Freedom, Society, and State - Ludwig von Mises Institute

ights position: "Clearly the con'ception of 'natural
rights' originates in the recognition of the truth that
if life is justifiable, there must be a justification
for the performance of acts essential to its preservation;
and, therefore, a justification for those liberties
and claims which make such acts possible."(28)
But if every individual does in fact'have a natural
right to "life, liberty and property," then they
must also. have a corresponding obligation to refrain
from interfering with the equal rights of others. This
is what Spencer refers to as the "law of equal liberty."
While similar to traditional Lockean doctrine in
its emphasis on individual freedom, the argument from
natural rights has the merit of rendering(29) the
Lockean social contract expedient for justifying government
irrelevant. For if these natural rights are
indeed universally valid, it makes no difference
whether any particular individual personally consented
to obey the state or not. So long as the state protects
rather than violates these rights it is legitimate,
and its policies are legitimately binding on all
individuals.(30)
5 • THE ARGUMENT FRQ\1 UT I L I TY
Whatis often thought to be one of the most powerful
arguments for government is utilitarianism, an argument
advanced in one form or another by numerous
wr i ters, but commonly associated with the late eighteenth
century leader of the English Philosophical
Radicals, Jeremy Bentham.
Bentham contemptuously dismisses natural law, tradition
and contract, stating that they are nothing more
than "nonsense." The only standard of right and wrong,
Bentham asserts, following Thomas Hobbes and David
Hume, is the "principle of utility." "All other principles
than that of utility must be wrong."(31) And
what, precisely, is meant by utility? Bentham's answer
is, simply, the excess of pleasure over pain. "A thing
is said to promote the interest •.. of an individual
when it tends to add to the sum total of his pleasures;
or, what comes to the same thing, to diminish the sum
total of his pains." Thus, pleasure and pain are, he
proclaims, the "standard of right and wrong," of good
and evil.(32) Bentham now makes two crucial assumptions:
first, he maintains that the only differences
bet we e n va r i ous types of pI easures and pa i ns ar e quantitative',
and not qualitative, and that these quanti-
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