Ten Podcast Episodes on John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism

 

One text that I teach frequently in my classes is John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. Years back, I produced a set of short core concept lecture videos covering the main ideas Mill sets out in that short but important work.  My students have been using them for quite some time, but they are just a fraction of the viewers that have watched those videos in order to better understand the text.

Last year, I added a new set of resources on this text, taking the lecture videos and converting them into podcast episodes in my Sadler's Lectures channel, boosting the sound quality, and editing out all of the longer pauses and filler words.  

Here are those ten podcast episodes on Mill's Utilitarianism.  All told, they run for about 2 1/2 hours:

• Utilitarianism As Basis For Moral Theories
• Qualitatively Higher And Lower Pleasures 
• Why People Do Not Appreciate Higher Pleasures
• Responses To Criticisms Of Utilitarianism 
• The Ideal Judge Of Pleasures
• Utilitarianism, Sanctions, And Duty
• Happiness, Goods, And Virtue
• Five Conceptions Of Justice 
• What Having A Right Means 
• Justice And Utility

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Ten Videos On John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism

One of the most commonly taught texts in Ethics classes is John Stuart Mill's classic work, Utilitarianism.  I give it a central place in my own classes, generally as a companion text to Jeremy Bentham's founding work for utilitarian moral theory, The Principles of Morals and Legislation.  Together, they provide a great overview of that approach in ethics.

Students do struggle with Mill's work, so some time back, I started creating short Core Concept videos specifically on Utilitarianism.  The first few of these, I actually shot during my class discussions.  Then, a few years ago, I created several additional videos.  I provided the entire set to my students - in both face-to-face and online classes - as a resource to help them through the text.

Since I'm now once again in the classroom - teaching two sections of Ethics for Marquette University this semester - I thought I'd add a few more videos on key ideas of Mill's Utilitarianism.  As it turned out, there were four topic that I thought needed additional discussion.  This brings the total number in to ten - enough to cover all the main ideas of the work.

Here is the full set of videos on John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism.

• Utilitarianism as the Basis for Other Moral Theories
• Responses to Criticisms of Utilitarianism
• Qualitatively Higher and Lower Pleasures 
• The Ideal Judge of Pleasures
• Why People Do Not Appreciate Higher Pleasures
• Utilitarianism, Sanctions, and Duty
• Happiness, Goods, and Virtue
• Five Conceptions of Justice
• Justice and Utility
• What Having a Right Means

I hope they prove useful for you as you read - or reread - Mill's work.  And if you find it helpful for you, consider passing this post on to other people you think might find it helpful.  If you'd like to support the work I do, making philosophy accessible to the general public, take a look at my Patreon page.

The Iron Law of Ochlocracy (part 2)

A bit tongue-in-cheekily, about a week and a half ago, I coined a neologism - the Iron Law of Ocholcracy - to describe a dynamic which contemporary Marxist theorist, Michael Hardt, outlined in his recent talk at European Graduate School.  Hardt was speculating about two main topics, both having to do with a perceived dearth of emergent and identifiable leadership among recent leftist "leaderless movements."

One of these is the question why leaders aren't emerging -- a question that he noted could be answered partly by the abilities of external forces to eliminate or co-opt apparent "leaders", but whose deeper answer he sought in the very workings, ideals, and ideologies of the groups and movements.  Another is whether this constitutes a real problem or not -- is it a bad thing or a good thing, all told, even when taking into account concerns of effectiveness and continuity, to seemingly dispense with leadership and all that it entails?

Should Everyone Get to Vote?

One of my philosophical colleagues, Kevin Timpe, posted a link to a paper and got an interesting (and somewhat tongue-in-cheek) discussion going on Facebook.  The paper is Jason Brennan's "The Right to a Competent Electorate," coming out soon in in International Philosophical Quarterly.   Brennan argues what is guaranteed to be a controversial position, that "the practice of unrestricted, universal suffrage is unjust," and proposes replacing democracy with an "epistocracy" (i.e. a rule by the knowledgeable and competent).

Both the implications and elements of the argument itself are bound to not only raise objections, but actually set people off, push the buttons triggering anger, ire, indignation.  And, that, I think, will be reflective of the very problematic of democracy and voting that the paper touches on, but does not resolve, because those sorts of responses will occur -- even sometimes on the part of educated, well-informed, intellectually virtuous (or at least not vicious) citizens to whom such arguments and proposals would restrict voting or full political participation, for reasons I'll discuss below.


The passage that started the fairly brief Facebook conversation, which got me thinking more about an issue that has been relegated to the back of my mind for some time, runs:

People who exercise power over me—including other voters—should have to do so in a competent and morally reasonable way. Otherwise, as a matter of justice, they ought to be excluded from holding political power, including the power to vote

Arab States, Revolution, and the Viability of Democracy

The protests against Mubarak's regime, at first pitting protesters against police, the army in the midst but on the side, then giving way to clashes between looters and citizens protecting museums, churches and mosques, followed by bloody confrontations between pro-Mubarak and anti-Mubarak crowds, then peaceful gatherings again. . .  and next week who knows what -- this is one of those situations where the West, composed of societies long governed by liberal-democratic (in the broad sense), largely secular, principally civilian regimes, becomes conflicted over who to support, what outcome they would like to see and to promote in Egypt -- and indeed in the broader revolution ongoing in the Arab world -- this round of a revolution whose rallying cry is Democracy, or at least democratic elections, starting in Tunisia, then taking roots in Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Algeria.

The protests call for and aim at change of regime, and the protesters have good cause.  One devil's bargains western governments entered into or inherited from previous administrations has been maintaining or at least turning a relatively blind eye to autocratic and repressive regimes throughout the Arab world.  Why?  A host of different reasons, trade-offs, decisions, precedents.  There's already enough bloggers weighing in daily about the many aspects of the unfolding Egyptian situation -- and its broader implications -- aspects including its backdated history, so I don't intend to delve into that in detail, except where that history impinges on a question I think many in the West would like to ask, but are afraid to vocalize, perhaps for fear of its implications, perhaps worried whether it might not sound racist:  Can Arab states realistically move towards functioning, sutainable democracies?