Justice And Rights

Question 1

How does Mill respond the the moral outrage extreme utilitarianism can inspire?

Answer 1

Our sentiments of justice are not a ‘revelation of some objective reality’ = they are an animal rather than intellectual response

Question 2

Legal rights as a form of justice

Answer 2

it is unjust to deprive anyone of what they possess by legal right

Question 3

Moral rights as a form of justice

Answer 3

laws which violate peoples moral rights are unjust - such as freedom from arbitrary arrest (Jean example)

Question 4

Moral Dessert as a form of justice

Answer 4

violations of the principle that those who do good deserve good and those who do evil deserve evil are seen as an injustice

Question 5

Contracts as a form of justice

Answer 5

Breaking faith with anyone or disappointing expectations we have voluntarily engendered is regarded as unjust

Question 6

Impartiality as a form of justice

Answer 6

Allowing one’s judgement to be influenced by irrelevant considerations, such as a person’s race or sex, is, as all will admit, often unjust

Question 7

Equality as a form of justice

Answer 7

This notion, says Mill, is close to that of impartiality. Some communists, for example, think that goods should be distributed according to need: equal needs give rise to equal claims to goods. The link with impartiality is obvious: the only relevant characteristic to be used when distributing goods is need, while attention to other characteristics will count, for these communists, as partiality and injustice

Question 8

imperfect obligations

Answer 8

actions that are required, but not at any particular time. So, I have an obligation to be charitable, but not on any specific occasion; when and to whom I am charitable are up to me

Question 9

perfect obligations

Answer 9

Mill considers it more precise to spell out the distinction between perfect and imperfect with the idea of rights. If I have a perfect obligation, then some other person has a correlative right. In the case of charity, no person has a right to my assistance

Question 10

Mill’s stance on protecting individuals

Answer 10

no stance other than ‘general utility’ - no protection for the individuals beyond this

most of the more specific principles of justice we find to be merely instrumental to satisfaction of utility - but no principls of justice are absolute - they do not trump utility

Question 11

Problem with Mill’s definition of perfect obligations (justice)

Answer 11

too broad - any moral obligation i have to a specific person not only gives rise to a crrelative right possessed by another person but also gives an obligation of justice

Question 12

Example of when a violation of duty does not incur injustice nor give rise to a right

Answer 12

If I nurse you through your old age, it is plausible enough to say that you have some kind of duty to leave me at least something in your will. You’re not doing so will be unjust, but I have no right to any inheritance

Question 13

Mill, rights and harm

Answer 13

a right rests on the notion of harm to an assignable individual

Question 14

Homelessness, rights and harm (objection)

Answer 14

a homeless person begging for food from you, will be harmed if refused but has no right to your food

Question 15

Mill response to homelessness objection

Answer 15

Mill would say it’s indirect harm and thus there is no right because there is no direct harm -> someone else is capable of waiving that harm and there are other means of aquiring food - them going hungry is merely one outcome (but he believes in actual consequences so this doesn’t make sense)

Question 16

define natural law

Answer 16

here were natural duties compliance with which would certainly benefit man - things to be done - that achieve man’s natural end - but not natural rights

Question 17

define special rights

Answer 17

rights that arise from specific special transactions between individuals or out of some special relationship - both have rights ans those who have corresponding obligation are limited to the special relationship/ transaction

ie: promises

Question 18

define special liberties

Answer 18

one person is exempted from obligations to which most are subject - not a right

Question 19

define general rights

Answer 19

when some unjustified interference is anticipated or threatened, in order to point out that it is unjustified - to have them is to have a moral justification for determining how others shall act - ie that they cannot interfere- the moral justification does not arise from the character of the particular action to the performer of which the claiment has a right

Question 20

Justice and the distribution of resources

Answer 20

there is no central distribution of resources - no group entitled to control this

should commiting injustices in past time effect the distribution of justice / rights / resources?

distribution in accordance with the perceived benefits given to others, leaving room for complaint that a free society does not realise exactly the pattern

Question 21

What does Mill’s approach to distribution of resources resuppose?

