Prof: Let's get going
with John Stuart Mill.
Let me just one more time to
say John Stuart Mill is
formidably influential,
very influential on our days.
He's the ultimate of liberalism.
 
And in some ways,
among all the authors we will
be reading this semester,
he's the most consistent,
the clearest one and the most
consistent of them all.
He draws the line to the
logical conclusions,
no matter what it is.
 
Right?
 
And taking his point of
departure from Adam Smith--
Locke, Adam Smith and then
Bentham--
he pushes the line of
utilitarianism to its most
logical conclusions,
and he's extremely influential
on what we call now neoclassical
economics,
and he was exactly the person,
who made many people who were
liberals and Democrats in the
1960s and '70s,
to change and create what they
called neo-conservativism or
neo-liberalism and went over to
the Republican Party.
It was an important dividing
line.
Mill's staunch insistence on
individual liberty,
and what follows from this
staunch insistence for the role
of the state and how far states
can interfere with individuals.
That was really,
I think, the dividing line in
which many people who were on
the political left,
center left,
or occasionally far left,
by the late 1960s,
early '70s, seeing stuff like
the affirmative action,
the War on Poverty,
they changed their lines.
 
They said, "Look,
the Democratic Party,
liberalism, really betrays
liberalism.
That's not liberalism.
 
Read John Stuart Mill.
 
That's when you will know what
real liberalism is."
Right?
 
Anyway, so I think this is why
his message is very much alive.
And I'm sure that this
classroom is divided by people.
Some people subscribe to John
Stuart Mill's liberalism.
Others probably do think that
he emphasizes too much
individual liberties and there
is much more of a role to
implement the general good by
the government.
Okay, I mean,
I think we left it right here
last week.
 
These are the main themes of
his book on utilitarianism,
the way how he departs from
Bentham--
a very important change that
he's beginning to emphasize
there are higher happinesses we
can seek.
It is not simply quantity but
quality of happiness is what we
seek.
 
A very important contribution,
I think,
and this is an idea which is
only touched upon by Adam Smith
but really not properly
developed,
and certainly completely
missing in Bentham.
It is really Mill's
contribution which is very
important for contemporary
economic theory,
neoclassical economics.
 
They call this preferences,
that we have preferences,
and therefore individuals will
attach different values to
different utilities.
 
And this really comes from the
work of John Stuart Mill,
when he makes this distinction
between legality and justice,
and what is legal is not
necessarily just,
and what is just is necessarily
approved by laws.
And then justice and
expediency: what is expedient is
not necessarily just,
and well just may have its cost
and may not be the fastest way
to get there.
Right?
 
Okay, so let's labor our way
through of this,
and leave time to look at the
questions.
Well the idea is that we are
human beings and therefore we
have a capacity to have higher
appetites than the animal
appetites.
 
Right?
 
So we have imagination,
what animals don't have.
We have moral sentiments,
and these moral sentiments may
lead us in our choices.
 
Right?
 
Now you can see--I mentioned
that about Adam Smith,
that Adam Smith might have had
this theory of sympathetic
humans,
which in a way pointed this
direction.
 
This is very central for John
Stuart Mill.
And therefore,
he emphasizes there is a
qualitative difference between
human and simply animal
appetites.
 
So therefore you simply cannot
do what Bentham did,
simply add up appetites and to
say if more appetites are
satisfied, better off the
society is.
The chief good,
so he argues,
is virtue.
 
Be virtuous and then you will
feel good;
you will be happier if you are
virtuous, as such.
But, you know,
these are all qualifications of
the kind of elementary
utilitarianism;
I think qualifications but,
by the way, most rational
choice theorists and most
neoclassical economists will
also agree with.
 
Those who are critiques of
neo-liberals and utilitarianism
very often kind of caricature
their position,
not really understanding that
following John Stuart Mill--
they do understand that there
is a qualitative differences
between utilities.
 
But otherwise he remains by the
utilitarian principle.
We are rational actors,
we are self-interested,
we know what our needs are,
and we can make good judgments
whether the price we have to pay
in order to satisfy our needs is
worth for us.
 
Right?
 
That is the fundamental idea of
utilitarianism,
which is, thank you,
very healthy today.
There are many people who
disagree with it.
There are many people who agree
with it.
Right?
 
