Mill On Justice

Today, there are a lot of political philosophers, of which the most representative one is Rawls, who criticizes utilitarianism severely. They consider that the principle of pursuing utility for one man is directly interpreted as the principle for society by utilitarianism, and that may neglect the difference between the interest of individual; moreover, Utilitarianism may can not attach enough importance to the assignment of goods between the individuals, and it may impair someone's interest for larger good, when it want to maximum satisfy all of the social members' desire. Can utilitarianism answer Rawls' critiques within its basic principles? We can answer this question by studying Mill's modified utilitarian justice.According to Rawls' great work , utilitarianism could be divided into two parts, one is classical utilitarianism, and the other is average utilitarianism. Mill's theory belongs to the latter one, because average utilitarianism is unable to avoid the unfavorable effect of the probability in the process of average chance, it has less attraction than Rawls' two principles of justice. But Rawls has not observe this division strictly, sometimes, he even directly regard Mil as an general utilitarian; otherwise, Rawls has not criticize Mill's theory directly, but just aims at general utilitarianism (such as Bentham's utilitarianism)when he criticizes utilitarianism. Therefore, Rawls' critique to the utilitarianism provides us a possibility to response it from Mill's modified utilitarian justice.On the other hand, Mil has made some significant modifications to Bentham's and others' traditional utilitarianism on the basis of inheriting them. Mill takes utilitarian tradition of empiricism, and he focus on the flexibility to deal with the problems rather than building enormous theoretical system, but he does not like Bentham who use the utilitarian principle as a direct standard about the action, he use the utilitarian principle as an indirect and final standard to solve the conflict between specific theories; Mill also does not like Bentham who consider that "utility" is a value that can be measured by a simple quantitative criteria, but gives "utilitarian" a more abundant content. He believes that the most important thing of "utility" is the "quality " of happiness rather than the "quantity" of happiness, and the individuals' autonomy, the development of the individuals, equality, beauty, and even the long-term development of human being as well as the permanent interests for human being, etc. are included in Mill's "utility". This unlimited expansion of "utility" makes Mill's utilitarianism unable to measure "utility" effectively, thus Mill's utility is only an ideal standards to evaluate values, and it is unable to provide an effective standard for the actions, but this ideal standard provides a possibility to the values such as freedom, rights, and equality, etc. which is prior to other values in the theory of justice.Firstly, Mill's theory of justice gives the freedom an absolute priority. Humanity itself requires people should free, the individual who has not autonomy can not obtain the real happiness, and he even is not a true man. The sole legitimate reasons to interfere the internal affairs of a person can only be "self-defense", that is, to prevent his harm to someone, so, we can say that freedom has an absolute priority. Mill's theory of freedom bases on "utility", and he has also repeatedly resort to the maximize of utility and the growth of happiness when he want to demonstrate the importance of freedom, but because his special modify to "utility", "utility" only is a weakest standard in his utilitarian, and because the free development of individuality itself is one of the most important factors in "utility", therefore, the requirement of utility will not damage the absolute priority of freedom. Mill's theory of justice also do a further explanation to the freedom that people should enjoys, it requests that in order to protect the absolute priority of the personal liberty on the basis of increasing the utility, the freedom of the individual should not be intervened within the scope of the freedom of expression and thought, and all the other scopes that not harm the interests of others.Secondly, Mill's theory of justice pays a special attention to the protection of the individual rights. We can know from Mill's theory that justice and rights are closely linked at the beginning of justice, and justice can not exist without the protection of the rights. Utility, in particular the most fundamental interests - security - is the basis of rights. Because security is one of the requirements of people's instinct, therefore, the basic rights of human being such as freedom have an absolute priority, and it does not permit to harm the rights of individuals for the needs of other interests. Such needs of the security can inspire a strong sense of justice and the sense of justice can promote the protection of the rights and the realization of justice. In order to protect the rights of minority, Mill argues that the clever minority should be given greater right of representation and upholds a balanced representation that is proposed by Hare. Of course, just like all the other theories of justice, Mill's theory can not provide an appropriate basis and explanation for every person's action, but once there is a conflict between the interests of the majority and the minority, Mill's approach may be more reasonable when his flexible theory of utilitarian justice balance the interests of the majority and the minority, and not permit to harm the legitimate rights of the minority's simply for the interests of the majority.Finally, Mill's theory of equality has great rationality, and it is able to respond to the criticism of some contemporary political philosophers in a certain extent. Mill deems that everyone's happiness should be treated equally. Equality is an important component of justice, and achieving equality will help to increase the utility. Because of the indirect and ideal characteristics of "utility", the requirement of maximizing utility will not undermine the priority of equality. The foundation of Mill's theory of justice is to protect the freedom and rights of individuals, furthermore, equality can be grouped under the objective of maximizing utility, and hence, it will not permit to violate the rights of individuals in pursuit of the ideal of equality. Critics argue that the principle of individuals is directly extended to social principles by utilitarianism which may ignore the differences of people's interests, to this Mill's theory of justice can make some rough but meaningful responses. Mill thinks that everyone has a social sentiment that put their own interests in the interests of the community, and the latter are more concerned about, so that he can balance the special interests of individuals in the pursuit of greater interests of the community, and he will not neglect the differences of the interests of individual.In short, we can know from Mill's complex and profound theory of justice that it is not enough that we simply interpret the concept of justice from the view of the negating utilitarianism. The complexity of the concept of justice prompts us to do a more in-depth research about the utilitarian concept of justice, and only by this way, can we understand justice profoundly.