John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill | |
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De Lacy Evans | |
Succeeded by | William Henry Smith |
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Born | Pentonville, Middlesex, England | 20 May 1806
Died | 8 May 1873 Avignon, Vaucluse, France | (aged 66)
Political party | Liberal |
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Alma mater | University College London |
Philosophy career | |
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Region | Western philosophy |
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Utilitarianism |
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John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873)
Mill was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor Jeremy Bentham. He contributed to the investigation of scientific methodology, though his knowledge of the topic was based on the writings of others, notably William Whewell, John Herschel, and Auguste Comte, and research carried out for Mill by Alexander Bain. He engaged in written debate with Whewell.[4]
A member of the Liberal Party and author of the early feminist work The Subjection of Women, Mill was also the second member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832.[5][6]
Biography
John Stuart Mill was born at 13 Rodney Street in Pentonville, then on the edge of the capital and now in central London, the eldest son of Harriet Barrow and the Scottish philosopher, historian, and economist James Mill. John Stuart was educated by his father, with the advice and assistance of Jeremy Bentham and Francis Place. He was given an extremely rigorous upbringing, and was deliberately shielded from association with children his own age other than his siblings. His father, a follower of Bentham and an adherent of associationism, had as his explicit aim to create a genius intellect that would carry on the cause of utilitarianism and its implementation after he and Bentham had died.[7]
Mill was a notably precocious child. He describes his education in his autobiography. At the age of three he was taught
At the age of eight, Mill began studying Latin, the works of Euclid, and algebra, and was appointed schoolmaster to the younger children of the family. His main reading was still history, but he went through all the commonly taught Latin and Greek authors and by the age of ten could read Plato and Demosthenes with ease. His father also thought that it was important for Mill to study and compose poetry. One of his earliest poetic compositions was a continuation of the Iliad. In his spare time he also enjoyed reading about natural sciences and popular novels, such as Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe.
His father's work, The History of British India, was published in 1818; immediately thereafter, at about the age of twelve, Mill began a thorough study of the scholastic logic, at the same time reading Aristotle's logical treatises in the original language. In the following year he was introduced to political economy and studied Adam Smith and David Ricardo with his father, ultimately completing their classical economic view of factors of production. Mill's comptes rendus of his daily economy lessons helped his father in writing Elements of Political Economy in 1821, a textbook to promote the ideas of Ricardian economics; however, the book lacked popular support.[9] Ricardo, who was a close friend of his father, used to invite the young Mill to his house for a walk to talk about political economy.
At the age of fourteen, Mill stayed a year in France with the family of Sir
Mill went through months of sadness and contemplated suicide at twenty years of age. According to the opening paragraphs of Chapter V of his autobiography, he had asked himself whether the creation of a just society, his life's objective, would actually make him happy. His heart answered "no", and unsurprisingly he lost the happiness of striving towards this objective. Eventually, the poetry of William Wordsworth showed him that beauty generates compassion for others and stimulates joy.[12] With renewed vigour, he continued to work towards a just society, but with more relish for the journey. He considered this one of the most pivotal shifts in his thinking. In fact, many of the differences between him and his father stemmed from this expanded source of joy.
Mill met Thomas Carlyle during one of the latter's visits to London in the early 1830s, and the two quickly became companions and correspondents. Mill offered to print Carlyle's works at his own expense and encouraged Carlyle to write his French Revolution, supplying him with materials in order to do so. In March 1835, while the manuscript of the completed first volume was in Mill's possession, Mill's housemaid unwittingly used it as tinder, destroying all "except some three or four bits of leaves".[13] Mortified, Mill offered Carlyle £200 (£17,742.16 in 2021) as compensation (Carlyle would only accept £100). Ideological differences would put an end to the friendship during the 1840s, though Carlyle's early influence on Mill would colour his later thought.[14]
Mill had been engaged in a pen-friendship with Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism and sociology, since Mill first contacted Comte in November 1841. Comte's sociologie was more an early philosophy of science than modern sociology is. Comte's positivism motivated Mill to eventually reject Bentham's psychological egoism and what he regarded as Bentham's cold, abstract view of human nature focused on legislation and politics, instead coming to favour Comte's more sociable view of human nature focused on historical facts and directed more towards human individuals in all their complexities.[15]
As a
Mill's career as a colonial administrator at the
On 21 April 1851, Mill married
Between the years 1865 and 1868 Mill served as
He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1867.[29]
He was godfather to the philosopher Bertrand Russell.[30]
In his views on religion, Mill was an agnostic and a
Mill died in 1873, at age 66, of erysipelas in Avignon, France, where his body was buried alongside his wife's.
