797). This, says Mill, is by no means a simple
thing to solve:
"It may be imagined, perhaps, that the
law has only to declare and protect the
right of every one to what he has
himself produced, or acquired by the
voluntary consent, fairly obtained, of
those who produced it. But is there
nothing recognized as property except
what has been produced? Is there not
the earth itself, its forests and waters,
and all other natural riches, above and
below the surface? These are the
inheritance of the human race, and
there must be regulations for the
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
common enjoyment of it. What rights,
and under what conditions, a person
shall be allowed to exercise over any
portion of this common inheritance
cannot be left undecided. No function
of government is less optional than the
regulation of these things, or more
completely involved in the idea of
civilized society."
Examples of contemporary environmental
externalities range from heavy metal contamination of
rivers and fish, up to the scale of climate change and
ozone layer destruction. Such «spillover effects» are
associated with all sectors of raw materials extraction,
industrial production, waste-disposal, or other
exploitative land-use. They evidently aggravate the
distributional problems having to be resolved by function
of government. Mill comments elsewhere (PPE, p.697)
that, with the progress of civilised society, "Even the
vicissitudes of fortune which arise from inevitable natural
calamities, are more and more softened to those on
whom they fall, by the continual extension of the
salutary practice of insurance". However, insurance can
function in this way only as long as the individual "risks"
remain modest relative to society's wealth -- meaning
that there remains a solvent party against which the
individual claims can be brought. When the
viccissitudes are of the order of acid rain, radioactive
material spillages, runaway genetic experiments, and
global atmospheric perturbations, the principle of self-
insurance by any given social group runs up against
manifest limits. So, to repeat: How may the recognition
of environmental scarcity and of intimate social and
ecological interdependence be reconciled, in the
envisaged "stationary state," with the paramount value
of individual liberty and a notion of economic justice?
"No function of government is less optional than the
regulation of these things, or more completely involved
in the idea of civilized society."
A related problem of fairness arises in the
context of damage or benefit to an individual's economic
opportunities mediated through the price system.
Suppose that, as a result of other individuals' self-
improvement or changes in tastes, an individual
experiences a drop-off in the commerce formerly
obtained with those individuals, the benefits of which are
pecuniary. Mill would not allow that an injured individual
has any redress over another's changes in tastes, but
he cannot deny that such reduction in opportunity may
10
very often occur. The marketplace as the privileged
nexus of voluntary transactions, indeed imposes a set of
constraints and pressures on each individual, and in this
respect functions as what Warren Samuels (1992)
describes as a "system of mutual coercion". The forlorn
individual has simply to seek new opportunities for
insertion into the web of transactions, through change in
vocation, through innovation, or an effort at improved
public relations. The risk of being left out thus exerts a
real pressure to conformity with "what the market
demands". The questions to be asked in this instance
PAGE 8
are: To what extent does such an obligation of
adaptation constitute an infringement of individuality?
To what extent is it necessary to have a collective
(government) resolution to ensure "fair" provision or
redistribution of economic opportunity across society as
circumstances change?
Sometimes in reading confirmed 20th century
libertarians, especially of Austrian subjectivist
persuasion, one gets the impression that a true blue
libertarian will choose death by starvation rather than to
renounce his [sic] absolute "freedom to choose". This is
an interestingly agonistic sentiment. However Mill's
solution is rather different. In his last major works On
Liberty and Utilitarianism, we find a valiant attempt to
resolve the problem of reconciling the "free" individual
within the social whole. Alongside re-assertions of the
primacy of individual liberty, Mill adds exhortations as to
the merit of the moral influence of example, and further
intersperses assertions about the necessity of a
collective political resolution of distribution questions
based on a norm of social and economic solidarity. So,
how may norms for harmonious collective resolution of
distributional conflicts be made to emerge from his non-
interference/moral example virtues?
