PO102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham
Document Summary
Freedom: ability to act as one wants without interference, restraints, or coercion. In defence of freedom: john locke, thomas hobbes, jeremy bentham, john stuart. Bentham and mill have a philosophy of utilitarianism =, the view that humans seek to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, and government should act to achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Critiques of the view: people overindulging, making poor choices, engaging in undesirable behaviour that could ultimately hurt others. Higher pleasure: taking kids to fine theatre performance. Freedom allows for maximum numbers of ideas to be presented to citizens. Siege of gardener, tamil population stopped traffic in response to genocide in sri lanka, different views on what should have happened across country, you see how people value freedom and order. Adam smith: a free and competitive economy most efficient way of producing goods and services, and maximizing total wealth of community. Govt role should only be education and infrastructure.