Works and theories
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A System of Logic
Mill joined the debate over the
Mill countered this in 1843 in A System of Logic (fully titled A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation). In "Mill's Methods" (of induction), as in Herschel's, laws were discovered through observation and induction, and required empirical verification.[35] Matilal remarks that Dignāga analysis is much like John Stuart Mill's Joint Method of Agreement and Difference, which is inductive. He suggested that it was very likely that during his stay in India he came across the tradition of logic, in which scholars started taking interest after 1824, though it is unknown whether it influenced his work.[36][37]
Theory of liberty
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Mill's
Mill states the Principle of Liberty as: "the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection". "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant."[38]
One way to read Mill's Principle of Liberty as a principle of public reason is to see it excluding certain kinds of reasons from being taken into account in legislation, or in guiding the moral coercion of public opinion. (Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy; p. 291). These reasons include those founded in other persons good; reasons of excellence and ideals of human perfection; reasons of dislike or disgust, or of preference.
Mill states that "harms" which may be prevented include acts of
The question of what counts as a self-regarding action and what actions, whether of omission or commission, constitute harmful actions subject to regulation, continues to exercise interpreters of Mill. He did not consider giving offence to constitute "harm"; an action could not be restricted because it violated the conventions or morals of a given society.[39]
Social liberty and tyranny of majority
Mill believed that "the struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history."[40] For him, liberty in antiquity was a "contest…between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government."[40]
Mill defined
However, in Mill's view, limiting the power of government was not enough:[41]
Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.
Liberty
Mill's view on
The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right.… The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns him, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
Freedom of speech
On Liberty involves an impassioned defense of
As an influential advocate of freedom of speech, Mill objected to censorship:[43]
I choose, by preference the cases which are least favourable to me—In which the argument opposing freedom of opinion, both on truth and that of utility, is considered the strongest. Let the opinions impugned be the belief of God and in a future state, or any of the commonly received doctrines of morality ... But I must be permitted to observe that it is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I call an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide that question for others, without allowing them to hear what can be said on the contrary side. And I denounce and reprobate this pretension not the less if it is put forth on the side of my most solemn convictions. However positive anyone's persuasion may be, not only of the faculty but of the pernicious consequences, but (to adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the immorality and impiety of opinion.—yet if, in pursuance of that private judgement, though backed by the public judgement of his country or contemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being heard in its defence, he assumes infallibility. And so far from the assumption being less objectionable or less dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or impious, this is the case of all others in which it is most fatal.
Mill outlines the benefits of "searching for and discovering the truth" as a way to further knowledge. He argued that even if an opinion is false, the truth can be better understood by refuting the error. And as most opinions are neither completely true nor completely false, he points out that allowing free expression allows the airing of competing views as a way to preserve partial truth in various opinions.
Harm principle
The belief that freedom of speech would advance society
At the beginning of the 20th century, Associate justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. made the standard of "clear and present danger" based on Mill's idea. In the majority opinion, Holmes writes:
The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.[46]
Holmes suggested that falsely shouting out "Fire!" in a dark theatre, which evokes panic and provokes injury, would be such a case of speech that creates an illegal danger.[47] But if the situation allows people to reason by themselves and decide to accept it or not, any argument or theology should not be blocked.
