Additional funding provided by

When we finished last time,

we were looking at John Stuart Mill's

and his attempt

to reply

to the critics

of Bentham's utilitarianism

in his book Utilitarianism,

Mill tries to show

that critics to the contrary, it is possible

within utilitarian framework to distinguish between higher and lower

pleasures, it is possible to make

qualitative distinctions of worth,

and we tested of that idea

with the Simpsons

in the Shakespeare excerpts

and the results of our experiment

seemed to call into question

Mill's distinctions

because a great many of you

reported

that you prefer the Simpsons

but that you still consider Shakespeare

to be the higher for the worthier pleasure

that's the dilemma

with which our experiment confronts Mill.

what about Mill's

attempt to account

for especially weighty character

of individual rights and justice in chapter five of utilitarianism?

he wants to say that individual rights

are worthy

of special respect

in fact he goes so far as to say that justice is the most sacred part

and the most incomparably binding part of morality

but the same challenge

could be put

to this part of Mill's defense

why

is justice

the chief part

and the most binding part of our morality? well he says because in the long run

if we do justice and if we respect rights,

society as a whole

will be better off in the long run.

well what about that?

what if we have a case where making an exception and violating individual rights actually will

make people

better off in the long run is it all right then?

to use people?

and there's a further

objection

that could be raised against

Mill's case for justice and rights

suppose the utilitarian calculus in the long run works out as he says it will

such that respecting people's rights

is a way of making everybody better off in the long run

is that the right reason

is that the only reason

to respect people?

if the doctor goes in

and yanks the organs from the healthy patient who came in for a checkup

to save five lives

there would be adverse effects in the long run

eventually people would learn about this

and would stop going in for checkups

is it the right reason

is the only reason

that you as a doctor

won't yanked the organs out of a healthy patient

that you think

well if I use

him in this way

in the long run

more lives will be lost?

or is there another reason

having to do with intrinsic respect for the person as an individual

and if that reason matters

and it's not so clear

that even Mill's utilitarianism

can take account of it

fully to examine these two

worries or objections

to Mill's defense

we need to we need to push further

we need to ask

in the case of higher or worthier pleasures

are there theories of the good life

that can provide independent moral standards

for the worth of pleasures?

if so what do they look like?

that's one question

in the case of justice and rights

if we suspected that Mill is implicitly leaning on notions of human dignity or respect for

persons that are not, strictly speaking,

utilitarian

we need to look to see whether there are some stronger theories of rights

that can explain

the intuition

which even Mill shares

the intuition

that the reason for respecting individuals and not using them

goes beyond

even utility in the long run.

today we turn

to one

of those strong theories of rights

strong theories of rights say

individuals matter

not just as instruments to be used for a larger social purpose

or for the sake of maximizing utility

individuals

are separate beings with

separate lives

worthy of respect

and so it's a mistake

according to strong theories rights, it's a mistake

to think about justice or law

by just getting up preferences

and values

the strong rights theory we turn to today

is libertarianism

libertarianism

take individual rights seriously

it's called libertarianism because it says the fundamental individual right

is the right to liberty

precisely because we are separate individual beings

we're not available

to any use

that the society might

desire or devise. precisely because we're individual

separate human beings

we have a fundamental right to liberty

and that means

a right

to choose freely

to live our lives as we please

provided we respect other people's rights

to do the same

that's the fundamental idea

Robert Nozick

one of the libertarian philosophers we read

for this course puts it this way

individuals have rights

so strong and far-reaching are these rights

that they raise the question of what, if anything

the state may do.

so what does libertarianism say

about

the role of government

or of the state

well there are three things that most

modern states do

that

on the libertarian theory of rights

are illegitimate

are unjust

one of them

is paternalist legislation

that's passing laws that protect people from themselves

seat belt laws for example

or motorcycle helmet laws

the libertarian says

it may be a good thing if people wear seat belts,

but that should be up to them

and the state

the government

has no business coercing them, us

to wear seat belts

by law

its coercion

so no paternalist legislation

number one. number two

no morals legislation

many laws

try to promote

the virtue of citizens

or try to give expression

to the moral

values

of the society as a whole.

libertarians say that's also