In A History of Utilitarian Ethics, Samuel Hollander makes an ambitious and important case for the convergence of eighteenth-century moral-sense and utilitarian perspectives, and the inclusion of both in an expansive utilitarian tradition which ranges from Locke through Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume and Adam Smith to Bentham, Malthus and John Stuart Mill. The book offers close studies of these and other writers, as well as two broad argumentative arcs: the first and overarching argument has to do with the compatibility of moral-sense and utilitarian theories, despite the seeming opposition between them, and the second has to do with the relation between individual and public morality (or between private motivation and distributive justice, as the subtitle has it). There is no space to do justice to all that is covered in this book in a short review, so I will limit myself to the first argument.

This argument takes its cue from Bentham's remarks on moral-sense writers such as Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and Hume. Hollander argues that Bentham misread these and other writers (such as Smith) as affirming the existence of a moral sense which approved or disapproved of acts independently of the consequences of the act, or of any other consideration beyond the opinion of the writer. This misled other writers, notably Mill (at least in the early stages of his career), into reading the moral-sense writers as opposed to the principle of utility. Hollander, however, argues for the opposite position: the writers under discussion were ‘effectively utilitarians, [since] the moral sense [was] perceived by them as directing agents towards benevolent or other-regarding action in the interest of the general good’ (p. 347).

The story begins with Locke. Hollander notes that Bentham (and Mill) credited Locke with undermining the notion of innate ideas, including the notion of a moral sense, but not with setting up the building blocks of a utilitarian moral theory, which included, among other things, thinking of happiness as the end of life, defining virtuous conduct as other-regarding conduct with an eye to the public welfare, and using reward and punishment, in both temporal and spiritual forms, as means to encourage such conduct.

The second part of this six-part book builds on the notion of virtuous conduct as other-regarding, ‘sympathetic’ or ‘benevolent’ conduct in its examination of the eighteenth-century moral-sense literature, with especial focus on Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and Hume. Hollander argues that these writers thought of both motivation and consequences as essential to moral evaluation. Shaftesbury, for example, can indeed be read, at points, as thinking of the moral sense as yielding automatic moral judgments, separate from the consequences of the acts under judgment. But when it came to practical application, however, the moral sense consistently recommended to individual persons a ‘conscious concern with the public welfare’ (p. xv). Virtuous conduct was that which was motivated by a concern with the public welfare, taking into account the prospective consequences of the act as well. The affirmation of a moral sense, then, ‘[did] not amount to a refutation of utilitarianism such as Bentham attributed to him, for [Shaftesbury's] utilitarianism is reflected in the commendation he affords to other-regarding sentiment, in effect sympathy, precisely as with Locke and later with Hutcheson and Hume’ (p. 44).

As implied, a similar argument can be made for Hutcheson and Hume. For Hutcheson, for example, the moral sense approved of conduct which was motivated by sympathy (and related affections, such as pity) or benevolence (as a more extensive and impersonal sympathy), and which therefore tended to advance the public welfare. Hollander argued that the function of the moral sense was explanatory, rather than evaluative: it explained the existence of moral sentiments – why we thought of particular sentiments, such as the sentiments of sympathy or benevolence, as morally good – in contrast to theories which located the foundation of virtue in reason, religion, education, culture or training. On this account, James Bonar's remarks on Hume (cited at several points in the book), that he reduced the moral sense to sympathy and so left it with ‘little to do’, applies equally to Hutcheson as well as Shaftesbury.

The third part of the book focuses on Adam Smith. Hollander argues that for Smith, as for Hume, the distinction between utility and sympathy should not be overstated; utility was not the only consideration in moral evaluation, but it was an essential consideration. This was especially the case where the public welfare was concerned, in contrast to the happiness of specific individuals. The chapter on Wealth of Nations, in which Hollander discusses Smith's views on distributive justice, offers an illustration of Smith's utilitarian ethics: for Smith, the welfare of the working classes, as the greatest happiness of the majority, was the appropriate index of the public welfare (p. 174). Smith is read as making a measured defence of private property as necessary to raise living standards for the working classes (by raising real wages), though the attendant evils of inequality should be ameliorated through redistributive transfers from rich to poor (or from property to labour), and through the abolition of monopolistic and monopsonistic institutions (such as the apprenticeship system).

The fourth part of the book focuses on Bentham, and gives us the argument for the compatibility of moral-sense and utilitarian theories from the other side, as it were. Having argued that the moral-sense writers could be read as reducing the moral sense to sympathy or benevolence, Hollander now argues that Bentham could and did take these sentiments into account in moral evaluation. As Bentham himself said, ‘the dictates of utility are neither more nor less than the dictates of the most extensive and enlightened … benevolence’ (p. 219). On this reading, Bentham was opposed to a moral sense that operated as he described it, but not to moral sentiments (p. 223).