Mill's argument is now generally accepted by many
Freedom of the press
In On Liberty, Mill thought it was necessary for him to restate the case for press freedom. He considered that argument already won. Almost no politician or commentator in mid-19th-century Britain wanted a return to Tudor and Stuart-type press censorship. However, Mill warned new forms of censorship could emerge in the future.[49] Indeed, in 2013 the Cameron Tory government considered setting up a so-called independent official regulator of the UK press.[50] This prompted demands for better basic legal protection of press freedom. A new British Bill of Rights could include a US-type constitutional ban on governmental infringement of press freedom and block other official attempts to control freedom of opinion and expression.[51]
Colonialism
Mill, an employee of the East India Company from 1823 to 1858,[52] argued in support of what he called a "benevolent despotism" with regard to the administration of overseas colonies.[53] Mill argued:[54]
To suppose that the same international customs, and the same rules of international morality, can obtain between one civilized nation and another, and between civilized nations and barbarians, is a grave error.… To characterize any conduct whatever towards a barbarous people as a violation of the law of nations, only shows that he who so speaks has never considered the subject.
For Mill India was "
Mill expressed general support for Company rule in India, but expressed reservations on specific Company policies in India which he disagreed with.[57]
Slavery and racial equality
In 1850, Mill sent an anonymous letter (which came to be known under the title "
This absolutely extreme case of the law of force, condemned by those who can tolerate almost every other form of arbitrary power, and which, of all others, presents features the most revolting to the feeling of all who look at it from an impartial position, was the law of civilized and Christian England within the memory of persons now living: and in one half of Anglo-Saxon America three or four years ago, not only did slavery exist, but the slave trade, and the breeding of slaves expressly for it, was a general practice between slave states. Yet not only was there a greater strength of sentiment against it, but, in England at least, a less amount either of feeling or of interest in favour of it, than of any other of the customary abuses of force: for its motive was the love of gain, unmixed and undisguised: and those who profited by it were a very small numerical fraction of the country, while the natural feeling of all who were not personally interested in it, was unmitigated abhorrence.
Mill corresponded with
Women's rights
Mill's view of history was that right up until his time "the whole of the female" and "the great majority of the male sex" were simply "slaves". He countered arguments to the contrary, arguing that relations between sexes simply amounted to "the legal subordination of one sex to the other – [which] is wrong itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality". Here, then, we have an instance of Mill's use of "slavery" in a sense which, compared to its fundamental meaning of absolute unfreedom of person, is an extended and arguably a rhetorical rather than a literal sense.
With this, Mill can be considered among the earliest male proponents of gender equality, having been recruited by American feminist John Neal during his stay in London circa 1825–1827.[66] His book The Subjection of Women (1861, publ.1869) is one of the earliest written on this subject by a male author.[67] In The Subjection of Women, Mill attempts to make a case for perfect equality.[68]
In his proposal for a universal education system sponsored by the state, Mill expands benefits for many marginalized groups, especially for women. For Mill, a universal education held the potential to create new abilities and novel types of behavior of which the current receiving generation and their descendants could both benefit from. Such a pathway to opportunity would enable women to gain "industrial and social independence" that would allow them the same movement in their agency and citizenship as men. Mill's view of opportunity stands out in its reach, but even more so for the population he foresees who could benefit from it. Mill was hopeful of the autonomy such an education could allow for its recipients and especially for women. Through the consequential sophistication and knowledge attained, individuals are able to properly act in ways that recedes away from those leading towards overpopulation. This stands directly in contrast with the view held by many of Mill's contemporaries and predecessors who viewed such inclusive programs to be counter intuitive. Aiming such help at marginalized groups, such as the poor and working class, would only serve to reward them with the opportunity to move to a higher status, thus encouraging greater fertility which at its extreme could lead to overproduction.
He talks about the role of women in marriage and how it must be changed. Mill comments on three major facets of women's lives that he felt are hindering them:
He argues that the oppression of women was one of the few remaining relics from ancient times, a set of prejudices that severely impeded the progress of humanity.[59][69] As a Member of Parliament, Mill introduced an unsuccessful amendment to the Reform Bill to substitute the word "person" in place of "man".[70]
Utilitarianism
The canonical statement of Mill's utilitarianism can be found in his book, Utilitarianism. Although this philosophy has a long tradition, Mill's account is primarily influenced by Jeremy Bentham and Mill's father James Mill.
