Liberalism, utilitarianism and their critics

Detail

1. Liberalism: the individual comes first

• Liberalism is a political idea that puts the individual at the centre. The state, society and groups exist to serve the individual.
• People link it with tolerance, meaning they accept views and ways of life they dislike. But its main feature is its focus on the individual.
• Family, community and caste have value only if individuals value them. So who to marry is the individual's choice, not the family's or the caste's.
• Liberals rank individual liberty above other values such as equality.
• Liberals distrust political authority (the power of the state). Power can be misused, so it must be limited.
• How liberalism changed:
• Earlier: it supported the free market (prices and trade set by buyers and sellers, not the state) and a minimal state (a state that does very little beyond keeping order).

• Today: it accepts the welfare state (a state that provides education, health and social security). It also accepts steps against social and economic inequality.

• Bentham and J.S. Mill used utilitarian arguments in politics. They said all laws should aim at "the greatest happiness of the greatest number". [5]

• They supported representative democracy. They wanted as much individual freedom as possible, as long as government still worked well and society stayed in harmony. [5]

2. Classical liberalism and how India's Constitution departs from it

• Classical liberalism is the early form of liberalism. It puts individual rights above social justice and community values.
• John Locke: natural rights to life, liberty and property.
• Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776): free markets and limited state interference.

• J.S. Mill: individual liberty.

• India's Constitution departs from classical liberalism in two ways:

• It links liberty to social justice. It allows reservations (quotas in education and jobs for disadvantaged groups) under Articles 15(4) and 16(4). This is "liberty with equality", not liberty alone.

• It recognises communities. It gives minority rights: Article 29 protects any group's distinct language, script or culture, and Article 30 lets religious and linguistic minorities set up and run their own educational institutions.

• Modern liberalism, neo-liberalism and the market-versus-state debate are covered in the note on equality and social justice.

3. Utilitarianism: judge an act by its results

• Utilitarianism is the theory that an act is right if it tends to increase happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the opposite of happiness. [4]
• Its test is the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
• It is a type of consequentialism: an act is judged only by its results, not by the motive or by any rule.

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)

• He was the first and leading writer on utilitarianism. [10]
• In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) he wrote: "nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure".
• Felicific calculus (also called the hedonic calculus) is his method for adding up the pleasure and pain an act causes. The total shows whether the act is good or bad. [4][7]
• For Bentham, pleasures differ only in quantity (how much), not in quality.

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)

• In Utilitarianism (1861) Mill split pleasures into higher pleasures (of the mind, such as knowledge and art) and lower pleasures (of the body). [4][6]

• His famous line: "It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."

• Mill kept Bentham's goal of the greatest happiness. But he added a humanistic and individualistic angle: the moral self-development of the individual became the highest value in his ethics. [6]

• In On Liberty (1859) he based liberty on utility "in the largest sense": free individuals who grow as people make society happier over time.

Critiques of utilitarianism

Criticism	What it means
Ignores distribution	It looks only at the total happiness, not at who gets it. A rich few can gain while many lose.
Can sacrifice minorities	If a majority gains a lot, harming a small group can count as "right". So individual rights are not safe.
Ignores the distinctness of persons (Rawls)	It adds everyone's happiness into one sum, as if society were one person. One person's loss cannot be "paid for" by another person's gain.

• Where it survives: cost-benefit analysis in public policy. For example, a dam or highway is approved if its total benefits are greater than its total costs.
• GS-IV link: consequentialism (judge by results) versus Kant's duty-based (deontological) ethics (judge by duty and moral rules; treat every person as an end, never only as a means to an end).

4. Libertarianism: the strongest defence of liberty and property

• Libertarianism is a theory that gives overriding value to individual liberty and private property.
• Robert Nozick (1938–2002), Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974). [9]
• He defends the minimal state, also called the "night-watchman" state. This state only protects citizens against violence (force), theft and fraud. [9]
• He argued against two opposite views: anarchism (no state at all) and the left-wing view of a large state. [9]

• He compares redistributive taxation (taxing some people to give to others) to forced labour: the state takes part of a person's work without their consent.

• Contrast: classical liberals accept a limited state. Modern liberals accept a welfare state. Libertarians accept only the night-watchman state.

