分配正义:重新反思罗尔斯对密尔的批评

罗尔斯虽然认为密尔是一个伟大的功利主义者,但也指出他的功利主义像其他 形态的功利主义一样存在致命的缺陷:为了实现功利最大化而忽略分配正义,特别是为了实 现功利最大化而牺牲自由。实际上,作为密尔功利主义首要原则的功利原则蕴含着分配正义 的要素,即功利原则要求平等地对待每个人,或者说每个人对幸福都拥有平等的权利。不仅 如此,作为其功利主义次级原则的两个正义原则与罗尔斯的自由原则和差别原则也非常相近 。密尔的功利主义正义理论具有罗尔斯的正义理论所不具备的优势:明显的历史性优 势以及有效处理相互冲突的自由的优势。     

自由与功利之间——密尔伦理思想的双重诉求

约翰·斯图亚特·密尔是一个功利主义者,更是一个自由主义者.功利原则与自由原则是密尔伦理思想中的两个密切相关的基本原则,功利原则以最大多数人的最大幸福为终极价值诉求,自由原则则赋予个体的自由权利以价值优先性.密尔的一生都致力于以功利原则为哲学基础来证明个体自由,致力于论证功利主义与自由主义的一致与契合,但实际上若要追求功利原则和自由原则的融合就决定了他既不能执守严格的功利主义,也无法坚持一般的自由主义.因此,功利主义不是自由主义最好的哲学基础.     

论西季威克对功利主义的证明

西季威克对功利主义的证明从考察密尔的证明开始.他认为密尔对功利主义的证明存在一个漏洞,需要用合理仁爱去填补,进而考察了理性直觉中的公正、审慎和仁爱三个自明原则,最后论证常识道德与功利主义的关系,从而达到对功利主义的证明.但是对于这三个自明原则的内涵与关系,特别是从审慎到仁爱过渡的重要问题,西季威克没有给出应有的阐述.在对西季威克的证明给予梳理与评述之后,可以发现自尊心和名誉感是沟通审慎和仁爱的桥梁与中介,它们正是追求自我幸福的个体为何会追求普遍幸福的原因.同时,从考察西季威克对功利主义的证明可以看出,他的功利主义理论表现出一种准则论的倾向.     

罗尔斯与功利主义

罗尔斯的正义理论和功利主义都把对方看做最主要的理论对手.这篇文章站在功利主义立场上对罗尔斯提出了批评:一方面,罗尔斯对功利主义所做的大量批评完全被误解了,也就是说,罗尔斯不仅没有驳倒功利主义,而且他对两个正义原则与功利主义的比较也是无法成立的;另一方面,因为两个正义原则与功利原则处在不同的层面上,这样从功利主义出发,不仅能够论证功利主义可以作为罗尔斯两个正义原则的基础,而且事实上罗尔斯也依赖功利主义者所使用的论证.     

动机、意图与功利主义的阐释 ——从密尔的一则脚注说起

密尔认为行为的道德属性与动机无关,这一观点遭到戴维斯的质疑。密尔批评戴维斯混淆了动机和意图,并断言行为的道德性完全取决于意图。这与对其理论的后果主义解读相抵牾。我们分析了这一断言所处的文本语境,澄清了动机与意图的关系,进而表明,密尔的功利主义最好被理解为一种规则后果主义,这样不仅更加符合其本意,也能更好地容纳道德直觉。     

系统功利主义及其应用

功利主义的最大幸福原则实际上是个人与社会的互利原则,也是一个人作为一个系统对其社会环境的适应原则,适应的目的是达到人生系统的稳定即幸福.因此,基于系统论的道德哲学不可避免地是功利主义的,物质幸福和精神幸福的平衡就是道德系统的序参量,公德和私德分别是道德系统的规范组织和自组织的两种状态.系统功利主义的包容性和整体性最终体现于对行为功利和准则功利的统合,这在一定程度上体现了功利主义和道义论的统一.     

“声名狼藉”的逻辑性谬误——重思约翰·密尔对功利原则的证明

许多批评者指出,约翰·密尔在《功利主义》第四章中对功利原则的证明明显地犯有许多"声名狼藉"的逻辑性谬误。他们认为这些谬误主要包括两类:模糊性谬误/自然主义谬误和合成性谬误/划分性谬误。批评者们之所以如此严厉地批评密尔,或者是因为他们没有厘清密尔证明背后所预设的一些假定,或者是因为他们未将密尔证明功利主义的论点与他的其他著作联系起来。如果人们怀着同情的心态来对待密尔的证明的话,那么,他们就会发现,密尔实际上根本就没有犯有"声名狼藉"的逻辑性谬误。     

