On Mill’s Transcendence Of Bentham’s Utilitarian Legal Philosophy

Bentham’s utilitarianism relies on the classification and calculation of happiness and pain.The entire social structure is divided into countless calculation shares,and the pursuit of happiness is its goal.If the result of utilitarian calculation helps to improve the overall happiness of society,utilitarian can become the judging standard of legal justice;legislators also need to find the most suitable calculation rules to achieve the goal of seeking happiness for the majority of people;the circular prison is originally It was designed in accordance with the maximization of happiness,but it was later interpreted by Foucault as the most effective surveillance technology,and it implied that the entire society was disciplined by social power like a prison.From an early age,Mill received a Bentham utilitarian education with only computational rationality and no spiritual value.Although this allowed him to obtain some achievements,it also obliterated his personality development.This triggered his spiritual crisis,and he began to reflect on the oppression of personal freedom by social disciplines similar to Bentham’s utilitarianism.Pushed by himself,Mill believes that the entire modern industrialized society is in the predicament of social tyranny and is committed to preventing social tyranny.Mill reconstructed Bentham’s utilitarianism and believed that freedom is long-term utilitarianism,which can bring great happiness to society in the future.The essence of a happy society lies in advocating the free development of individuality.However,the conflict between the uniqueness of individual freedom and the universality of social control is clear.Individual freedom and social control are a unity of opposites.After reconstruction,legislators should give priority to protecting individual freedom.At the same time,if you want to completely get rid of social control,you can only resort to the pursuit of truth.Truth can create a proper social order and bring people the hope of reconstructing the prison society.Moreover,only the truth that can withstand challenges is the living truth.People need an open social model so that they can freely challenge the truth and pursue the truth.Such an open society model must fit the characteristics of a free society.The reconstructed Mill has turned into a neoliberal.Under the influence of his liberal thought,contemporary scholars often apply his theory to the debate on specific issues,such as the issue of freedom in morals.At the same time,Berlin’s concept of negative freedom and positive freedom also inherited Mill’s idea of freedom.Mill’s principle of maximum happiness is different from Bentham.Bentham’s principle of maximum happiness is only ruthless calculation reason without any value considerations.But when Mill explained his principle of maximum happiness,he imposed various restrictions on it,such as human self-esteem;personal maximum happiness depends on a happy society;freedom is the soul of the law,etc.These limitations show Mill’s transcendence of Bentham’s utilitarian philosophy of law.