5. Communitarianism: the community shapes the individual

• Communitarianism is the theory that people are shaped by their communities. So shared values and the common good must guide how rights are defined.
• It arose in the 1980s as a critique of liberalism and libertarianism, which put individual rights and autonomy first. [8]
• Communitarians argue that a person's identity comes from culture and social relations. So rights and interests cannot be worked out in isolation from society. [8]

Thinker	Work (year)	Key idea
Michael Sandel	Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982)	Attacks the liberal "unencumbered self", the idea of a person with no ties to family, community or tradition. Liberalism stresses autonomy and rights too much and neglects the common good. [8]
Alasdair MacIntyre	After Virtue (1981)	Said natural rights are imaginary, like unicorns. [8]
Charles Taylor	—	Like Sandel, held that liberalism, especially libertarianism, values autonomy over the common good. [8]
Michael Walzer	Spheres of Justice (1983)	A community's shared understanding of how to live should count for more than abstract, "universal" rules of justice. [8]

6. Indian relevance: individual choice versus group authority

• Group rights. Articles 29–30 protect the culture of minorities and their right to run their own educational institutions. This is a communitarian element in the Constitution.
• Personal laws. Marriage, divorce and inheritance for each religious community follow its own law. This raises the question of whether community values or individual rights (such as gender equality) should come first.
• Caste authority versus individual choice. NCERT gives the example of a Haryana caste panchayat punishing an inter-caste couple. This is the clearest clash between liberal choice and community control.
• Shakti Vahini v. Union of India (2018):
• Decided: 27 March 2018, in a judgment written by Chief Justice Dipak Misra (2018 INSC 266). [2]
• Holding: an adult's choice in love and marriage is protected by Articles 19 and 21 (freedoms and the right to life and personal liberty). No assembly can torture, harass or ill-treat people "in the name of honour" to take away that choice. [2]
• Khap panchayats (caste or clan councils in north India) cannot take the law into their own hands or act as law-enforcing bodies. Honour killings are serious human rights violations. [2]
• Directions to States: take preventive, remedial and punitive steps. Police must be extra careful in inter-caste and inter-religious marriages. Khap members involved must be booked, including for conspiracy or abetment. [2]

• Follow-up: the Ministry of Home Affairs sent an advisory to all States on 31 May 2018 on carrying out these measures. [3]

• Lesson: the Indian Constitution protects communities, but it does not let a community override an adult's basic liberty. This mix of liberal and communitarian ideas is typical of Indian constitutionalism.

Prelims Hooks

• Wealth of Nations (1776) → Adam Smith, classical liberalism.
• "Two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure" → Bentham, 1789. The felicific calculus is also called the hedonic calculus.
• "Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied" → J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism (1861), higher versus lower pleasures.
• Night-watchman / minimal state (protection against force, theft and fraud only) → Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974). It is libertarian, not communitarian.
• "Unencumbered self" critique → Sandel (1982). After Virtue (1981) → MacIntyre. Spheres of Justice (1983) → Walzer.
• "Utilitarianism ignores the distinction between persons" → Rawls.
• Articles 29–30 → cultural and educational rights of minorities, a communitarian element in the Constitution.
• Shakti Vahini v. Union of India (2018) → khap diktats against inter-caste or inter-religious couples are illegal. The choice of a marriage partner is protected by Articles 19 and 21.
• Trap: "Liberalism has always opposed the welfare state" is wrong. Classical liberalism favoured a minimal state, but present-day liberalism accepts the welfare state.

Mains Points

• India's "corrected liberalism": the Constitution protects individual liberty (Arts. 19, 21) but ties it to social justice (Arts. 15(4), 16(4)) and to group protection (Arts. 29–30). This answers both the libertarian demand for "liberty only" and the communitarian charge that liberalism ignores community.
• Utilitarian policymaking: cost-benefit analysis helps compare projects such as dams, highways and land acquisition. But adding up total welfare can hide the costs borne by displaced tribals or minorities. Rights-based limits (Rawls, and Kant's rule never to treat people only as means) are needed.
• Individual versus community: personal laws and khap panchayats show the tension. Shakti Vahini (2018) and the MHA advisory of 31 May 2018 show the State choosing individual choice over caste "honour". Enforcement still depends on State police.
• Liberty versus redistribution: Nozick's view of taxation as forced labour can be set against Directive Principles such as Articles 38 and 39, which commit India to reducing inequality. India's model is closer to a welfare-liberal state than to a night-watchman state.