海萨尼对规则功利主义的康德式辩护

海萨尼借鉴康德伦理学的理性、法则、自主和普遍性等观念,并结合功利主义的伦理学资源,提出了一种基于理性偏好的规则功利主义理论。在为这种规则功利主义的优越性进行辩护时,他批评了以黑尔为代表的康德式行为功利主义和以罗尔斯为代表的康德式义务论,认为前者缺乏“自发的协调效应”且易于破坏权利和规则,而后者对“最大最小值原则”“绝对优先原则”和“道德应当”理论的论证既是反事实的,也是不合理的。海萨尼认为,康德式的规则功利主义能够克服行为功利主义和义务论的上述缺陷,从而是更加合理的替代选项。海萨尼的理论对功利主义和康德伦理学的当代发展产生了重要影响,对我们建设自主的规范伦理学理论也具有重要借鉴意义。     

自由主义:伦理内涵的嬗变与困境

任何完整的政治理论都有其特定的价值结构,为其现实政治主张、制度结构、政策机制的提供伦理支持,并随着时代政治、经济、文化条件的发展而变换其内涵。西方自由主义政治理论的发展分为启蒙时期、功利主义、现代自由主义等重要阶段,自然权利、功利原则和社会公正分别是其不同时代的核心价值要求。阐释和分析自由主义的伦理内涵变换及其理论和现实困境,为了解当代西方自由主义的价值变换及政策走向提供了一个有益的理论视角。     

最大快乐原则能否公平——以密尔功利主义为例

最大快乐原则能否公平是功利主义理论完备性的一个关键问题。罗尔斯曲线的数量分析模型对功利主义公平问题的考察存在偏差。密尔功利主义主张最大快乐是人能够过幸福生活,公平是每个人都能够幸福生活。从功利与公平的义理、社会基本的公平正义制度的性质、幸福的源泉等视角看,密尔认为人的最大快乐不存在相互排斥,世界能够为每个人都提供幸福的源泉。社会通过政治改良与共同努力,消除不平等和灾难,最终每个人都获得幸福生活,从而实现公平。     

Is Xunzi a utilitarian? Revisiting a disagreement

ABSTRACT

In Chinese scholarship, Xunzi is often regarded as an eclectic Confucian master who accepted some form of utilitarian thoughts (e.g. Fung Yu-lan, Mou Zongsan and Xu Fuguan). This characteristic was also observed by some western scholars such as Benjamin I. Schwartz. In a recent study, I argued that the basic character of Xunzi’s philosophy is utilitarianism in a broad sense based on an examination on his intellectual criticism and political criticism. Xunzi asserts that humans are innately driven by self-interested desires, and he evaluates all intellectual works and political behaviours by their utility. However, he does not limit utility to only basic animal desires such as food and sex. In Xunzi’s view, humans also have innate emotions; hence, these emotions should also be accounted for in their utility. This is similar to John Stuart Mill’s redefinition of Bentham’s concept of utility. Are Xunzi’s and Mill’s concepts of utility exactly the same? This question has yet to be examined. This article is a comparative study between utilitarianism and Xunzi’s philosophy which especially explores the compatibility of these two philosophies.     

Bentham’s binary form of maximizing utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham is often interpreted as defending a satisficing, rather than maximizing, version of utilitarianism, where an act is right as long as it produces more pleasure than pain. This lack of maximization is surprising given Bentham’s maximizing slogan ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’. Against the satisficing interpretation, I argue that Bentham consistently defends a maximizing version of utilitarianism, where an act’s consequences are compared to those of not performing the act. I show that following this version of utilitarianism requires that one realizes the greatest happiness for all affected individuals.     

J. S. Mill's concept of liberty and the principle of utility

Conclusion Looked at on these three levels — the definitional, the justificatory, the dimensional — Mill's concept of liberty does not appear to be rooted in the principle of utility in any meaningful sense of this principle. It appears rather to be based on a consideration of the social benefits liberty would conduce to combined with an implicit and at times explicit theory of natural rights. Liberty is neither defined nor justified relative to any felicific, sensory pleasure-pain calculus or Greatest Happiness estimate. The limits of individual or collective interference in individual action are not prescribed with the utility principle as the guide.If strict adherence to the utility principle is the criterion for membership in the school of political philosophers known as the Utilitarians, then John Stuart Mill's name must be struck from the roster. Those who want to insist that Mill remain a member must either ignore the textual evidence to the contrary in his essays or abandon or drastically revise the principle of utility to allow for J. S. Mill's substantial deviations. Ignoring the contrary textual evidence is not intellectually respectable. Broadening the definition of utility and/or pleasure ruins the theoretical coherence of the original Utilitarian doctrine. Either of these two ways of keeping Mill in the fold do not do justice to the richness of Mill's theory.     

