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Mill "On Liberty" - Freedom & Empire | Philosophy Tube
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- Опубликовано: 15 авг 2024
- John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” is huge in politics and criminal law: but what are the limits of freedom? And how does the history of the British Empire in India come into it?
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Recommended Reading:
Mill, "On Liberty"
Mill, “A Few Words on Non-Intervention”
Mark Tunick, “Tolerant Imperialism,” in The Review of Politics
Bart Schultz, “Mill and Sidgwick, Imperialism and Racism”
David Goldberg, “Liberalism’s Limits,” in Nineteenth Century Contexts
Falguni Sheth, Toward a Political Philosophy of Race
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as an a-level politics student i LOVE you for this. thank you abigail!
The same old Abi ? ... Nice
@@bankafoufShe is transgender.
“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
"How long is your nose mate?" Lost my shit right here!!!
Absolutely fantastic video, thank you so much! Really helped me hone in on the more interesting aspects of Mill's "liberalism" outside of what we're taught in class (basically just the harm principle)
This is especially relevant now in light of the pandemic ...
how so?- I am genuinely curious, please respond. I think I somewhat understand , but I would appreciate explanation
Now leaving home with no reason or without mask is considered 'harm' to others.
@@dereckmj23 Although it is not harm but merely presumed or potential harm to others, leaving off the mask which obstructs natural breathing.
@@mockingbird3099 The mask might not really do as much as some people assume, but I think there's a general precedent that 'probable to cause harm' counts as causing harm. You could wander down the street juggling chainsaws and not harm anyone, but the general perception is that you shouldn't, and the police would want you to stop.
Anti-maskers: the highest order of pretentiousness and gross disregard for human life imaginable.
…Next to anti-vaxxers I suppose.
Thanks for saving me on my Philosophy exam
I'd like to know about the ethics of colateral damage.
This is an interesting query
You accept collateral damage, and you are morally right too. If harming one potentially innocent person saves 7 billion people you would have to be a monster to let so many people die. The only question is how much collateral damage you should accept.
+BobWidlefish It seems very clear in the example you give (1 innocent life lost to save 7 billion) that collateral damage should be *accepted* but does that make it *right*?
Also, how do we determine the number of innocent lives it is acceptable to sacrifice to save others? e.g. is it ok to kill 4 innocents to save 5? What if those 4 innocents are children?
What if the collateral damage does not directly lead to loss of life. What if civilian houses are destroyed or infrastructure? Such things won't kill civilians straight away but will likely make them refugees.
+BobWidlefish There's also the level to which you are harming that one person. Is it okay to continually torture 1 being for years on end, even decades, for the safety of, say a country of people (ie Doctor Who (2005) S05E02 "The Beast Below")
+BobWidlefish I think an even more intriguing scenario is when you are pitted as the one that is the collateral damage. I.e., martyrdom to save x amount of people. Some would argue no amount of lives saved is never enough to trump your own interests.
I have been watching this channel for about a year now, and I have been told to watch this video as part of my Politics A-Level. It it weird to see these videos without the dramatisation.
Dammmmnnnn. Young Philosophy Tube still cute.
baby Olly
He is beautiful
What do you mean? He looks pretty much the same.
@@juanlopezvillegas1550 she sure does :D
Please do make videos on Hobbes ,machaivelli and others it truly helps
Love from india
"Can art be defined?" Please!
Great video, by the way.
Seriously? I want both episodes!!! Coincidentally they're both present questions in my mind.
If I were a superhero, I'd be Collateral Damage Man
+XxDuckofDoomxX And I'd be your arch nemesis, Art Definition Man
There's a video game "Megaton Rainfall" (2017) that seems to be all about collateral damage. The player character is, as far as I'm aware, absolutely invincible, and the object is to use one's incredible destructive power to rescue the inhabitants of various Earth cities from invading extraterrestrial aliens. The big challenge is in minimizing collateral damage while still destroying the enemies quickly enough to keep innocent deaths to a minimum.
Or « Demolition Man » ?
(Five years late, I know... but I just couldn't resist ! ^_^')
I've watched hundreds of Phil lectures and this one very accurately describes Mill and the overarching instructions of Utilitarianism and Colonization. It is fair and balanced by weighing the truth against what has become the new "normal" truth. VWD
Abigail I am really happy to have found your channel. This video alone made me see more things a bout ethics than a full course at my university. Thanks a lot for sharing it and for your dedication on the produccion of really good films specialy in your later videos.
