Justice And Utility

The dissertation aims to have a research on Mill's theory of utilitarian justice.Justice is an eternal topic of human society. On the western history of ethics, the study and discussion on justice are extremely rich and colorful. And the conception of Mill's utilitarian justice is one of the most valuable but controversial ideas. The purpose of this paper is to have a research on Mill's idea of relationship between justice and utility by re-explaining his moral theory. The paper includes five chapters.Like any other justice thought, the thought of utilitarian justice also has its history of forming and developing. Chapter One traces back from Aristotle of ancient times to David Hume of modern times and tries to make clear the threads of development of utilitarian justice.Chapter Two introduces the background and features of Mill's moral theory. Mill is one of the most important figures of classic utilitarianism. His theory not only inherits Benthamism, but also absorbs some reasonable factors of deontology of Kant. The reason for this change lies in two respects. On the one hand, it is because of his mental crisis in 1820; on the other hand, the more important one is that Mill finds if all moral acts appeal to simple and direct calculation of utility, it will make moral principle and duty lose its universal value and meaning, but also cannot give a proper explanation to some important categories of ethics such as justice, right and liberty. Therefore Mill has made some revisions on utilitarianism theory. First, Mill uses "happiness" instead of "pleasure" as the core concept in his theory of ethics. His concept of happiness has a meaningful content such as individuality, self-respect and virtue etc. Secondly, Mill insists that moral principle and duty should have important positions in the utilitarianism. These two revisions not only make some key moral principles, like the principle of justice, have a significant occupation in his theory, but also make his assertion of individual freedom become consistent with his utilitarianism that promote happiness.Chapter Three discusses the relationship between equal rights and utility. Asearly as more than 2000 years ago, Aristotle said justice means equality. And the concept of rights is one of the most important forms of equality, either in ethics or law. The concept of rights is also the foundation of Mill's justice theory. There are two key points in Mill's rights theory. Firstly, Mill divides his moral theory into three levels: ultimate principle, second principle and the moral principle of special behaviors. In these three levels, Mill puts the second principle at the center position. Thus, his utilitarianism can logically support rights. Secondly, Mill is not a maximizing utilitarian as many philosophers have read. This paper offers a reading of Mill's Utilitarianism and suggests that Mill is a moral minimalist utilitarian. As a moral minimalist utilitarian, Mill makes a clear difference between moral and non-moral realm. On his point, an act promotes happiness does not mean that it is morally obligatory. And acts that promote happiness are either prudentially or morally praiseworthy, but in a limited number of classes are acts that promote happiness morally obligatory. So maximizing happiness is not a basic moral obligation but a moral praiseworthy ideal. Once Mill is read as such a moral minimalist utilitarian, his theory can successfully support not only the principle of rights but also the principle of justice.Chapter Four discusses the relationship between liberty and utility. Mill puts forward his famous liberty principle: "The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it." Some philosophers have argued that there are two John Stuart Mills. There is the rights supporting liberal Mill of On Liberty, and then there is the author of Utilitarianism. This reading often presupposes that there is no possibility of reconciling these two Mills, since it is impossible to be both a supporter of liberal justice and utilitarianism. This paper proposes specific readings of On Liberty and Utilitarianism that make this claim far from credible. Firstly, Mill put liberty into two kinds: liberty as the tool and liberty as the aim. The former is a tool for both personal happiness and social prosperity. The liberty in this sense is consistent with utility. The liberty as the aim is one of core parts of happiness itself, it is an ultimate value for human being. Therefore this kind ofliberty is prior to utility. Secondly, Mill put ethics into three parts: expedient, moral and aesthetic. The liberty principle is the premier principle in moral realm. And the utility principle is the basic principle of these three realms. So in the moral realm, liberty principle cannot be overstepped by utility principle. This is the essence of Mill's liberalism.Chapter Five is on distributive justice and utility. Distributive justice is a disputable topic from ancient times. In the contemporary, there are two main principles that founded on two different ethics, i.e. deontology and utilitarianism. These two theories have different viewpoints on the relationships between "right " and "good". As a minimalist utilitarian, Mill not only emphasizes the importance of "right" but also insists on the aim of "good". Mill advocates that "right" is a compelling or "strong" obligation and "good " is a hortative or "weak" one.The conception of Mill's utilitarian justice is based on his moral minimalist utilitarianism. On this reading, it is not difficult to reconcile his utilitarianism with his liberal justice. The value of Mill's justice theory is his conciliation and compromise between some basic values: liberty, equality and utility; consequence and duty, right and good. And because of these points, Mill is regarded as far overstepped Bentham and other traditional utilitarian and his theory exerts great influence on the theory of utilitarianism in modern times.