But this is all John Stuart
Mill's addition.
And now a bit on higher
happiness.
Well the pleasure of the beast
might be felt as degrading by a
human being.
 
Right?
 
We want to have some--we have
higher needs than just the
animal needs.
 
So you go to a five-star
restaurant where they serve you
a little food.
 
It will be delicious,
but it will be unlike these
Italian family restaurants down
the road on Wooster Street where
they give you food what you can
hardly eat which satisfies your
animal appetites.
 
Right?
 
So anyway, we have higher
needs, higher appetites.
We want to see our food served
in a special way.
We just don't feed our belly,
as such.
And there are the pleasures of
the intellect and imagination;
I think we already have seen
this in Rousseau,
how important imagination is.
 
And if you are in comparative
literature or English,
of course the aesthetic
theories of Schiller,
the German poet,
who emphasized how important
actually imagination and play is
in figuring out what beauty is.
All right, and then a bit on
quality of pleasures.
Right?
 
Really the question is what
kind of pleasure satisfies us,
rather than just the quantity.
 
And I think this is a very
powerful point.
Well few humans would consent
to be changed into any of the
lower animals.
 
Right?
 
No intelligent being would
consent to be a fool,
even though they should be
persuaded that a fool is better
satisfied than a lot of man;
it's easier to satisfy
occasionally a fool.
 
And this is really beautiful:
"It's better to be a human
being dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied."
Right?
 
"Better to be Socrates
dissatisfied than a fool
satisfied."
 
Bingo, right?
 
He got it.
 
I think that's very beautifully
done, powerfully done.
Think about it.
 
Very hard to disagree with
this.
Right?
 
You want to be Socrates and
dissatisfied,
rather than just being
satisfied by your needs.
Well I don't want to dwell too
much on the issue of justice and
legalities.
 
Quite obvious,
that there are differences
between justice and legality.
 
Well it is unjust if anybody's
deprived from his personal
liberty or property,
even if that's what the law
tells you.
 
I mean, Communist government
confiscated property from
people, and they did it legally,
but John Stuart Mill will say
they did it unjustly.
 
Right?
 
It was legally done,
but unjustly.
Right?
 
It was against the sense of
justice of people who are being
deprived from their property.
 
And there are laws which do not
exist,
though they should exist,
because some of the individual
rights are not properly
defended,
and you really should have such
laws.
And, of course,
for him there has not been in
his time sufficient laws to
protect the rights of women or
the rights of slaves.
 
Well also today we are
concerned about whether we have
proper protection in this
country for individual liberties
against surveillance techniques,
for instance,
which were used very recently
in the United States.
Many people think we need very
stricter controls on the
government, whether they can
listen to our telephone
conversations.
 
Right?
 
We want to have very clear laws
which define exactly what
torture is.
 
We may be uncertain whether the
laws are sufficiently clear.
Right?
 
So therefore you need
occasionally laws which protects
human rights.
 
This argument can be used
actually for affirmative action,
that you may need occasionally
laws which kind of eliminates
the inequalities of people's
freedoms.
Some people are less free than
others because they start from a
different starting point.
 
Then you can use John Stuart
Mill's argument then to say you
need a law which will protect
these people and make sure they
are free enough,
that you create an equality of
freedom;
that would be his argument.
And there are laws which exist
but they should not exist.
There are bad and unjust laws.
 
Well we debate this issue a
great deal.
I'm sure there are some people
in this country who do think
that the government should not
kill.
Right?
 
There are some people who are
against the death penalty.
Probably the majority is for
the death penalty,
but there is probably a
minority in this room--
I don't want to ask you to show
hands,
though I might
>
--but I'm sure there are some
people who think the government
should not kill people.
 
I'm one of those.
 
I don't think that's right.
 
I think life is sacred.
 
I believe sufficiently in
Hobbes' First Law of Nature,
no government should kill.
 
So death penalty,
I don't think it's right.
But you can argue it's
necessary to defend other
people's freedom.
 
Right?
 
But I think John Stuart Mill
probably would have been unhappy
with the death penalty.
 
So you may want to change
legislation.
Right?
 
You may want to have a
legislation which eliminates the
death penalty.
 
Or another issue is let's
say--again I'm sure this
audience here is divided on the
question of abortion.
There are some people who
believe that abortion should be
prohibited by law because you
should defend the freedom and
right of existence of the unborn
child.
Right?
 
