1JOHN STUART MILL, Considerations on Representative Government Chapters 1-5 Notes for Philosophy 166 Spring, 2006 {Exposition of Mill is in regular type; comment and criticism are in italics.} Chapter II. The Criterion of a Good Form of Government. Mill asserts that the best form of government for a people at a time is the one that best achieves two goals: (1) improving the virtue and intelligence of the people under its jurisdiction, and (2) organizing such good qualities of the people as currently exist to promote as far as possible the long-run common good (the legitimate purposes of government). He does not say what to do if the two criteria yield conflicting recommendations in given circumstances. Being a utilitarian, Mill presumably is committed to picking as best the form of government that will bring about maximal aggregate long-run utility, utility being understood as excellence-weighted pleasure. (A unit of pleasure taken in a nonexcellent activity such as pushpin is less morally valuable than a same-sized unity of pleasure taken in an excellent activity such as poetry. The test of excellence and of the overall value of any kind of pleasure are fixed by the preferences of experienced experts. See Utilitarianism, chapter 2.) (1) and (2) are proposed as reliable indicators of what maximizes utility, useful secondary rules. However, it is not clear that in Considerations on Representative Government Mill commits himself to this utilitarian standard. He may be trying to rely on weaker, less controversial premises than utilitarianism in constructing an argument for representative government. Mill definitely is committed to a best results standard for choice of political institutions. The best results standard holds that one ought to put in place political institutions whose operation over time would produce better results than would any feasible alternative institutions that might instead have been adopted. A best results standard might take different forms depending on how one assesses results. Utilitarianism holds that the best outcomes are those that contain the most aggregate human utility (happiness or fancy pleasure according to Mill). Another possible standard holds that the best outcomes are those with most fulfillment of individual moral rights (weighted by their importance). Perfectionism is another possible norm for assessing outcomes. There are other candidate norms. Mixed views are also possible. A best results standard is controversial. One way to oppose it would be to hold that people have the moral right to participate on equal terms in the process that determines what laws and policies the state enforces. This right is not trumped by considerations of happinesss maximization. People have the right to a democratic say over their government, as just characterized, even if their having and exercising this right leads to worse outcomes than might have been obtained. This assertion of the right to a democratic say, the right to collective sovereignty, raises an issue similar to the question of how the Liberty Principle that Mill asserts in On Liberty should be justified. Mill officially appeals to the principle of utility as the ultimate moral standard. One might hold instead that there is a natural moral right to be part of a democratic political community just as there is a natural moral right to be left free to live as one chooses to long as one does not harm others without their consent. On this view there is a moral right to personal sovereignty and a moral right to (be part of) collective self-government. Rousseau seems to hold that a government rightly commands and claims the right to be obeyed by its citizens just in case the mechanism that selects laws to be enforced picks laws that are directed to the common good and hence can be obeyed by all without any forfeiture of autonomy. Mill takes a wider view. Even if the laws are not so good under a form of government, that type of government might still be best according to the best results standards because of the effects of the working of that set of political institutions on the character and virtue of citizens. Mill believes that there are stages in the advancement of peoples, and different forms of government suit different peoples at different levels of advancement. The individuals who2compose a barbarous and savage people need to learn to obey. The form of government they require is despotism. The individuals who live under slavery and similar institutions need to learn to delay gratification and act for their long-run interests when not prompted by the immediate spur of commands backed by penalties that would swiftly follow disobedience. They require an educational dictatorship, a government of leading-strings. To see the controversial nature of Mill’s best results standard, consider an alternative position not mentioned by Mill. Ideal proceduralism holds that those political arrangements should be put in place that would constitute a fair procedure. Democracy might then be argued to be justified on the ground that it is a fair procedure for selecting laws and public policies and choosing public officials. Majority-rule democracy is a procedure that is intrinsically fair—fair independently of the results it happens to generate. Under majority rule, each adult citizen has a vote and all votes count equally in the settlement of issues put to a vote. A mixed view of the justification of political democracy holds that democratic arrangements ought to be put in place in part on the ground that democracy is an intrinsically fair procedure for settling political issues and in part on the ground that democratic procedures tend to produce better results than would alternative forms of government. Consider the question whether a democratic political constitution should be put in place in a contemporary country such as China that now lacks democratic institutions. According to a best results standard, China should be made democratic just in case the working of democratic institutions in China would lead to better outcomes than those alternative political institutions would generate. According to ideal proceduralism, China should be made democratic just in case in its circumstances democracy would be the ideally fair procedure f for settling political issues. According to a mixed view, both the quality of results and intrinsic procedural fairness are relevant.