ETHICS Where there exists a genuine and strong desire to that which is most for the happiness of all, general rules are merely aids to prudence, in the choice of means; not peremptory obligations Let but the desires be right, and the ‘imagination lofty and refined’; & provided there be disdain of all false seeming, ‘to the pure all things are pure’.4 In Utilitarianism Mill offers a defence on both fronts Against the allegation of excessive rigour, he urges us to distinguish between a moral standard and a motive of action: utilitarianism, while offering universal happiness as the ultimate moral standard, does not require it to be the aim of every action Moreover, there is no need to run through a felicific calculus in every case: it is absurd to talk ‘as if, at the moment when some man feels tempted to meddle with the property or life of another, he had to begin considering for the first time whether murder and theft are injurious to human happiness’ (U 275) To those who allege laxity, he responds with a tu quoque: all moral systems have to make room for conflicting obligations, and utility is not the only creed ‘which is able to furnish us with excuses for evil doing, and means of cheating our own conscience’ (U 277) The difficulty about utilitarianism that Mill himself takes most seriously is the allegation that it is a recipe for preferring expedience to justice Mill responds that the dictates of justice indeed form part of the field of general expediency, but that nonetheless there is a difference between what is expedient, what is moral, and what is just If something is expedient (in the sense of conducing to the general happiness) then, on utilitarian grounds, it should be done, but there need not be any question of duty involved If something is not just expedient but also moral, then a duty arises; and it is part of the notion of a duty that a person may be rightly compelled to fulfil it Not all duties, however, create correlative rights in other persons, and it is this extra element that makes the difference between morality in general and justice in particular: ‘Justice implies something which is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but which some individual person can claim from us as his moral right’ (U 301) It is important, for Mill, to mark the connection between justice and moral rights: because he emphasizes that there can be legal rights that are unjust, and just claims that conflict with law F A Hayek, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor (London: Routledge, 1957), 59 227