Let us start with an elucidation of what Mill
hopes from the influence of moral example. He devotes
the whole of Chapter II of On Liberty (titled "Of the
Liberty of Thought and Discussion", pp.141-183) to
defending the "non-injurious" character of such
influence. True liberty, he asserts, is enhanced not
merely through the passive respect of another's material
property, preferences, and person (that is, non-
interference and non-injury), but also through positive
action of one individual on an other, the "disinterested
exertion to promote the good of others". Free debate of
conflicting views constitutes a paramount opportunity of
"exchanging error for truth" (ibid., p.142), and is even
11
the essential precondition of this.
But, it must still be asked, what constitutes this
"good of others"? And how does this virtue of "good
example" furnish the basis for a just yet freedom-
respecting society? In the attempt to make a reply, Mill
is finally led explicitly to formulate a conception of
"liberty-in-solidarity" in society that is radically different --
and quite incompatible with -- the notion of "freedom of
individual choice" lionised by vulgar libertarian
philosophers and their "more market" flagbearers. It is
to this precept of solidarity, which may be understood as
a sort of duty of care, that we now turn.
In Utilitarianism (p.270) Mill states overtly that,
in the general rule, people can disregard the diffuse
spillover implications of their actions:
".... it is a misapprehension of the
utilitarian mode of thought, to conceive
it as implying that people should fix
their minds upon so wide a generality
as the world, or society at large. The
great majority of good actions are
intended not for the benefit of the
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
world, but for that of individuals, of
which the good of the world is made
up; and the thoughts of the most
virtuous man need not on these
occasions travel beyond the particular
persons concerned, except so far as it
is necessary to assure himself that in
benefiting them he is not violating the
rights, that is, the legitimate and
authorised expectations, of any one
else."
Here as so many times elsewhere, Mill
equivocates. On the one hand he seems to suggest
that the problem of what we would now call "negative
externalities" is a relatively minor one. He almost seems
to make a presumption of the additive nature of the
"private" (individuals') benefits, which if too casually read
could be taken as compatible with the norm of monetary
"wealth-maximisation" via a decentralised market
mechanism. Of course, such a presumption of additivity
of individuals' actions and valuations becomes invalid
whenever it is admitted that the "spillover impacts" of
individuals' actions -- that is, the simultaneous
determination of relative prices, income distribution, and
output mix in a general market equilibrium, as well as
"external" social and environmental costs and benefits --
are significant by comparison with the "private benefits"
12
as measured with status quo market prices. And in
fact, Mill is perfectly aware of these multiple dimensions
of general interdependency, and of the ubiquity of
situations where ethically sound action cannot be
reduced simply to a matter of everyone assuring
themselves individually of "not violating the rights" of
any other party. A collective or institutional resolution of
these issues is somewhere being presumed. In what
sense?
In the immediately prior passages of
Utilitarianism, Mill had enunciated in a telling way what
he held to be the Utilitarian "standard of what is right in
conduct." This is, he insisted, the happiness of all
concerned. But as for the means and meaning of
obtaining this, there is no recourse to the quantitative
cost-benefit calculus of wealth-maximisation, rather an
appeal to human sentiments of solidarity (ibid., pp.268-
269):
"utility would enjoin, first, that laws and
social arrangements should place the
happiness, or (as speaking practically it
may be called) the interest, of every
individual, as nearly as possible in
harmony with the interest of the whole;
and secondly, that education and
opinion, which have so vast a power
over human character, should so use
that power as to establish in the mind
of every individual an indissoluble
association between his own
happiness and the good of the whole
PAGE 9
....; so that not only he may be unable
to conceive the possibility of happiness
to himself, consistently with conduct
opposed to the general good, but also
that a direct impulse to the general
good may be in every individual one of
the habitual motives of action...."
For a confirmed libertarian, this is a truly radical
notion. Social harmony is not a product of the
impersonal hand of the market, but of generous human
sentiment. Mill thus goes on to elaborate on his social
ideal, and the basis for its progressive attainment, by
appeal to a "natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian
morality" (ibid., p.284):
"This firm foundation is that of the
social feelings of mankind; the desire to
be in unity with our fellow-creatures,
which is already a powerful principle in
human nature, and happily one of
those which tend to become stronger,
even without express inculcation, from
the influences of advancing
civilization."