John Stuart Mill believed in the philosophy of utilitarianism, which he would describe as the principle that holds "that actions are right in the proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness". By happiness he means, "intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure".[72] It is clear that we do not all value virtues as a path to happiness and that we sometimes only value them for selfish reasons. However, Mill asserts that upon reflection, even when we value virtues for selfish reasons we are in fact cherishing them as a part of our happiness.
Bentham's famous formulation of utilitarianism is known as the greatest-happiness principle. It holds that one must always act so as to produce the greatest aggregate happiness among all
Utilitarianism is a
Utilitarianism is thought of by some of its activists to be a more developed and overarching
Higher and lower pleasures
Mill's major contribution to utilitarianism is his argument for the qualitative separation of pleasures. Bentham treats all forms of happiness as equal, whereas Mill argues that intellectual and moral pleasures (higher pleasures) are superior to more physical forms of pleasure (lower pleasures). He distinguishes between happiness and contentment, claiming that the former is of higher value than the latter, a belief wittily encapsulated in the statement that, "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question."[73]
This made Mill believe that "our only ultimate end"[76] is happiness. One unique part of his utilitarian view, that is not seen in others, is the idea of higher and lower pleasures. Mill explains the different pleasures as:
If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference […] that is the more desirable pleasure.[77]
He defines higher pleasures as mental, moral, and aesthetic pleasures, and lower pleasures as being more sensational. He believed that higher pleasures should be seen as preferable to lower pleasures since they have a greater quality in virtue. He holds that pleasures gained in activity are of a higher quality than those gained passively.[78]
Mill defines the difference between higher and lower forms of pleasure with the principle that those who have experienced both tend to prefer one over the other. This is, perhaps, in direct contrast with Bentham's statement that "Quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry",
Chapters
Mill separated his explanation of Utilitarianism into five different sections:
- General Remarks;
- What Utilitarianism Is;
- Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility;
- Of What Sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible;
- and Of the Connection between Justice and Utility.
In the General Remarks portion of his essay, he speaks how next to no progress has been made when it comes to judging what is right and what is wrong of morality and if there is such a thing as moral instinct (which he argues that there may not be). However, he agrees that in general "Our moral faculty, according to all those of its interpreters who are entitled to the name of thinkers, supplies us only with the general principles of moral judgments".[81]
In What Utilitarianism Is, he focuses no longer on background information but utilitarianism itself. He quotes utilitarianism as "The greatest happiness principle", defining this theory by saying that pleasure and no pain are the only inherently good things in the world and expands on it by saying that "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure."[82] He views it not as an animalistic concept because he sees seeking out pleasure as a way of using our higher facilities. He also says in this chapter that the happiness principle is based not exclusively on the individual but mainly on the community.
Mill also defends the idea of a "strong utilitarian conscience (i.e. a strong feeling of obligation to the general happiness)".[76] He argued that humans have a desire to be happy and that that desire causes us to want to be in unity with other humans. This causes us to care about the happiness of others, as well as the happiness of complete strangers. But this desire also causes us to experience pain when we perceive harm to other people. He believes in internal sanctions that make us experience guilt and appropriate our actions. These internal sanctions make us want to do good because we do not want to feel guilty for our actions. Happiness is our ultimate end because it is our duty. He argues that we do not need to be constantly motivated by the concern of people's happiness because most of the actions done by people are done out of good intention, and the good of the world is made up of the good of the people.
