John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism versus libertarian political philosophy

¶ … utilitarianism is about giving the most happiness to the most people regardless if a few suffer as a consequence, but this is not a very good interpretation of utilitarianism as put forward by John Stuart Mill. J. S. Mill writes about a utilitarian philosophy that is much more moral and human that is depicted by Sandel, who uses the anecdote about organ harvesting to suggest that utilitarians would simply take one's organs if it could make two or more people happy. This is not a very good sense of what utilitarianism is, and one should read John Stuart Mill's essay on utilitarianism to better understand the moral principle behind it.

I agree with the writer that the libertarian principle of little to no government is more compelling because governments have become so authoritarian lately that one fears for his own life and safety because of his government's actions. A libertarian society would not have so much government or so much killing. Yet I don't think a utilitarian government would necessarily be the converse of this -- it just depends on how closely one adheres to the issues raised by Mill -- which admittedly can seem complex. But I think utilitarianism is easily miscast as something more inhuman than it actually is.

Doc 2

This doc is interesting because it discusses the interplay of utilitarianism and libertarianism, which is a refreshing take on the subject. I too think there should be and in fact is some interplay between the two, as I do not believe they are strictly relegated to separate spheres. What is interesting to me is that while utilitarianism preaches the common good, so too does libertarianism. Both view the common good as the most important point of society, more or less -- it is just a question of how to attain that good that makes them each unique. Yet on deeper analysis, the two actually have a lot of similarities in the sense that there is human respect for life and happiness, a belief in the rule of law, etc.