There are others who argue the
freedom argument on the other
side.
 
Right?
 
They say, "No,
you should not prohibit
abortion because you should
defend the liberty of the woman
who carries the child."
 
Right?
 
Well, these are just examples
that these issues are talking to
very contemporary issues.
 
All right, justice and equality.
 
Well this is a very interesting
idea, what he's playing around.
He said we have actually a
sense that justice is somehow
related to equality--
that we occasionally feel that
some degree of inequality is
already unjust.
Even if it is legally achieved
by legal means,
we may see it is unjust.
 
Usually inequalities are
explained and justified by
expediency.
 
Right?
 
You have to create these high
levels of inequality because you
have to create incentives.
 
We just heard this debate the
last couple of weeks.
If you try to limit the bonuses
the guys on Wall Street do get,
you do a lot of damage because
these hot brokers will be hired
by the competition.
 
Therefore they have to get
these hundred million dollar
bonuses;
otherwise the business will be
hurt.
 
Right?
 
And there were banks which were
paying back billions of dollars
to the federal government so the
federal government cannot
intervene and cannot overrule
how much bonuses they pay.
Right?
 
Expediency, right?
 
They say, "Oh give me a
break about this justice stuff,
that this is unfair that
somebody earns a hundred million
dollars.
 
They should earn,
because otherwise the
competition gets them."
 
Right?
 
Well this is the argument of
expediency, not the argument of
justice.
 
Right?
 
All right, well there are
different components of justice.
Well the first and most
important one:
"It is unjust to deprive
anyone of his personal liberty
and property."
 
That's the most important point
in John Stuart Mill.
He's staunchly defending
individual liberty.
The second one:
"Legal right is deprived,
may be rights which ought not
to have belonged to him."
Right?
 
There may be privileges--I
mean, in contemporary societies
this is much less common.
 
In his time there were a lot of
laws which defended people's
privileges--feudal privileges,
what he wanted to get rid of.
Right?
 
They were unjust.
 
Well he also then suggests that
each person should obtain what
he or she deserves,
even if it is not guaranteed by
law.
 
Well how far you go with this
argument--it again can be very
controversial.
 
You can say,
"Well you need a welfare
state.
 
You have to provide the basic
goods and services for
everybody."
 
You know, this argument can be
used.
You have to provide housing.
 
You should not let anybody
without shelter,
or you should not let anybody
without healthcare.
That would be consistent with
John Stuart Mill.
And then he said,
"Well it is unjust if you
break faith."
 
Right?
 
You promise somebody I will do
it, and then you take your word
back.
 
That's unjust;
you should not do that.
And finally--this is very
important--justice cannot be
partial.
 
Right?
 
It has to be blind and has to
be equal to all parties.
And now justice and expediency.
 
I again don't want to labor on
this.
This is obvious,
that what is expedient is not
necessarily just.
 
Expedient is if you reach that
goal with minimum effort,
but occasionally you don't--you
better not make shortcuts;
making those shortcuts may be
unjust and unfair.
And then, of course,
sympathy.
Right?
 
We are all capable to
sympathize, not only with people
we know but with the whole
humankind we have sympathy.
Sympathy for our country and
our mankind.
It's a bit like Rousseau's
l'amour propre idea.
I think I'll probably skip this
one.
I think it's quite obvious why
justice and expediency do have a
complicated relationship.
 
And now on the other book,
On Liberty.
Right?
 
Well while Bentham only
emphasized that we are seeking
pleasure, Mill emphasized
self-development.
He said we have to--in our
lifetime, we have to develop our
capacities.
 
Right?
 
And what follows from this,
individualism and liberty;
these are the major values,
rather than just satisfying our
needs.
 
Well this is an extremely
important idea,
and very much an idea of John
Stuart Mill.
We should not take freedom as
granted.
And he said,
"Be very careful of rulers
who identify with the people.
 
It does not guarantee freedom,
because it can lead to the
tyranny of the majority.
 
You have to defend the rights
of the individuals,
the rights of the minorities,
that they should be also free
to choose."
 
This follows very logically
from his argument of these
higher happinesses,
preferences,
arrived at by individual
judgments--
not superimposed by government
but individuals decide what is
the higher value they attach to
a utility.
And therefore it can be
minorities which do have
different preferences,
and we have to respect those
preferences.
 
