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J.S. Mill - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Deontological ethics holds that at least some acts are morally obligatory regardless of their consequences for human welfare. eg Kant
    - - Teleological ethics (also called consequentialist ethics or consequentialism) holds that the basic standard of morality is precisely the value of what an action brings into being. eg Bentham
  - - - However, for Bentham happiness is materialistic and individualistic. Greatest pleasure implies policies through which greatest national income is generated.
      - It means that state should pursue such policies which promote greatest happiness of greatest number of people.
      - This school of economy is called Public Choice School and calls for minimum intervention of state in the economy to maximize national income.
      - However, it is considered a justification for materialism as while resolving conflicts between capitalists and workers, he suggests a trickle-down effect rather than state interference. He prioritizes happiness over numbers and socialists opine it should be the opposite.
- - - - The division created between self regarding and other regarding action is ‘Artificial’ according to Barker. Who decides what are other regarding actions? Does there exist any self-regarding action? So, such kinds of ambiguity provides immense scope for the state to intervene in the matters of liberty , in the name of acting in accordance to the harm principle. Thus, such prophecy of Liberty is termed as ‘Empty liberty’ since it arbitrarily limits Liberty
      - Ernest Barker is the scholar of Positive Liberty. Positive liberty is a school of thought that argues for state’s support in ensuring liberty to an individual.
      - The way classical liberals describe human nature as extremely individualist, is considered by modern liberals as abstract individualism which is not real but only an imagination. Real individual lives in the society and there is no clear distinction between self regarding and other regarding acts as they can both overlap.
      - What allows Barker to criticize Mill is because of Mill’s inconsistency and ambiguity in propounding the theory of Liberty.
      - Mill further brings metaphysical notions of real will, when he permits the state to intervene in stopping a person from crossing a bridge, which is about to fall because Mill believes that it can not be the real will of a person to end his life.