The Logical Approach Of Mill’s Utilitarian Justice Thought

The issue of "justice" is an important part of the discussion of moral philosophy.Different understandings of this issue in academic circles explain different ways of treating "individual rights" by different value schools.The confrontation between utilitarianism and liberalism is the best example of this issue.In the confrontation between utilitarianism and liberalism,Mill reinterprets the argument of utilitarianism,absorbs more elements of deontology into the utilitarian system,corrects the problem that Jeremy Bentham utilitarianism ignores individual rights,and responds to the criticism of the liberalists on utilitarianism.The neglect of Jeremy Bentham utilitarianism to moral principle makes the utilitarian theory lose its important position in the past,which just promotes the rise of Mill’s utilitarian justice thought.Mill’s analysis of the relationship among justice,individual rights and utility,and points out that individual rights are the starting point to communicate the relationship between utility and justice,which provides a logical way for him to respond to the liberalist’s interrogation on the relationship between utility principles and freedom principles.Mill reveals that the social turn of freedom enriches the connotation of freedom.On this basis,he clarifies the principle of "no harm" as the limit of freedom,which creates conditions for Mill to demonstrate the consistent relationship between utility and freedom from the two aspects of "intelligence" and "personality".At the same time,Mill’s ethics with hierarchical characteristics constructed through two transformations gives a clear answer to the priority problem of utility and freedom.He attaches great importance to the important role of moral principles,and puts the principle of justice at the top of the secondary principles,while the principle of utility always takes precedence over the principle of justice,which fully confirms Mill’s utilitarian identity as a liberal.In fact,as long as Mill insists that the principle of utility takes precedence over the principle of freedom,no matter how he defends the importance of individual rights,his utilitarianism has the possibility of impeding individual rights,so Mill’s argument can not completely solve the conflict between utility and rights.But it is undeniable that the logical conception of Mill’s justice thought initiated the study of moral philosophy,which is still of great significance to the development of our society today.