That's very crucially important
ideas.
And individual liberty should
always take precedence over
short-term utilitarian
consideration.
Right?
 
The main value is that
individually that--
believe me, this is not a
contradiction,
it follows very logically from
the idea of preferences and from
the idea that there are
qualitative differences between
utilities,
and you are the only one who
can decide what is worse for
you.
Nobody else can make a
decision, a judgment for you.
This is consistent with Adam
Smith, by the way.
And then freedom of expression.
 
There is nobody whom we will
read who stands so strongly for
freedom of expression--complete,
unlimited freedom of
expression.
 
And the United States comes
very close to this,
and this is the only country in
the world which comes so close
to it.
 
In other countries which are
democratic, free,
and liberal,
freedom of speech may be
limited.
 
Hate speech may be actually
limited.
Right?
 
Denying the Holocaust and you
end up in jail in Germany.
Right?
 
But in the U.S.,
we are very close to the
Millian idea.
 
And he said this is absolutely
necessary to have total freedom
of speech because an opinion,
which suppressed right,
then we lose the opportunity to
exchange truths for error.
So therefore it's obvious that
it's non-controversial--that
truth, even if it's unpleasant,
should be allowed to be spoken.
Right?
 
What is more problematic should
we allow to people to speak
falsehood?
 
I mean, we know that the
Holocaust existed.
Should we allow those crazy
people to tell us,
against all this strong
evidence what we have,
that there was no Holocaust?
 
He argues yes we should,
because this is the only way
how we can find out the error,
if we talk about this.
It's a very controversial
argument.
As I said, there are not many
countries in this world which do
subscribe to it.
 
Right?
 
So, and he said we have to
listen to both sides;
that's the only way how we find
out what the truth is.
And tyranny by the majority.
 
Well this is a very,
very important argument;
namely, one of the major evils
of a mass democratic society is
a tyranny of the majority.
 
There will be a very strong
tendency to suppress dissent and
to create conformity with the
majority views.
And he said well,
we have to try to resist it,
and we have to emphasize
individuality.
Conformism is moral repression.
 
Right?
 
There's a lot of pressure on
you to conform with the
major--the mainstream,
as such, and he said this is
one of the big evils what we
have to resist.
We have to defend individual
liberties, and we have to fight
against intervention;
legal or non-legal
intervention.
 
Right?
 
He did not live in a mass
communication society,
but he would have been outraged
how the media tries to brainwash
people and put into a conformist
behavior on people.
Right?
 
He wanted to defend people's
individual choices of lifestyles
and sexual preferences and
whatever you name;
it has to be defended.
 
And this is very important.
 
This is a clear extension,
very clearly argued--
Adam Smith did basically agree
with this,
but he did not put it so
strongly and so clearly--
"Therefore intervention by
a government is only permissible
if injury has taken place."
 
The government cannot limit
individual liberties,
only if that causes injury.
 
And he said,
"Look, believe me,
I'm not indifferent.
 
I am for compassion.
 
All what I am asking you is
tolerance.
Respect other people's choices.
 
Do feel compassion,
but don't try to make decisions
for others;
don't impose your will on
others."
 
That's I think the--and
conformity, he really disliked
conformity.
 
It's a century ahead of his
time.
This becomes a very big issue
in the 1960s and '70s,
that conformism is an evil,
and he already writes about
this in the mid-nineteenth
century.
And well interference.
 
The only justification is
self-protection.
Right?
 
This is very much in line of
Hobbes' argument.
And therefore he said,
"I'm not for indifference,
but I am for permissiveness,
for tolerance as such."
Well we should help each other,
but that's different than to
impose our will or our taste or
our preferences on other people.
Right?
 
"Neither one person,
nor any number of person,
is warranted in saying to other
human creatures of ripe
years"--
that's different with
children--"that he shall
not do with his life for his own
benefit what he chooses to do
with it."
Right?
 
A very strong argument,
and very troubling.
You know?
 
What do you think about drug
use?
Right?
 
Well if John Stuart Mill errs,
he errs on the libertarian
side.
 
He probably would be arguing
for the decriminalization of
most of the drugs,
on these grounds.
It's people's choice.
 
If they know that they hurt
their life, this is their story.
Now very briefly on his views
on women.
And I don't have to introduce
you to the background.
You know that in the
mid-nineteenth century women did
not have equal rights,
even not in England,
not in the United States.
 
