On Political Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is one of the most influential and controversial political thought since modern times in western, Many modern social theories come into being in the process of responding and criticizing utilitarianism. But utilitarianism are throughout unable to break away from the theory predicament it has landed in, the criticism on utilitarianism mainly stems from two aspects, one is knowledge of utility conception, the differences about fundamental conception made various forms utilitarianism land in predicament from logical starting point of it's theory.The other is the problem of utility maximization reflected by"Greatest happiness principle", this kind of unified and absolute utility principle is difficult to provide reasonable theoretical basis. In addition, the theory development of traditional utilitarianism faced an important obstacle which doesn't diffrentiate on theory formation the utilitarianism as political morality and the utilitarianism as individual morality. Utilitarianism is mainly as theory of political philosophy, but utilitarianism as political philosophy gradually falled into decay in the 20th century. The development of utilitarianism theory assumed ethics tendency, utility principle became individual code of morality. Utilitarianism can only achieve it's revival of theory by returning to political philosophy field.Political utilitarianism responses from two aspects to the theory predicament utilitarianism faced: first, explaining utility by the concept of general interests, and the general interests mean the social resources which are useful to achieve each person's happiness or inner preference, mianly refers to the income and wealth of social members ,and the Special interests refer to the happiness itself; Next, according to the idea of equality in utilitarianism, the principle of equitable distribution should be used to limit"utility maximization". An important aspect of political utilitarianism distinguishes from ethics utilitaranism is the difference of moral subject. Ethics utilitarianism takes all social members which have equal status as moral subject, but political utilitarianism takes basic system of society and specific political roles which form a government, they can be separately called structure subject and behavior subject. Therefore, political utilitarianism can be regarded as such a political philosophy theory which takes basic system of society and specific political roles formed a government as moral subject, under the premise of being in conformity with a equitable distribution principle, and the main target is to promote effectively the general interests of social members.The basic principles of political utilitarianism constitute basic framework of it's theory. The basic principles include general interest principle,the principle of equality,efficiency and fair principle and consequential principle. General interest principle emphasizes that political utilitarianism mainly concerns how to promote general interest of social members and the distribution modes of the interest; The principle of equality show in two aspects, one is social members have equal rights(include equal opportunities) in distribution for the first time,the other is every social members has equal proprietary rights or share; efficiency and fair principle stands for the distribution modes that can promotes effectively the general interests of social members are equal distribution modes in the meanwhile; Consequential principle considers that the moral evaluation of subject of political utilitarianism should be judged by if the final effect has promoted the interests of social members according to utility principle.Political utilitarianism provides utilitarian basis for the realization of social justice, distributive justice is basic objective of political utilitaranism. Distributive justice constitutes important aspect of social justice, but social justice has a wider range of connotations.Its'final goal is to achieve the fundamental value of individuals and society, and the value may be espressed by freedom and virtue, it's embodiment of human nature in essence. Political utilitarianism emphasizes that distributive justice provided the necessary material basis of society for social morality, and its close connections with social justice is that it can lead to theory of virtue politics.Virtue has the characteristics of internality and practicality, virtue politics achieves virtue of human being and promote the development of virtue of social memebers through a kind of political practice . Virtue politics is political way to achieve nature of individuals and society,ultimate good, political utilitarianism provided theory framework with universal significance for virtue politics,and theory of virtue politics also was expressed by China's traditional politics thought Confucianism"saint outside the King"as well as exposition about political function of Communist Party in scientific socialism. Therefore, the ultimate goal of political utilitarianism is to achieve the justice of society.