Was Mill a Noncognitivist?

In this paper, I examine the presumption that Mill endorses a form of metaethical noncognitivism. I argue that the evidence traditionally cited for this interpretation is not convincing and suggest that we should instead remain open to a cognitivist reading. I begin by laying out the “received view” of Mill on the status of practical norms, as given by Alan Ryan in the 1970s. I then argue that there is no firm textual evidence for this reading of Mill: his remarks on “art” and “science” do not show the metaethical commitments they have been taken to. Neither is there firm textual evidence for a cognitivist reading. However, a noncognitivist interpretation suffers from the fault of anachronism and is difficult to reconcile with the clear commitment in Utilitarianism to the possibility of evidence being given for the desirability of pleasure. A cognitivist reading would not suffer from these faults, and on that basis, I conclude that we should think further about what a cognitivist reading of Mill might amount to. Of all the areas of Mill’s moral philosophy, the least explored is the metaethical grounding of his utilitarianism. ere are signs in the secondary literature that there is growing interest in this topic, however. Mill’s doctrine of the “Art of Life” and his distinction between art and science, as expounded in the System of Logic,1 has recently been the subject of sustained attention.2 It is generally acknowledged that this is where the theory of practical reason that grounds Mill’s moral philosophy is to be found, and that this is therefore where disputes about the nature of his utilitarianism will be resolved. Yet, despite this renewed interest in the foundations of Mill’s utilitarianism, little attention has been given to the status of normative claims delivered by practical reason. On this issue, there remains an accepted dogma of Mill interpretation – one that, I shall argue, is grounded in a questionable reading of the “Art of Life.” e dogma is that Mill endorsed a form of metaethical noncognitivism.3 I wish, in this paper, to question this dogma. I begin in section 1 by laying out the “received view” ofMill on the status of practical norms, as given by Alan Ryan in the 1970s. I will claim in 1J. S. Mill, System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive in J. M. Robson, ed.,e Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, 33 vols., (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1963), VI.xii. References to Mill’s work will be taken frome Collected Works and cited as CW vol., page. Specific works will be additionally referenced as follows: System (section) = System of Logic, CW VII-VIII; Utilitarianism (chapter) = Utilitarianism, CW X; Examination (chapter) = An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, CW IX. 2See Ben Eggleston, Dale Miller, and David Weinstein, eds., John Stuart Mill and the Art of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Significant discussion of the “Art of Life” also occurs in Dale Miller, J. S. Mill (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), 79–83. e articles by D.G. Brown, Jonathan Riley, and Dale Miller that make up the special issue of Politics, Philosophy and Economics 9 (2010) also each focus on the “Art of Life” and its application to morality. See D. G. Brown, “Mill’s Moral eory: Ongoing Revisionism,” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 9 (2010): 5–45; Dale Miller, “Brown on Mill’s Moral eory: A Critical Response,” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 9 (2010): 47–66; Jonathan Riley, “Mill’s Extraordinary Utilitarian Moral eory,” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 9 (2010): 67–116. 3e issue of how to characterize “noncognitivism” is itself open to debate. For the purposes of this discussion, I take the divide between cognitivism and noncognitivism simply to be one concerning truth-aptitude. Noncogntivism is the thesis that moral statements are properly understood as being incapable of truth and falsity; cognitivism is the claim that moral statements are capable of truth or falsity. As will become clear in section 3.2, I do not hold that this view of cognitivism commits one to any substantive account of what makes the statements in question true or false.