Week 3-Post 1: Libertarianism/Utilitarianism

Source: Justice course on EdX by HarvardX

Lecture 4/5/6

Lecture 4: The objections to utiltarianism and the response another philosopher gave 

• 2 Objections to Utilitarianism (focus on the overall amount of happiness that will be generated to decide whether its morally right)
• 1. Fails to respect individual rights
• by concering itself with the concern of the greatest good to the greatest number, utilitarianism fails to adequately respect indivual rights.
• because it focuses on just the overall outcome, so it looks at the situation in a far away point of view instead of close up at the rights of the individuals affected.
• 2. Not possible to aggregate all values and preferences (Not possible to assign values to things and choose preferences then say that that preference is better than the other because it values more)
• questions whether utilitaritanism is right to assume that we can assume the uniformity of value, the commensurability of values and translate all moral considerations into dollars/money.
• why should we weigh all preferences people have without assessing whether theyre good prefrences or good preferences, shouldnt we distinguish between higher pleasures and lower pleasures.
• part of the appeal of not making any qualitative decisions about the worth of people's preferences. part of the appeal is that it is non-judegemental and egalitarian (belief that all people are equal and deserve equal rights). 
• the benthamite utilitarian says (3. cant choose everybodys preferences count, and they count regardless of what people want, regardless of what makes different people happy. for bentham allt hat matters are th intesity and the duration of a pleasure or pain.
• so bentham believes that the so-called higher pleasures or nobler virtues are simply those that produce stronger and longer pleasure
• "the quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry" - bentham
• Pushpin: some kind of a childs game. "pushpin is as good as poetry". Lying behind this idea, is the claim, the intutiion that its a presumption to judge whos pleasures are intrinsically higher or better. benthamites basically find judging morally wrong. some people like ballet, others bowling. a benthamite might argue, whos to say which of these pleasures are higher, worthier, nobler, than others?
• Is their refusal to make qualitative distinctions right?
• Response to the objections: philosopher John Stuart Mill
• He wanted to see if he could find a way to humanize utilitarianism and solve these objection problems
• See if  the utilitarian calculus could possibly be enlarged to be more considerate of humanitarian concerns like the concerns of individual rights and also the way to address the disctinction betwen hgiher and lower pleasures.
• John Stuart Mill decided that in order to determine the higher pleasure, you have to try both options then choose the one that you prefer most/more meaningful, without any outside influence or pressure (his way of arguing within utilitarian terms)
• He showed the class a clip from a shakespeare film, fear factor, and the simpsons. When he asked them which one they enjoyed watching the most, the majority said the simpsons. When he asked which preference was higher in value, the majority said shakespeare. Because the interpertation and meaning of the lines in shakespeare is more meaningful than the jokes made in the Simpsons.
• finally the professor concluded with saying that to actually verify Mill's idea of how to determine the greater valuing preference, we would need to step out of his utilitarian way of thinking and test and explore other ways of moral reasoning

Lecture 5: Libertarianism

• Mill wants to say that indidual rights are worthy of special respect
• Justice si the most sacred part and the most incomparably binding part of morality
• leaves the question of why that is? Mill says that in the long run if we do justice, and respect rights, society as a whole will be better off
• The reason for respecting individuals, and not using them, goes beyond even utility in the long run.
• so we turn to another one of those strong theories of rights
• Strong theories of rights:
• they say individuals matters and that they are not instruments to be used for a larger purpose. they are worthy of respect
• Libertarianism
• takes individual rights seriously
• states the fundamental individual right is the right to liberty because we are seperate individual beings. this means a right to choose freely, to live our lives as we pelase, provided we respect other people's rights to do the same
• What libertarianism says about the role of government: (their view of the government)
• No Paternalist Legislation
• this is, no passing laws that protect people from themselves. (aka seatbelt laws)
• it may be a good thing if people wear seatbelts, but that should be up to them, and that the government has no business to coerce them into wearing seatbelts by law
• No Morals legislation
• many laws try to promote the virtue of citizens/try tog ive expression to the moral values of the society as a whole.
• libertarians say this is also a a violation of the right to liberty
• examples of morals legislation, have been laws that prevent sexual intimacy between gays and lesbians. libertarians say that nobody else is harmed, nobody else's rights are violated, so the state should get out of the business entirely of trying to promote virtue
• No redistribution of Income from Rich to Poor (any atxation ro other policy that serves the purpose of redistributing income or wealth from the rich to the poor)
• libertarians say, if you think about it, is a kind of coercion, what it amounts to is theft by the state or by the majority, from people who have a lot of money
• Is redistribution of income from the rich to the poor just?
• Robert Nozick's opinion: (basically believes that society's laws should leave people free to choose how to live their lives, so long as they do not violate anyone else's rights)

Lecture 6: Sports Money and Income Tax- Libertarianism

• Minimal State (by Libertarian economist Milton Friedman)
• points out that many of the functions that we take for granted as properly belonging to the government, dont. They are paternalist. (limits another persons freedom/liberty, but the action is intended to be for their own good)
• An example is social security. Its a good way to save for retirement, but its wrong for the government to force everyone to put aside money from their earnings and save. Because Friedman claims that its a violation of peoples liberty,  Whether people want to live big today then live a poor retirement, should be their choice. They should be free to make those judgements and take those risks.
• but overall, underlying this concept, is the worry of coercion
• to coerce someone, to use someone for the sake of the general welfare, is wrong because it calls into question the fundamental fact of self posession. The idea that each individual owns themselves.
• The libertarian argument against income redistribution begins with the idea of self posession.
• Nozick says that if the society as a whole can go to a rich person and tax away a portion of their wealth, what society is really asserting is a collective propertyy right in Bill Gates or Michael Jordan but that violates the fundamental principle, that we belong to ourselves.
• Objections to redistribution:
• THE POOR NEED THE MONEY MORE
• At some point the benefits of redistribution of wealth do not justify the initial violation of the property right. If you look at the argument that the poor need the money at no point in that argument you contradict the fact that we are extrapolated from agreed upon principles that people own themselves. We've extrapolated that people have property rights. Whether that is a good thing or a nice thing or even a necessary thing to the survival of some people does NOT justify the violation of the right that we logically extrapolated. Individual philanthropy still exists (that's not dependable) That still counts as coercion. There is a difference between Needing and deserving something and in an ideal society everyone needs would be net but what libertarians are arguing is what we do deserve as a society and what the poor do not.
• SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE LIKE GATES OWE A DEBT TO SOCIETY (indicating that the reason they are successful is because of society and people that heped them on the way)
• There is not a debt to society Because those people obviously did something that Society valued highly and because of that Society has already been providing for them and if anything I think the idea of owing something to  one another is canceled out. They provided a service to society and society is what in turn created that wealth.