Whereas inequalities and prejudices and
conflicts of interest have meant, he says, the existence
of "large portions of mankind whose happiness it is still
practicable to disregard" (ibid., p.286),
"In an improving state of the human
mind, the influences are constantly on
the increase, which tend to generate in
each individual a feeling of unity with all
the rest; which, if perfect, would make
him never think of, or desire, any
beneficial condition for himself, in the
benefits of which they are not included.
[....] A person in whom the social
feeling is at all developed, cannot bring
himself to think of the rest of his fellow-
creatures as struggling rivals with him
for the means of happiness, whom he
must desire to see defeated in their
object that he may succeed in his. The
deeply rooted conception which every
individual even now has of himself as a
social being, tends to make him feel it
one of his natural wants that there
should be harmony between his
feelings and aims and those of his
fellow-creatures."
This "feeling of unity" together with its practical
consequences, is, says Mill, the "ultimate sanction of the
Happiness morality" -- that is, the empirical and logical
demonstration of its well-foundedness and coherence as
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
a principle of morality.
In sum, Mill espouses not only a particular
normative ideal of social harmonisation, but also an
argument as to why and how it may progressively be
achieved. He postulates that the desire for such
"harmony" is "naturally" inhering in the character of
"social being" common to all human beings, and that
this sentiment will come to the fore as a matter of social
progress. This is what allows him to assert the
existence of the common good as the state where
each person is obtaining "their own good" in a
harmonious society.
This presumption of a common "social feeling"
has far-reaching consequences for the concept of
individuality and its social expression. Far from
valorising an inviolate individuality as in modern-day
free-market ideology and as axiomatic in economic
models of rational choice (where social order is
achieved through the miraculous co-ordinating
mechanism of the invisible hand), Mill places his hopes
for social harmonisation on sentiments of solidarity and
reciprocity. He relies not on "self-interest" but rather on
the fact that individuals' tastes and preferences are
formed, not in glorious isolation but through a complex
13
process of reciprocal influence and socialisation.
A tension arises here between ideals of
solidarity and possibly irreducible differences between
ethical positions. This warrants separate discussion, but
would strike off at a tangent. Suffice to say that we are
offered by Mill a normative vision of a just society. In
this utopia selfishness and dissension are transcended
through the replacement of substantive individuality (and
individual freedom) by a sort of "procedural" norm of
harmonisation. Individuality is subsumed within the
greater (and morally higher) requirement of a
harmonisation of interests. No individual would, in this
utopia, pursue any "object or contemplation" unless this
be harmonised to the objects and contemplations of the
14
entire social body. This subsumption of individuality-
in-solidarity is the kernal of Mill's notion of a just society.
The just society is, says Mill, a society of free and
secure equals, of individuals stripped of the
"aristocracies of colour, race, and sex", of hereditary
privilege, and of distinctions as between slaves and
freemen, etc. (ibid., p.320). The equality is reconciled
with liberty through the sentiments of solidarity and
15
reciprocity.
5. Individuality and reciprocity: the
Hegelian critique of utilitarianism
Several obvious parallels might be drawn with
premises and ideals of social justice found in
contemporary sustainable development literature, for
example the imagining of a common future "meeting
the needs of future generations" as in the now-
celebrated Brundtland Report (WCED 1987). So, it
might be proposed, Mill furnishes a sort of normative
PAGE 10
theory of social ethics for sustainability. But this forces
us to ask, what substantively does Mill mean by this
reconciliation of the individual "with the interest of the
whole"?
Apart from his allusions to a "feeling of unity,"
Mill himself manages only to give negative indications of
what this might entail. For example, still in the essay on
Utilitarianism, in expounding on the Greatest
Happiness Principle (in Chapter II on "What
Utilitarianism Is," ibid., pp.262-263), he describes the
ideal society as providing for "an existence exempt as
far as possible from pain and as rich as possible in
16
enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality...."
