Mill, Rawls, Kant, and Nozik

Question 1

What is Mill’s understanding of human individuality

Answer 1

Humans are free (autonomous) to think and act upon their own self.
They are capable of justifying actions and following norms.
Humans are sensitive to reason and therefore have a rational nature.
Humans can have debates about what they do; they can reflect on their own actions and change according to what they’ve learned.
Human beings are free to step back from desire and refuse to act on it; they are not jerked around by every impulse they have.
Humans also have different understanding of qualities of happiness and life paths.
Humans have the capacity to make better choices– people who commit to lower pleasures do so because that’s the only option and people who commit to higher pleasures do so because they have better educated themselves about the greater good

Question 2

What are the reasons for why individuality and liberty is important

Answer 2

1. Thought and expression: humans are able to change and revise what they do to make things worth it
2. Silenced opinions that are wrong are still important: collision of adversed opinions allows for the truth to surface
3. In order to know if something is true, one has to be able to test it: individuals have to talk about their standards and supposed rational reasons to see if they are right by hearing different opinions
4. If humans don’t know why they believe something, it would result to dogma

Question 3

Explain the Harm Principle

Answer 3

The only actions that can be prevented are the ones that create harm to others. A person is free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t inflict harm on themselves or others.

Question 4

Explain the Principle of Utility

Answer 4

People should only do things that bring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people

Question 5

Explain Mill’s understanding of Utility

Answer 5

Utility is the happiness produced by higher faculties of intellectually challenging pleasures.
Happiness is the best good and humans do things because they want to promote self-good.

Question 6

Explain Mill’s understanding of Human Liberty

Answer 6

1. Liberty of conscience
2. Liberty of tastes and pursuits
3. Freedom to associate
   - Well-being is maximized by these liberties
   - “Permanent interest of man as a progressive being”
   - Humans are fundamentally interested in developing themselves and choosing their life path
   - Humans are also fundamentally interested in being free

Question 7

Explain Mill’s faculties of Utility

Answer 7

Quantitative Hedonism: measure of pleasure by 1. intensity (sensualist, narrow, quantitative– like the pleasure achieved from a neck rub or eating yummy food) and 2. duration (how long pleasures last and what one gains from it)
Qualitative Hedonism: morally compelling, the actions that better an individual, like solving a hard math problem or doing well at ones job.

Question 8

Explain Mill’s Political Theory

Answer 8

Political institution should govern to promote the greatest happiness (UTILITY).
Since humans recognize reason and rationality, government must provide justification for any restrictions or laws.
Persons ought to be free of coercion from the state in order to continue improving themselves– can’t silence expression
States must promote most impartial good: approve standards that an impartial, rational being can judge as being just
Institutions much promote the greatest good for the majority in order to ensure progressive, longer term benefits.

Question 9

Define utilitarianism. And, which philosopher was a utilitarian?

Answer 9

The idea that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility in maximizing happiness or pleasure as summed among all people
Mill was a utilitarian

Question 10

Define Libertarianism. And, what philosopher was a libertarian?

Answer 10

Seeks to maximize autonomy and freedom of choice, emphasizing the value of political freedom, voluntary association, and the importance of individual judgment.
Kant was a libertarian

Question 11

Define Kant’s understanding of autonomy

Answer 11

To be autonomous is to act on a law that one has given oneself, a law adequate to one’s nature as a free and equal, reasonable and rational person.

Question 12

What aspect of human action is Kant really focusing on when he is presenting his theories?

Answer 12

Kant is primarily concerned with the moral motives behind actions, not the consequences.

Question 13

Kant: What is a maxim

Answer 13

A rule or principle of action

Question 14

Kant: What is a categorical imperative?

Answer 14

It is a set of commands one must follow, regardless of their desires derived from pure reason

Question 15

Kant: Hypothetical Imperative

Answer 15

Things you ought to do when you want something (this is about prudence rather than morality). I.E., if you’re hungry, go eat something. If you want money, get a job.

Question 16

Kant: The Universality Principle

Answer 16

This focuses on the moral reason behind decision making for certain actions.
Simply put, it’s not fair to make exceptions for oneself. By imagining an action being done by every person in the world (universalizing), one can judge whether or not that action is just.
“Act only in accordance with that maxim through which at the same time can will that it become universal law”

Question 17

Kant QUOTE: The Formula of Humanity

Answer 17

This focuses on how we should treat other people.
“Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simple as a means, but always at the same time as an ends”

Question 18

Kant: What is a “mere means”?

Answer 18

To use something only for one’s own benefit, with no thought to the interest of benefit of the thing they are using.
You can use objects as mere means, but not humans.

Question 19

Why can’t you treat humans as mere means for Kant?

