Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) is typically, though quite wrongly,considered a coarse social Darwinist. After all, Spencer, and notDarwin, coined the infamous expression “survival of thefittest”, leading G. E. Moore to conclude erroneously inPrincipia Ethica (1903) that Spencer committed thenaturalistic fallacy. According to Moore, Spencer’s practicalreasoning was deeply flawed insofar as he purportedly conflated meresurvivability (a natural property) with goodness itself (a non-natural property).^[1]

Roughly fifty years later, Richard Hofstadter devoted an entirechapter ofSocial Darwinism in American Thought (1955) toSpencer, arguing that Spencer’s unfortunate vogue in latenineteenth-century America inspired Andrew Carnegie and William GrahamSumner’s visions of unbridled and unrepentant capitalism. ForHofstadter, Spencer was an “ultra-conservative” for whomthe poor were so much unfit detritus. His social philosophy“walked hand in hand” with reaction, making it little morethan a “biological apology for laissez-faire” (Hofstadter1955: 41, 46). But just because Carnegie interpreted Spencer’ssocial theory as justifying merciless economic competition, weshouldn’t automatically attribute such justificatory ambitionsto Spencer. Otherwise, we risk uncritically reading the fact thatSpencer happened to influence popularizers of social Darwinism intoour interpretation of him. We risk falling victim to what Skinnerperceptively calls the “mythology of prolepsis.”

Spencer’s reputation has never fully recovered from Moore andHofstadter’s interpretative caricatures, thus marginalizing himto the hinterlands of intellectual history, though recent scholarshiphas begun restoring and repairing his legacy. Happily, inrehabilitating him, some moral philosophers have begun to appreciatejust how fundamentally utilitarian his practical reasoning was. Andsome sociologists have likewise begun reassessing Spencer.

Intellectual history is forever being rewritten as we necessarilyreinterpret its canonical texts and occasionally renominatemarginalized thinkers for canonical consideration. Changingphilosophical fashions and ideological agendas invariably doom us toreconstructing incessantly our intellectual heritage regardless thediscipline. Take political theory instance. Isaiah Berlin’sunderstandable preoccupation with totalitarianism induced him to readT. H. Green and Bernard Bosanquet as its unwitting accomplices insofaras both purportedly equated freedom with dangerously enriched,neo-Hegelian fancies about self-realization. Regrettably, thisideological reconstruction of new liberals like Green and Bosanquetcontinues largely unabated (see Skinner 2002: 16). But as ourideological sensitivities shift, we can now begin rereading them withchanged prejudice, if not less prejudice. And the same goes for how wecan now reread other marginalized, 19th-century English liberals likeSpencer. As the shadow of European totalitarianism wanes, the lensthrough which we do intellectual history changes and the more we mightcome closer to reading Spencer as he intended to be read, namely as autilitarian who wanted to be a liberal just as much.

Like J. S. Mill, Spencer struggled to make utilitarianismauthentically liberal by infusing it with a demanding principle ofliberty and robust moral rights. He was convinced, like Mill, thatutilitarianism could accommodate rights with independent moral forceand yet remain genuinely consequentialist. Subtly construed,utilitarianism can effectively mimick the very best deontologicalliberalism.

• 1. First Principles
• 2.The Principles of Sociology
• 3. Spencer’s “Liberal” Utilitarianism
• 4. Rational Versus Empirical Utilitarianism
• 5. Political Rights
• 6. Conclusion
• Bibliography
  • Primary Sources: Works by Spencer
  • Secondary Sources
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. First Principles

Spencer’s output was vast, covering several other disciplinesbesides philosophy and making it difficult to make sense of hisphilosophizing separate from his non-philosophical writing. And thereis so much Spencer to make sense of, namely many thousand printed pages.^[2] Besides ethics and political philosophy, Spencer wrote at lengthabout psychology, biology and, especially, about sociology. Certainthemes, not unexpectedly, run through much of this material. Coming toterms with Spencer and measuring his legacy requires expertise in allof these fields, which no one today has. Notwithstanding this caveat,it seems fair to say that next to ethics and political philosophy,Spencer’s lasting impact has been most pronounced in sociology.In many revealing respects, the latter grounds and orients the former.Hence, it seems best to discuss his sociology first before turning tohis moral and political theory. But taking up his sociological theory,in turn, requires addressing, however briefly, the elemental axiomsundergirding his entire “Synthetic Philosophy,” whichconsisted ofThe Principles of Biology (1864–7),The Principles of Psychology (1855 and 1870–2),ThePrinciples of Sociology (1876–96), andThe Principlesof Ethics (1879–93).

First Principles was issued in 1862 as an axiomaticprolegomenon to the synthetic philosophy, which came to a close withthe publication of the 1896, final volume ofThe Principles ofSociology. Though disguised as mid-19th century speculativephysics,First Principles is mostly metaphysics encompassingall inorganic change and organic evolution. The synthetic philosophypurports to illustrate in often maddening detail what follows fromFirst Principles.

