, to sacrifice the lives and properties of innocent
people in defence of his position?[593] What, then, does the love of
virtue 'for its own sake' come to? If you refuse to save your country,
because you think the means base, your morality is mischievous, that
is, immoral. If, on the other hand, you admit that the means cease to
be base, the supposed supremacy is an empty brag. The doctrine is then
verbally maintained, but interpreted so as to conform to the criterion
of utility. In other words, Mackintosh cannot reconcile his admission
of utility as a 'criterion' with his support of a moral sense entitled
to override the criterion. Mackintosh's moral sense is meant to
distinguish the moral motive from 'expediency.' To this, again, Mill
has a very forcible answer. A man is blameable who makes exceptions to
laws in his own private interest. But if a man consistently and
invariably acted for the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number,'
and paid no more attention to his own happiness than to other
people's, he would certainly have a very lofty and inflexible test,
assuming--as we must allow Mill to assume--that we can calculate the
effect of conduct upon happiness at large. Again, upon the assumption
that 'moral' is equivalent to 'felicific,' we get a general rule
entitled to override any individual tastes or fancies, such as Mill
supposes to be meant by the 'Moral Sense.' The rule is derived from
the interests of all, and gives an ultimate 'objective criterion.' J.
S. Mill, describing his father's system, observes that the teaching of
such a man was not likely to err on 'the side of laxity or
indulgence.'[594] It certainly did not. And, in fact, his criterion,
however obtained, had in his eyes the certainty of a scientific law.
This or that is right as surely as this or that food is wholesome. My
taste has nothing to do with it. And, moreover, the criterion
certainly gives a moral ground. If I know that any conduct will
produce more happiness than misery that is a moral reason for adopting
it. A 'moral sense' which should be radically inconsistent with that
criterion, which should order me to inflict suffering as suffering, or
without some ulterior reason, would be certainly at fault. Mackintosh
indeed would have agreed to this, though, if Mill was right, at the
expense of consistency.

Mill, however, deduces from his criterion doctrines which involve a
remarkable paradox. The mode in which he is led to them is
chara