Relative to this end, he says, the prime difficulty lies in
the contest with the "positive evils of life, the great
sources of physical and mental suffering" -- such as
indigence, disease, and the premature loss of objects of
affection. And, he enthuses (ibid., p.266), even if these
calamities cannot, at present, be much mitigated, the
progress of science holds out unlimited promise for
conquest over disease and other noxious influences that
cut short life, render it unendurable, or "which deprive us
of those in whom our happiness is wrapt up;" and thus:
"no one whose opinion deserves a
moment's consideration can doubt that
most of the great positive evils in the
world are in themselves removable,
and will, if human affairs continue to
improve, be in the end reduced within
narrow limits."
The same vision flows through into the idea of
justice as it appears in his utilitarian morality. Justice is,
he concludes in Utilitarianism’s closing pages (Chapter
IV, "On the Connection of Justice with Utility"),
simultaneously a rule of conduct and a sentiment which
sanctions the rule. The idea of justice conveys the
general sentiment that society ought to defend the
individual in the possession of their rights, and against
injury. Thus (ibid., pp.315-316), to complement
scientific and technological mastery,
"The moral rules which forbid mankind
to hurt one another (in which we must
never forget to include wrongful
interference with each other's
freedoms) are more vital to human
well-being than any maxims, however
important, which only point out the best
mode of managing some department of
human affairs. They also have the
peculiarity, that they are the main
element in determining the whole of the
social feelings of mankind. It is their
observance which alone preserves
peace among human beings: if
obedience to them were not the rule,
and disobedience the exception, every
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
one would see in every one else an
enemy, against whom he must be
perpetually guarding himself...."
So, we have the idea of peaceful coexistence, a
society where each person has respect for others'
individuality (as ends-in-themselves) and each serves
the role as guarantor of security to others. But what is
to stop this utopia from degenerating into a "Cold War"
of mutual deterrence (balance of power, balance of
terror) and mutual hostage-taking?
G.F.W. Hegel, writing some decades before
Mill, had already foreseen this paradox of the utilitarian
metaphysics. In the Phenomenology of Spirit (first
published in German in 1807), Hegel insisted at length
on the reciprocal dimension of "usefulness" in a body of
codependent elements, of each element relative to all
others in the whole. This reciprocity finds its origin in
the dialectical opposition between being-in-itself and
being-for-another, considered as two facets of the
absolute (Hegel 1977, pp.342-343):
“Both ways of viewing the positive and
negative relation of the finite to the in-
itself are, however, in fact equally
necessary, and everything is thus as
much something in itself as it is for an
`other'; in other words, everything is
useful. Everything is at the mercy of
everything else, now lets itself be used
by others and is for them, and now, so
to speak, stands again on its hind legs,
is stand-offish towards the other, is for
itself, and uses the other in its turn."
So necessarily, as a matter of fact or of will,
individuality is radically "moderated" by the fact of
reciprocity. For each individual (ibid.),
".... The extent to which he looks after
his own interests must also be matched
by the extent to which he serves
others, and so far as he serves others,
so far is he taking care of himself: one
hand washes the other. But wherever
he finds himself, there he is in his right
place; he makes use of others and is
himself made use of."
This sounds much like Mill's recipe of the ideal
utilitarian society. But Hegel is making no normative
statements here, he is only giving a factual statement of
the implacably reciprocal character of the utility
relationship. Willy-nilly one is (as useful object) in the
service of another, as much as (as subject-for-oneself)
served by another. Depending on circumstances, this
other that I find myself serving may be a partner in a
PAGE 11
commercial transaction, or a lover, or a fatal virus or a
17
process of uncontrolled global climate change. So
Hegel's dialectical clarification actually constitutes a far-
reaching critique of "instrumental reason" and the self-
interested pursuit of the means of individual satisfaction
as a presumed basis for social harmony and good order.
The pursuit of "absolute" freedom and
spontaneity of the individual involves, Hegel makes
clear, a neglect or attempted rejection of the reciprocal
obligations of coexistence. Belief in a possibility of
unlimited substantive liberty is erroneous, and sooner or
later will prove self-defeating. When an individual or
social group sets itself up as the privileged "end" relative
to which nature and other humans are treated as mere
means, this tends to provoke the antithesis of
substantive freedom -- in the form either of hostility or
social conflict, or of a "natural" threat to progress and
18
security such as pollution or ecological catastrophe.