I vote "Ethics of Collateral Damage," or rather what we should never have stopped calling them; civilian casualties.
"But we're not worried whether we'd be comfortable having him around at the dinner or not, right? He's dead." 😂😂
So blessed to have come across your channel, you explained it so skilfully, thanks a bunch!!
I'd be more worried about Jeremy Bentham coming around for dinner, honestly.
That cut to your hair suddenly being in your face is glorious
I vote for Can Art Be Defined. I have my own ideas and have had discussions on the subject with other philosophy students when I was a student, but I never actually took a philosophy of art course.
I'd appreciate Can Art be Defined?
Collateral damage ethics sounds super interesting. That's my vote.
Thank you for this. When I first studied John Stuart Mill in college, I was a young person who had grown up in a British Commonwealth country. I remember so much of what he said that I love, and I did not even notice a colonial attitude. I might now. I am glad that I watched and will read "On Liberty" again.
I am from India, and needless to say my direct ancestors have lived/suffered under the British rule and had fought them too. Yet I believe during the colonial age the invaders used to built institutions, and understood that to profit from a nation is only possible when their presence was a long term one, and involved actual governance. The interpretation of liberty today allows a near imperial aggressor such as US/Nato to invade, break all institutions and leave a subject nation with a toxic vacuum. So besides myself, I find some common ground with Mill of the East India Company. :)
What did they developed, economy was left devastated 24.4% was drained to 4%, Supply of raw material to manchestar took away livelihood of Indian manufactures, our own education wqs devastated and englisj was imposed on us , I would have loved studying english but in the case when it was presented as a foreign language, and about railways many modern economies without being colonized for instance see Japan , it was complete depotism and those institutions built by imperial empire are currently the worse.
I don't understand the significance of the Mill's ideas about colonialism. Why can't the harm principle be revised to exude some of the exceptions Mill made? I was kind of hoping you would bring up some objections to the harm principle itself, rather than just the implications of the exceptions.
Delta X couldn't agree more....also the case of assisted suicide wasn't the best example if it is only being done at the behest of a patient - then it is surely self-inflicted harm and therefore admissible. More problematic is measuring and drawing lines for harming society rather than specific individuals.
Thank you for the video! This one helped me clear my thoughts on a few things that have been on my mind recently.
I'd love to go with "Can art be defined?". I appreciate your videos.
@philosophytube Hank and John Green also started philosophy on their crash course channel. It would be cool if you could collaborate with them.
+Xavy Johnson Tomy If they ever answered their emails, yeah.
+Philosophy Tube comparing your videos and their "Crash Course" videos, I suspect that you could make an entire 1:1 series refuting and expanding on whatever they say.
This is by far the most informative video of J.S. Mill ive seen lol You got my sub :)
That's awesome! Welcome!
'The ethics of collateral damage' please.
"What has made the European family of nations an improving, instead of a stationary portion of mankind? Not any superior excellence in them, which when it exists, exists as the effect, not as the cause; but their remarkable diversity of character and culture."
An American would call all you described as "white culture"..
@@appleslover This is a direct quotation from 'On Liberty'. Mill is specifically denying assumptions of European (so white) superiority. In 'On Liberty' Mill makes a powerful case for how everyone stands to benefit from diversity.
@@martinbennett2228 everyone benefits from diversity when they are in the process of killing it
@@martinbennett2228 my comment a year old, how did it get to your notifications?
@@appleslover The video came up as a recommendation, then I saw that I had put a comment. I think at the time I considered writing much more, because the presenter is misreading Mill to some extent. Mill has great reliance on and belief in education. The way he uses te word 'barbarian' is more or less synonymous with uneducated.
Of course you could reply that Mill's concept of educated is very Eurocentric, which I suppose it is.
By the way, I do not understand your previous comment, I guess it is sarcastic, but on the internet one cannot be sure.
In Mill's formulation of the "harm to others" principle, he held that the government could legitimately coerce you only if you harm somebody else TO A DEGREE WHICH WOULD OUTWEIGH THE HARM DONE BY CURTAILING YOUR FREEDOM. The reason why this final sub-clause is important is that Mill believed that the exercise of liberty was of value because it enabled human beings to grow. Depriving a person of their freedoms was sometimes a necessary evil, but was nonetheless still an evil. because it stunted human moral and intellectual growth. Therefore, in Mill's argument, it was not enough merely for me to be harming you before the government could legitimately intervene - it was necessary for me to cause harm to a certain non-trivial degree. The way Mill saw it, there was a threshold-level of harm which had to be met before the criterion became relevant.
