Difficult Position Of Testifying Liberalism With Utilitarianism

All important conceptions and basic problems of moral philosophy and political philosophy can be put into the relations of utilitarianism and liberalism for discussion.Mill's justifying liberalism with utilitarianism opens a new path against the traditional contract theory and shows a great theoretical courage,but he also left the "theoretical consistency" problem criticized by others and the most of his critics thought he is difficult in keeping consistency of his principle of utilitarianism and that of liberty.Nevertheless,it is his inconsistency that left a larger space for talking the relations between morality and politics.This research aims to provide a frame of historicism:The birth of the 17th century liberalism marks a historic reversal of the goods and the rights,and then the new political order takes the priority of the rights of holding certain ideas of the goods.The birth and development of 18-19th century utilitarianism was just the logical outcome of this new order,while on the other hand utilitarianism implied a double divergence from the conservative human nature and the priori rationality in the old moral and political believes.Therefore,utilitarianism judging goods and evils with the interests and effects of behaviors was going along with historical trend that people turn to pursue their economic interests after their political rights are guaranteed and it becomes the main demand of the 18-19th century liberalism.Thus it shows Mill's justification is reasonable.Nonetheless,there is still an essential contradiction between the conservative core ideas of the 17th century liberalism,namely prohibiting to infringe the basic individual's rights with any reasons,and the greatest happiness principle of utilitarianism,so that when the equality of economic right has become the major demand in the 20th century,the conflict between liberalism and utilitarianism breaks out once again.Looking back Mill's theoretical consistency from this perspective found that his difficulty attributes to his spiritual qualities both in classical liberalism and utilitarianism.Although he lifts the weight of the quality of happiness of utilitarianism with the higher pleasures,he has never given up his fundamental position that the interests and effects are paramount.Thus he is unable to answer weather it should infringe the rights of minority in order to maximize the utility of majority.However,his liberalism takes"no harm" precisely as the only precondition of limiting an individual's freedom,while this precondition could not be defended in favor of any ideas attributing to utilitarianism.This kind of problem is generally no solution in theory.Chapter One introduces that the idea origin,historical background and main traits of Bentham's utilitarianism,making a distinction between Bentham's doctrine and Kant's deontology,that Mill's revision to Bentham's doctrine and his major points in justifying liberalism with utilitarianism,and that what does the Mill's "theoretical consistency" exactly mean.This chapter targets the objects and questions of the research so as to lay down a foundation for the following chapters.Chapter Two argues that the political order characterized by overpowering good to right in ancient Greece while by overpowering right to good since the 17th century,and Hobbes and Locke contribute most to this historical exchange.Kant's moral philosophy supports the political order of the day by weighting "form of good" over"content of good" while Bentham's utilitarianism takes happiness and bitterness as the only criterion for distinguish goods and evils and thus shows its simplification value.Mill had the genes of the negative and tolerant 17th liberalism,and just for this reason Berlin thought that Mill's liberalism has come into being original ethical pluralism,so that the contradiction between the variety of his liberalism and the simplification of his utilitarianism was inevitable.C.L.Ten also explores Mill's this inherent conflict.He thought those who declare that "those who do not desire liberty" are exist and that they need some one to be their spokesperson imply to deny such people having their own ideas of good and the right of autonomy.It shows that some one always wants to stop the reversal of good and right and their best reason expressed in the theoretical form is just utilitarianism.Chapter Three argues that the human nature has continuously resurrected after the Renaissance and the pursuit of secular happiness is more than the beyond expectations.The emotionalism of Scotland liberals Hutchison,Hume and Smith has become the main traits of Britain's political thought in 18th century.Hutchison develops Shaftesbury's idea that rationality does not help moral judgment,claiming that benevolence should give to "the most majority",hence the source of utilitarianism.Hume clearly illustrates that rationality is the slave of the passions;it is only benefit to knowledge but not to good act.Smith is inspired by Hume's sympathetic principle,and his dialectical interpretation of principle of self-interest or self-love leads to the transfer of individual's right in 18-19th century.Hayek,who is mentally close to Scotland liberals,argues that the main fault of utilitarianism lies in its social constructivism based on rationalism,and that the desired goal in such constructivism are incompatible with the liberalism in which there is no any desired goals.Smith's "self-love" and "others-love" turns to "self-regarding" and"others-regarding" in Mill's context,and then turns to private moral and public moral in Himmelfarb's context when she criticizes Mill.She thought that Mill's division in these two spheres would be futile.Chapter Four argues that the relation between freedom and equality is a permanent problem in moral and political philosophy.Rawls found the social inequality caused by different natural lucks,which utilitarian must ignore,and his"difference principle" gives more weight on the side of equality and is the biggest challenges to utilitarianism in the 20th century.Nozick thought Rawls' benefits package fails to admit the source of wealth,so he denies all patterned principle including benefits package and utilitarian's package with his principle of justice in holdings.Dworkin thought that Rawls ignores the duty which an individual should take for his own choice,so he structures his principle of equality of resources claiming "swift choice,blunt in the situation" and views utilitarianism as a variation of welfarism.Alan Ryan thought that Mill let the oneness concepts of safety serving as the holist concepts justice is arbitrary,and that even Mill takes safety to desire the maximized goods it does not mean a fair distribution of goods that the principle of freedom demanded.Chapter Five analyzes that Mill's "theoretical consistency" has two ideological roots,namely universalism and elitism.The former is manifested mainly in his utilitarianism when he is in favor of behaviors that resort to senior faculties,showing that he is somewhat monopolistic to the answer of what is the happiness of the best ethical life,while the latter mainly in his liberalism when he appeals for personality freedom that may not conform to mass demand but only struggle to free a few elites from the shackles of moral custom.This deepened his theoretical difficulties.