of inequality. All
the help that Utilitarianism here affords is, as usual, to leave every
one to judge for himself which plan is the most advisable, and then to
pronounce that to be the only moral plan. Anti-utilitarianism offers
guidance of a very different sort. It wastes no time in seeking for an
escape from confusion, for it allows no confusion to exist. It spurns
equally the idea of different persons being required to pay different
prices for equal quantities of the same thing, merely because some of
them can afford to pay more, and that of their being all required to pay
the same price for different quantities, merely because all are equally
in need of the quantities they respectively obtain. It recognises only
an imperfect analogy between a club or a mess to which no one need
subscribe unless he likes, and a national community to whose funds every
resident within its territory has no choice but to contribute; and while
quite content that members of the one should be assessed at any rates to
which they have spontaneously consented, it protests against the
imposition on members of the other of burdens disproportioned to their
several abilities. It denies that the shilling of a man who has but one
in the world is of the same value to him because it is his all, as is to
another an estate bringing him in 100,000_l._ a year, seeing that, if
the former had his pocket picked, he might presently beg, borrow, or
earn a second coin, whereas if the latter were dispossessed of his
estate he might live to the age of Methusaleh without acquiring its
equivalent. It perceives that a rich man, by receiving public protection
for his property as well as his person, is relieved from an expense in
maintaining private watchmen, which a poor man, with nothing but his
carcass to defend, would have as little occasion as ability to incur;
and it concludes that more being thus in effect given to the rich, more
is due from him in return, and more, consequently, may be rightfully
exacted.

We come, now, to a case that may well give to both Utilitarians and
Anti-utilitarians pause--with this difference, however, that whereas it
brings the former to an everlasting standstill, the latter may, after a
while, go on complacently meditative, at least, if not rejoicing.

There are certain situations in which justice loses its authority.
'Thus, to save a life, it may be allowable ... to steal or take by force
the necessary food or medicine, or kidnap