They not only did not have the
right to vote,
but they actually did not have
the right to own property,
as such.
 
Well as I mentioned,
Harriet Taylor,
his lover and wife,
was a radical feminist--as far
as we know, an extremely smart
woman.
She was more radical than
Smith, because she actually,
as I pointed out,
opposed even the institution of
marriage.
 
So what are the major themes in
this book?
The first point is
"marriage is the only
remaining case of slavery."
 
Well it's not true of course.
 
Slavery has existed elsewhere,
and unfortunately de facto
still exists around the world.
 
But he said,
you know, "The subjugation
of women is a case of slavery,
and it cannot be explained by
the nature of women."
 
And he makes a case for it.
 
He argues for legal equality in
marriage, and equality of women
in politics and education,
and finally makes a case for
marital friendship.
 
So he said marriage is the only
remaining example of slavery
because they cannot own property
and,
in fact, their husbands can use
them for sexual desires.
So in this sense it is even
worse than slavery.
At least the slaves are not
expected to love their slave
owners;
the wives are expected to love
their husbands.
 
So he said this is even worse
than slavery.
Right?
 
And here he kind of elaborates
on this issue--that it is not
simply the obedience what man
wants, but also their love.
And usually these relationships
were in the nineteenth century,
and in many cases even in the
twenty-first century,
asymmetrical.
 
Right?
 
Man probably does not feel as
much obliged to express love
towards their wives than they
expect their wives to express
love towards the man.
 
Right?
 
Unfortunately I think there are
still men like this.
Okay, so that's I think very
provocative, very important
statements, written in the
mid-nineteenth century.
Well, and then he said.
 
"This cannot be explained
by the nature of women."
He expects the counterargument
well different--you know,
the Rousseauian argument,
women are different.
They want to knit,
they want to be subjugated.
He said, no,
there are two counterarguments.
One is that we don't know what
the nature of women are because
they did not have a chance for
self-development.
And then he said in order to
justify women's sublimation,
you should be able to show that
no women were ever capable to
occupy certain positions of
political authority.
If there were women who did
that, then it cannot come from
the nature of women.
 
Right?
 
That's a neat argument.
 
Well here is the citation.
 
"How would we know what
the nature of the women is?
Therefore this is an invalid
argument."
He argues for the equality for
marriage, and that's today a
kind of commonsensical;
it doesn't need any further
elaboration.
 
And equality of women in
politics and education and jobs.
This is still very important.
 
Larry Summers,
the president of Harvard,
probably had not read his John
Stuart Mill carefully enough
when he said that women are just
not good enough to do
engineering.
 
Right?
 
He should have read John Stuart
Mill,
and he should have known there
is nothing in the nature of
women why they would not do as
well in engineering as men
would.
 
Sort of--and,
you know, we still need some
attention to diversity,
women's diversity,
in order to make sure that
women do end up in political and
other jobs.
 
And then he makes a case for
marital friendship.
He said, "Well I still
believe in marriage because
marriage can be based on
equality of partners."
So this is John Stuart Mill.
 
I hope you enjoy him.
 
I think he is a controversial
person, pushes his point as far
as it can.
 
But I think he's a very smart
person.
So let me just--I have twelve
more minutes to go--
and look at the questions and
make a few comments how I would
try to myself deal with these
questions in answering,
if I were in your shoes.
 
Okay.
 
And here we go.
 
Let me see how far I can go.
 
Okay, so question number one.
 
The first point what I would
try to make here is there are
people who read Hobbes as
believing that humans are evil
by nature.
 
This is not unreasonable.
 
After all, why on earth you
need a Leviathan,
unless there is something wrong
with us?
One can also say well Locke
puts a lot of emphasis how
rational we are in the state of
nature, and Rousseau is explicit
about his noble savage idea.
 
Right?
 
It is society which corrupts.
 
We all come out perfect from
the hands of the creator and
then society screws us.
 
So there seems to be really an
argument here,
would I try to say it quickly,
that there is a controversy.
Well I may try to qualify it in
a sentence or two--that of
course Hobbes could be read in a
more complex way.
Because after all Hobbes also
believes that we are making
rational decisions when we are
sort of adjudicating between our
desires and our fears,
and we come to a rational
decision about this.
 