In Mill's fourth chapter, Of What Sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible, he speaks of what proofs of Utility are affected. He starts this chapter off by saying that all of his claims cannot be backed up by reasoning. He claims that the only proof that something brings one pleasure is if someone finds it pleasurable. Next, he talks about how morality is the basic way to achieve happiness. He also discusses in this chapter that Utilitarianism is beneficial for virtue. He says that "it maintains not only that virtue is to be desired, but that it is to be desired disinterestedly, for itself."[83] In his final chapter he looks at the connection between Utilitarianism and justice. He contemplates the question of whether justice is something distinct from Utility or not. He reasons this question in several different ways and finally comes to the conclusion that in certain cases justice is essential for Utility, but in others, social duty is far more important than justice. Mill believes that "justice must give way to some other moral principle, but that what is just in ordinary cases is, by reason of that other principle, not just in the particular case."[84]
The qualitative account of happiness that Mill advocates thus sheds light on his account presented in On Liberty. As he suggests in that text, utility is to be conceived in relation to humanity "as a progressive being", which includes the development and exercise of rational capacities as we strive to achieve a "higher mode of existence". The rejection of censorship and paternalism is intended to provide the necessary social conditions for the achievement of knowledge and the greatest ability for the greatest number to develop and exercise their deliberative and rational capacities.
Mill redefines the definition of happiness as "the ultimate end, for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people) is an existence as free as possible from pain and as rich as possible in enjoyments".
Achieving happiness
Mill believed that for the majority of people (those with but a moderate degree of sensibility and of capacity for enjoyment) happiness is best achieved en passant, rather than striving for it directly. This meant no self-consciousness, scrutiny, self-interrogation, dwelling on, thinking about, imagining or questioning on one's happiness. Then, if otherwise fortunately circumstanced, one would "inhale happiness with the air you breathe".[87][88]
Economic philosophy
Mill's early
Given an equal tax rate regardless of income, Mill agreed that inheritance should be taxed. A utilitarian society would agree that everyone should be equal one way or another. Therefore, receiving inheritance would put one ahead of society unless taxed on the inheritance. Those who donate should consider and choose carefully where their money goes—some charities are more deserving than others. Considering public charities boards such as a government will disburse the money equally. However, a private charity board like a church would disburse the monies fairly to those who are in more need than others.[91][page needed]
Later he altered his views toward a more
In his autobiography, Mill stated that in relation to his later views on political economy, his "ideal of ultimate improvement... would class [him] decidedly under the general designation of Socialists". His views shifted partly due to reading the works of
Mill's Principles, first published in 1848, was one of the most widely read of all books on economics in the period.
Criticism
Karl Marx, in his critique of political economy, mentioned Mill in the Grundrisse. Marx contended that Mill's thinking posited the categories of capital in an ahistorical fashion.[98]
Economic democracy
Mill's main objection to socialism focused on what he saw as its destruction of competition. He wrote, "[W]hile I agree and sympathize with socialists in this practical portion of their aims, I utterly dissent from the most conspicuous and vehement part of their teaching—their declamations against competition." Though he was an
The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.[99][100]
Political democracy
Mill's major work on
Mill is one of the few
Mill was a major proponent of the diffusion and use of public education to the working class. He saw the value of the individual person, and believed that "man had the inherent capability of guiding his own destiny-but only if his faculties were developed and fulfilled", which could be achieved through education.[105] He regarded education as a pathway to improve human nature which to him meant "to encourage, among other characteristics, diversity and originality, the energy of character, initiative, autonomy, intellectual cultivation, aesthetic sensibility, non-self-regarding interests, prudence, responsibility, and self-control".[106] Education allowed for humans to develop into full informed citizens that had the tools to improve their condition and make fully informed electoral decisions. The power of education lay in its ability to serve as a great equalizer among the classes allowing the working class the ability to control their own destiny and compete with the upper classes. Mill recognised the paramount importance of public education in avoiding the tyranny of the majority by ensuring that all the voters and political participants were fully developed individuals. It was through education, he believed, that an individual could become a full participant within representative democracy.
In regards to higher education, Mill defended liberal education against contemporary arguments for models of higher education focused on religion or science. His 1867 St. Andrews Address called on elites educated in reformed universities to work towards education policy committed to liberal principles.[107]
Theories of wealth and income distribution
In
The government, according to Mill, should implement three tax policies to help alleviate poverty:[110]
- fairly assessed income tax;
- an inheritance tax; and
- a policy to restrict sumptuary consumption.