According to Spencer inFirst Principles, three principlesregulate the universe, namely the Law of the Persistence of Force, theLaw of the Instability of the Homogeneous and the Law of theMultiplicity of Effects. Though originally homogeneous, the universeis gradually becoming increasingly heterogeneous because Force orEnergy expands un-uniformly. Homogeneity is unstable because Force isunstable and variable. And because of the Law of the Multiplicity ofEffects, heterogeneous consequences grow exponentially, foreveraccelerating the tempo of homogeneity evolving into heterogeneity.Spencer postulates, though not always consistently, that the universewill eventually equilibrate, eventually dissolving towardshomogeneity.

Using some of Spencer’s other terminology, the universe isrelentlessly becoming more complex, forever subdividing intomultifarious aggregates. As these aggregates become increasinglydifferentiated, their components become increasingly dissimilarspeeding up the entire process and making the universe heterogeneouswithout end until equilibrium occurs. Or more parsimoniously:“Evolution is definable as a change from an incoherenthomogeneity to a coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipationof motion and integration of matter” (Spencer 1862 [1900:332]). For Spencer, then, all organic as well as inorganic phenomenawere evolving, becoming evermore integrated and heterogeneous. AsSpencer was to emphasize years later, this holds human socialevolution no less:

Now, we propose in the first place to show, that this law of organicprogress is the law of all progress. Whether it be in the developmentof the Earth, in the development of Life upon its surface, in thedevelopment of Society, of Government, of Manufactures, of Commerce,of Language, Literature, Science, Art, this same evolution of thesimple into the complex, through successive differentiations, holdsthroughout. From the earliest traceable cosmical changes down to thelatest results of civilization, we shall find that transformation ofthe homogeneous into the heterogeneous, is that in which progressessentially consists. (Spencer 1857 [1901: I, 10])^[3]

In sum, societies were not only becoming increasingly complex,heterogeneous and cohesive. They were becoming additionallyinterdependent and their components, including their human members,more and more specialized and individuated.

2.The Principles of Sociology

The Principles of Sociology has often been considered seminalin the development of modern sociology both for its method and formuch of its content. Replete with endless examples from the distantpast, recent past and present, it speculatively describes and explainsthe entire arch of human social evolution.^[4] Part V, “Political Institutions,” is especially relevantfor understanding Spencer’s ethics. Together with hisPrinciples of Ethics, “Political Institutions”crowns the synthetic philosophy. They are its whole point.^[5]

On Spencer’s account, social evolution unfolds through fouruniversal stages. These are (1) “primitive” societiescharacterized by casual political cooperation, (2)“militant” societies characterized by rigid, hierarchicalpolitical control, (3) “industrial” societies wherecentralized political hegemony collapses, giving way to minimallyregulated markets and (4) spontaneously, self-regulating, marketutopias in which government withers away. Overpopulation causingviolent conflicts between social groups fuels this cycle ofconsolidation and reversal to which no society is immune.

More precisely, as embryonic kinship groups grow more numerous, they“come to be everywhere in one another’s way,”(Spencer 1876–96: II, 37). The more these primal societies crowdeach other, the more externally violent and militant they become.Success in war requires greater solidarity and politicallyconsolidated and enforced cohesion. Unremitting warfare fuses andformalizes political control, eradicating societies that fail toconsolidate sufficiently. Clans form into nations and tribal chiefsbecome kings. As militarily successful societies subdue and absorbtheir rivals, they tend to stabilize and to “compound” and“recompound,” stimulating the division of labor andcommerce. The division of labor and spread of contractual exchangetransform successful and established “militant” societiesinto “negatively regulative industrial” societies prizingindividual freedom and basic rights where the state recedes toprotecting citizens against force and fraud at home and aggressionfrom abroad. “Other things being equal, a society in which life,liberty, and property, are secure, and all interests justly regarded,must prosper more than one in which they are not; and, consequently,among competing industrial societies there must be gradual replacingof those in which personal rights are imperfectly maintained, by thosein which they are perfectly maintained” (Spencer 1876–96:II, 608). And societies where rights approach being more perfectlymaintained will in due course confederate together in anever-expanding pacific equilibrium. As noted previously, equilibriumis always unstable, risking dissolution and regression. Indeed by theend of his life, Spencer was far less sanguine about industrialsocieties avoiding war.^[6]

Notwithstanding his increasing pessimism regarding liberal progressand international concord, the extent to which normative theorizinginforms Spencer’s sociological theorizing is palpable. Sociologyand ethics intertwine. We shall shortly see just how utilitarian aswell as how individualistic both were.

Many recent interpreters of Spencer, especially sociologists, haveinsisted that his sociological theory and his ethics do notintertwine, that his sociology stands apart and that therefore we candiscount his moral theory in our efforts to understand his legacy tosocial science. For instance, J. D. Y. Peel has argued thatSpencer’s sociology is “logically independent of hisethics.” Jonathan H. Turner concurs, claiming thatSpencer’s ethics and other ideological shortcomings “getin the way of viewing Spencer as a theorist whose [sociological] ideashave endured (if only by rediscovery).” For Turner, his“sociology is written so that these deficiencies can easily beignored.” Robert Carneiro and Robert Perrin cite and reiteratePeel’s assessment.^[7] And more recently, Mark Francis implies much the same, writing thatSpencer’s theory of social change “operated on a differentlevel than his moral theory” (Francis 2015: 13). But just because manyyears later we can get something out of his sociology while ignoringhis ethics and, for that matter, anything else besides sociology thathe wrote, we would err in thinking that we have correctly interpretedSpencer let alone thinking that we have correctly interpreted evenjust his sociology. It is one thing to discover how a past thinkerseems to presage our present thinking on this matter or that, and itis another thing entirely to try to interpret a past thinker as bestwe can.