Answer 19

Because humans are autonomous beings that have the ability to set their own goals and work towards them– humans exist for themselves. Humans are self governed.

Question 20

Kant: Explain person’s “end-to-themselves”

Answer 20

People have their own goals, values, and interests. They have the capability of setting their own goals and going about rational decision making to achieve them.

Question 21

Kant: Formula of Humanity

Answer 21

Individuals cannot treat other beings as a mere means, they cannot manipulate autonomous agents for their own benefit without considering other’s own interest when treating them as a means. You can treat others as a means, but not as a mere means.
You have to do what’s right based on reason with consideration of other people.

Question 22

Kant: What makes for political legitimacy/illegitimacy?

Answer 22

Coercion: the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats. An institution must preserve free agents and their free choice and allow for them to exist in possible pursuit of caring about the well being of others.

Question 23

Kant: What are the duties?

Answer 23

Perfect duties: System of rights that are morally grounded (don’t murder or steal)
Imperfect duties: develop skills and capacities

Question 24

What is the purpose of Rawls original position (OP)?

Answer 24

It is a thought experiment (similar to the concept of the state of nature) that is a decision making procedure to justify a set of principles of social justice by showing that they would be selected by the OP.

Question 25

Rawls: What is the veil of ignorance?

Answer 25

It assures that each party in the OP is equally or symmetrically situated, with none enjoying greater power than another. This means that parties are unaware of their sexuality, ethnicity, race and gender. “Parties are isolated form the continents underlying the variations in people;s natural abilities and talents”

Question 26

Rawls: Explain the veil of ignorance in correspondence with conceptions of the good.

Answer 26

Since the veil deprives parties of any knowledge of values (conceptions of the good), they are unaware of the “greater good” like a utilitarian viewpoint. The OP is more concerned with the primary goods.

Question 27

What is the OP?

Answer 27

An autonomous human unaware of their situation due to the veil of ignorance is presented with principles of a political institution and deems them as just or unjust according to their perception of primary goods.

Question 28

What are the primary goods in the OP?

Answer 28

Parties in the OP are aware of their primary goods, which are rights, liberties, and opportunities; income and wealth; and social bassi of self-respect.

Question 29

Explain the importance of primary goods in the OP.

Answer 29

Individuals are mutually disinterested, each is motivated to obtain as many primary goods as they can and don’t care about others. The primary goods are supposed to be unconventionally worth seeking.

Question 30

Detail the influence of Kantianism in Rawls’s OP

Answer 30

Rawls is maximizing autonomy.
Rawls suggests that the OP models Kant’s central ideas: the OP is set up so that the parties reflect their nature as reasonable and rational. The parties are choosing principles based on their reasoning and that task of choosing models the idea of autonomy.
Rawls drops Kant’s aim of finding prior basis for morality because moral theory must be free to use contingent assumptions of autonomy. In other words, all questions about human conflict will be simply reproduced within the sympathetic spectator’s breast.
The highest-order powers correspond with Kant’s categorical imperatives.

Question 31

How do Kant’s categorical imperatives influence Rawls?

Answer 31

1. Conceptions of the good, the rational side, to pursue our ends by selecting effective means to satisfy them– AUTONOMY
2. We can revise ends when we see a reason to do so– HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
3. One the side of the reasonable, we have the power to the do the right thing.

Question 32

Rawls’s Principles of Justice

Answer 32

Rawls 2 principles, called “Justice as a Fairness,” address two different aspects of the basic structure of society.

1. The First Principle: concerning rights and liberties
2. The Second Principle/The Difference Principle: concerning fair and equal opportunity and income and wealth

Question 33

Rawls: The First Principle

Answer 33

Addresses the essentials of the constitutional structure of society.
Each citizen has an equal claim to basic rights and liberties compatible with the same claim for all.
These rights are specifically thought, expression, tastes, pursuits, and decision making.

Question 34

Rawls: The Second Principle/The Difference Principle

Answer 34

Addresses the basic distribution of opportunities, offices, income, wealth, and in general social advantage. There are 2 parts.

1. Social structures that shape this distribution must satisfy the requirements of FAIR and EQUAL DISTRIBUTION
2. The Difference Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to be the greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society.

Question 35

What is Rawls’s perception of the basic structure of society?

Answer 35

Beings are capable of social cooperation
The way in which the major social institutions fit together into one system and how they assign fundamental rights and duties to shape the devision of advantages that arise through social cooperation.
Fair institutions will influence life changes of everyone in society, but they must leave individuals free to exercise their basic liberties as they see fit within this fair set of rules.
Persons are agreeing to share one another’s fates because everyone has different ends.

Question 36

What is Nozick’s Political Theory?

