J.S. Mill as Maximising Utilitarian? Rawls takes on J.S. Mill

As I mentioned in my previous post, Fitzpatrick¹ puts forward an interpretation of J.S. Mill which compellingly shows how to resolve the apparent tensions in Mill’s works which scholars have debated. I am intrigued by Fitzpatrick’s² fourth chapter, ‘The Rawlsian Objection’ because I wrote a contemporary political philosophy essay on Rawls and liberalism a few years ago³. A specific lecture for this module, out of which this essay arose, included an examination of J.S. Mill’s political philosophy. However, for the purpose of this essay, which involved an analysis of the set reading for the essay title, I needed to focus on evaluating Rawls’s political liberalism and contemporary responses to his theory of justice. This includes his criticism of previous political liberalists who draw on what he generically refers to as classical utilitarianism, under which he would include J.S. Mill. So I am interested in looking at whether classical utilitarian liberalists can hold their own against Rawls on the topic of freedom and justice but this time looking at it from the other side of the debate. Fitzpatrick⁴ provides us with a picture of this by showing how the classical utilitarian, especially J.S. Mill, could have defended his views against Rawls’s criticisms.

Fitzpatrick’s analysis identifies the pivotal claim in Rawls’s argument against classical utilitarian liberalists as being that they rely on the principle of maximising utility for the greatest number of people and that all their other principles are of secondary importance because they merely arise from this principle⁵. Rawls then builds on this claim by arguing that this leads to potentially unacceptable results for individual freedoms and rights which makes classical utilitarian liberalism a self-defeating, flawed approach⁶. Fitzpatrick outlines various Rawlsian objections but highlights that he thinks the strongest of the objections made by Rawls and his supporters is that classical utilitarianism could:

“justify sacrificing one person…..to avoid harms to others. Justice forbids sacrificing the freedom of one person for another. Such a practice would not take the distinction between persons seriously.”⁷          

On reading this summary of Rawls’s objection to classical utilitarian liberals, I asked myself whether this sufficiently and accurately captured Rawls’s overall perspective on classical utilitarianism over a cross-section of his works, especially how it related to J.S. Mill. So I refreshed my memory of Rawls’s writings by looking through ‘A Theory of Justice’, ‘Collected Papers’, and ‘Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy’.

When assessing Rawls’s ‘A Theory of Justice’⁸, I was dissatisfied with his very broad-brush approach to the wide range of classical utilitarianism. Rawls does acknowledge that “There are many forms of utilitarianism” but nevertheless states that he will “not survey these forms here, nor take account of the numerous refinements found in contemporary discussions.”⁹ However, I think taking account of at least some salient variations in classical utilitarianism would have helped support Rawls’s theory of justice.

I think this because:

1) Rawls is partly building his theory out of the so-called flaws he finds in classical utilitarianism and so he is more likely to include erroneous flaws by lumping all variations into one generic category and set of assumptions, irrespective of their differences in approach. This leaves him open to criticisms, such as Fitzpatrick’s, which show how Rawls’s criticisms do not sufficiently undermine a particular philosopher or approach.

2) Rawls states his “aim” is to provide “an alternative to all of these different versions of” utilitarianism¹⁰. However, I think Rawls’s suggested alternative in his ‘A Theory of Justice’ is weakened by his narrow, stereotypical depiction of classical utilitarianism. It makes me wonder whether Rawls has fallen into the strawman fallacy problem of characterising classical utilitarianism in a way which makes it easier for him to knock down the approach in order to clear the way for his suggested improvement on it.

3) Rawls states in his ‘A Theory of Justice’ that when he says utilitarianism he will “describe…the strict classical doctrine” the best example of which is Sidgwick¹¹. However, throughout this book, I noticed he does specify J.S. Mill in passages on utilitarianism and sometimes argues against him. For instance, he specifies passages in J.S. Mill and his principle of utility when he writes that, although Mill can “support freedom”, Rawls argues his ‘justice as fairness’ approach is more convincing than J.S. Mill’s arguments concerning equal liberty¹².

Furthermore, Rawls cites J.S. Mill in his footnotes¹³ as a source when making general statements depicting utilitarianism in general as holding that “the sum of advantages is to be maximized” and that “justice” is “derivative …of…the greatest balance of satisfaction.” Rawls also goes on to generalise that, for the utilitarian, “there is no reason in principle why the greater gains of some should not compensate for the lesser losses of others; …why the violation of the liberty of a few might not be made right by the greater good shared by many”…… “it is right for a society to maximize the net balance of satisfaction taken over all its members.”¹⁴ These passages, I think, support Fitzpatrick as accurately describing Rawls’s description of classical utilitarianism and how he includes J.S. Mill within it. Fitzpatrick¹⁵ is certainly right in claiming that Rawls is interpreting J.S. Mill as a maximising utilitarian who makes his principle of utility central to his arguments, because many passages point to Rawls emphasising J.S. Mill’s maximising approach and talking about the principle of utility as primary and justice as secondary.

However, Fitzpatrick’s¹⁶ central claim for his interpretation of J.S. Mill is that he was not a maximising utilitarian and that the problem lies with reading Mill in this way. Hence, Fitzpatrick argues scholars who read Mill as a maximising utilitarian are misguided in their claims that Mill is inconsistent or incoherent. So Fitzpatrick’s book aims to show that these internal tensions disappear on his re-interpretation of J.S. Mill. Indeed, J.S. Mill’s commitment to “liberalism, liberal feminism, representative democracy, individual rights”¹⁷, amongst other things, means it should be quite obvious to us that he would not be attracted to a maximising approach in the first place.     

¹Fitzpatrick, J.R. (2006), “John Stuart Mill’s Political Philosophy”, Continuum Studies in British Philosophy, Continuum

²ibid

³ available at:

 https://www.academia.edu/34946210/Can_liberalism_be_anything_other_than_just_one_more_sectarian_doctrine_4th_yr_Spring_2013_BA_Philosophy_London_uni_4yr_part_time_political_module_chosen_specialisation_

⁴ Fitzpatrick, J.R. (2006), “John Stuart Mill’s Political Philosophy”, Continuum Studies in British Philosophy, Continuum

⁵ ibid p129

⁶ ibid chapter 4

⁷ ibid p146

⁸ Rawls, J. (1971) “A Theory of Justice”, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press

⁹ ibid p22

¹⁰ ibid

¹¹ ibid

¹² ibid p209-210

¹³ ibid p26

¹⁴ ibid

¹⁵ Fitzpatrick, J.R. (2006), “John Stuart Mill’s Political Philosophy”, Continuum Studies in British Philosophy, Continuum

¹⁶ ibid

¹⁷ibid p129