Mill spends a lot of time analyzing what people mean by “moral”, “right” and “just”. What status do those meanings have in his theory?
Mill begins Chapter 5 by stating that one of the biggest pieces of criticism received about utilitarianism is that it conflicts with the idea of justice and spends the rest of the chapter discussing how justice, rights, and morality interact with each other and with utilitarianism. Justice, according to Mill, is not only the distinction between right and wrong, but “which some individual person can claim from us as his moral right.” (247) He argues that the sentiment of justice comes from punishing people who have caused harm and being able to identify who has been harmed. It derives its intensity from the “thirst” for retaliation that stems from humans’ animalistic instinct for self defense. Humans require security. A right is therefore defined as “a valid claim on society to protect [an individual] in the possession of it.” (251) The moralities that maintain and guarantee an individual’s rights are the ones that they “have most at heart” and will demand and enforce that others are in accordance. This is what maintains peace. Thus, there exists an utility interest in sustaining justice.
While Mill cleared up the seemingly contradicting ideas of justice and utilitarianism in chapter 5, I think he runs into this issue more than once in the book. The idea of utilitarianism and the notion of doing actions that benefit society, comes into contrast again with liberty. These ideas that many founding fathers and others have used in revolutionary documents don't seem to align with benefiting the majority but instead align with protecting the individuals rights. I think Mill challenges himself and those who believe that by insisting that they do indeed coexist, and that's why he has to dedicate portions of his writing to explaining this.
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