With this being said, society only has the right to restrict behavior on the basis of justice, and not because society deems it to be immoral. Within the Principle of Liberty, Mill also claims that it is not acceptable for society to put restrictions on an individual’s conduct, for reasons that they feel would be in the best interest of that person. The majority only has the right to develop laws that confine the conduct of individuals with the purpose of protecting the basic rights of others; otherwise they would be obstructing that person’s right to individuality. Mill believes that everyone is entitled to certain moral rights that cannot be denied. Every member of society is entitled to rights of security of his person and property, as well as basic liberties such as freedom of opinion and the right to live his life as he so chooses.
Ethical egoism has two flaws which can be seen. The first is that it does not consider moral duties or any prima facie goods beyond personal happiness. Without consideration of moral duties there is no moral framework to stop one from killing others
However, the state or any other individual has no grounds to intervene if you’re not seen to harm others. This would unfairly deprive you of the autonomy that’s rightfully yours and you would cease to be free, in the liberal sense. It could potentially lead to others having control of aspects of your life in which they have no say, something which contravenes the idea of liberalism. This extends further, as the excerpt shows. The state and other individuals cannot intervene if you decide to do something which could potentially harm yourself but not other individuals.
Also, ethical egoism is not the same as egotism. An egotist is a person who is self-centered. They do not necessarily act upon their best interests because they distance themselves from others which can interfere with their overall happiness. Ethical egoism does not require a person to ignore the interests of others because at times, serving the interest of others is in their best interest. However, ethical egoism does not allow a person to put another person’s interests before their own if it is not in their best interest.
I negate As the negative I strongly negate the resolution, and the belief that individuals have a moral obligation to help those in need. The affirmative cannot argue that by not helping an individual in need, one is harming them. When evaluating the resolution we see that the value must be morality as implied. We can achieve morality by not imposing potentially harming obligations on people in our society. Contention 1: Just because we feel sympathy for individuals in need, we do not have a moral obligation to help.
Also, as long as my decisions fill my principle, I feel totally comfortable in making them. My principle is that the ethical decisions I make must be in my own interest, without causing any harm to the others. Obviously, some may consider this as selfish and not caring for other people. I would not think of it like that, as in reality, we all ought consider our interests before others'. To me it is unethical to betray myself and treat myself worse than the way I should.
We may go round our history books either lambasting or extolling powerful leaders, but we will always come to the conclusion that power does corrupt a man. The thirst for power is unbounded and the lamentable consequences often quash a man. Getting power is just the onset of melancholy, disaster, lugubriousness and sorrow. All the leaders throughout history were undoubtedly very strong and were feared but we often learn that they were sordid, uncouth, perpetrators, lascivious, perplexed and unscrupulous. They often committed a myriad of staggering sins and believed they were masters of perpetuity.
Give or take one of those qualities or two. But just when I start to forget and think of men as good people, I see something or learn something or am reminded of some of the horrible things that have happened under mans control and I am disgusted once again. Think of all of the horrible men in history who have held positions of power such as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and George Bush, only to name a few. Look at all of the insane things that occurred under their rule, all of this pointless murder, war, torture, and all for what reason? Was it all for power?
It is morally wrong to make worthless one’s life. After all, we should be focused more on living our own lives than evaluating another’s. The whole idea of a price on life is blasphemy, seeing that life should be sacred and inviolable. The sanctity of life should be preserved even after death, so that no one being may act or speak upon that life. We must take into consideration our own values when labeling another’s life.
Therefore, there is no sense for us to follow spontaneity. Xunzi also argued against Mencian saying that human nature is good. In 23.9, Xunzi said that if human nature is good, Confucius and Mencius would not have agreed that a sage king is important to our society. We need a sage king to keep our society in a good order to transform people to behave well. If human nature is good, we do not need that sage king.