Nowhere does Spencer’s ethics and sociology entwine morepalpably than in his Lamarckism, though how much Spencer borrowed fromLamarck as opposed to Darwin is contested. However, Peter J. Bowlerhas lately argued that both Spencer and Darwin believed that theinheritance of acquired characteristics and natural selection togetherdrove evolution. For Bowler, it is no less mistaken to view Spencer asowing everything to Lamarck as it is to see him as owing very littleto Lamarck (Bowler 2015: 204). Bowler’s assessment issupported by Spencer’s claims in two late essays from 1886 and1893b entitled “The Factors of Organic Evolution” and“The Inadequacy of ‘Natural Selection.’”^[8] The earlier essay alleges that evolution by natural selectiondeclines in significance compared to use-inheritance as human mentaland moral capacities develop. The latter gradually replaces the formeras the mechanism of evolutionary change. “Factors of OrganicEvolution” succinctly weaves together use-inheritance,associationist psychology, moral intuitionism and utility. Actionsproducing pleasure or pain tend to cause mental associations betweentypes of actions and pleasures or pains. Sentiments of approval anddisapproval also complement these associations. We tend naturally toapprove pleasure-producing actions and disapprove pain-producing ones.Because of use-inheritance, these feelings of approval and disapprovalintensify into deep-seated moral instincts of approval anddisapproval, which gradually become refined moral intuitions.

To what extent Spencer’s sociology was functionalist has alsobeen disputed. According to James G. Kennedy, Spencer created functionalism.^[9] It would seem that regarding Spencer as a functionalist is anotherway of viewing him as, in contemporary normative terminology, aconsequentialist. That is, social evolution favors social institutionsand normative practices that promote human solidarity, happiness andflourishing.

Spencer’s reputation in sociology has faded. Social theoristsremember him though most probably remember little about him thoughthis may be changing somewhat. Moral philosophers, for their part,have mostly forgotten him even though 19th-century classicalutilitarians like Mill and Henry Sidgwick, Idealists like T. H. Greenand J. S. Mackenzie, and new liberals like D. G. Ritchie discussed himat considerable length though mostly critically. And 20th-centuryideal utilitarians like Moore and Hastings Rashdall and Oxfordintuitionists like W. D. Ross also felt compelled to engage him.Spencer was very much part of their intellectual context. He orientedtheir thinking not insignificantly and more than is currentlyappreciated. We cannot properly interpret them unless we take Spencermore seriously than we do.

3. Spencer’s “Liberal” Utilitarianism

Spencer was a sociologist in part. But he was even more a moralphilosopher. He was what we now refer to as a liberal utilitarianfirst who traded heavily in evolutionary theory in order to explainhow our liberal utilitarian sense of justice emerges.

Though a utilitarian, Spencer took distributive justice no lessseriously than Mill. For him as for Mill, liberty and justice wereequivalent. Whereas Mill equated fundamental justice with his libertyprinciple, Spencer equated justice with equal liberty, which holdsthat the “liberty of each, limited by the like liberty of all,is the rule in conformity with which society must be organized”(Spencer 1851 [1970: 79]). Moreover, for Spencer as for Mill, libertywas sacrosanct, insuring that his utilitarianism was equally a bonafide form of liberalism. For both, respect for liberty also justhappened to work out for the utilitarian best all things considered.Indefeasible liberty, properly formulated, and utility were thereforefully compossible.

Now in Spencer’s case, especially byThe Principles ofEthics (1879–93), this compossibility rested on a complexevolutionary moral psychology combining associationism, Lamarckianuse-inheritance, intuitionism and utility. Pleasure-producing activityhas tended to generate biologically inheritable associations betweencertain types of actions, pleasurable feelings and feelings ofapproval. Gradually, utilitarianism becomes intuitive.^[10] And wherever utilitarian intuitions thrive, societies tend to be morevibrant as well as stable. Social evolution favors cultures thatinternalize utilitarian maxims intuitively. Conduct “restrainedwithin the required limits [stipulated by the principle of equalfreedom], calling out no antagonistic passions, favors harmoniouscooperation, profits the group, and, by implications, profits theaverage of individuals.” Consequently, “groups formed ofmembers having this adaptation of nature” tend “to surviveand spread” (Spencer 1879–93 [1978: II, 43]). Wherevergeneral utility thrives, societies thrive. General utility andcultural stamina go hand-in-hand. And general utility thrives bestwhere individuals exercise and develop their faculties within theparameters stipulated by equal freedom.

In short, like any moral intuition, equal freedom favors societiesthat internalize it and, ultimately, self-consciously invoke it. Andwherever societies celebrate equal freedom as an ultimate principle ofjustice, well-being flourishes and utilitarian liberalism spreads.