However, Hegel proposes, since man is a social (and
ecological) being, Reason permits that individuality need
not "go beyond itself and destroy itself". What is
required is to accept one's own inevitable involvement --
for better and for worse -- in the welfare of others, as
part and parcel of daily life. As Hegel eloquently puts it
(ibid., pp.342-343),
"Just as everything is useful to man, so
man is useful too, and his vocation is to
make himself a member of the group,
of use for the common good and
serviceable to all."
Here we may play on the double register of
vocation as fact of existence and as matter of ethics.
That is, what is a brute material fact of coexistence
might also be affirmed as an ethic -- as a moral
19
obligation of reciprocation. One might even go so far
as to say (and this is not outside of the spirit of Mill's
sentiments in Utilitarianism) that, when resolved in a
social pact of reciprocity, the deepest pleasure in life
comes with the sense of fulfilling this existential vocation
of being in-the-service-of other life.
6. From an ethic of solidarity to
policies for sustainability
Our final question is how this abstract ethic --
the idea of a vocation of reciprocal service -- might find
expression in real policy and institutional design for
economic and environmental sustainability. Broadly
speaking, the answer would be found in affirming
economic and social labours as generating wealth-in-
common, as in the idea of a "public good" where
production or consumption by one person "spills over"
into benefits to others. This refers in particular to the
wealth-in-common of the biophysical milieu as a habitat
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
(place of living) shared in common, and also to the idea
of produced wealth and infrastructures as being, in
varying degrees, wealth shared in common. However,
this generic formulation is not, on its own, sufficient for
effective policy. In addition, there has to be a clear and
explicit recognition of the necessity of making choices
as to the particular "interests" -- communal and
ecological -- that are going to be sustained.
Sustainability policy (and environmental policy more
generally) is thus concerned with two dimensions of
distribution: (1) What is, will be, or should be the
distribution of welfare -- that is, of wealth, of political and
economic rights, of economic opportunity, and of access
to environmental benefits and amenities -- within each
generation now and into the future? And (2) How do we
choose amongst the various particular economic and
ecological outcomes that might be feasible within the
framework of long-term sustainable activity?
Provision for the "needs of future generations"
can be assured only through choices of resource use
(investment and protection decisions) whose specific
intent is to enhance the economic opportunities and
environmental security of those to come. Given that
sustainability -- both economic and ecological -- is not
able to be assured by market forces alone (and indeed,
will often be compromised by unfettered pursuit of
commercial opportunities), its basis has to be pursued
as a matter of collective social choices and commitment.
In effect, the requirement would be that commercial
investors and entrepreneurs should show "good"
(responsible) attitudes towards their hosts -- that is,
towards the local human communities and the larger
planetary community. People as investors, workers and
as citizens of their districts would be required,
collectively and individually give high priority to
maintaining the "communal conditions of life" -- habitat,
local infrastructures, community, culture, solidarities of
family and place, as well as workplace. In other words,
the "freedoms" of the individual so much cherished by
Mill, are realisable only on condition of accepting as
complementary the corresponding duties of care.
Looked at in this way, the wealth of the land and
sea, as a life-sustaining whole and source of wellbeing,
20
is first of all a wealth-in-common. Private use -- that
is, use for individual or exclusive (e.g. corporate) gain --
is subordinate to this common interest we all have. Use
for private gain is not an absolute right; it carries a
corresponding burden of responsibility. The onus on
those engaging in resource use activities geared to
personal gain, is to make these activities also in the
service of the common good of the local communities.
This view of a duty of care actively pursued is important,
as it gives a positive expression to the achievement of
environmental objectives that have often been framed
negatively as constraints against exceeding some
"environmental bottom lines" or "stability threshold" or
21
"assimilative capacities" of natural systems. Such a
commitment may be given practical effect in a variety of
ways, partly through individual actions but more
particularly through communal and political choices, for
example:
PAGE 12
specific ecological and amenity "protection"
decisions;
time, labour, and economic resources expended in
environmental repair and enhancement;
infrastructures and durable public assets
investment;
provision for extensive and ongoing community
involvement in decision making processes,
sometimes known as "costs of democracy";
educational investments aimed at fostering ethics of
care and environmental interest;
investments in research and technological
development intended to furnish understanding,
information, and practical knowhow that may
enhance simultaneously, the economic
opportunities and environmental security of
generations to come.