The environment
Mill demonstrated an early insight into the value of the natural world. In Book IV, chapter VI of
I cannot, therefore, regard the stationary states of capital and wealth with the unaffected aversion so generally manifested towards it by political economists of the old school.
If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a better or a happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compel them to it.
Rate of profit
According to Mill, the ultimate tendency in an economy is for the rate of profit to decline due to diminishing returns in agriculture and increase in population at a Malthusian rate.[113]
Major publications
Title | Date | Source |
---|---|---|
"Two Letters on the Measure of Value" | 1822 | "The Traveller" |
"Questions of Population" | 1823 | "Black Dwarf" |
"War Expenditure" | 1824 | Westminster Review
|
"Quarterly Review – Political Economy" | 1825 | Westminster Review |
"Review of Miss Martineau's Tales" | 1830 | Examiner |
"The Spirit of the Age" | 1831 | Examiner |
"Use and Abuse of Political Terms" | 1832 | |
"What is Poetry" | 1833, 1859 | |
"Rationale of Representation" | 1835 | |
"De Tocqueville on Democracy in America [i]" | 1835 | |
"State of Society in America" | 1836 | |
"Civilization" | 1836 | |
"Essay on Bentham" | 1838 | |
"Essay on Coleridge" | 1840 | |
"Essays on Government" | 1840 | |
"De Tocqueville on Democracy in America [ii]" | 1840 | |
A System of Logic | 1843 | |
Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy | 1844 | |
"Claims of Labour" | 1845 | Edinburgh Review |
The Principles of Political Economy: with some of their applications to social philosophy |
1848 | |
"The Negro Question" | 1850 | Fraser's Magazine |
"Reform of the Civil Service" | 1854 | |
Dissertations and Discussions | 1859 | |
A Few Words on Non-intervention |
1859 | |
On Liberty | 1859 | |
Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform | 1859 | |
Considerations on Representative Government | 1861 | |
"Centralisation" | 1862 | Edinburgh Review |
"The Contest in America" | 1862 | Harper's Magazine |
Utilitarianism | 1863 | |
An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy | 1865 | |
Auguste Comte and Positivism | 1865 | |
Inaugural Address at St. Andrews Concerning the value of culture | 1867 | |
"Speech in Favour of Capital Punishment"[114][115] | 1868 | |
England and Ireland | 1868 | |
"Thornton on Labour and its Claims" | 1869 | Fortnightly Review |
The Subjection of Women | 1869 | |
Chapters and Speeches on the Irish Land Question | 1870 | |
Autobiography | 1873 | |
Three Essays on Religion: Nature, the Utility of religion, and Theism |
1874 | Internet Archive |
Socialism | 1879 | Belfords, Clarke & Co. |
"Notes on N. W. Senior's Political Economy" | 1945 | Economica N.S. 12 |
See also
- John Stuart Mill Institute
- Mill's methods
- John Stuart Mill Library
- List of liberal theorists
- On Social Freedom
- Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom
Notes
- ^ Thouverez, Emile. 1908. Stuart Mill (4th ed.) Paris: Bloud & Cie. p. 23.
- ^ a b Macleod, Christopher (14 November 2017). "John Stuart Mill". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Archived from the original on 6 March 2024.
- ^ "John Stuart Mill's On Liberty". victorianweb. 6 November 2000. Retrieved 23 July 2009.
On Liberty is a rational justification of the freedom of the individual in opposition to the claims of the state to impose unlimited control and is thus a defence of the rights of the individual against the state.
- ^ Macleod, Christopher. "John Stuart Mill". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Archived from the original on 30 May 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2009.
- ^ "Orator Hunt and the first suffrage petition 1832". UK Parliament.
- ^ "John Stuart Mill and the 1866 petition". UK Parliament.
- ISBN 978-0191010200.
- ^ a b c d "Cornell University Library Making of America Collection". collections.library.cornell.edu.