I believe the government should be able to stop individuals from harming themselves, mainly because in a way, they are harming someone else. There have been studies showing that people often think of their future selves as an entirely different person. Harmful decisions often don't effect you in the present, but will have lasting consequences that the current iteration of you does not have to deal with.
+Alina Lynn The challenge I would put to this is the following. Even if I accept that my future self is 'in a way' someone else (which I don't necessarily), you still have to explain how the government or state is better placed to read the future outcomes of my present day actions for that 'future self'. At what point do I become competent enough to make such determinations for myself? In most western societies we have the concept of legal maturity occouring at some specific age, from which point parental rights cease to trump their offspring's right to self determination. Where, if anywhere, would you place this bar in the relationship between the state and otherwise 'mature' individuals?
Ethics of Collateral Damage, please
Impressive! That whole legacy discussion was well-put an unusually nuanced for youtube. You are taking this channel to new analytic heights. Keep up the enlightening work!
"The ethics of collateral damage" would be an intensely interesting (and relevant to modernity with drones especially) video.
i'd love to hear about "can art be defined?" :)
For the bit about the harm and the doctor's with terminally ill patients, at least a part of it is that some of the terminally ill patients could be misdiagnosed, but probably the biggest reason people find it wrong is that there seems to be an intuitive difference between intentionally killing someone and having someone die without that intention. That and that it makes everybody uneasy that there is somebody killing people which is a minor part of the harm it does.
0:21 When can the government legitimately restrict your freedoms .
" The Social Contract " - The rights a person gives up to the state , in order to live is structured society .
Hobbes and John Locke wrote about this subject . Rousseu coined the phrase .
.
From the 6:26 - 11:46 minute mark, I fell in love with what you said.
It’s interesting that you ignore government as being exempt from ˋdo no harmˋ.
What a joy it is to find such a good video in the youtube jungle. Thank you!
Thanks for the video and for bringing up Mill's historical context!
Singapore is operated much according to the ideas Mill thought needed for colonies. But an important part of what happened to Singapore was the final moment of it's most famous leader, Lee Kwan Yew. It still maintained what had to be in place for at least Singapore to not backslide and to have the potential to move forward. Most of the Greats of history haven't been able to do this for the most part. Tito, arguably a great leader, had Yugoslavia backsliding after his death, Alexander the Great had the same. Wen, one of the Chinese emperors, had the same.
The thing I note is that Mill's passages discussing the exceptions to liberty in the case of "less developed" regions of the world are so strikingly dubious to us. And that means that, while certain vestiges of colonialism may continue on and certain individuals may embrace imperialism to greater or lesser degrees, to some extent western culture has moved away from those positions on the whole. It is always worth examining our biases and assumptions when we are dealing with people outside our own culture (or within our own culture, for that matter), but I don't think we are at risk of adopting Mill's view of other cultures as an express principle any time soon.
ty for this the professor who did this lecture explains things in the most roundabout way possible and i actually understand it now
I don't agree that the question is limited to the scope of criminal law as Mill also focusses on the force of public opinion. The harm principle applies to both.
Ethics of collateral damage please!!
In other words "What is the scope of the criminal law" < extraordinarily well said. thank you
John Stuart Mill worked for British East India company this is where he gets his ideas from--- he is lobbyist for this corporations. I am not saying that what he said about liberty is wrong, what is wrong is that his agenda and who he worked for his entire life. This needs be taken into consideration when analyzing him.
