ion of happiness is, according to the utilitarian ethics, the
object of virtue: the occasions on which any person (except one in a
thousand) has it in his power to do this on an extended scale, in other
words, to be a public benefactor, are but exceptional; and on these
occasions alone is he called on to consider public utility; in every
other case, private utility, the interest or happiness of some few
persons, is all he has to attend to. Those alone the influence of whose
actions extends to society in general, need concern themselves
habitually about so large an object. In the case of abstinences
indeed--of things which people forbear to do, from moral considerations,
though the consequences in the particular case might be beneficial--it
would be unworthy of an intelligent agent not to be consciously aware
that the action is of a class which, if practised generally, would be
generally injurious, and that this is the ground of the obligation to
abstain from it. The amount of regard for the public interest implied in
this recognition, is no greater than is demanded by every system of
morals; for they all enjoin to abstain from whatever is manifestly
pernicious to society.

The same considerations dispose of another reproach against the doctrine
of utility, founded on a still grosser misconception of the purpose of a
standard of morality, and of the very meaning of the words right and
wrong. It is often affirmed that utilitarianism renders men cold and
unsympathizing; that it chills their moral feelings towards
individuals; that it makes them regard only the dry and hard
consideration of the consequences of actions, not taking into their
moral estimate the qualities from which those actions emanate. If the
assertion means that they do not allow their judgment respecting the
rightness or wrongness of an action to be influenced by their opinion of
the qualities of the person who does it, this is a complaint not against
utilitarianism, but against having any standard of morality at all; for
certainly no known ethical standard decides an action to be good or bad
because it is done by a good or a bad man, still less because done by an
amiable, a brave, or a benevolent man or the contrary. These
considerations are relevant, not to the estimation of actions, but of
persons; and there is nothing in the utilitarian theory inconsistent
with the fact that there are other things which interest us in persons
besides the rightness and