Answer 21

1) all will want to maintain the pattern or distribution
2) that each can gather enough info about his own actions and ongoing activities of others to discover which of his actions will upset the pattern
3) that diverse and far-flung persons can coordinate their actions to dovetail into the pattern

Question 22

Taxation objection to Mill’s distribution of resources and why it fails

Answer 22

Taxation is taking money for hours worked - basically slave labour since a worker doesn’t see this money

But they do reap benefits from taxation so its an imperfect objection

Question 23

The problem of family units in redistribution of resources

Answer 23

Should family units be treated as a conglomerate collectively entitled to a certain amount of resources inorder to maintain the equality of distribution - or should loving acts of giving be forbidden ?

Principle failure of Mill: failure to acknowledges the seperation of individuals

Question 24

Problem of redistibution as regards to rights

Answer 24

it is a violation of individuals rights because people are entitled to keep what is there’s already / what they have worked for - more prove that rights can very easily be violated in Mill’s to the point where it’s unclear whether they should be maintained at all

Question 25

Problem of reducing resources to the physical

Answer 25

People value different things - some prefer longer hours and more physical possessions whilst other want less possessions and more leisure time -> should leisure time be taxed in the same way a quantitative wealth ?

Question 26

Lockean Proviso

Answer 26

individuals have a right to private property from nature by working on it - within the perameters of there being enough and as good left for others

Question 27

problem of quantifying resources purely on their utility (objection to Mill but supports Locke)

Answer 27

finds substance with rare healing capabilities and appropriates the whole supply - at this point no one is worse off because without him it would never have been discovered - but as time goes on and likelihood of someone else finding it goes up, his behaviour violates provisio

Question 28

‘In order to be a valid political system utilitarianism must not only claim truth of itself but also the falsity of competing systems’

Response to Nazi objection

Answer 28

what about a nazi - shouldn’t his political preferences be satisfied like anyone elses? No, because the nazism preference occupies the same space as the utilitarian theory - though utilitarianism must be impartial/ neutral in preferences between push-pin and poetry but on matters of political theories and theories of justice it must play its role in dispelling false theories

Question 29

Main tension between Utilitarianism and Justice

Answer 29

if utilitarianism is the only first principle - it leaves no space for the concept of justice or the feelings of injustice we experience when our perceived rights are infringed upon despite it resulting in the greater good

Question 30

Terrorism objection to Utilitarian concept of justice

Answer 30

A police department want to catch a terrorist before he commits his next crime. In order to receive necessary funding they must make an arrest now - they arrest an innocent and in doing so save thousands of lives but infringe upon the right to not be falsely detained held by the innocent individual - the innocent person is surviving a punishment that have not justly earned and thus is enduring unfair treatment

Question 31

Possible Utilitarian response to terrorism objection

Answer 31

This takes the moral dessert approach to justice - other theories of justice exist

Question 32

Mill on how the etymology of Justice points to Utilitarianism

Answer 32

our ideas of justice stem from our desire to fulfil the potential of utilitarianism on a societal level. Since the root of justice is in a wide-scale judicial environment as a means to reinforce behaviours that are good on a large scale and punish behaviours which endanger societies as a whole, our impulse to enact justice in all scenarios comes from its core in the legal sense which we have now internalised

Question 33

Mill and the etymology of justice (problem)

Answer 33

where is his evidence? he doesn’t cite any sources - isn’t he supposed to be an empiricist

Question 34

Diminishing Marginal Utility

Answer 34

The more you have, the less aquiring more makes you happier

Question 35

Levelling down wealth

Answer 35

Cintingent on idea that people are unhappy if they are poor by comparison rather than because the their empirical wealth in itself
logical solution is to make everyone poorer

Question 36

How act utilitarianism can be reconciled with justice

Answer 36

rights as rules of thumb to be followed most of the time - the reason we have internalised them is because they work most of the time

Question 37

How can utilitarians cast doubt on justice

Answer 37

Most people reach a point intuitively where they will violate individual rights in order to serve a greater good - so they can’t really be morally intuitive even naturally occuring they are largely rules of thumb

is egalitarianism the best form of distribution (think levelling down objection )

prioritisation fails at a certain point (Helen-lover’s example or the fact that depressed people will gain less happiness from distribution - so should they be removed from the equation?)