Part 7 / Book 6 — Chapter XII.—OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF A MISCHIEVOUS ACT, is meant as the concluding link of the whole previous chain of causes and effects. He defines the shapes that bad consequences may assume. The mischief may be primary, as when sustained by a definite number of individuals; or secondary, by extending over a multitude of unassignable individuals. The evil in this last case may be either actual pain, or danger, which is the chance of pain. Thus, a successful robbery affects, primarily, a number of assignable persons, and secondarily, all persons in a like situation of risk. (continued 2)

It is farther alleged against Utility, that it renders men cold and unsympathizing, chills the moral feelings towards individuals, and regards only the dry consequences of actions, without reference to the moral qualities of the agent. The author replies that Utility, like any other system, admits that a right action does not necessarily indicate a virtuous character. Still, he contends, in the long run, the best proof of a good character is good actions. If the objection means that utilitarians do not lay sufficient stress on the beauties of character, he replies that this is the accident of persons cultivating their moral feelings more than their sympathies and artistic perceptions, and may occur under every view of the foundation of morals.

The next objection considered is that Utility is a godless doctrine. The answer is, that whoever believes in the perfect goodness and wisdom of God, necessarily believes that whatever he has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals must fulfil the requirements of utility in a supreme degree.

Again, Utility is stigmatized as an immoral doctrine, by carrying out Expediency in opposition to Principle. But the Expedient in this sense means what is expedient for the agent himself, and, instead of being the same thing with the useful, is a branch of the hurtful. It would often be expedient to tell a lie, but so momentous and so widely extended are the utilities of truth, that veracity is a rule of transcendent expediency. Yet all moralists admit exceptions to it, solely on account of the manifest inexpediency of observing it on certain occasions.

The author does not omit to notice the usual charge that it is impossible to make a calculation of consequences previous to every action, which is as much as to say that no one can be under the guidance of Christianity, because there is not time, on the occasion of doing anything, to read through the Old and New Testaments. The real answer is (substantially the same as Austin's) that there has been ample time during the past duration of the species. Mankind have all that time been learning by experience the consequences of actions; on that experience they have founded both their prudence and their morality. It is an inference from the principle of utility, which regards morals as a practical art, that moral rules are improvable; but there exists under the ultimate principle a number of intermediate generalizations, applicable at once to the emergencies of human conduct. Nobody argues that navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack.

As to the stock argument, that people will pervert utility for their private ends, Mr. Mill challenges the production of any ethical creed where this may not happen. The fault is due, not to the origin of the rules, but to the complicated nature of human affairs, and the necessity of allowing a certain latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to circumstances. And in cases of conflict, utility is a better guide than anything found in systems whose moral laws claim independent authority.