Material quoted here is drawn from the paper by Julia Driver, Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015.
Driver opens her paper with a quote from John Stuart Mill:
“Does the utilitarian doctrine deny that people desire virtue, or maintain that virtue is not a thing to be desired? The very reverse. It maintains not only that virtue is to be desired, but also that it is to be desired disinterestedly, for itself.” John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
“Early Utilitarian philosophers such as John Stuart Mill recognized that not only is it the case that the moral virtues promote happiness, but that it is ‘to the individual’ a good in itself.”
She closes her paper with the following statement:
“Morality, in Mill’s narrow understanding, is only part of the picture. Full human flourishing requires virtue.”
Driver stresses her view that virtue is an important good for both Mill and for other (but not all) utilitarians. Virtue, as used here, is a general term seemingly analogous to sympathy of the sort that would make a person concerned with the good of others.
“The broadest construal of moral sentimentalism holds that morality is ‘better felt than judged,’ in that certain affective capacities underlie both our ability to make moral judgments and the authority of those judgments”, she writes.
Driver does not bring specific virtues from Mill’s work or from that of other utilitarians. Specific in the way that temperance, tolerance, generosity, etc. might be seen as virtues. Empathy and what she terms “perspective taking” suffice for her to make her point.
That point seems in particular to be that we can, through aesthetic engagement; via art and literature, for example; come to develop an understanding of and sympathy for others that will bring us to wish them well and, presumably, to act toward them in ways that are supportive of their happiness.
She cites a statement of Mill that she takes to “indicate an important way in which Mill believed individual character as well as that of a society could be improved: through both information and imaginative engagement with other possibilities. The exercise of putting oneself in the place of another—be it through history, documentary, or fictional literature, helps individuals position themselves in situations that encourage self-improvement.”
Beyond pointing out:
a) Mill’s assertion of the value of virtue, even in the utilitarian view of morality,
b) the idea that the value of virtue is in cultivating a desire for the well being of others, and
c) the notion that perspective taking and the understanding of others can be cultivated through engagement with literature and other arts;
Driver’s paper does not address what Mill might consider specific virtues or how Mill might suggest an individual decide which to cultivate or how.
The generality of the view of virtue that Driver presents in her discussion of Mill suggests that Mill will not be a source of practical guidance for our purposes.
©Charles R. Lightner