Spencer likewise took moral rights seriously insofar as properlycelebrating equal freedom entailed recognizing and celebrating basicmoral rights as its “corollaries.” Moral rights specifyequal freedom, making its normative requirements substantivelyclearer. They stipulate our most essential sources of happiness,namely life and liberty. Moral rights to life and liberty areconditions of general happiness. They guarantee each individual theopportunity to exercise his or her faculties according to his or herown lights, which is the source of real happiness. Moral rightscan’t make us happy but merely give us the equal chance to makeourselves happy as best we can. They consequently promote generalhappiness indirectly. And since they are “corollaries” ofequal freedom, they are no less indefeasible than the principle ofequal freedom itself.

Basic moral rights, then, emerge as intuitions too though they aremore specific than our generalized intuitive appreciation of theutilitarian prowess of equal freedom. Consequently, self-consciouslyinternalizing and refining our intuitive sense of equal freedom,transforming it into a principle of practical reasoning,simultaneously transforms our emerging normative intuitions about thesanctity of life and liberty into stringent juridical principles. Andthis is simply another way of claiming that general utility flourishesbest wherever liberal principles are seriously invoked. Moralsocieties are happier societies and more vibrant and successful toboot.

Though Spencer sometimes labels basic moral rights“natural” rights, we should not be misled, as somescholars have been, by this characterization. Spencer’s mostsustained and systematic discussion of moral rights occurs in theconcluding chapter, “The Great Political Superstition,” ofThe Man Versus the State (1884). There, he says that basicrights are natural in the sense that they valorize“customs” and “usages” that naturally arise asa way of ameliorating social friction. Though conventional practices,only very specific rights nevertheless effectively promote humanwell-being. Only those societies that fortuitously embrace themflourish.

Recent scholars have misinterpreted Spencer’s theory rightsbecause, among other reasons, they have no doubt misunderstoodSpencer’s motives for writingThe Man Versus the State.The essay is a highly polemical protest, in the name of strong rightsas the best antidote, against the dangers of incremental legislativereforms introducing socialism surreptitiously into Britain. Itsvitriolic, anti-socialist language surely accounts for much of itssometimes nasty social Darwinist rhetoric, which is unmatched inSpencer’s other writings notwithstanding scattered passages inThe Principles of Ethics and inThe Principles ofSociology (1876–96).^[11]

Spencer’s “liberal” utilitarian credentials aretherefore compelling as his 1863 exchange of letters with Mill furthertestifies. Between the 1861 serial publication ofUtilitarianism inFraser’s Magazine and its1863 publication as a book, Spencer wrote Mill, protesting that Millerroneously implied that he was anti-utilitarian in a footnote nearthe end of the last chapter, “Of the Connection Between Justiceand Utility.” Agreeing with Benthamism that happiness is the“ultimate” end, Spencer firmly disagrees that it should beour “proximate” end. He next adds:

But the view for which I contend is, that Morality properly so-called– the science of right conduct – has for its object todetermine how and why certain modes of conduct are detrimental, andcertain other modes beneficial. These good and bad results cannot beaccidental, but must be necessary consequences of the constitution ofthings; and I conceive it to be the business of moral science todeduce, from the laws of life and the conditions of existence, whatkinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kindsto produce unhappiness. Having done this, its deductions are to berecognized as laws of conduct; and are to be conformed to irrespectiveof a direct estimation of happiness or misery (Spencer 1904: II, 88–9).^[12]

Specific types of actions, in short, necessarily always promotegeneral utility best over the long term though not always in theinterim. While they may not always promote it proximately, theyinvariably promote it ultimately or, in other words, indirectly. Theseaction types constitute uncompromising, normative “laws ofconduct.” As such, they specify the parameters of equal freedom.That is, they constitute our fundamental moral rights. We have moralrights to these action types if we have moral rights to anything atall.

Spencer as much as Mill, then, advocates indirect utilitarianism byfeaturing robust moral rights. For both theorists, rights-orientedutilitarianism best fosters general happiness because individualssucceed in making themselves happiest when they develop their mentaland physical faculties by exercising them as they deem mostappropriate, which, in turn, requires extensive freedom. But since welive socially, what we practically require is equal freedom suitablyfleshed out in terms of its moral right corollaries. Moral rights tolife and liberty secure our most vital opportunities for makingourselves as happy as we possibly can. So if Mill remains potentlygermane because his legacy to contemporary liberal utilitarian stillinspires, then we should take better account of Spencer than,unfortunately, we currently do.

Spencer’s “liberal” utilitarianism, however, differsfrom Mill’s in several respects, including principally thegreater stringency that Spencer ascribed to moral rights. Indeed, Millregarded this difference as the fundamental one between them. Millresponded to Spencer’s letter professing allegiance toutilitarianism, observing that he concurs fully with Spencer thatutilitarianism must incorporate the “widest and most generalprinciples” that it possibly can. However, in contrast toSpencer, Mill protests that he “cannot admit that any of theseprinciples are necessary, or that the practical conclusions which canbe drawn from them are even (absolutely) universal” (Duncan(ed.) 1908: 108).^[13]

4. Rational Versus Empirical Utilitarianism

Spencer referred to his own brand of utilitarianism as“rational” utilitarianism, which he claimed improved uponBentham’s inferior “empirical” utilitarianism. Andthough he never labeled Mill a “rational” utilitarian,presumably he regarded him as one.

