我承认我从没读过密尔的书。不管怎么说,没有。但是，如果他真的相信功利主义和自由主义，我们可能会问，他是否只是另一个哲学家，同时谈论两个游戏。也许他看不出有什么矛盾?或者，另一方面，也许这是他将哲学家与“庸俗”(一个常见的术语，在18和19世纪，哲学家们用它来区分自己和其他人)区分开来的方式。在我看来，哲学仍然相当“自我”。人们一直在努力让更多的观众能够接触到它，尽管这些努力并不一定令人信服。我们现在不能问他。即使我们能和米尔先生谈谈，我也不确定我们能得到一个直接的答案。不过，推测一下还是很有趣的。

我刚从我那友好的图书馆里收到一本密尔的《三论》。期待阅读这部作品。有一篇文章是关于“宗教的效用”的。最近，我一直在为一篇关于魔法和宗教的文章概述谈话要点。故事的前提与魔法和宗教的起源有关。我认为其中包括:无知;害怕;不确定性;以及人类对存在的宿命(换句话说:死亡)的认识。没有别的生物体会想到这一点——初级意识既不提供也不需要这种痛苦。 My essay, I hope, will illustrate the mysterious nature and allure of magic, and the restorative, promissory nature of religion. At the root of both magic and religion we find superstition. This might be viewed as one of the origins mentioned above, but I see it as an effect. (I alluded to this project in another recent comment on a different post.) Don't yet know how Mill treated the 'utility' notion. I suspect he will have said some things about this, vis-a-vis, his support of utilitarianism. I will have to wait and see...stay tuned!

Can liberty and utilitarian strands of Mill's thought be reconciled?

It is hard to imagine ourselves as a collective organism when we think or philosophize; it seems a personal act. When politicians refer to America, they most often refer to their America. When we refer to our thought, we think of them as our own. However, much of my thought is derived from John Stuart Mill, and I didn't realize this affinity until I read it and found him speaking to my core beliefs.

But lately, my core beliefs have been questioned, and I wonder what Mill would think of our times and events. Pornography, money in politics, and information as a commodity would repulse Mill from his thesis On Liberty. I doubt he could have come to his ideas in our current reality.

David, Ken, and John give a fair accounting of the conflict in Mill's work.

Sexual freedom for one will always imply sexual repression for another. The legalization of drugs will cripple the lives of those prone to addiction. Refusing vaccinations will kill the unvaccinated and vaccinated alike.

以规则为基础的功利主义方式将我们的身份概念扩展到他人身上，包括我们身体内部和外部，这样我们的具体行动就可以服务于我们的利益，而不限制他人。我们的血液、个人信息和情感生活都与他人交织在一起。摆脱对自己身体、行为和情感的认同是解决米尔斯难题的一步。这条路既不容易走，也不真实，但最终，这是一条好路，是一种美好的生活。

I had a brain fart this morning, concerning the enigma of J.S. Mill. Is it reasonable to assume and/or believe well-to-do people read? I think so, although I have only one relative ( by marriage) who meets the criteria of well-to-do. He is the spouse of my wife's aunt. They raised children; travelled some and he retired from a successful career. I imagine he reads but do not know what. As with other self-made men and women, he is a private person. Here is where this is going: it occurs to me that wealthier people might enjoy reading Mill. They have access to 'the good life'. That there is contradiction in the foundations of his philosophy might not occur to them---whether they are utilitarian, liberal or indeterminate. Perhaps this is a clue to resolving the enigma. If Mill saw no contradiction, only attending circumstances, he would have had no qualms about the matter.

It has often been noticed that the well-off or wealthy don't talk about money. This sometimes annoys those who lack the luxury. But, as a practical matter, they should not trouble themselves. Another's economic status is not their business.

Can utilitarianism work in converse form? Instead of converting happiness-quality into the quantity of its bearers, could one convert the quality of its bearers into happiness-quantity?

Assuming one understands Mill in the context of the liberal tradition of the European Enlightenment, that the greatest good for human beings is also the most rational one, and that this rational goal is happiness, both individually and collectively in aggregate, then no argument needs to be made against a claim that happiness is not the most rational goal, and that makes the primary aim of social analysis to discover the most rational means to achieve what is already accepted by his readers as uncontroversial.

Utility is the name given to whatever contributes to happiness (according to Mill). As a teleological principle, the value of its use is determined by its consequence. The direct consequence is pleasure or pain, and because Mill following Bentham describes happiness as a sum of pleasures broadly understood, its indirect consequence is happiness where instantiation of the principle of utility generates sufficiently more pleasurable consequences than unpleasant. This gets the theory into trouble when, as noted above, the same pleasure-quality might occur under differing relevant conditions which are overlooked in pleasure-volume calculations. One way out is suggested in the book "Utilitarianism", where pleasures whose net sum generates happiness must be conditioned by choice, so that any which are not preceded by a period of deliberation are excluded. This distinguishes between happiness and mere satisfaction, where the latter can be seen as evidence of one's immediate needs or momentary desires being met, and the former as only the higher pleasures which produce the phenomenon. Conditioning happiness-producing pleasure by prior deliberation has the additional benefit of confirming that the range of alternatives have been viewed first, prior to its pursuit. To calculate its quantity in a given context could not then be by the evidence of its occurrence, but by the reasons for its being chosen. In the above example, only the English Gentleman would have a good reason for his choice of pleasure, whereas the Factory worker's would be a mere bi-product of satisfying a basic need, and thus not factor into the calculation, even if in evidentiary terms they might be of equal quality. Judged on a normative criterion for pleasure-choice, then, the event of a pleasure's occurrence can not be confirmed by any evidence for its being produced. Prior knowledge of its alternates in the choice of which pleasure will occur might leave a clear footprint, but since the range of alternatives is different in each case, no standard for what it would look like can be supplied. Rather, one has to presuppose what kind of pleasures could not occur without prior deliberation, in order to determine their quantitative measure. The largest quantity of happiness for the most people has to therefore rely on an indemonstrable, axiomatically assumed concept of what humans are or human nature is. By a qualitative assumption, then, the utility of an action can in aggregate be quantitatively determined within a reliable measure of probability. The diversity of conditions across individuals under which the range of alternatives is presented in pleasure-choice deliberation, however, might be so distinct as to be incomparable, yet in terms of utility be of equal value as to the calculation of the greatest number of those to whom it occurs. For an accurate count, it seems that prior conditions for roughly the same range of alternate pleasures itself would have to be shared (even if the chosen ones can be different in each case), in addition to the criterion of what determines it as a precondition for the utilitarian value of any given pleasure. In Victorian society that would have been a difficult trick, but Mill's central goal would seem to suggest its inexorable eventuality if the calculation and therefore scientific promotion of the quantity of happiness a society possesses can be undertaken.

One error I suppose would be Aristotle's heliocentrism, which seems to be decisively disproven. But what about the claim Aristotle makes in the Metaphysics at 980a22? Could a counter-example to it be found in your own body of work?