Answer 36

Nozick is a strong believer in human’s natural rights and believes that the state should be extremely minimal. The only thing that the state should be responsible for is protection and a legal system for that is what the natural rights may cause chaos for. Anything more extensive by the government violates people’s rights.

Question 37

Explain Nozick’s Entitlement Theory of Justice

Answer 37

Nozick’s Entitlement theory is Historical and Non-Patterned.
A person is entitled to their own earnings. You can never treat persons as a means to an end– everyone is considered equal. Rights of individuals are invaluable to the greater good.
(1) A person who acquires X in accordance with The Principle of Just Acquisition is entitled to X.
(2) A person who acquires X in accordance with The Principle of Justice in Transfer from someone who is entitled to X is entitled to
X.
(3) No one is entitled to X except be repeated applications of the above.

Question 38

The Principle of Justice in Acquisition

Answer 38

A branch of Nozick’s entitlement theory.
It is that the appropriation of natural resources that no one has ever owned before is an entitlement to the person who appropriated it.
Similar to the Lockian theory of property– a person has self ownership of themselves and their property that they have reaped benefits of

Question 39

Explain the Night’s Watchmen State

Answer 39

It’s a name for Nozick’s political theory. It holds that the only responsibility for a political institution is to protect citizens from violence, theft, and fraud.

Question 40

The Principle of Justice in Transfer

Answer 40

A branch of Nozick’s entitlement theory.
A transfer of holdings is just if and only if it is voluntary, a principle that would seem to follow from respect for a person’s right to use the fruits of the exercise of his self-owned talents, abilities, and labor as he sees fit.

Question 41

The Principle of Justice in Rectification

Answer 41

A branch of Nozick’s entitlement theory.

It governs the proper means of setting right past injustices in acquisition and transfer.

Question 42

What is the Pattern Principle

Answer 42

It holds that a distribution of goods is just only if it meets a particular pattern such as it maximizes utility, the distribution is equal, it allocates good according to personal merit, it ensures opportunities are equal, and it meets urgent material means.

Question 43

Why is Nozick opposed to the Pattern Principle?

Answer 43

Nozick pushes that the pattern principle violates self-ownership. A political society, like a utilitarian one for example, that takes the individual earnings of persons and redistributes it to maximize utility is unjust because it is putting a claim on the persons earnings. The Pattern Principle does not allow for individuals to freely consent to giving up their earnings for the purpose of benefitting others. Justly acquired shares are entitled to a person and they should not be coerced to share it with anyone else.

Question 44

What is the Historical Principle?

Answer 44

It holds that a distribution of goods is just according to how it was acquired. If how the holding came about was just, then the holding is just. If the act of acquiring was unjust, then the holding is unjust.

Question 45

What makes for a just acquisition for the Historical Principle?

Answer 45

If the holdings came about by permissible and title-conferring modes of action. The agent has acquired economic value through their own development using their talents and a distribution of that is only just if they have freely– without any coercion- chosen to share it.

Question 46

What makes for an unjust acquisition for the Historical Principle?

Answer 46

When individuals have not freely agreed to sacrifice their own benefit for others.

Question 47

What makes an existing holding just for the Historical Principle?

Answer 47

It is just if it arises from an act of just initial acquisition by one or more acts of just transfer or an act of rectification that counter act an unjust taking of a just holding.

Question 48

What is the Wilt Chamberlain Example and why does it matter?

Answer 48

Nozick uses the Wilt Chamberlain example to explain why his Entitlement Theory of Justice makes sense and to argue against the Pattern Principle.

Question 49

Explain the Wilt Chamberlain Example

Answer 49

Nozick introduces two distributions in this example, D1 and D2, and D2 being the just one.
D1 is similar to a Rawlsian theory, where the earnings of individuals are redistributed among society to benefit the least advantages. (Now, this is unjust because it puts a claim on self-earning)
D2, however, is a society where people are entitled to their earnings and can freely share it. Wilt Chamberlain is an extremely popular basketball player in this society, and Nozick further assumes 1 million people are willing to freely give WC 25 cents each to watch him play basketball over the course of a season (we assume no other transactions occur). Wilt is no $250,000 richer than everyone else and he is entitled to that money because people have chosen to give it to him on their own accord.
Thus Nozick argues that what the Wilt Chamberlain example shows is that no patterned principle of just distribution will be compatible with liberty. In order to preserve the pattern which arranged D1, the state will have to continually interfere with people’s ability to freely exchange their D1 shares

Question 50

QUOTE: What is Nozick’s theory of justice?

Answer 50

“From each as they choose, to each as they’re chosen” which means that as long as persons are freely consenting, then the outcomes are just.