One should not underestimate what “rational”utilitarianism implied for Spencer metaethically. In identifyinghimself as a “rational” utilitarian, Spencer distancedhimself decidedly from social Darwinism, showing why Moore’sinfamous judgment was misplaced. Responding to T. H. Huxley’saccusation that he conflated good with “survival of thefittest,” Spencer insisted that “fittest” and“best” were not equivalent. He agreed with Huxley thatthough ethics can be evolutionarily explained, ethics neverthelesspreempts normal struggle for existence with the arrival of humans.Humans invest evolution with an “ethical check,” makinghuman evolution qualitatively different from non-human evolution.“Rational” utilitarianism constitutes the most advancedform of “ethical check[ing]” insofar as it specifies the“equitable limits to his [the individual’s] activities,and of the restraints which must be imposed upon him” in hisinteractions with others (Spencer 1893a [1901: I, 125–28]).^[14] In short, once we begin systematizing our inchoate utilitarianintuitions in keeping with the principle of equal freedom and itsderivative moral rights, we begin “check[ing]”evolutionary struggle for survival with unprecedented skill andsubtlety. We self-consciously invest our utilitarianism with stringentliberal principles in order to advance our well-being as neverbefore.

Now Henry Sidgwick seems to have understood what Spencer meant by“rational” utilitarianism better than most, althoughSidgwick didn’t get Spencer entirely right either. Sidgwickengaged Spencer critically on numerous occasions. The concluding ofBook II ofThe Methods of Ethics (1907), entitled“Deductive Hedonism,” is a sustained though veiledcriticism of Spencer.^[15]

For Sidgwick, Spencer’s utilitarianism was merely seeminglydeductive even though it purported to be more scientific andrigorously rational than “empirical” utilitarianism.However, deductive hedonism fails because, contrary to what deductivehedonists like Spencer think, no general science of the causes ofpleasure and pain exists, insuring that we will never succeed informulating universal, indefeasible moral rules for promotinghappiness. Moreover, Spencer only makes matters worse for himself inclaiming that we can nevertheless formulate indefeasible moral rulesfor hypothetically perfectly moral human beings. First of all, inSidgwick’s view, since we can’t possibly imagine whatperfectly moral humans would look like, we could never possibly deducean ideal moral code of “absolute” ethics for them.Secondly, even if we could somehow conceptualize such a code, it wouldnevertheless provide inadequate normative guidance to humans as we nowfind them with all their actual desires, emotions and irrational proclivities.^[16] For Sidgwick, all we have is utilitarian common-sense, which we can,and should, try to refine and systematize according the demands of ourchanging circumstances.^[17]

Sidgwick, then, faulted Spencer for deceiving himself in thinking thathe had successfully made “empirical” utilitarianism morerigorous by making it deductive and therefore “rational.”Rather, Spencer was simply offering just another variety of“empirical” utilitarianism instead. Nevertheless,Spencer’s version of “empirical” utilitarianism wasmuch closer to Sidgwick’s than Sidgwick recognized. Spencer notonly shadowed Mill substantively but Sidgwick methodologically.

In the preface to the sixth (1901) edition ofThe Methods ofEthics (the prefaces to all the previous editions were includedin the final, seventh edition of 1907), Sidgwick writes that as hebecame increasingly aware of the shortcomings of utilitariancalculation, he became ever more sensitive to the utilitarian efficacyof common sense “on the ground of the general presumption whichevolution afforded that moral sentiments and opinions would point toconduct conducive to general happiness…” (Sidgwick 1907:xxi). In other words, common sense morality is a generally reliable,right-making decision procedure because social evolution hasprivileged the emergence of general happiness-generating moralsentiments. And whenever common sense fails us with conflicting orfoggy guidance, we have little choice but to engage inorder-restoring, utilitarian calculation. The latter workshand-in-glove with the former, forever refining and systematizingit.

Now Spencer’s “empirical” utilitarianism works muchthe same way even though Spencer obfuscated these similarities byspuriously distinguishing between “empirical” andsupposedly superior, “rational” utilitarianism. Much likeSidgwick, Spencer holds that our common sense moral judgments derivetheir intuitive force from their proven utility-promoting powerinherited from one generation to the next. Contrary to what“empirical” utilitarians like Bentham have mistakenlymaintained, we never make utilitarian calculations in anintuition-free vacuum. Promoting utility is never simply a matter ofchoosing options, especially when much is at stake, by calculating andcritically comparing utilities. Rather, the emergence of utilitarianpractical reasoning begins wherever our moral intuitions breakdown.Moral science tests and refines our moral intuitions, which oftenprove “necessarily vague” and contradictory. In order to“make guidance by them adequate to all requirements, theirdictates have to be interpreted and made definite by science; to whichend there must be analysis of those conditions to complete livingwhich they respond to, and from converse with which they havearisen.” Such analysis invariably entails recognizing thehappiness of “each and all, as the end to be achieved byfulfillment of these conditions” (Spencer 1879–93 [1978:I, 204]).

