ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Theories of Justice: Seeking common ground in Mill and Rawls
Author: SU HUEI-CHUN
John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, first published in 1971, was a reaction to the long-term dominance of utilitarianism in the fields of both philosophy and practice. Although Rawls’ theory suffered many criticisms due to its methodology, it is difficult to deny that Rawls’ criticisms of the utilitarian theory of justice did strike home. The insecurity of equal individual freedom is a serious problem existing in most classical utilitarianism, and cannot be overlooked. However, it is intriguing that J. S. Mill has a distinct place in Rawls’ discourse; Rawls intentionally separates Mill from other classical utilitarians. The most important reason for Rawls doing so is that Mill’s theory has the capability of reaching similar conclusions to Rawls’ two principles of justice. However, Rawls insists that Mill’s arguments for liberty grounded in utilitarianism are logically unsound. In reply to Rawls’ challenge to Mill, this paper will reconstruct Mill’s utilitarianism as a three-level system of morality to show that Mill’s theory of justice is much more sophisticated than Rawls believed it to be. Based on this reconstruction theory, the paper aims to make a more effective comparison between Mill and Rawls in order to reduce the long-standing confusion many people have about Mill’s utilitarian view of justice. The comparison will focus on three perspectives: firstly, the status of their principles of justice in relation to their philosophy; secondly, the difference between their concepts of social and distributive justice, and the difference between their usage of these two terms; thirdly, the ideas of equality in their theories of justice.
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