As Mill put it, in the sixth and concluding part of the book (the fifth part is on Malthus), utilitarians do acknowledge the existence of moral judgments and feelings, but these judgments and feelings, contrary to moral-sense or intuitionist theories, are not ultimate facts or results of a peculiar law of human nature, but can be explained and accounted for. In particular, they can be explained, accounted for, and justified by the principle of utility. What makes an action moral or immoral, from a utilitarian point of view, is not the feeling that it is virtuous or vicious, but the influence of the action, and the disposition it came from, on happiness (pp. 352–53). The Mill chapters develop, among other things, Hollander's thesis on Mill's ‘return to Bentham’, whereby Mill came, in his later years, first to appreciate that Benthamite utilitarianism was not as narrowly rational and self-interested as he had earlier complained (it could, for example, accommodate motivation as well as consequences in moral evaluation, and moral sentiments as well as calculations of utility), and later to appreciate the rationalism of the eighteenth century, as it were, against the excessive emphasis on feeling in the nineteenth century.

The story laid out in this book is a Millian story. Towards the end of the book, Hollander cites Frederick Rosen on Mill's approach to social science: Mill sought to identify and reconcile ‘polarities of thought’ in Bentham and Coleridge, or in characteristic eighteenth- and nineteenth-century moral and political thought, in order to advance thinking in the field (pp. 376–77). Hollander has sought, in similar fashion – and in a way reflecting the evolution of Mill's own utilitarianism – to identify and reconcile polarities of thought in moral-sense and utilitarian theories. The result is a sketch of a utilitarian tradition rich and expansive enough to accommodate sympathy and utility, reason and sentiment, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century utilitarian thought, as well as different varieties of utilitarianism, such as theological and secular versions (the theological dimension was discussed in relation to Locke and the moral-sense writers, none of whom were strictly theological utilitarians, although Locke came closest to one, and in relation to Malthus, who attempted to reconcile theological and secular considerations in his work, though not always with success), in addition to differing views on private property and inequality, and on appropriate redistributive measures.

However, in finding common ground between more or less utilitarian writers, Hollander runs the risk of doing to utilitarianism what Bonar said of Hume's treatment of the moral sense – of reducing it to sympathy and/or benevolence, and so leaving it with ‘little to do’. I would like to draw attention to two differences, which may have been overshadowed in the book. The first is that sympathy, fellow-feeling, or other-regarding sentiment is not the same thing as a more extensive benevolence. The dictates of an extensive and enlightened benevolence are the dictates of utility, but the same may not hold for sympathy, or a ‘partial benevolence’, as Bentham said in the passage following the sentence quoted above (Introduction to the Principle of Morals and Legislation (1996), p. 217). Moral-sense theories were for him an example of what he called the ‘principle of sympathy and antipathy’, which might not be opposed to the principle of utility, but was also not always consistent with it. I read Bentham as making the case for the principle of utility as the only principle which would consistently produce beneficent outcomes, in contrast to a moral theory which had the sentiment or motive of benevolence at its heart.

The second point concerns motives, intentions and consequences. It seems to me that there is a difference between the thought that motivation is what matters most to moral evaluation, i.e. that good conduct is that which is motivated by sympathy or benevolence, and part of what it is to act with sympathy or benevolence is to intend to advance the happiness of other people or society at large; and the thought that beneficent outcomes are what matter most to moral evaluation, i.e. that good conduct is that which is likely to produce beneficent outcomes, and motives of sympathy and benevolence tend to give rise to acts which result in beneficent outcomes more often than not. There is of course common ground between these two positions, and both motivation and intended (and expected) consequences matter to some degree in both cases, but they are distinct positions: consequences matter as related to motivation for the first, and the other way around for the second. From the book, I take Shaftesbury and Hutcheson to hold something like the first position, and Bentham and arguably Mill to hold something like the second.

These are quibbles, perhaps. But they are quibbles with a view to a broader point, that the tensions between sympathy and utility, or between motives and consequences, are worth preserving and exploring. It would be difficult to deny that utilitarianism depends, to some extent, on a concern for the public good, but that only takes us so far. This might come out better in the second argumentative arc of the book, on the utilitarian grounds of views on distributive justice. I only touched on Smith here, as an example of how a concern for the public good can be translated into views on property and inequality, but the book offers a detailed discussion of the commonalities and differences of views among the different writers. As Hollander said (in regard to Mill's views on primogeniture), ‘Utilitarianism required its own set of value judgments defining the content of the greater good’ (p. 330). Different utilitarian theories generated different value judgments and different recommendations for individual and public action. The value of this book, however, is in emphasizing the commonalities across different perspectives, and in so doing offering a rich and generous history of utilitarian moral thought.