In this paper, I will argue that intended parents, not gestational carriers, should have the right to decide whether the carrier continues to gestate a fetus or not in cases where the fetus has a severe, life-threatening physical or mental deficit (Cohen 2013). The gestational carrier, such as Crystal Kelley, gestates a fetus for a couple or potential parent and has no genetic tie to the child, unlike a surrogate (Byrn and Snyder 2005). In Crystal Kelley’s case, the intended couple wanted to abort the fetus because it had severe health defects such as holoprosencephaly and heterotaxy, in which the brain is not divided into two hemispheres and the internal organs are displaced (Cohen 2013). However, Ms. Kelley was unwilling to abort the fetus
Whether it is at the dinner table or in my family’s group text message, the conversation about my brother’s custody battle with my mother’s side of the family seems to remain a bitter topic, especially when discussing my role in it. When my father physically harmed my brother to the extent to which he had to go to the emergency room, the custody trial over my brother and me began. After several sources provided the judge with accusations against my father, I was the final source that needed to assert or deny my father’s abuse; with heavy consideration, I decided to lie to the judge by denying my father’s abuse. Under the principle of utilitarianism, philosophers would infer that lying is permissible if the consequences of doing so are good.
The object of this essay is to show a simple evaluation of john Stuart mill principle “an action is right that it does not cause harm to another person” I will be exercising both evaluations and explaining why the positive side outweighs the negative side of the principle, in a society that it’s people are emancipated to control their own opinions. Mill Stuart in his autobiography of 1873 he narrates liberty as a philosophic chronicle of indivisible accuracy. (Mill (1989.edn).p.189) rather than speaking of rights, many claim a ‘right’ not to be harmed ,mill says that only a harm or risk to harm is enough vindication for using power above someone else. John Stuart moreover he adequate his principle by reckoning that it is not good to use power
According to Mill, the individual’s welfare suffers when a majority opinion is prefered. (Marcuse, 1). Each theorist agrees that a majority holds a sort of destructive power, be it over an individual or the opposing minority group.
This authority was viewed as the antithesis to personal freedom and the driver of personal moral transformation. In fact, as early as the first chapter of his groundbreaking book “On Liberty” Mills stated that” The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history” (3). Further explaining the idea of tyranny of majority and how it affects personal freedoms Mills states that “society can and does execute its own mandates and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression since . . . it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself” (10). This leads into another theory of Mills that supports my conclusions, that of The Limits of Liberty for other regarding actions.
Utilitarianism would look at this situation as a wrongful action. According to teleological created by John Stuart Mill the action that happens is based of the good that comes from said action. In this case Payne’s action while arresting Ms. Wobbles would go against teleological due to being negative in nature and doing more harm then good for either parties involved. According to Jeremy Bentham the goodness of the action is based on the consequences of the action that is made. I believe that Payne does deserve to be terminated from the department and rightfully tried in court for all the departmental policies that were broke during the arrest of Ms. Wobbles.
The idea behind Kantian Ethics is that doing the right thing is not about the consequences of our actions but rather the principle motivating the action. Actions must be performed out of duty, that is, it is done solely because we have an obligation to perform such action out of respect for the moral law. As explained by Immanuel Kant, “the moral worth of an action done out of duty has its moral worth” (105). Kant argues that to act morally, then, is to “act only on the maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (108). Utilitarianism, developed by John Stuart Mill, is one of the most commonly used approaches in making moral decisions.
An alternative option, supported by Mill and anti-Eyre movements for example, was therefore one questioning the generalised method of oppressing people and crushing riots when any occurred. Rather, it preventively advocated for an equal treatment of all regardless of race in order to avoid embittering impressions of
John Stuart Mill attempts to defend the principle of utility is relation to the principle of justice in Utilitarianism; this defense seeks to explain how utility and justice coincide and not conflict. I find the principles of Utilitarianism conflicting with some principles of justice due to the tensions between utility and justice, but overall agree that justice cannot function without utility. I agree that the principle of utility can be applied in the social sphere and justice but I see the tensions that justice can have with utility. These tensions are developed through the accepted belief of rights, which often are seen as inviolable.
Whereas John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle proffers a judicious moral schema for the regulation of societal intervention regarding individual liberty, it fails as an unequivocal method of establishing the limits of political authority within a civilised society. The aforementioned principle dictates “the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection”. This principle advocates strongly for a protection of individual freedoms essential to the advancement of a society and though insufficient on its own, it must be given proper consideration concerning limits. the principle is flawed as it operates on the invalid assumption that there
There are other instances when the harm principle has been invoked but where it is more difficult to demonstrate that rights have been violated. For example, hate speech. Most liberal democracies have limitations on hate speech, but it is debatable whether these can be justified by the harm principle as formulated by Mill. One would have to show that such speech violated rights, directly and in the first instance.(I am interested here in hate speech that does not advocate physical violence against a group or individual. If it does, it would, like the corn dealer example, be captured by Mill 's harm principle as speech that can be prohibited).
If people have no place to voice their will or take part in deciding their own destiny, the community might grow disinterested and passive in their relationship with their government. Mill believes this is problematic for society because history, as he sees it, has shown that more democratic societies have more ‘energetic, and ‘developed’ societies as well as more ‘go ahead characters’ not seen in more totalitarian societies. Yet, this criticism might fail to cover a deeper problem of disinterest; it might lead to a level of moral deficiency as well. Mill fears that a loss of ability and activity, leads to a society losing its sense of communal responsibility and social justice. In their aloofness, people might be less inclined to believe that they have any responsibility to society since society has ceased to have any rights or purpose under absolute authority.
I chose to review the fifth chapter of “New Ideas From Dead Economists” titled The Stormy Mind of John Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill was born in 1806 in London to two strict parents who began to educate their son at a very young age. Mill’s father was James Mill, a famous historian and economist, who began to teach his son Greek at the age of three. The book reports that “by eight, the boy had read Plato, Xenophon, and Diogenes” and by twelve “Mill exhausted well-stocked libraries, reading Aristotle and Aristophanes and mastering calculus and geometry” (Buchholz 93). The vast amount of knowledge that Mill gained at a young age no doubt assisted him in becoming such a well-recognized philosopher and economist.
John Stuart Mill, at the very beginning of chapter 2 entitled “what is utilitarianism”. starts off by explaining to the readers what utility is, Utility is defined as pleasure itself, and the absence of pain. This leads us to another name for utility which is the greatest happiness principle. Mill claims that “actions are right in proportions as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” “By Happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain, by happiness, pain and the privation of pleasure”.
Being Free 1st draft Freedom is word used in a lot of contexts, but the official meaning of the word is “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants” (Freedom). Meaning that you have the right to do something, with the focus being on you as an individual. This means no one can tell you what to do, like for example a state. This is an important aspect and part of political theory. Liberty is also used and viewed as the same category of theory, and has the definition “The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s behavior or political views” (Liberty).
