ABSTRACT
Secondly, a distinction must be made between the terms 'right' and 'wrong' as applied to particular actions and to types of action in so far as they are defined by general rules. For very often we say that a particular action is right or wrong and mean simply that it is an application of a general rule.15 We do not have to think carefully about the consequences of each particular action. Mill understood this perfectly well. He stressed the necessity for secondary principles in morality (the equivalent of Kant's maxims). We usually need to appeal to the consequences in terms of happiness promoted only when such secondary principles conflict. Experience has established, on Utilitarian grounds, that such secondary principles are in general right; but we do not have to sit down in each particular case and ponder about consequences any more than a Christian has to read through the New Testament before every action. The Utilitarian principle, like the Kantian one, provides a criterion for deciding upon the Tightness or wrongness of general rules; it would be absurd to apply it rigorously to every occasion on which we have to act.16 But this does not mean that we must treat past experience as absolutely authoritative either. For we may decide that the rule needs revising in the light of new circumstances, or that it needs modifying slightly to be defensible in a particular case. The Utilitarian, like anyone else, must have established principles; but he believes in following them intelligently, in adapting them to concrete circumstances. And the relevant criterion is always their conduciveness to the 'ultimate end' of happiness.