Such measures do not necessarily clash with individual
liberty nor with the allocative efficiency criteria so highly
cherished in traditional neoclassical normative
economics. Rather, they reflect goals of solidarity and
of distributional justice. Infrastructure investments and
conservation decisions of this sort are not inconsistent
with inter-temporal social efficiency. Rather, they can
be construed as the expression of a choice to make
Pareto-efficient use of resources while providing for
future generations' economic opportunity and
environmental security (see Howarth & Norgaard 1993;
Norgaard & Howarth 1991; Mourmouras 1993; Muir
1995, 1996; Faucheux, Muir & O’Connor 1997). They
are resource management choices made on behalf of
future generations, investments whose payoff is
distributed as a future "public good." Moreover, this
process of "managing the trade-offs" between present
and future should not be thought of a zero-sum game
between self-interested players. On the contrary, the
presumption has to be that environmental sustainability
and equity of economic opportunity will consciously be
pursued as collective goals in a spirit of solidarity and
mutual good will. So, renewing old themes of John
Stuart Mill's, it needs to be emphasised that the
acceptability of policy choices or proposals will depend
very much on how the process of decision making is
conducted, and on how people perceive the
respectfulness and fairness of both the process and the
outcomes of deciding the distribution of burdens,
sacrifices, losses, and opportunities for gain or new
start.
7. Acknowledgements
The author thanks Richard Dawson for helpful
comments on an earlier draft and also Tony Endres,
Eliot Muir at the University of Auckland. He expresses
his appreciation to the former C3E at the Université de
Paris I, the Institut fur Okologische Wirtschaftsforschung
gGmbH Berlin, and the European Commission’s Joint
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Research Centre at Ispra Italy, for friendly support while
the paper was being written. Finally,
acknowledgements are due to Jean-François Noël (who
made possible the French language version of the
paper), to René Passet, Sylvie Faucheux and Philippe
Méral, and others of the Centre d’Economie et d’Ethique
pour l’Environnement et le Développement (C3ED).
Responsibility for the interpretations offered is the
author’s alone.
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9. Notes
1. It is now well known that Adam Smith, for example, founded his
optimism about the compatibility of market institutions with basic decency on
a «theory of moral sentiments» which included a sophisticated notion of
people’s preoccupation about how they would appear in the eyes of others.
A comparison of how Smithian sympathy, self-love and vanity might -- or
might not -- have pertinence to contemporary preoccupations for «solidarity»
and sustainability, while not without interest, would require a separate
exegesis and discussion; for some indications see Dupuy (1992) and Méral
(1995).
2. No single work gives a complete overview of this complex set of
issues in their historical, geographical, and theoretical dimensions. Some
useful critical perspectives include the books by Redclift (1987); Jacobs &
Munro (eds. 1987); M. Jacobs (1991); Norgaard (1994); Sachs (ed. 1992;
ed. 1993); Faucheux & O’Connor (eds. 1998); and O'Connor (ed. 1994c).
The terms North and South are used here in their symbolic sense, roughly
equating with Rich (in per capital GDP terms) and Poor. The South and the
Third World may be regarded as approximately synonymous. On the
distinctive concerns expressed in the South -- notably the "ecology of the
poor" and grass-roots resistance movements -- see for example Martinez-
Alier (1991) and Ramachandra Guha (1990).