Therefore it's not that obvious
that this is,
maybe, but I would say that
this is a qualification;
that is, still one can see a
controversy.
Well Rousseau,
yes he states that we are,
you know, come out perfect from
the hands of God,
but after all in the state of
nature we are savages,
and therefore we need some
general will to overrule our
judgments.
 
So there is some qualification
how much faith Jean Jacques had
in us.
 
Right?
 
He had a bit suspicious of us.
 
So these are the kind of
footnotes, qualifications to the
argument.
 
But then I would love--what I
would do, I would say,
"Well I am a bit tormented
what to think about it.
You know?
 
Because I do know that indeed
people can be quite evil.
Right?
 
And therefore we do need law
and order, we do need some
intervention.
 
On the other hand,
I think I am probably more
inclined,
if I have to err,
to err on the side of Rousseau
or John Stuart Mill,
to believe that people are
after all ethical and will act
out of goodwill.
 
And therefore I would like to
see less of central planners
telling me what I should be
doing and what my needs are,
and I would better live in a
society where individuals can
decide,
make their free choices."
That would be my line.
 
But you could argue the other
way around.
Right?
 
Tell us what your view is.
 
Anyway, that's the way how I
would deal with this question.
That's I think quite clear.
 
Hobbes believed in a strong and
clearly identifiable
sovereign--easy to support it
with text.
I think this is uncontroversial.
 
And it's also quite clear that
Locke wanted to limit the power
of the executive.
 
That's why he wants to separate
the executive from the
legislative.
 
So I did that,
and in comparing them is now
pretty controversial.
 
You don't have to have many
qualifications to this.
Right?
 
That's quite straightforward.
 
Now, what do you think,
what is your view on this?
And you may say,
"Well, Hobbes has got a
lot to say."
 
Think about September 11th,
9/11.
Right?
 
Well we need a strong
government.
Right?
 
We need security. Right?
 
We just cannot push too far for
equality.
Or you can take the opposite
argument.
He said--"Well I think all
what happened after 9/11 was
wrong.
 
We should not have limited
individual liberties.
That's the American way,
that you stand by
liberty."
 
Anyway, I'm sure people are
divided on this,
and I would like to hear your
views on this.
It's a hard question to answer.
 
In fact, it is also a question
who is a methodological
individualist,
and a collectivist?
I would say a methodological
collectivist argues that there
is stuff which is more than the
sum total of individual.
Montesquieu's emphasis on law
is a very good one--
that the law,
you cannot explain the law by
looking at each individual and
end it up and that's the law.
The law is there,
and then it enters the
individuals.
 
Right?
 
So there is a collective
conscience which precedes the
individual and enters
individuals.
And others like Hobbes or Locke
argues the other way:
"No, we have to start with
the individual.
The only thing what we can
observe is the individual action
and desires and will,
and then we can arrive at the
collectivity."
 
Right?
 
Well I'm not so sure whether
you are a methodological
individualist or not.
 
But you can actually make a
case whether you really think
whether the right way is to
think about the individual's
action and the individuals,
rather about the collective
good which comes from something,
somewhere else more
historically.
 
Well Rousseau's general will
makes a strong case for it--easy
to make, right?
 
There is obviously something
what is necessary for a general
will.
 
You want to believe,
for instance,
in universal healthcare,
and to say, "Well this
should not be left to
individuals to decide whether
they take out health insurance
or not.
Everybody should be insured,
right?
It's easy to see, right?
 
Let's not fool us around, right?
 
We need a general will."
 
So I think an argument can be
made.
But then you can use Locke or
Montesquieu or Mill or whomever
to say, "Well there is
trouble with this argument.
Where on earth the general will
is coming from?"
Like methodological
individualists,
usually--let's say what about
methodological collectivists?
Where do you know what it is?
 
Right?
 
Where does it come from,
if it is not in any individual
consciousness,
right?
So where--how do government
know what is my need?
Did they get a letter telling
them what my needs are and
overrule my decision that I
think this is my need and my
preference?
 
Right?
 
So that can be devastating.
 
And you can say,
"Well this opens up the
door to totalitarianism."
 
Right?
 
That's why Karl Marx loved Jean
Jacques Rousseau so much.
That's why Lenin loved Jean
Jacques Rousseau so much,
because they wanted to have the
central planners which tell you,
"This is your need.
 