“Empirical” utilitarianism is “unconsciouslymade” out of the “accumulated results of past humanexperience,” eventually giving way to “rational”utilitarianism which is “determined by the intellect”(Spencer 1873 [1969: 279ff]). The latter, moreover, “impliesguidance by the general conclusions which analysis of experienceyields,” calculating the “distant effects” on lives“at large” (Spencer 1884 [1981: 162–5]).

In sum, “rational” utilitarianism is critical andempirical rather than deductive. It resolutely though judiciouslyembraces indefeasible moral rights as necessary conditions of generalhappiness, making utilitarianism rigorously and uncompromisinglyliberal. And it was also evolutionary, much like Sidgwick’s. Forboth Spencer and Sidgwick, utilitarian practical reasoning exposes,refines and systematizes our underlying moral intuitions, which havethus far evolved in spite of their under-appreciated utility. WhereasSpencer labeled this progress towards “rational”utilitarianism, Sidgwick more appropriately called this“progress in the direction of a closer approximation to aperfectly enlightened [empirical] Utilitarianism” (Sidgwick1907: 455).^[18]

Notwithstanding the undervalued similarities between their respectiveversions of evolutionary utilitarianism, Spencer and Sidgwicknevertheless parted company in two fundamental respects. First,whereas for Spencer, “rational” utilitarianism refines“empirical” utilitarianism by converging on indefeasiblemoral rights, for Sidgwick, systematization never ceases. Rather,systematizing common sense continues indefinitely in order to keeppace with the vicissitudes of our social circumstances. The bestutilitarian strategy requires flexibility and not the crampingrigidity of unyielding rights. In effect, Spencer’sutilitarianism was too dogmatically liberal for Sidgwick’s moretempered political tastes.

Second, Spencer was a Lamarckian while Sidgwick was not. For Spencer,moral faculty exercise hones each individual’s moral intuitions.Being biologically (and not just culturally) inheritable, theseintuitions become increasingly authoritative in succeedinggenerations, favoring those cultures wherever moral common sensebecomes more uncompromising all things being equal. Eventually,members of favored societies begin consciously recognizing, andfurther deliberately refining, the utility-generating potency of theirinherited moral intuitions. “Rational,” scientificutilitarianism slowly replaces common-sense, “empirical”utilitarianism as we learn the incomparable value of equal freedom andits derivative moral rights as everyday utilitarian decision procedures.^[19]

Their differences aside, Spencer was nonetheless as much a utilitarianas Sidgwick, which the latter fully recognized though we shouldhesitate labeling Spencer a classical utilitarian as we now labelSidgwick. Moreover, Sidgwick was hardly alone at the turn of the19th-century in depicting Spencer as fundamentally utilitarian. J. S.Mackenzie and J. H. Muirhead viewed him as a utilitarian as did W. D.Ross as late as 1939. (Mackenzie 1893: 243–7; Muirhead 1897:136; Ross 1939: 59). Even scholars in Germany at that time readSpencer as a utilitarian. For instance, A. G. Sinclair viewed him as autilitarian worth comparing with Sidgwick. In his 1907DerUtilitarismus bei Sidgwick und Spencer, Sinclair concludes“Daher ist er [Spencer], wie wir schon gesagt haben, einevolutionistischer Hedonist und nicht ein ethischerEvolutionist,” which we can translate as “Therefore he(Spencer) is, as we have already seen, an evolutionary hedonist andnot an ethical evolutionist” (Sinclair 1907: 49). So howevermuch we have fallen into the erroneous habit of regarding Spencer aslittle invested with 19th-century utilitarianism, he was not receivedthat way at all by his immediate contemporaries both in England and incontinental Europe.

5. Political Rights

Not only was Spencer less than a “social Darwinist” as wehave come to understand social Darwinism, but he was also lessunambiguously libertarian as some, such as Eric Mack and Tibor Machan,have made him out to be. Not only his underlying utilitarianism butalso the distinction, which he never forswears, between “rightsproperly so-called” and “political” rights, makes itproblematic to read him as what we would call a‘libertarian’.

Whereas “rights properly so-called” are authenticspecifications of equal freedom, “political rights” arenot. They are interim devices conditional on our moral imperfection.Insofar as we remain morally imperfect requiring governmentenforcement of moral rights proper, political rights insure thatgovernment nevertheless remains mostly benign, never unduly violatingmoral rights proper themselves. The “right to ignore thestate” and the right of universal suffrage are two essentialpolitical rights for Spencer. InSocial Statics, Spencer says“we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt acondition of voluntary outlawry.” Every citizen is “freeto drop connection with the state – to relinquish its protectionand to refuse paying for its support” (Spencer 1851 [1970,185]). For Spencer, this right helps restrict government to protectingproper moral rights because it allows citizens to take their businesselsewhere when it doesn’t.