3. For an extended discussion see Martinez-Alier & O’Connor
(1996). In a multi-good, multi-consumer, multi-input general equilibrium
there is simultaneous determination of the allocatively efficient output mix
(and, hence, relative prices for inputs and outputs) with endowment
distribution (and, hence, income distribution). This is well established
theoretically (cf. Mäler 1985). However the significance for this result for the
non-separability of distributional and efficiency considerations in policy
evaluation -- most particularly when it is a matter of redistributions between
social groups having divergent consumption preferences -- has widely been
overlooked. This point has been elucidated in rhetorical terms by Warren
Samuels (1993; see also Samuels & Mercuro 1986), and has recently been
highlighted by several analysts with special reference to natural resource
and environmental valuation through didactic use of general equilibrium
models (see notably Howarth & Norgaard 1990, 1992, 1993; O'Connor &
Muir 1995; Muir 1995, 1996; Faucheux, Muir & O’Connor 1997).
4. Thus, in the now-famous formulation in Our Common Future
(WCED 1987, p.46), sustainable development is described as "a process of
change in which exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the
orientation of technological development and institutional change are all in
harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human
needs and aspirations."
PAGE 15
5. The treatise on Principles of Political Economy and the essays
On Liberty (1859) and Utilitarianism (1861) will serve as our main reference
texts. Works such as the System of Logic (2 volumes, 1843) are further
indicators of the tenor of Mill's thought; and one can glean insights from
lesser tracts such as the essay on Bentham (1838). All page references to
the Principles (cited for convenience henceforth as PPE) are to the 1909
edition, edited and introduced by Sir W.J. Ashley (1909). This retakes with
annotations the text of the 7th Edition (1871), the last published under Mill's
own hand. Although successive editions from the 1st in 1848 show
significant textual modifications, there is a constancy in the underlying drift
which entitles us to regard the work as contemporaneous with both his early
System of Logic and the later major works such as On Liberty and
Utilitarianism. Many commentators have focussed on problems of apparent
inconsistency in different parts of Mill's writings. My purpose in this essay is
to suggest an underlying coherence in the ethical preoccupations of Mill's
argumentation, notwithstanding discrepancies at the level of detail.
6. In particular, Locke's well-known Second Treatise (written about
1680, first published in 1690), titled "An Essay Concerning the True Original,
Extent and End of Civil Government." See also MacPherson (1962).
7. The same insistence on personality and cultivated intelligence,
and on liberty of expression, permeates the whole of the Principles of
Political Economy -- for example, in Book V concerned with the proper
functions and influence of government, and notably Chapter XI, entitled "Of
the Grounds and Limits of the Laisser-Faire or Non-interference Principle".
8. As he concludes his major treatise (PPE, p.979): "Even in the
best state which society has yet reached, it is lamentable to think how great
a proportion of all the efforts and talents in the world are employed in merely
neutralizing one another. It is the proper end of government to reduce this
wretched waste to the smallest possible amount, by taking such measures
as shall cause the energies now spent by mankind in injuring one another,
or in protecting themselves against injury, to be turned to the legitimate
employment of the human faculties, that of compelling the powers of nature
to be more and more subservient to physical and moral good."
9. The possibility that production of toothpaste (or other cosmetics)
may involve toxic by-products (cf. Catton 1989) is not precluded.
10. This is made plain, in another context, by the discussion in
Liberty (pp.207-208) of the "very severe penalties" in the forms of avoidance
of such commerce that may be imposed on an individual whose self-
interested behaviours are found disagreeable by others in the society.
11. For example (On Liberty, p.146): "There must be discussion, to
show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices
gradually yield to fact and argument; but facts and arguments, to produce
any effect, must be brought before it...."
12. For expanded discussions around this theme of externality and
the institutionally decided "distribution of sacrifice" see especially Samuels
(1992), Dragun & O'Connor (1993), Marrtinez-Alier & O’Connor (1996),
O’Connor (1997), and Arnoux, Dawson & O'Connor (1993).