Before we criticise Mill like that, don't we also have to consider what is meant by "barbarous"? Maybe he didn't think Indians counted as barbarous, and his word was used for ill. The reason is (yeah maybe this is cherry-picking, but I'm just trying to put it out there) he seems too smart to consider what he did and make such a weird exception, where it doesn't seem specific. It could just as likely be that he was protecting his own skin by pandering to those in higher places (but there's also a tendency for us to do that with those we idolise as intelligent, i.e. as ever-revolutionary). When I read this section a few years back, I got the impression he meant harsher places (I also have very little knowledge of India at the time). I guess we have to take history into account, but we should be wary of assuming his views aligned with what the power structures decided to do. I get that I might be affected by the time I'm reading this in, but when I read his text, it stuck out to me as fresh. If you talked to him personally and made the argument "those Indians aren't really barbarous", he might go "yeah okay" and end story. I see how he would be a tolerant imperialist, and I get how it's pitched negatively, but I can also see how it would be a good thing - and we sort of do a similar thing when we pay to charities to look after crisis situations in poorer countries... don't we? He probably thought he was spreading prosperity like we think. Maybe in the absence of treasuring diviersity of other cultures, or of not knowing the effects that would come from trying to spread "civilisation", he didn't have a larger perspective to make a fully informed decision (and we should be aware that we don't necessarily have a fuller understanding either). To what extent do we not interfere with the diversity of other cultures - e.g. what if part of those cultures, barbarous for argument's sake, glorify warmongering and try to do that with other nations? Do we accept that as part of diversity? Btw, I'm not trying to say I have this as a serious worldly concern. I can imagine real people thinking this, however, and fuelling racist beliefs. I'm just pointing out more detail that I see here that makes interpretation difficult... sigh.
I've heard a similar (rarer?) thing with Kant regarding his use of the (German?) word for "man", isolating women from being considered rational. But I don't see that (in my perhaps more limited experience). Kant's philosophy is so general and thought-out that if he ever harboured misogynistic thoughts, it was because he thought it was a contingent fact that women were less rational, which means it can be as quickly dispelled (assuming non-stubborn allegiance to the view). Given Kant's self-sheltering where he apparently gained his knowledge of worldly matters from associates (friends, if any), it's not surprising if he was affected by biased views, because they could be those of others that are also exaggerated. He would just trust their report.
So when I read Mill or Kant, they both seem logical enough to potentially notice the errors in such a thinking, because they know how to formulate a general statement properly, meaning, e.g., that something can count as barbarous or not, or rational or not, and it's a matter of further debate. So I don't think it's clear they would be racist or misogynistic respectively at heart.
I vote Define Art. Being an environmental engineering student, I've actually had to take a class on the ethics of collateral damage (environmental ethics). However, I've never really looked to deeply into art.
This is not an exploration of mill. This is a hit piece based off a single line in only one of his essays.
7:30
Super video! This saved my school assignment! You explain the content in a good and clear way, with good examples. ;)thank you
Drinking and driving is a terrible example of the Harm Principle because it's not only punishing people for causing harm, it's punishing people for causing RISK. A straightforward application of the harm principle would punish someone who gets into a car accident and causes some kind of harm, regardless of the reasons for them getting into that accident; and would not punish someone who engages in behavior that increases the risk of that (like drinking) if they manage to nevertheless not actually cause any harm.
Nice discussion and analysis of the first chapter and I expected to watch the discussing of the rest of the book!
i kinda wish the title was more honest here. more of the video is dedicated to criticizing Mill rather than summarizing him
I owuld like to talk about art defintion. Seems more intersting as art can be made by each citizen in a constructive way while collateral damage will be a talk about destruction. One discussion will able us to inv-crease creation while the other may alow us to decrease destruction.
You helped me write a paper for my class on this. Thank you so much!
My pleasure!
What would Mill make of the current response to CV 19 ? - Are Paternalism and Despotism issues ?
I'd like to hear if art can be defined, being an artist (performance) of sorts myself.
ethics of collateral damage sounds very interesting! would it be about collateral damage in war or in ambitious progression of society (ie. cars can be useful but cause many fatalities every year)?
love the show Olly!
You’re so good!!
Both suggested topics sound fascinating, but I'm gonna have to go with "can art be defined". I'm really interested in hearing the different opinions and attempted definitions philosophers came up with over the years.
I'm down for hearing you talk about collateral damage, can't wait to hear about the world wars damage on the land and monuments.
"Can art be defined?" would actually be really interesting
great video. one recommendation, take this style of analysis, apply it to Falguni Sheth theory.
also would you be OK with bringing up that Marten Luther King was a drinker and cheated on his wife? how about Tesla's mystic beliefs? Newton's alchemy? Malcolm Xs black superiority?
I didn't think so.
+Dumb Philosopher Colonialism wasn't shaped by any of those though. Like I said in the video, it's not about Mill's character but his legacy.
+Dumb Philosopher Your assertion that King drank and was unfaithful to his wife may or may not be true. However given that the source of these allegations is J Edgar Hover's FBI that was intent upon discrediting King,unthinking acceptance of these allegations is pretty............DUMB
+hankonfire
on the MLK point
yes the FBI did try to spread slander, sometimes you can find it on conspiracy theory blogs and with hardcore racists. I've read a good bit of it, it has no such subtleties. they accused him of being a serial rapist, an atheist, and a communist.
yes those are outright fabrications. but as for some Union leaders and close friends he did drink a bit more then he should have and he did vary much enjoy the company of younger woman.
if anything knowing these things make MLK more reliable, more human to me, not some distant demigod.
+Philosophy Tube
I'm a little confused, we don't judge him differently based on the time period? but hold him partly responsible for the time period? or don't we?
I'm lost.
Just subbed to the channel. Really liked some of the videos that I saw. You seem like one of the few actually educated people.
+Giffica Welcome to the little community!
At 6:08 it's pretty clear that earlier mill was referring to race as a group of people sharing a cultural or national backround not as in black Asian or white
Glad I found this channel
Are we allowed to pick and choose ideas from thinkers of the past or do we need to take them as a whole? If I like some of Mill's ideas am I required to adopt some I don't? Conversely if you don't agree with some of his ideas are you allowed to use some of his ideas you do like or are those now off limits to you?
I would rather Can Art be Defined? But both are very good themes to be discussed
And if Mill's definition on liberty and law isn't sufficient, what are the others criterias we should use to define the limit between liberty and State intervention?
Would be nice if the book On Liberty was discussed in this video.
Normally, one would think Art has little to do with philosophy -- but clearly through most of western culture: sculpture, murals, paintings, wood cuts, etc. were the primary means of (indoctrination) communicating a typically religion approved ideology -- or at least what was acceptable to experience and believe, throughout Europe and beyond. So yeah lets start basic, by seeing if "Art" can really even be adequately defined and then proceed to how it conveys ideas of all kinds, even those of acceptability, morality, accepted history/myth, etc.
Obviously. I am taking a very "art museum" approach to this, but arguments can be made that Print, Radio, Comics, T.V., Movies, and even RUclips convey cultural information that appropriates the feelings of its citizens and to a point sets our norms.
Example: here in America violence is so ubiquitous in entertainment (for even the very young), but even just nudity [not necessarily sexuality] is considered inappropriate, unless it is cut down to seconds or less, or is clearly marked "for adults" -- even though several hours of bloody mutilation and carnage is just fine. Yay Art! (News, Education, Entertainment?)
Both are interesting topics for next video, but I think I rather the art one. Thanks for always posting thought provoking content!
2:45 it is legal for you to smoke cigarettes and illegal for anybody to sell them. Does that mean it would be legal if I just "donated" or given out the cigarettes?
I miss these straight up informational videos sometimes! love her new stuff too but im bad at intepreting metaphors lol
Great video! Focusing on the new aspect which other videos don't emphasizes..
I'm not willing to forgive Mill his racist views but I _am_ almost willing to forgive him that he actually believed imperialism if "done right" could help the conquered peoples as well, given that he didn't have the luxury of seeing how things turned out after the Europeans left and the possibility of becoming industrialized without giving up your cultural identity probably never crossed his mind. After all, from his European perspective, imperialism had kinda worked last time: "apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
This was very informative and understandable. Thank you.
The ethics of collateral damage sounds really interesting, that please!
Please do can art be defined? That was a question at my Cambridge philosophy interview and I argued like Hume that an aesthetic expert should be consulted. Love the show!
i really liked you showed big parts from the original text. + can art be defined
The ethics of collateral damage sounds cool. I think I have to rewatch the video to be sure I completely get what you are saying but that is the great thing about the video format. About your example wouldn't drinking yourself to death cause harm to your family and friends, the people who love you? I would like if there was some more Albert Camus coming in the future I think and hope that might help my existential crisis a bit
Mill makes a common mistake in his logic that Aristotle warned thinkers not to make, in the very first book of his treatise on logic. Mill confuses his categories. Liberalism, as any political philosophy must do, seeks to integrate all of the various categories of the social sciences: psychology-sociology-economics-politics. The proper identity of psychology as the study of the free, creative, independent mind is not consistent with a government that forces that mind to obey. Mill tries to integrate free will with coercion. The concept "benevolent dictatorship" is a contradiction in terms. In practice it means the institutionalization of laws that are impossible to enact, because individuals would have to choose between keeping their ideas a secret or being punished for thinking.
sylvester01ful psychology didn't even exist as a science when he wrote this.
Hey @philosophytube I have a question on Stuart Mill:
On his book "On Liberty" he says that we can't supress the freedoom of spech for enourmous reasons...
but what if that one of that reasons collide with the harm principle?
Assuming that the words intended to psychologically and/or physically harm a person and that said person ended up being harmed (e.g. verbal bullying can drive people towards self-harm), then you would have to suppress it.
Ofc the big elephant in the room is that people can go around claiming that anything is harmful, so Mill uses the offence principle in On Liberty to counter this. Offence, he says, is something that causes discomfort (e.g. losing an argument or a debate), so that should technically let people differentiate between situations of when to use the harm principle and when to not use it.
so Mill agree that ofenses should be penalized?
Tolerance Marcello. He says Tolerance is the difinitive factor of individuals in society. Not reducing every action to harm or non, he says people should suffice with a right to be offended even if they cant do anything about it, and more importantly Shouldn't, unless credible harm that can be agreed upon is committed, and only then should the state intervene if called upon. Tolerance philosophy is BIG in this, google some up.
Nice :) It would seem that the people who taught me about Mill were among those you mentioned, who do all of that clever skimming. I always liked that he was one of the first suffragette friendly men in the canon. But I will most definitely have to read more about this Colonialist Lite belief structure of his. Paternalistic concern trolls are among my least favourite people to deal with. At least with a blatant Nazi, we're justified in connecting our fist to their nose. But those Dolores Umbridge types are maddening.
I'd love to see a video exploring the definition of art!
Could you do a video on Slavoj Zizek? :)
Thank you for uploading his video!!!
Oooh, I'd say can art be defined, but considering I've heard less about the ethics of collateral damage, my vote's for that one.))
Very insightful video! I'd love to see what you have to say on "collateral damage" :)
First time I've been truly compelled to comment, but I want to address Mill's argument for benevolent despotism. I live in Lebanon, but am half-British and have been made *abundantly* aware of how negative colonialism is (which I agree with wholeheartedly), but at the same time I cannot help, but see a strong case in favour of benevolent despotism. Though it is nowhere near as bad as many other regions in the Middle East, Lebanon is a sectarian mess. Religious identification is required (and "atheist"
is not officially recognised by the state), and many people identify very
strongly with their religious groups and mistrust those of a different one.
While it's true that extremism is very rare, and that most people are just
trying to make the best of a bad situation, the tension that exists between the
various religious groups here means that the general populous is more inclined
to turn to highly conservative leaders who don't so much represent the people's
interests as ensure that the country remains in political deadlock just to
spite opposing factions.
As a result, on a political level, no one will lift a finger to help anyone
else. We have been living without a President for two years now I think. We are
still in the middle of a rubbish crisis which started six months ago when the
landfills closed. No new one has opened up and people have taken to burning the
rubbish that has accumulated in the streets. This has resulted in a 2000%
increase in two aerial carcinogens that were hitherto unseen in Beirut's
atmosphere, and there are reports of cholera spreading in the less developed
parts of the country. Our internet has only just stopped being the slowest in
the world, and deliberate miscommunication very nearly resulted in the entire
country's internet getting completely shut down. The only place in the entire
country with 24/7 government electricity is one Minister's hometown, the rest
of us have to use generators or live off of anything from 3 to 6 of government
electricity a day. Any attempt to protest fails, not because of massive
Orwellian crackdowns, but because the government has learnt that no matter how
loudly people scream, eventually people will need to go back to their jobs to
feed themselves. I have to give general examples because this is the internet
and if the wrong person reads what you post conclusions will be drawn, but I
have plenty of specific examples from a number of walks of life here.
Among the general population, nepotism and tribalism run rampant, because when
times are hard you protect your own. Creative endeavours are considered
worthless, despite some serious creative talent, because you are brought up to
look out for the most lucrative jobs just to get by. Above everything, there is
a strong sense that nothing will ever get better, and it isn't unfounded. Some
of the political families have been in power since the 1800s (and weren't put
there by Europeans), and the moment anyone makes motions toward reform,
tensions rise because some sectarian group fears it's going to have its rights
taken away. At best they protest, at worst they threaten to take up arms and
no-one wants another civil war, so everything stays the same.
In a situation such as this, the general population is too busy looking out
for their immediate interests and the interests of their own to bother with how
the rest of the country functions, so you need someone to step in and say
"all of you shut up. You lot are redundant so we're sorry, but you're
fired. Oh look at all this tax money, well looks like I'd better start getting
our 1970s infrastructure updated rather than spend it all to go watch the world
cup in Brazil (which is something that actually happened)."