You don't--you know only your
short-term needs.
I know your long-term needs and
therefore you have to do what I
tell you to do."
 
Right?
 
And Rousseau does that, right?
 
He says, "You have to be
forced to be free.
Right?
 
I can't let you just to be free.
 
I have to tell you what your
real freedom is,
what your real needs are."
 
And you can be critical about
this.
So you see, you can make the
point in both directions.
I think both are respectable
positions.
Well Adam Smith pursues
self-interest;
you achieve the common good.
 
Many of you believe in this.
 
Right?
 
Let's have free,
unregulated markets,
and then it will end up with
the collective good.
But, you know,
Rousseau believes in the
general will,
which is more than the sum
total of individuals.
 
Well you can contrast it.
 
It's very similar to the
previous question.
Right?
 
And you can make a case,
you know, why you think Adam
Smith is right;
where on earth you will figure
out what needs are,
unless people decide for
themselves?
 
Or you can say,
"Well Adam Smith is not
living in the real world,
because he assumes perfect
self-regulating markets and
perfect informations,
and none of those exist.
 
So in the real world Adam Smith
does not apply,
and in the real world,
well actually Jean Jacques
Rousseau makes much more
sense."
Well again your call,
how you make your decision
about this.
 
Well strong government,
by Hobbes, and Smith is about
invisible hand,
as little government as
possible.
 
Again, I don't think I have to
elaborate on this;
you can see the line of
argument.
Easy to show that Hobbes indeed
stood for strong government.
You have the citation--Adam
Smith, for the invisible hand.
You can add the footnote there
is a controversy about this,
but most people today in the
twenty-first century interpret
Adam Smith as the person of the
invisible hand and small
government.
 
And then you can say what is
your view.
And again I think this class
must be split,
fifty/fifty percent.
 
Some people still believe,
you know, Ronald Reagan,
the government is not the
solution, the government is the
problem.
 
Other people believe
in--liberal democrats who say,
"No, no,
no, we need big government,
and just see what happened now
in the global financial crisis,
when there was not enough
government and there was too
much deregulation.
 
We need regulation,
and just see what George
W.***Bush did.
 
Right?
 
He bailed out from taxpayers'
money."
Anyway, you see the point,
what you can do.
You can argue it both ways.
 
Well the gender issue.
 
Well hard to defend Rousseau,
he really sucks.
>
 
But read him carefully.
 
I gave you the citations.
 
He said--well he foreshadows
the idea of distinction between
sex and gender.
 
One can say he's a
sophisticated feminist.
He said women should not look
like men.
They have equally humans,
they have the same human
rights, but it would be wrong
for women to dress like men.
Right?
 
What's wrong about a woman
being feminine?
There are some contemporary
feminists who argue this way.
So don't dismiss him too easy.
 
Well Mill I don't think needs
too much defense for feminists,
though I could offer some
criticism, feminist criticism,
of him.
 
Well Mill was a utilitarian.
 
Well what is his difference
between Adam Smith?
Well this is a hard question to
ask.
There is not that much
difference.
But as I was trying to point
out in the lecture today,
there is a difference,
right?
John Stuart Mill is much more
conscious about preferences and
the qualitative differences we
attach to different utilities.
The idea is not something what
Adam Smith would oppose to,
but certainly an idea which has
not been as elaborately
developed in Adam Smith than it
was in John Stuart Mill.
Well this is very easy, right?
 
Again, Hobbes arguing for
security and Mill or Locke
arguing for freedom.
 
You can make the case,
we have done it in earlier
questions, and you can tell us
what do you think.
Again I think the room will be
split.
Do you want to allow people to
carry guns?
Some people think yes,
for individual liberty.
Others will say,
"This is crazy.
Most countries in the world
wouldn't allow it,
and just see these mutts mass
murdering people in schools.
Of course they do,
if they can carry guns."
9/11, right?
 
Torture.
 
Listening to people's telephone
conversations.
Some people will say,
"Well we are living in a
dangerous world,
we should allow the CIA to do
that." Right?
 
Others will say,
"No, no,
no.
 
Our individual liberties are
sacrosanct."
Right?
 
And this is what I would like
to hear from you.
Okay, have fun,
and please do enjoy it.
Right?
 
It's not regurgitating.
 
This exercise is about thinking.
 
 
 
