When we finished last time, we were looking at John Stuart Mill's 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 the utilitarian framework to distinguish between higher and lower pleasures. It is possible to make qualitative distinctions of worth.
And we tested that idea with the Simpsons and the Shakespeare excerpts. And the results of our experiment seem to call into question Mill's distinction because a great many of you reported that you prefer the Simpsons but that you still consider Shakespeare to be the higher or the worthier pleasure.
That's the dilemma with which our experiment confronts Mill. What about Mill's attempt to account for the 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 is 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 yank the organs out of the healthy patient that you think, well, if I use him in this way, in the long run more lives would be lost?