13. We do not go into contemporary literatures axiomatising
postulates about dynamics of preference formation and possible altrustic
behaviours. Note also that it has been asserted by some commentators on
Mill's political philosophy writings, that the system and ideals that he
describes are impracticable because they require too much of an admittedly
"imperfect" human nature. Some have suggested that Mill himself deemed
a utilitarian morality to be applicable only inasmuch as human nature has
reached a certain degree of sophistication or improvement; and that in the
interim, "morality does not as yet apply" (Wollheim 1973, p.29). However we
here pursue, for the sake of argument, the implications of Mill's norm of
social solidarity. For, if the problem of reconciling freedoms of the individual
with social solidarity cannot be resolved under optimistic premises about
moral commitment of individuals within society, it is unlikely to be solvable
under economists' conventional assumptions of egotistical self-interest --
which often end up in prisoners’ dilemmas. On the other hand, it is quite
possible to reject Mill's universalist postulate about "social feeling" tending to
harmony, on a variety of anthropological and philosophical grounds
M. O’CONNOR MILL'S UTILITARIANISM AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PAGE 16

supported by everyday observation. One might, for example, postulate non-

reconciliation of individuals amongst themselves and between social groups
as, a priori, irreducible -- and thus regard engagement in conflict, duel, war,
or other forms of antagonistic contest (with the associated griefs and
reversals) as both inevitable and honourable. This important point, which for
example is raised by Latouche (1991) in his critique of the universalist
postulates underlying contemporary Development ideology and practices, is
not further examined here.
14. The paradox is, that on the one hand the substantive content of
this collective interest is, ex ante, radically under-determined; yet on the
other hand the particular solution incarnated must come, ex post, to exercise
an over-riding weight over each individual in terms of their obligations of
respect. One can imagine that there may be, a priori, an indefinitely large
number of different regimes of "harmonised" social activity -- each one
being, we might say, a distinct eigenstate of the Millian operator of utilitarian
harmonisation. The diversity of human potential is contained in the range of
distinct possible eigenstates. But actual individuality in Mill's ideal type of
society, is constrained to modes of self-expression that are compatible with
one or other particular eigenstate.
15. Another question left unresolved here touches on the post-
modern problématique of «difference». Is the stripping of «aristocracies» a
matter of establishing «equivalence», namely all persons conforming to a
single model of humanity, such as homo oeconomicus or as defined by the
Declaration of Human Rights? Or is it a matter of disestablishing
power/privilege structures that depend on a hierarchisation of difference,
and thus promoting a richness of diverse humanities?
16. He even goes as far as to extend this to "the whole of sentient
creation," though without ever exploring what this might entail.
17. As Hegel observes (ibid.): "Different things are useful to one
another in different ways; but all things are mutually serviceable through
their own nature, viz. through being related to the Absolute in two ways, the
one positive, whereby they exist entirely on their own account, the other
negative, whereby they exist for others. The relation to absolute Being, or
religion, is therefore of all useful things the supremely useful; for it is pure
utility itself, it is this enduring being of all things, or their being-in-and-for-
themselves, and it is their downfall, or their being-for-another." I am grateful
to Henri Denis (1989) for introducing me to Hegel's thinking on this subject.
18. Formally, the postulate of absolute freedom finds its antithesis in
the fact that what is from one point of view regarded as in the service of
one's interests (one's objects and contemplations, as Mill would put it) is,
from the other point of view the source of one's downfall, rendered
subservient to another's projects and aspirations (see Hegel, ibid., pp.354-
363). For more detailed translation of this idea in application to economic
progress and ecological catastrophe, see also O'Connor (1994b).
19. This might be understood as a sort of Kantian categorical
imperative: one accepts as morally right only what one is willing to accord to
everyone else; in this case we accept to receive from and to be served by
others, in asmuch as we accept to act in the service of others. For
applications of this sort of idea with reference to ethical underpinnings of
sustainability norms, see for example Richard Howarth (1994, 1998);
O'Connor & Arnoux (1992); and Arnoux, Dawson & O'Connor (1993).
20. The idea of "common property" as wealth enjoyed in common
with rights of access shared by many members of a community with norms
of fairness, solidarity, and reciprocity, has emerged as an important theme in
recent work on institutional arrangements for environmental management.
See, for example, Gupta (1991); Quiggan (1988); Swaney (1990);
O'Connor (1994a); Méral (1995); and a flowering of studies reported at
successive conferences of the International Association for the Study of
Common Property.
21. Two well known exponents of such themes in the economics of
the environment literature are David Pearce (1976, 1988) and Herman Daly
(1973, 1992).

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