Utilitarianism - Political Theory and Political Thought - Essay Example

Demonstrating the scopes of concepts of liberty and utilitarianism illustrates their conflict in which the moral perspective restricts people’s liberty. Arora and Awasthy identify elements of liberty that guide the evaluation of the relationship between liberty and utilitarian theory. The authors explain that even though freedom from restraints identifies liberty, a positivist’s perspective of liberty expands beyond these and includes “private, political, and economic” aspects (2007, p. 150). Liberty also means the existence of fairness and therefore focuses on equality doctrine and the absence of special treatments and bias from moral or legal centers of power. Personal rights are also supreme in an environment of liberty. Significant to the evaluation of utilitarian theory are private aspects of liberty that grant people such rights as rights to life, freedom of choice as long as the effects of the choice are limited to the individual, right to privacy, and freedom of expression. Economic liberty that provides for freedom from poverty also identifies the need for autonomy and individualism (Gray, 2013). Another aspect of liberty is other people’s contribution to the effects of a person’s acts. Even though liberty considers such effects, the involvement of the victims to generate effects safeguards the actor’s liberty (Su, 2013).

Contrary to liberty concepts that focus on an individual’s freedom unless the freedom is a direct threat to other people’s welfare and without the people’s contribution to the effects, utilitarianism is biased toward people’s welfare at the expense of an individual’s freedom and autonomy. Utilitarianism is a moral theory that supports maximum good for a majority of members of a society (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel, 2011). It encourages actions and decisions whose consequences will benefit most people and diminishes the concept of an individual as offered by the concept of liberty. According to Birsch, utilitarianism tries to shift people’s interest from individualistic satisfaction to the utility of the larger society in which an individual’s action affects other people (2013). The subjective scope of utilitarianism makes it difficult to quantify the effects of a person’s action, and identifies challenges such as different levels of sensitivity, challenges the civil liberty’s aspect of equality as some people may even exaggerate sensitivity. Contrary to the supremacy of personal rights and liberty’s protection of such rights as long as victims of consequences of an act are parties to the occurrence of the consequences, utilitarianism does not regard the causes of consequences. This victimizes a person contrary to civil liberty provisions. Utilitarianism would also infringe on a person’s privacy and freedom of speech and expression as long as such breaches would derive benefits to more people (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel, 2011; Birsch, 2013).    

Utilitarianism, a moral theory that esteems maximum good for a majority of members of the society, is therefore biased in a way that is inimical to liberty because it undermines individuals’ private rights for maximizing the welfare of society.