- ISBN 978-0945466482. Retrieved 21 January 2011.
- ^ Ritchey, Rosemary (2009). "Ensor, George | Dictionary of Irish Biography". www.dib.ie. Retrieved 17 February 2023.
- ^ Mill, John Stuart (1988). The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVI - Journals and Debating Speeches, Part I [1820] (PDF). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. pp. 53–58.
- ^ "John Stuart Mill's Mental Breakdown, Victorian Unconversions, and Romantic Poetry". victorianweb.org.
- doi:10.1215/lt-18350307-TC-JFR-01 (inactive 31 January 2024).)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link - ISBN 978-0-8386-3792-0.
- ^ Pickering, Mary. 1993. Auguste Comte: an intellectual biography. Cambridge University Press. pp. 509, 512, 535, 537.
- ISBN 0521620244.
- ^ "Cornell University Library Making of America Collection". collections.library.cornell.edu.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter M" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 15 April 2011.
- ^ Mill, John Stuart. Writings on India. Edited by John M. Robson, Martin Moir and Zawahir Moir. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; London: Routledge, c. 1990.
- S2CID 157038995.
- ^ Jennifer Pitts, Boundaries of the International: Law and Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2018), 165.
- JSTOR 139555.
- ^ a b Lal, Vinay (1998). "'John Stuart Mill and India', a review-article". New Quest. 54 (1): 54–64.
- ^ "Being about, if I am so happy as to obtain her consent, to enter into the marriage relation with the only woman I have ever known, with whom I would have entered into that state; & the whole character of the marriage relation as constituted by law being such as both she and I entirely & conscientiously disapprove, for this amongst other reasons, that it confers upon one of the parties to the contract, legal power & control over the person, property, & freedom of action of the other party, independent of her own wishes and will; I, having no means of legally divesting myself of these odious powers (as I most assuredly would do if an engagement to that effect could be made legally binding on me) feel it my duty to put on record a formal protest against the existing law of marriage, in so far as conferring such powers; and a solemn promise never in any case or under any circumstances to use them. And in the event of marriage between Mrs. Taylor and me I declare it to be my will and intention, & the condition of the engagement between us, that she retains in all respects whatever the same absolute freedom of action, & freedom of disposal of herself and of all that does or may at any time belong to her, as if no such marriage had taken place; and I absolutely disclaim & repudiate all pretension to have acquired any rights whatever by virtue of such marriage. 6th March 1851 J.S.Mill", The Voice of Harriet Taylor Mill, pp. 166–167."
- ^ Inaugural Address at St Andrews, Longmans, Green, Reader, And Dyer, 1867.
- ^ "No. 22991". The London Gazette. 14 July 1865. p. 3528.
- ISBN 0521620244.
- ^ Sher, George, ed. 2001. Utilitarianism and the 1868 Speech on Capital Punishment, by J. S. Mill. Hackett Publishing Co.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
- ^ "More Adept With Concepts Than People". The New York Times. 6 December 1996. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
- ^ "Editorial Notes". Secular Review. 16 (13): 203. 28 March 1885.
It has always seemed to us that this is one of the instances in which Mill approached, out of deference to conventional opinion, as near to the borderland of Cant as he well could without compromising his pride of place as a recognised thinker and sceptic
- ISBN 978-0826263278.
Comte welcomed the prospect of being attacked publicly for his irreligion, he said, as this would permit him to clarify the nonatheistic nature of his and Mill's "atheism".
- ISBN 978-0198753155.
A letter John wrote from Forde Abbey when he was eight years old casually mentions in his general report of his activities that he too had been to Thorncombe parish church, so even when Bentham had home-field advantage, the boy was still receiving a Christian spiritual formation. Indeed, Mill occasionally attended Christian worship services during his teen years and thereafter for the rest of his life. The sea of faith was full and all around
- ^ Larsen, Timothy (7 December 2018). "A surprisingly religious John Stuart Mill".
