I don't know about Utilitarianism, but, i've been reading his book On Liberty and I'm on chapter 2 right now but I can't see anything that would lead me to believe that he's the totalitarian despot that believes in doing the best thing for everyone- even if it's bad, that, all of his philosophical opponents have made his charicature out to be.
People who are against John Stewart Mill will all say kinds of crazy ridiculous strawmens. They'll think that the Germans killing the Jews for the supposed benefit of the population of German somehow disproves John Stewart Mill's philosophy. Do they have any idea what they're talking about? Have they not even looked at On Liberty yet? In his first chapter he makes it explicitly clear it is only in despotic societies where people are forced to live in contrary to what they normally would do, and, a free society would require liberty for one to do as they wished.
He even makes a case against national health care- where he says that it is up to the individual to take care of their health, it's not up to us to tell them how they should live their health. He says that the only restraints on liberty should be when someone is going to be harming someone else. He thinks not only the government should be restrained- but even when the government is representative of the people that it should not fall victim to the popular will, and, that the government should protect the rights of the minority at the hands of the majority. He even says we shouldn't compel our own opinions on others that don't wish to follow them.
Have these people who are making all these strawmen at John Stewart Mill's philosophy even read his book? It's like history has made him out to look like some tyrannical despot when he is in fact the very opposite of it.
John Stuart Mill on Liberty and Control
Conza88, I hope you realize that's complete BS. He never says that Christianity is false. He just says that people should question it and that if you don't let people question things that you assume infalliability, and, you'll never know just how true or false your opinion is. You'll have no way of affirming your beliefs. That's all he says.
I like On Liberty, but I think Mill basically failed to make utilitarianism safe for liberalism. His harm principle is so vague that basically anything can be considered a harm and so coercion can be used for just about any reason. For instance, people refusing to pay progressive taxes can harm the people that those taxes would have helped, etc... Thus progressive taxation would be a justified use of coercion.
I really do think Mill was trying to fight for liberty, I just think he failed and created a weapon (utilitarian justifications of "public policy") that did more harm to liberty than good.
"I cannot prove, but am prepared to affirm, that if you take care of clarity in reasoning, most good causes will take care of themselves, while some bad ones are taken care of as a matter of course." -Anthony de Jasay
One word: defunct.
Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.—Karl Kraus.
Because everyone here hates utilitarians because maybe a utilitarian might violate libertarian rights in pursuit of the greater good. Its ye age old battle that goes like this: Some people are afraid that Utility will be used to promote great acts of injustice, while others are afraid that Justice will be used to pursue acts of great disutility.
Proponents of justice usually get to be all smug and snug because the human race can basically feed itself without violating any rights. Humanity can totally make progress with perfect justice. It just might not be as fast, and *some* people might die as a result, but the amount that would is so much smaller than that of the status quo, that utilitarians never gain a lot of emotional leverage on justice.
Before I get flamed, I had a discourse about how utility really needs to be reformed as an ideology, since it basically makes all these ancient sophistic pseudo keynesian errors, and when it comes out the other side its not all that different from libertarian rights, and it allows you to like good things, so meh and feh. If anyone's interested i can repeat it here or link to the thread where it was being developed. Also I don't believe in objective ethics. Its all just real pretty to me.
How can we tell if one person's disutility is outweighed by another's utility? If we can't, then how can we tell the difference between the revealed preference for one person's interests over another by one agent and that same agent's attempt to "maximize utility"? Utilitarianism collapses into the personal preference of whoever is deciding what "maximizes utility".
^this is what i am saying in the other thread
Snowflake, yes we are on the same line of thought. I didn't really understand what you were saying (I just got back home from Southern Mexico and haven't slept in 30 hours).
Ah, well, its all been hastily stapled together from some sporadic intuitions. The basic premise is that you don't have to abandon happiness as a 'good' just because interpersonal comparisons of hapiness are bunk. Hopefully I'll be able to develop (or drop it) after more community input.
Bob murphy actually brings interpersonal utility in one of his most recent lectures on misesmedia youtube. He says 'well we can ask an 8 year old if he would like a beer now, or a beer when he's 25. And if he's wise, and looks around, he'll see that beer is an acquired taste and prefer to have it when he's 25. But if you can take a dude when he's 8 and when he's 25, and compare utility between them, then why can't you compare utility between an 8 year old and a 25 year old now? I would object, and I'm sure a lot have sent him emails to this affect, that the 8 year old doesn't actually know how much hapiness he will gain when he's 25. He can only guess. The conclusion of this seems to be that you can't make interpersonal OR intertemporal comparisons of utility, at least philosophically.
Didn't Mill give us a conception of positive rights? Once this idea is accepted it is impossible to deny the legitimacy of a total state.