Autonomy, Slavery, and Mill's Critique of Paternalism

Critics have charged that John Stuart Mill's discussion as of paternalism in On Liberty is internally inconsistent, noting, for example, the numerous instances in which Mill explicitly endorses examples of paternalistic coercion. Similarly, commentators have noted an apparent contradiction between Mill's political liberalism – according to which the state should be neutral among competing conceptions of the good – and Mill's condemnation of non-autonomous ways of life, such as that of a servile wife. More generally, critics have argued that while Mill professes an allegiance to utilitarianism, he actually abandons it in favor of a view that values personal autonomy as the greatest intrinsic good. This paper presents an interpretation of Mill that provides a viable and consistent treatment of paternalism, thereby refuting each of the aforementioned critiques. Mill's views, it argues, are consistently utilitarian. Moreover, the interpretation accounts for all of Mill's departures from his otherwise blanket prohibition of paternalistic legislation. In particular, it explains his most notorious example, the condemnation of voluntary contracts for slavery. The interpretation emphasizes Mill's conceptual linkage between autonomy and utility, noting his implicit use of at least three different senses of the notion of autonomy.     

The absolutism problem in On Liberty

Mill argues that, apart from the principle of utility, his utilitarianism is incompatible with absolutes. Yet in On Liberty he introduces an exceptionless anti-paternalism principle—his liberty principle. In this paper I address ‘the absolutism problem,’ that is, whether Mill's utilitarianism can accommodate an exceptionless principle. Mill's absolute claim is not a mere bit of rhetoric. But the four main solutions to the absolutism problem are also not supported by the relevant texts. I defend a fifth solution—the competence view—that turns on his attention to decision-making structures and, in particular, on the role of expertise considerations in his account.     

罗尔斯的公平正义观真的反对后果主义吗?

<正>罗尔斯在《正义论》中所提出的公平正义观对当代政治哲学产生了极大的影响,连其理论的主要反对者诺齐克都说:"《正义论》是自约翰.斯图尔特.密尔的著作以来所仅见的一部有力的、深刻的、精巧的、论述宽广和系统的政治和道德哲学著作……政治哲学家们现在必须要么在罗尔斯的框架内工作,要么解释不这么做的原因。"(诺齐克,1990年,第187页)罗尔斯在《正义论》中提出:"我的目的是确定一个能够代替一般的功利主义、从而也能代替它的各种变化形式的作为一种选择对象的正义论。"(罗尔斯,2009年,第18页。下引罗尔斯文献仅注年份和页码)他在书中采用的     

The Integrity Objection,Reloaded

Abstract

Bernard Williams’ integrity objection poses a significant challenge to utilitarianism, which has largely been answered by utilitarians. This paper recasts the integrity objection to show that utilitarian agents could be committed to producing the overall best states of affairs and yet not positively act to bring them about. I introduce the ‘Moral Pinch Hitter’ – someone who performs actions at the bequest of another agent – to demonstrate that utilitarianism cannot distinguish between cases in which an agent maximizes utility by positively acting in response to her duty, and cases in which an agent fails morally by relying upon someone else to perform the obligatory act. The inability to distinguish among these cases establishes a new, reloaded integrity objection to utilitarianism: utilitarianism cannot explain why it would be wrong to have someone else make difficult moral decisions, and to act on those decisions, for me.     

道德困境研究的范式沿革及其理论价值

通过评述道德困境研究范式的发展过程, 系统阐释了经典两难法、加工分离法、CNI模型法和CAN算法的优缺点和理论价值。后来的研究范式均在一定程度上克服了之前研究范式的局限。加工分离法克服了经典两难法的加工纯粹性假设等局限, CNI模型法在加工分离法基础上进一步分离了道德困境决策的多种心理过程, CAN算法则修正了CNI模型法的序列加工的不恰当预设。研究范式的沿革启示研究者综合应用新方法来解决研究争议和重新审视以往道德理论, 合理应用新方法来探索其他具有潜在冲突性的研究议题。总之, 本文为道德困境及相关研究提供了方法学参考。     

Mill’s act-utilitarian interpreters on Utilitarianism chapter V paragraph 14

In the fourteenth paragraph of the fifth chapter of Utilitarianism, J. S. Mill writes that ‘We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow-creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience.’ I criticize the attempts of three commentators who have recently presented act-utilitarian readings of Mill – Roger Crisp, David Brink, and Piers Norris Turner – to accommodate this passage.     

Mill's Liberalism and Liberalism's Posterity

It is argued that the moral theory undergirding J.S. Mill's argumentin On Liberty is a species of perfectionism rather than any kind of utilitarianism. The conception of human flourishing that itinvokes is one in which the goods of personal autonomy and individualityare central. If this conception is to be more than the expression ofa particular cultural ideal it needs the support of an empiricallyplausible view of human nature and a defensible interpretation ofhistory. Neither of these can be found in Mill. Six traditionalcriticisms of Mill's argument are assessed. It is concluded thatin addition to depending on implausible claims about human natureand history Mill's conception of the good contains disablingincommensurabilities. It is argued that these difficulties andincommensurabilities plague later liberal thinkers such as IsaiahBerlin and Joseph Raz who have sought to ground liberalism in avalue-pluralist ethical theory. No thinker in Mill's liberal posterity has been able to demonstrate the universal authority of liberal ideals.