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Utilitarianism In John Stuart Mill's On Liberty

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In On Liberty, Mill portrays the concept of liberty as valuable as a vehicle towards the end goal of maximizing utility. For Mill, such examples are consistent with utilitarianism since happiness is the only concept seen as an end in and of itself. In Chapter 3 ‘On Individuality’, Mill argues that individuality is of worth since it promotes happiness for the individual which in turn means there is happiness for society as a whole (BASPT p.640). Since Mill consistently views liberty as an extrinsic value, which shows liberty is not part of the essential nature of his theory, he stays consistent with the principle of utility that promotes happiness as the only intrinsic value to aim for. For Mill, as long as liberty is valued as a means to the …show more content…

Mill’s argument that “utilitarianism requires him to be strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator” (BASPT p.661), becomes difficult to square it with his earlier proposal in On Liberty that full freedom should be given to human nature (BASPT p.628). This brings to light the issue of whether someone can be truly free if he is using utilitarianism to guide his every action. Of course, Mill’s response would be to say that by getting rid of rules and giving the individual freedom in the first instance, he will thereby naturally choose to act in the greater good. However, by allowing everyone to do this, there is a likelihood that there will be a conflict regarding which act maximizes utility and people will act selfishly to try justify their actions, claiming they were in the greater good. As a result, Mill’s advocating for individual freedom is not guaranteed to always result in the maximization of utility. Furthermore, take the case where if a child wasn’t locked up in prison for the rest of their life then ten people would die as a result. The utilitarian would say that the balance of happiness over harm would support locking the child up. However, there is a conflict here between individual freedom and abiding by the principle of utility. Following the principle of utility as Mill requires will result in a lack of freedom for that child in question who has been locked up. Not only does this show utilitarianism can lead to immoral, repugnant conclusions, but such outcomes contradict with Mill’s formation of individual freedom in On Liberty and reveals the inconsistency of Mill’s conceptions of liberty when squared with

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