Utility – Jeremy Bentham

The purpose of morality is to maximize happiness

We are the subject of two sovereigns: pain and pleasure and justice should try to maximize one and minimize the other for the collective

Pleasure can be measured by utility – a measure of pleasure

            Advantages: everyone’s preferences count equally

Problems: individual rights – throwing Christians to the lions, the miserable child in the glorious city

            Radical redistribution of wealth

Liberty – Hayek, Friedman with a dash of Mill

            We own ourselves – hence no paternalism, no morals legislation, no redistribution of wealth

            Decision making is voluntary – Bill Gates is rich because people voluntarily gave him money

                        Problem: Is everything for sale? The military draft, organs

Motive – Immanuel Kant

            Morality is not a function of result (utilitarianism) but of motive – doing right for the right reason

                        Not because it is pleasurable, useful or convenient

            So what does that mean?

                        Mortality: duty v inclination

                                    Are you doing it because you want praise or because it’s right?

                        Freedom: autonomy v heteronomy

                                    Is this something we want to do or something we have been told to do?

                        Reason: categorical  v hypothetical imperatives

Is the reason you are doing something unconditional (categorical) or because you want some sort of outcome?

Categorical Imperative I: Universability maxim: it can only be just if we can universalize that action (everyone does it) for the good

Categorical imperative II: persons as ends: people must be the ends not the means of whatever you are doing

Veil of ignorance – John Rawls

The veil of ignorance Imagines that you don’t know your race, education, income, or gender – so what kind of social contract would you create?

Accomplishment in a feudal or capitalistic society is not a function of merit but a luck of birth, skill or ability that the society values at this moment

But differences are going to happen – so the “difference principle” says that we can be rewarded disproportionally if that somehow benefits the least among us

Purpose and reward – Aristotle

Justice is measured by what is teleological (the purpose, end, or essential nature of the social practice in question)

The best flutes should go to the best flute player, the highest government position to the most civically virtuous

            Government should produce a people pursuing a good life

Justice is measured by what is honorific (what should we honor and reward)

Law should encourage the practice of moral behavior (to be surrounded by virtues acts encourages virtuous feelings)