9/10 - Liberty Flashcards
What is John Stuart Mill’s on Liberty about?
- The need to restrict both state and society (public opinion) in their ability to shape conduct.
- “The nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.”
Four stages in the history of relations between individuals and authority
First Stage:
- Contest between subjects and the government
- Liberty means protection of society against tyranny of political rulers
- The protections are political rights and constitutional checks
Second Stage:
- Development of democratic government
- Liberty means popular self-rule
- Rulers are the ruled, so there is no need to limit government power
Third Stage:
- Recognition that the political majority can be tyrannical over the minority
- Liberty is democratic government with protection of minorities
Fourth Stage:
- For Mill, this is the problem we need to address
- Threat of social tyranny: the tyranny of prevailing opinion and feeling
- Oppressive, soul-enslaving customs and prejudices
- Liberty is individual spontaneity
Freedom of thought and discussion
- To Mill, it is never justifiable to silence an opinion, whether it is true or false
- To censor without testing is to assume infallibility
- We should aim for living truth rather than dead dogma (something that is always believed with no real proof)
- But, in some contexts the expression of an opinion can be restricted
Mill’s question: when is it legitimate to interfere in people’s lives?
Liberty principle/harm principle - “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.”
What is paternalism?
Coercing people to change their behaviour for their own good
Paternalists want to protect individuals from themselves (e.g. seatbelts)
Sarah Conly’s argument for paternalism
- We are not always the best judges of what we want for ourselves
- We tend to suffer from a range of cognitive biases that prevents us from acting rationally and achieving our goals
- Cost-benefit analysis can justify some paternalistic laws when benefits are big and costs are small
- The role of government is to help us achieve our goals
- In a democratic society, laws apply equally to everyone, so giving up some liberty can be worth it to benefit the majority
- Paternalism is helpful because the laws benefit everyone
- Sometimes we can produce more happiness by intervening for a person’s own good
Two types of cognitive bias
Optimism bias: irrational optimism about the chance of something bad happening to us, as opposed to others in our situation
-We tend not to take appropriate steps to benefit ourselves
Status quo bias: valuing what we already have more than the alternatives
-Can lead us to resist new laws that would improve our lives
What does Mill mean by harm?
- Distinction between offensive actions and actions that cause harm
- To harm someone is to damage their interests
- According to Mill, harming someone’s interests is NOT SUFFICIENT to justify constraint.
Does Mill think it is acceptable to cause legitimate harm to others’ interests (e.g. job competition)
Mill thinks this is acceptable because the utilitarian benefits outweigh the costs
Why limit individual liberty?
- The action in question harms interests that ought to be considered as rights
- Not all interests can confer to us a right
- People still have to write exams and don’t have a right to good grades even though an interest may exist
Why do we have rights?
1) Self-evident (Declaration of Independence)
2) Custom and convention
3) Rights protect interests that are sufficiently important to put others under a duty (reciprocal)
Why do we have rights according to Mill?
- Recognizing rights maximizes utility and we should choose the system of rights that maximizes utility or happiness
- This approach can justify a set of rights to liberty, security, and property
J.F. Stephen on liberty
- Liberty is like fire
- A utilitarian theory of rights may not have to be a liberal theory
- Both have the potential to intermingle
What is libertarian paternalism
Nudging - maintaining people’s freedom of choice while steering their decisions in the right direction (e.g. disclosing calorie counts)
Libertarian = preserve people’s freedom of choice
Paternalist = aim to produce a person’s own good
Why is human nature like a tree?
- People grow into different parts of themselves
- We can nudge the tree in certain ways to encourage growth
- Trees prune themselves too (loses leaves in the fall)
