tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31432976.post8032609517154796926..comments2023-08-10T07:41:11.827-07:00Comments on Bajillion: On Liberty & UtilitarianismTommaso Sciortinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13682166317937996902noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31432976.post-63206181990797030912007-04-24T18:13:00.000-07:002007-04-24T18:13:00.000-07:00An interesting feature of utilitarianism as a foun...An interesting feature of utilitarianism as a foundational ethical theory is its malleability to reality. It endorses, in principle, no particular mode of governance. Only the ability of a state to create the greatest net-worth of satisfaction gives said state any justification at all. Mill was writing a lot of On Liberty to argue that principles of liberty were part and parcel of any truly utilitarian society. It is not an argument for utilitarianism per se (though he did that as well), it is better seen as an argument from within it. Some libertarians do in fact argue mostly along utilitarian lines (though rarely explicitly). Milton Friedman, for one, argued for massive deregulation on consequentialist grounds. (I don't think he ever described himself as utilitarian but it might have been his de facto position, albeit unknowingly. You don't have to know what a utilitarian is to be one!) This is to be sharply distinguished from the more deontological libertarians like the Randian objectivists and Robert Nozick who see a radically minimal state as a fundamental moral truth, not a contingent one. I don't think that Mill would have been a big fan of a libertarian utilitarian but, then again, I also think he would have loathed even more know-it-all nanny-state liberals; those pandering histrionic Joe Lieberman types who are more concerned with violence in video games than forceful egalitarian tax policy. They, in many ways, are the true conservatives. And as Mr. Mill once said: <BR/>"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com