...is only fair to add that Mill's inference is not so clearly fallacious as it seems at first blush. "The sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that people actually do desire it" is not a bald claim that whatever is desired is worthy of desire. Mill also...

...conditions is it requisite that the doctrine should fulfill — to make good its claim to be believed? The only proof capable of being given that an object...is desirable is that people do actually desire it. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged...

...conditions is it requisite that the doctrine should fulfill — to make good its claim to be believed? The only proof capable of being given that an object...is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged...

...happiness is the only intrinsic good. Let us take a closer look at each stage. Stage 1. Mill writes: The only proof capable of being given that an object...a sound is audible is that people hear it; and so forth for the other sources of our experience. In this manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is...

...happiness is the only intrinsic good. Let us take a closer look at each stage. Stage I. Mill writes: 1 he only proof capable of being given that an object is...a sound is audible is that people hear it; and so forth for the other sources of our experience. In this manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is...

...1991:61-2). 25. One here recalls, perhaps with a shudder, Mill's (1979/1861: 34) infamous "proof" - "the sole evidence it is possible to produce that...desirable, is that people do actually desire it." Of course nothing easily follows about what we should desire from facts about what we do desire; at...

...lack a procedure for non-arbitrarily picking out one of them. This is Mill's point when he writes, 'the sole evidence it is possible to produce that...anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.'21 I agree. But Mill's point is not an argument, or a conceptual insight, just a challenge to the...

...that is much like that attributed to John Stuart Mill in his 'proof of utility. According to Mill: The only proof capable of being given that an object...is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. 22 The fact that everyone desires something does not show that it is desirable in the sense of worthy...

...that is much like that attributed to John Stuart Mill in his 'proof' of utility. According to Mill: The only proof capable of being given that an object...anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.22 The fact that everyone desires something does not show that it is desirable in the sense of worthy...

...plays a major role in the premise of Mill's "proof" of the Greatest Happiness Principle mentioned: The only proof capable of being given that an object...only proof that a sound is audible, is that people here it: and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence...