Saturday, February 5, 2011

Mill's distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding actions

Mill's distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding actions
This distinction in on liberty is crucially important. However, there are variant versions of interpretation of it. The article I read today discussed the issue. Some critics assert there is no pure self regarding action because any action will indeed have effect upon others. So some defenders argue that the point is not whether an action has effect on others but whether affect the interest of others. If an action does not affect other's interest it cannot be considered as other regarding. But the author of this paper, Richard Wollheim, disagree this kind of defense because he thinks this kind of interpretation is inclined to fall into relativism for their account of interest that interest is derivable from socially recognized custom. Then Wollheim develops his own interpretation. He asserts that the condemnation of some behavior is not really based on moral beliefs but only on preference of individual, described by Mill as aberration of moral feeling. Wollheim's argument goes like this: A conducts an action which has an effect C on person B without harm to any others. If the negative effect on B is derived from B's preference, then B is holding non moral belief. Even B holds a moral belief which must be a false belief. There is nothing with A's action. That is, A's action is a self regarding action.

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