In short, one can argue about people's right to represent themselves culturally
until one is blue in the face, the fact remains that there are certain rights,
like the right to a sewer that doesn't burst its pipes every time it rains,
that cannot be disputed which a nation like Lebanon will not have until someone
is given absolute power. The problem is that most people when given absolute
power start to look after their own interests above everyone else's. If you can
solve that problem, then a benevolent dictator is perfectly feasible.
Now I understand that I am divorcing Mill's general point about benevolent
despotism from his specific examples, which are admittedly fairly Eurocentric
and look out primarily for his own nation rather than the places it colonised,
but it is a little unfair to dismiss the whole point out of hand on the basis
that those two points (benevolent despotism and cultural imposition) are
inextricably linked. They aren't. And even if they were, one could argue that
making the Other less so is not a bad thing (but this comment is long enough I
think, suffice it to say that places like Saudi Arabia are "Other" to
many nations because of their treatment of women and public executions, which
could be argued are part of their culture. Are we to let them continue on the
basis that stepping in would be destroying a part of their cultural identity?)
That was a very interesting read thank you.
This is the kind of situation that the postmodernist prick that put up this video fails to recognize.
Mill was a Utilitarian, that mean he saw no utiliy in a nation like the one you described having democracy, at least until such time as there is no more need for a good, strong leader that holds absolute power. Which one could definitely argue is the case.
This example reminds me of Napoleon. Everyone seems to think he was a egomaniac dictator that wanted to conquer the world. But if you read extensively on him as I have, you'll learn that he was responsible for so many things that clearly wouldn't have happened under the revolutionary governments. He was responsible for the Code Napoleon, the corps system, and the idea of "equality under the law" and many other things that escape me right now. It is also highly possible that he intended to set up a constitutional monarchy after defeating the 7th coalition and reestablished his rule after returning from Elba.
Napoleon was not so delusional to think he could conquer Europe for a second time or rule with absolute power as he did before his first exile. He improved almost everything he touched (except the French navy). And I know you'll argue that he certainly didn't improve Europe by going to war with everyone and that's a fair point but I'm talking about his policies, legal reforms and infrastructure. His legal reforms being his most influential achievements as Napoleonic code still affects hundreds of countries today.
Great points.
Modern Liberalism? I would have classed Mill as a Classical Liberal, and later philosophers like Rawls as Modern. Am I wrong?
Consequentialism versus deontological philosophy (eg Kant’s CI)
Ethics of collateral damage. I really liked the format that you are using now. To be honest I have always skipped the comment section of your videos. Sorry.
I would very much like to hear your thoughts on whether or not art can be defined.
Really insightful video :) 'Can art be defined?' please!
Hello Olly. How are you?
I am a fan of philosophy tube and I have learned a lot about philosophy with you videos.
I am from Costa Rica and I speak Spanish, I would like people that speak Spanish to have access to your videos by adding subtitles to them, so it would be awesome if you can help me add them. Please contact me if you are interested. Thank you for your time. Tus vídeos son demasiado buenos, sigue haciendo gran contenido en youtube jajaja.
I don't think it's necessary to attack/debate the argument of whether empires can be benevolent or not. The whole thing stands on the flawed idea that certain adult humans (that belong to certain ethic groups, etc) aren't capable of making good decisions for themselves, like children. We have information that can easily dispute that, we know that, in fact, all human adults are capable of making their own decisions, and therefore (following Mill's own original reasoning) it's not justified to conquer them, even if it's "for their own good", the intention of the conqueror becomes irrelevant. We can back it up with real data. Children, sure, same with adults with developmental problems (which can be diagnosed and measured by scientists), but not the rest of the adults, of any race or nationality, etc. It's not "power making an exception", the basic idea of liberty can be easily extended to all adult humans if you simply refute the bad fact about "barbarians".
I want to see can Art be defined. Ethics of colateral damage is much more political, which defeats the point of trying to get away from politics!
I would say it is entirely possible to divorce the harm principle from Mill's views of imperialism, when not talking about Mills specifically. The harm principle as a tool is a perfectly useful tool. If the inventor of the screwdriver was a horrible human being, would we bring that up any time someone used screws to build a shipping crate instead of nails? Knowing that there is more to Mills than the Harm Principle is certainly a good thing, but I fail to see how his failings mean one can not use the fully separable good parts of his writing.