Kelts, 20
One may object that such a system is impractical, given that people will always be biased
in their own case, or won’t do their level best to think about the interests of others. But to
address the former objection, we might assume with Rousseau (and Madison) that the biases of
each will cancel the others’ out. To address the latter we might note that it would be implausible
to argue that each person will be particularly good at divining their own moral interests, but
particularly bad at divining the moral interests of all
: liberals can’t have it both ways.
These arguments of course have surprising, seemingly illiberal, conclusions. In the
instance, B might simply be wrong that he has a right to do some thing which the majority in his
society think violates their rights or other interests. For instance, his claimed right to be free to
view pornography may not overbalance others’ claimed rights to be free from visual or moral
pollution of their society. Even if B’s claimed right is intensely personal (as, I assume, the
viewing of pornography usually is), it will not automatically trump his society’s rights and
interests: the members of the majority have already considered the legitimacy of his personal
claim, in light of their best understandings of justice (which include the notion of a realm of morl
freedom) and have decided his claim to lack sufficient merit. This argument for democratic
control of rights may not be what Mill was aiming for; but, I think, given his assumptions about
individuality, autonomy, rationality and the right, it is all that he can sustain.
24
On this point, see Waldron, Law and Disagreement, p.14.
Convention