However, Spencer eventually repudiated this mere political right. Forinstance, in his 1894An Autobiography, he insists that sincecitizens “cannot avoid benefiting by the social order whichgovernment maintains,” they have no right to opt out from itsprotection (Spencer 1904: I, 362). They may not legitimately taketheir business elsewhere whenever they feel that their fundamentalmoral rights are being ill-protected. Because he eventually repudiatedthe “right to ignore the state,” we should not interpretSpencer as he comes across in Nozick 1974 (p. 289–290, footnote10, the text of which is on p. 350), where he is referenced in supportof such a right.

Spencer’s commitment to the right of universal suffrage likewisewanes in his later writings. Whereas inSocial Statics, heregards universal suffrage as a dependable means of preventinggovernment from overreaching its duty of sticking to protecting moralrights proper, by the laterPrinciples of Ethics he concludesthat universal suffrage fails to do this effectively and so heabandons his support of it. He later concluded that universal suffragethreatened respect for moral rights more than it protected them.Universal suffrage, especially when extended to women, encouraged“over-legislation,” allowing government to take upresponsibilities which did not belong to it.

Spencer, then, was more than willing to modify political rights inkeeping with his changing assessment of how well they secured basicmoral rights on whose sanctity promoting happiness depended. The morehe became convinced that certain political rights were accordinglycounterproductive, the more readily he forsook them and the lessdemocratic, if not patently libertarian, he became.

Likewise, Spencer’s declining enthusiasm for landnationalization (which Hillel Steiner has recently found soinspiring), coupled with growing doubts that it followed as acorollary from the principle of equal freedom, testify to his waning radicalism.^[20] According to Spencer inSocial Statics, denying everycitizen the right to use of the earth equally was a “crimeinferior only in wickedness to the crime of taking away their lives orpersonal liberties” (Spencer 1851 [1970: 182]). Private landownership was incompatible with equal freedom because it denied mostcitizens equal access to the earth’s surface on which facultyexercise and happiness ultimately depended. However, byThePrinciples of Ethics, Spencer abandoned advocating comprehensiveland nationalization, much to Henry George’s ire. George, anAmerican, had previously regarded Spencer as a formidable ally in hiscrusade to abolish private land tenure.

Now Spencer’s repudiation of the moral right to use the earthand the political right to ignore the state, as well as the politicalright of universal suffrage, undermines his distinction betweenrational and empirical utilitarianism. In forswearing the right to usethe earth — because he subsequently became convinced that landnationalization undermined, rather than promoted general utility— Spencer betrays just how much of a traditional empiricalutilitarian he was. He abandoned land nationalization not because heconcluded that the right to use the earth did not follow deductivelyfrom the principle of equal freedom. Rather, he abandoned land reformsimply because he became convinced that it was an empiricallycounterproductive strategy for promoting utility.

Even more obviously, by repudiating political rights like the“right to ignore the state” and universal suffrage rights,he similarly divulged just how much empirical utilitarianconsiderations trumped all else in his practical reasoning. Not onlywas Spencer not a committed or consistent libertarian, but he was notmuch of rational utilitarian either. In the end, Spencer was mostly,to repeat, what we would now call a liberal utilitarian who, much likeMill, tried to combine strong rights with utility though, inSpencer’s case, he regarded moral rights as indefeasible.

6. Conclusion

Allan Gibbard has suggested that, for Sidgwick, in refining andsystematizing common sense, we transform “unconsciousutilitarianism” into “conscious utilitarianism.” We“apply scientific techniques of felicific assessment to furtherthe achievement of the old, unconscious goal” (Gibbard 1982:72). Spencer’s “liberal” utilitarianism wascomparable moral science. Sidgwick, however, aimed simply at“progress in the direction of a closer approximation to aperfectly enlightened Utilitarianism” (Sidgwick1907: 455). Spencer, by contrast, had more grandiose aspirations forrepairing utilitarianism. Merely moving towards “perfectlyenlightened Utilitarianism” was scientifically under ambitious.Fully “enlightened” utilitarianism was conceptuallyaccessible and perhaps even politically practicable. And Spencer haddiscovered its secret, namely indefeasible moral rights.

Spencer, then, merits greater esteem if for no other reason than thatSidgwick, besides Mill, took him so seriously as a fellow utilitarianworthy of his critical attention. Unfortunately, contemporaryintellectual history has been less kind, preferring a more convenientand simplistic narrative of the liberal canon that excludes him.

Spencer’s “liberal” utilitarianism was bolder andarguably more unstable than either Mill or Sidgwick’s. Hefollowed Mill investing utilitarianism with robust moral rights hopingto keep it ethically appealing without forgoing its systemiccoherence. While the principle of utility retreats to the backgroundas a standard of overall normative assessment, moral rights serve aseveryday sources of direct moral obligation, making Spencer no less anindirect utilitarian than Mill. But Spencer’s indirectutilitarianism is more volatile, more logically precarious, becauseSpencer burdened rights with indefeasibility while Mill made themstringent but nevertheless overridable depending on the magnitude ofthe utility at stake. For Spencer, we never compromise basic rightslet the heavens fall. But for Mill, the prospect of collapsing heavenswould easily justify appealing directly to the principle of utility atthe expense of respect for moral rights.

