A.F. Gusev as a Critic of John Stuart Mill’s “Utilitarianism”

Abstract

The article analyzes A.F. Gusev’s critique of J.S. Mill’s utilitarianism as presented in the works of the Russian philosopher and theologian published in the journal “Pravoslavnoe obozrenie” (“Orthodox Review”) between 1875 and 1878. It examines one of the understudied episodes in the Russian reception of Western moral philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century and argues that Gusev’s polemic with Mill was not merely a response to the English thinker’s popularity in Russia, but also an attempt to systematically oppose utilitarian ethics with a Christian, and more specifically Orthodox, conception of the moral life. The article reconstructs Gusev’s principal objections to Mill’s “Utilitarianism”: his critique of the universality of the concept of utility, his doubts about the possibility of qualitatively distinguishing pleasures on the basis of Mill’s criterion, his skepticism concerning the commensurability and calculation of pleasures, his rejection of happiness as a universally valid foundation of morality, his criticism of the progressive view of human development, and his denial of the compatibility of utilitarianism with Christianity. Gusev pays particular attention to the thesis of the radical subjectivity of pleasure and happiness. In his view, the individual diversity of human aspirations, tastes, and life goals makes both the precise comparison of pleasures and the very ideal of universal happiness impossible. The article also considers Gusev’s arguments concerning the practical inapplicability of utilitarianism, which he connects with the impossibility of calculating all the consequences of human actions, as well as his claim that truth, goodness, and virtue possess intrinsic value and cannot be reduced to pleasure or utility. Alongside the reconstruction of Gusev’s position, the article offers a critical analysis of his arguments. It shows that some of his remarks do in fact touch upon genuine difficulties within Millian utilitarianism. Above all the problems of the subjectivity of happiness, moral motivation, and the justification of higher pleasures. At the same time, a number of Gusev’s objections rest on a controversial or oversimplified interpretation of Mill’s position. The article concludes that Gusev’s texts are of interest not only as a material for history of philosophy but also as a substantive contribution to the history of Russian moral philosophy.