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    Utilitarianism as Mill conceives it requires protecting i... — Carmelics
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    Supports→Mill's own conception of liberal rights requires more than the harm principle.

    Utilitarianism as Mill conceives it requires protecting individuality and higher pleasures, generating rights-claims the harm principle alone cannot specify.

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    1 reason for
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    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.Mill explicitly argues that intellectual and moral pleasures are qualitatively superior, requiring conditions only individual liberty and development can provide.
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    • 2.The harm principle alone permits suppressing individuality if majority preference maximizes overall utility, contradicting Mill's express commitment to protecting it.
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    • 3.Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures logically entails specific conditions for accessing them—education, autonomy, diversity—that constitute substantive rights beyond mere non-harm.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.Rights-claims logically follow from harm prevention itself: protecting individuality prevents the harms of conformity and stagnation, so Mill needs no additional theoretical machinery.
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    • 2.Attributing a robust theory of positive rights to Mill overshoots his text; he grounds everything in utility and consequence, not independent rights-generating principles.
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    • 3.If higher pleasures require protection via rights, this introduces a non-utilitarian foundational commitment that actually undermines rather than completes utilitarian reasoning.
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    Connections

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    Social Contract1 linkedRights & Liberty1 linked

    Related

    Attributing a robust theory of positive rights to Mill overshoots his text; he g...If higher pleasures require protection via rights, this introduces a non-utilita...Mill explicitly argues that intellectual and moral pleasures are qualitatively s...Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures logically entails specific...
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    Mill's own conception of liberal rights requires more than the harm principle.Rights-claims logically follow from harm prevention itself: protecting individua...The harm principle alone permits suppressing individuality if majority preferenc...

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    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit