Mill’s utilitarian theory of justice
Utilitarians tend to be among those who see no major divide between justice and morality. Utilitarians see justice as part of morality and don’t see justice to have a higher priority than any other moral concern. In particular, utilitarians think that we should promote goodness (things of value), and many think that goodness can be found in a single good; such as happiness, flourishing, well-being, or desire satisfaction. Utilitarian ideas of justice connect morality to the law, economic distribution, and politics. What economic or political principles will utilitarians say we should accept? That is not an easy question to answer and is still up in the air. We have to discover the best economic and political systems for ourselves by seeing the effects they produce (90).
Utilitarians often advocate for social welfare because everyone’s well-being is of moral interest and social welfare seems like a good way to make sure everyone flourishes to a minimal extent. On the other hand utilitarians often advocate free trade because (a) free trade can help reward people for hard work and encourage people to be productive, (b) the free market allows for a great deal of freedom, (c) freedom has a tendency to lead to more prosperity, and (d) taking away freedom has a tendency to cause suffering.
One conception of utilitarian justice can be found in the work Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill (91). Mill said that justice was a subset of morality—“injustice involves the violation of the rights of some identifiable individual” (ibid.). Mill suggests, “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” (ibid.). Morality is larger than justice because it’s plausible that we can be heroic or act beyond the call of duty to help others and such acts