SOURCE: “Mill's ‘Proof’ of the Principle of Utility,” in Mill's Utilitarianism, edited by David Lyons, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997, pp. 85-98.

In the following essay, West asserts the logical plausibility of Mill's proof of his utility principle.

Utilitarianism, in every one of its forms or formulations, requires a theory for the evaluation of consequences. Whether the units of behavior being judged are acts, rules, practices, attitudes, or institutions, to judge them by their utility, that is, by their contribution to good or bad ends, requires a theory of what count as good or bad ends. In the philosophies of the classical utilitarians, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, some variety of hedonism served this purpose. Mill calls this

the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded—namely that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable...