[MD] Mill: Quality philosopher

[Michael Hamilton]

Matt, Ian, anyone else who's interested,

First, an encouraging observation about Mill. He describes himself as
a utilitarian, but urges that utility must be understood as "utility
in the largest sense, grounded in the permanent interests of man as a
progressive being". "Utility in the largest sense" looks like a
synonym for Quality (in contrast to other forms of utilitarianism with
narrower, defined aims, such as producing pleasure).

> Matt said:
> ...I've
> advocated the collapse of the social/intellectual distinction.  I'm not sure
> that distinction is doing much.
>
> Mike said:
> It's certainly caused a lot of problems so far. But I'm convinced that
> there's something in it. Reading Mill's 'On Liberty', I get the very eerie
> feeling that he was establishing new social patterns of value (free speech,
> freedom of self-regarding action...) for the purpose of unleashing intellect
> (and individuality?) from the tethers of societal domination.
>
> Matt:
> Interesting that you bring up Mill, because I think that was a decisive
> turning point in intellectual history, too.  The trouble I have with the
> social/intellectual distinction you'd still like to field (one that
> "unleashes intellect") is that it sets up the old Enlightenment dichotomy
> between Tradition and Reason.

Mill's dichotomy is slightly different, i.e. Tradition vs Liberty; and
crucially, he frames it in the context of utility, improvement,
Quality:
-------------------------
"The despotism of custom [domination by static social patterns of
value] is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement,
being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at something
better than customary, which is called, according to circumstances,
the spirit of liberty, or that of progress or improvement [DQ]. The
spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may
aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people; and the spirit of
liberty, in so far as it resists such attempts, may ally itself
locally and temporarily with the opponents of improvement; but the
only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty, since
by it there are as many possible independent centres of improvement as
there are individuals. The progressive principle, however, in either
shape, whether as the love of liberty or of improvement, is
antagonistic to the sway of Custom, involving at least emancipation
from that yoke; and the contest between the two constitutes the chief
interest of the history of mankind. The greater part of the world has,
properly speaking, no history, because the despotism of Custom is
complete. This is the case over the whole East. Custom is there, in
all things, the final appeal; Justice and right mean conformity to
custom; the argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant intoxicated
with power, thinks of resisting. And we see the result. Those nations
must once have had originality; they did not start out of the ground
populous, lettered, and versed in many of the arts of life; they made
themselves all this, and were then the greatest and most powerful
nations in the world. What are they now? The subjects or dependents of
tribes whose forefathers wandered in the forests when theirs had
magnificent palaces and gorgeous temples, but over whom custom
exercised only a divided rule with liberty and progress. A people, it
appears, may be progressive for a certain length of time, and then
stop: when does it stop? When it ceases to possess individuality..."
-------------------------

A nice bit of fodder for Platt. May he use it wisely (while
remembering Mill's caveat about liberty and improvement not being
exactly the same thing).

This whole passage bears a striking similarity to the Pirsig quote
Steve posted today. For example:

Mill: "...the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is
liberty, since by it there are as many possible independent centres of
improvement as there are individuals."

Pirsig: "People, like everything else, work better in parallel than
they do in series".

Nevertheless, as Arlo and Gene have been arguing, we mustn't make the
mistake of inferring that individuals are the magical and only sources
of improvement. Free individuals are _centres_ of improvement. DQ is
the source of improvement. Species evolve, but that takes millenia.
Societies progress, even without the freedoms advocated by Mill, but
that can take centuries. Free individuals - working in parallel, each
one a centre of improvement or conduit for DQ - speed up the process.
But just as societies stagnate by shutting the door to DQ (see the
relevant passages in Pirsig and Mill), so do individuals who become
'set in their ways'.

Matt continued:
> On the philosophical score, that dichotomy
> fails for the same reasons SOM fails.  That dichotomy is what led to purer
> and purer versions of SOM till we finally get to scientific realism in this
> century.  The cold light of Reason shall lead us to the Truth.  That type of
> thing is what Pirsig was railing against in ZMM, that we should "do what is
> 'reasonable' even when it isn't any good." (ZMM, 368)

As a utilitarian, Mill avoids such extreme conclusions. Rather than
painting Liberty as absolutely Good and painting Tradition as Bad, he
recognises that both sides contribute to the Good when confined to
their proper spheres. We're talking about slightly different things
- liberty vs tradition doesn't appear to have the SOM overtones of
reason vs tradition - but still, Mill will guard us against 'upholding
individualism even when it isn't any good'.

Matt again:
> The further
> implications of Pirsig's demolition is the provisional truth thing (which is
> getting a lot play recently).  There is no single, absolute Truth.  There
> are simply better and better truths.

In 'On Liberty', Mill somehow avoids metaphysical issues such as this.
However, his arguments for freedom of discussion revolve around the
idea that even if we think we have the truth, we should never stop
searching. For example, even if, for the sake of argument, we have an
absolutely true belief, then the opposing belief should still not be
censored, for truth loses its value and vitality when it ceases being
discussed and challenged and argued for and justified. This is a
fairly MOQish approach to truth, and certainly a pragmatic one.

<snippety snip>

Mark continued:
> If we used Hegelian historicism, rather than Kantian antihistoricism, in our
> formulations of what happened with the Democratic Revolutions, I think when
> we talk about Mill we wouldn't say he helped unfetter the intellect from
> social domination.  We _would_ say that Mill was attempting to lay down some
> new social values, but we'd be talking more about privacy than intellect.
> I've been creating various names for some time for the vacant fourth level
> (after I clear a distinctive "intellectual level" out of the way), but I
> have no clear preference.  I've called it Privacy, the Public/Private
> distinction, Individual (following Platt), Eudaimonia (following Sam),
> Democracy, Politics, I've probably called it Modern Liberty (following
> Benjamin Constant) and Negative Liberty (following Isaiah Berlin).  All of
> them point to generally the same thing: that what we do with our aloneness
> is none of anybody else's business (as long as it isn't infringing on
> anybody else's aloneness).

All well and good, but I think this misses the "centres of
improvement" business. Perhaps this can be the basis for a distinction
between levels 3 and 4. Perhaps not. I'm still not sure. In any case,
it's enough to keep Platt chugging away for a while.

Oh No! What Have I Done???!!

Apologies,
Mike