justice03.docx

1、justice03Lesson 3When we finished last time, we were looking at John Stuart Mills attempt to reply to the critics of Benthams Utilitarianism.In his book Utilitarianism Mill tries to show that critics to the contrary it is possible within the utilitarian framework to distinguish between higher and lo

2、wer pleasures.It is possible to make qualitative distinctions of worth and we tested that idea with the Simpsons and the Shakespeare excerpts.And the results of our experiment seem to call into question Mills distinction because a great many of you reported that you prefer the Simpsons but that you

3、still consider Shakespeare to be the higher or the worthier pleasure.Thats the dilemma with which our experiment confronts Mill.What about Mills attempt to account for the especially weighty character of individual rights and justice in chapter five of Utilitarianism.He wants to say that individual

4、rights are worthy of special respect.In fact, he goes so far as to say that justice is the most sacred part and the most incomparably binding part of morality.But the same challenge could be put to this part of Mills defense.Why is justice the chief part and the most binding part of our morality?Wel

5、l, he says because in the long run, if we do justice and if we respect rights, society as a whole will be better off in the long run.Well, what about that?What if we have a case where making an exception and violating individual rights actually will make people better off in the long run?Is it all r

6、ight then to use people?And there is a further objection that could be raised against Mills case for justice and rights.Suppose the utilitarian calculus in the long run works out as he says it will such that respecting peoples rights is a way of making everybody better off in the long run.Is that th

7、e right reason?Is that the only reason to respect people?If the doctor goes in and yanks the organs from the healthy patient who came in for a checkup to save five lives, there would be adverse effects in the long run.Eventually, people would learn about this and would stop going in for checkups.Is

8、it the right reason?Is the only reason that you as a doctor wont yank the organs out of the healthy patient that you think, well, if I use him in this way, in the long run more lives would be lost?Or is there another reason having to do with intrinsic respect for the person as an individual?And if t

9、hat reason matters and its not so clear that even Mills utilitarianism can take account of it, fully to examine these two worries or objections, to Mills defense we need to push further.And we need to ask in the case of higher or worthier pleasures are there theories of the good life that can provid

10、e independent moral standards for the worth of pleasure?If so, what do they look like?Thats one question.In the case of justice and rights, if we suspect that Mill is implicitly leaning on notions of human dignity or respect for person that are not strictly speaking utilitarian, we need to look to s

11、ee whether there are some stronger theories of rights that can explain the intuition which even Mill shares, the intuition that the reason for respecting individuals and not using them goes beyond even utility in the long run.Today, we turn to one of those strong theories of rights.Strong theories o

12、f right say individuals matter not just as instruments to be used for a larger social purpose or for the sake of maximizing utility, individuals are separate beings with separate lives worthy of respect.And so its a mistake, according to strong theories or rights, its a mistake to think about justic

13、e or law by just adding up preferences and values.The strong rights theory we turn to today is libertarianism.Libertarianism takes individual rights seriously.Its called libertarianism because it says the fundamental individual right is the right to liberty precisely because we are separate individu

14、al beings.Were not available to any use that the society might desire or devise precisely because we are individual separate human beings.We have a fundamental right to liberty, and that means a right to choose freely, to live our lives as we please provided we respect other peoples rights to do the

15、 same.Thats the fundamental idea.Robert Nozick, one of the libertarian philosophers we read for this course, puts it this way: Individuals have rights.So strong and far reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state may do.So what does libertarianism say about

16、 the role of government or of the state?Well, there are three things that most modern states do that on the libertarian theory of rights are illegitimate or unjust.One of them is paternalist legislation.Thats passing laws that protect people from themselves, seatbelt laws, for example, or motorcycle helmet laws.The libertarian says it may be a good thing if people wear seatbelts but that