¶ … Mill's basic principle, assess the legitimacy of laws (a) requiring motorists to wear helmets, (b) preventing people from walking naked in public parks, (c) forbidding people to take drugs like cocaine or heroin, or (d) outlawing skateboarding in certain areas.
Mill's "harm principle" as stated in On Liberty could possibly be a legitimate reason to enforce wearing helmets for motorists, outlaw people from walking naked in parks, outlaw cocaine or heroin usage, and ban skateboarding in certain areas. Yet, as Mill (1859) himself states, "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others" (p. 21). With that said, one may be able to object to the application of Mill's "harm principle" in so far as it applies to motorists, nudists, drug users, and skateboarders for the simple reason that they are not necessarily harming others but possibly only harming themselves. This point, of course, could be debated both ways.
First, it could be said that motorists should...
Every act happens at some time and in some place, and in like manner every act that we do either does or may affect both ourselves and others." Still others try to rebuff these objections, clarifying self-regarding acts and other-regarding acts. J.C. Rees is at the helm of the counter-movement of interpretations, arguing that there is a distinguishable difference between actions that affect others and those that affect others' interests; he purports
For Singer, the human community must receive justice, not simply a society setting its own local standards of morality and justice, as in Mill's argument. For Singer there are no 'imperfect' obligations, rather all obligations are absolute. Someone who merely does no harm to others, or extends help only to family members and his or her immediate community is committing a moral wrong. Even someone who is 'good' but
Mill talked of ethical freedom in terms of all areas wherein individual and society interacts and become involved with each other; Marx utilized the same viewpoint, although specified it in terms of proletarian-bourgeoisie relations. For Marx, ethical freedom is self-realization within the individual, and primary in this realization was the acknowledgment that one needs to be economically independent in order for modern individuals, and society in general, to function progressively.
Personal usefulness or utility is not required to clash with public usefulness. Usefulness or Utility is often misguided for pragmatism. but, pragmatism is the affinity to encourage certain preferred objective, regardless of the consideration between what is correct and reasonable. Utility is the standard level of being practical, and hence it must take into account not just what would generate a preferred objective, but what would encourage the maximum
Political Philosophy II: Theories of Freedom John Stuart Mill's On Liberty is one of the foundational defenses of liberal, democratic government. According to Mill, there are certain core principles "that should regulate how governments and societies, whether democratic or not, can restrict individual liberties."[footnoteRef:1] Mill wrote that regardless of whether a monarch, dictator, or even a democratic majority governed, the only reason to deprive others of their liberties was what he
Mill, Kant, And Torture An Analysis of the Utilitarian and Kantian Arguments for and against Torture Alan Dershowitz expresses moral approval (with reservations) in his essay "Should the Ticking Time Bomb Terrorist be Tortured?" Dershowitz's argument is essentially that of a Utilitarian. But it also contains elements of Kantianism. While a Kantian, however, could argue against the moral correctness of torture, Dershowitz steers the argument away from a Kantian perusal of the
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