Now, critics of utilitarianism from William Whewell (1794–1866)to David Lyons more recently have taken Mill and subsequent liberalutilitarians to task for trying to have their utilitarian cake and eattheir liberalism too. As Lyons argues with great effect, by imposingliberal juridical constraints on the pursuit of general utility, Millintroduces as a second normative criterion with independent“moral force” compromising his utilitarianism. He risksembracing value pluralism if not abandoning utilitarianism altogether.And if Mill’s liberal version of utilitarianism is just valuepluralism in disguise, then he still faces the further dilemma of howto arbitrate conflicts between utility and rights. If utility trumpsrights only when enough of it is at stake, we must still ask how muchenough is enough? And any systematic answer we might give simplyinjects another normative criterion into the problematic logic of ourliberal utilitarian stew since we have now introduced a third highercriterion that legislates conflicts between the moral force of theprinciple of utility and the moral force of rights.^[21]

If these dilemmas hold for Mill’s utilitarianism, then theimplications are both better and worse for Spencer. Though for Mill,utility always trumps rights when enough of the former is in jeopardy,with Spencer, fundamental rights always trump utility no matter howmuch of the latter is imperiled. Hence, Spencer does not need tointroduce surreptitiously supplemental criteria for adjudicatingconflicts between utility and rights because rights are indefeasible,never giving way to the demands of utility or disutility no matter howimmediate and no matter how promising or how catastrophic. In short,for Spencer, basic moral rights always carry the greater, practical(if not formal) moral force. Liberalism always supersedesutilitarianism in practice no matter how insistently Spencer feignsloyalty to the latter.

Naturally, one can salvage this kind of utilitarianism’sauthenticity by implausibly contending that indefeasible moral rightsalways (meaning literally without exception) work out for theutilitarian best over both the short and long-terms. As Wayne Sumnercorrectly suggests, “absolute rights are not an impossibleoutput for a consequentialist methodology” (Sumner 1987: 211).While this maneuver would certainly rescue the logical integrity ofSpencer’s liberal version of utilitarianism, it does so at thecost of considerable common sense credibility. And even if it weremiraculously true that respecting rights without exception justhappened to maximize long-term utility, empirically demonstrating thistruth would certainly prove challenging at best. Moreover,notwithstanding this maneuver’s practical plausibility, it wouldnevertheless seem, as suggested previously, to cause utilitarianism toretire a “residual position” that is indeed hardly“worth calling utilitarianism” (Williams 1973: 135).

Whether Spencer actually envisioned his utilitarianism this way isunclear. In any case, insofar as he also held that social evolutionwas tending towards human moral perfectibility, he could afford toworry less and less about whether rights-based utilitarianism was aplausible philosophical enterprise. Increasing moral perfectibilitymakes secondary decision procedures like basic moral rightsunnecessary as a utility-promoting strategy. Why bother with promotinggeneral utility indirectly once we have learned to promote it directlywith certainty of success? Why bother with substitute sources ofstand-in obligation when, thanks to having become moral saints, actutilitarianism will fortunately always do? But moralperfectibility’s unlikelihood is no less plausible than thelikelihood of fanatical respect for basic moral rights always workingout for the utilitarian best.^[22] In any case, just as the latter strategy causes utilitarianism toretire completely for practical purposes, so the former strategyamounts to liberalism entirely retiring in turn. Hence, Mill’sversion of “liberal” utilitarianism must be deemed morecompelling and promising for those of us who remain stubbornly drawnto this problematical philosophical enterprise.

Spencer’s rights-based utilitarianism nonetheless has much torecommend for it despite its unconventional features and implausibleimplications. Even more than Mill, he suggests how liberalutilitarians could attempt to moderate utilitarianism in other ways,enabling it to retain a certain measure of considerable ethicalappeal. Spencer’s utilitarianism wears its liberalism not onlyby constraining the pursuit of utility externally by deploying robustmoral rights with palpable independent moral force. It also, and moresuccessfully, shows how utilitarians can liberalize theirutilitarianism by building internal constraints into their maximizingaims. If, following Spencer, we make our maximizing goaldistribution-sensitive by including everyone’s happiness withinit so that each individual obtains his or her fair share, then we havesalvaged some kind of consequentialist authenticity whilesimultaneously securing individual integrity too. We have salvagedutilitarianism as a happiness-promoting, if not ahappiness-maximizing, consequentialism. Because everyone is “tocount for one, nobody for more than one” not just as a resourcefor generating utility but also as deserving to experience a share ofit, no one may be sacrificed callously without limit for the good ofthe rest.^[23] No one may be treated as a means only but must be treated as an endas well.

Spencer’s utilitarianism also has much to recommend for itsimply for its much undervalued importance in the development ofmodern liberalism. If Mill and Sidgwick are critical to making senseof our liberal canon, then Spencer is no less critical. If both arecrucial for coming to terms with Rawls particularly, and consequentlywith post-Rawlsianism generally, as I strongly believe both are, thenSpencer surely deserves better from recent intellectual history.Intellectual history is one of the many important narratives we telland retell ourselves. What a shame when we succumb to scholarlylaziness in constructing these narratives just because such lazinessboth facilitates meeting the pedagogical challenges of teaching theliberal tradition and answering our need for a coherent philosophicalidentity.

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