TL: Mill decided that strictly in terms of proof the right answer to that question of God's existence is that it is 'a very probable hypothesis.' He also thought it was perfectly rational and legitimate to believe in God as an act of hope or as the result of one's efforts to discern the meaning of life as a whole.
- ISBN 978-0199923854.
- OCLC 28016267.[page needed]
- S2CID 170181380.
- ^ .
- ^ a b Mill, John Stuart. [1859] 2001. On Liberty Archived 14 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Kitchener, ON: Batoche Books. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
- ^ a b "I. Introductory. Mill, John Stuart. 1869. On Liberty". bartleby.com. Retrieved 16 July 2018.
- ISBN 978-0141441474. pp. 10–11.
- PF Collier & Son. p. 248.
- ^ Mill, John Stuart. [1859] 1985. On Liberty, edited by G. Himmelfarb, UK: Penguin. pp. 83–84.
- ^ a b c Paul, Ellen Frankel, Fred Dycus Miller, and Jeffrey Paul. 2004. Freedom of Speech 21. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Mill, John Stuart. [1859] 1863. On Liberty. Ticknor and Fields. p. 23
- ^ Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919).
- ^ George & Kline 2006, p. 409.
- ^ George & Kline 2006, p. 410.
- ISBN 978-0906321638
- ^ "British Press Freedom under Threat", New York Times, 14 November 2013.
- ISBN 978-0906321737
- ^ "J. S. Mill's Career at the East India Company". victorianweb.org.
- S2CID 194002917.
- ^ John Stuart Mill, Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical (New York 1874) Vol. 3, pp. 252–253.
- .
- ^ Poole, Thomas M. (2015). Reason of State: Law, Prerogative and Empire. Cambridge University Press. p. 184.
- S2CID 214445850.
- ^ Mill, John Stuart. 1850. "The Negro Question Archived 17 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine". Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country 41:25–31.
- ^ a b Mill, John Stuart. 1869. The Subjection of Women Archived 29 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine. ch. 1.
- ^ a b "The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XV – The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849–1873 Part II – Online Library of Liberty". oll.libertyfund.org. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
- ISBN 978-1576079898.
- .
- ^ "John Stuart Mill believed the American Civil War to be a necessary evil, worth the terrible cost to eradicate slavery from society". THE WILSON QUARTERLY. 2008. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
- ^ Somin, Ilya (17 July 2013). "John Stuart Mill on Slavery, the Confederacy, and the American Civil War". The Volokh Conspiracy. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
- ^ "The Contest In America - John Stuart Mill on emancipation". American Battlefield Trust. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
- ^ Daggett, Windsor (1920). A Down-East Yankee From the District of Maine. Portland, Maine: A.J. Huston. p. 32.
- ^ Johnson Lewis, Jone (10 February 2019). "About John Stuart Mill, a Male Feminist and Philosopher". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
- ^ Cunningham Wood, John. John Stuart Mill: Critical Assessments 4.
- ISBN 978-1405116619.
- )
- ^ Mill 1863, p. 51.
- ^ Mill, John (2002). The Basic Writings of John Stuart Mill. The Modern Library. p. 239.
- ^ a b Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill. February 2004 – via Project Gutenberg.
- .
- ^ Davis, G. Scott. 2005. "Introduction", Introduction to Utilitarianism, by John Stuart Mill, vii–xiv. Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading.
- ^ a b Heydt, Colin. "John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- ^ Mill, John (1961). Utilitarianism. Doubleday. p. 211.
- ^ Driver, Julia (27 March 2009). "The History of Utilitarianism". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- .
- ^ Mill 1863, p. 16.
- ^ Mill 1863, p. 2.
- ^ Mill 1863, p. 3.
- ^ Mill 1863, p. 24.
- ^ Mill 1863, p. 29.
- ^ Mill 1863, p. 8.
- ^ Fitzpatrick 2006, p. 84.
- ^ "Autobiography, by John Stuart Mill". Retrieved 11 March 2021 – via Project Gutenberg.
- ^ "AUTO Chapter 5, John Stuart Mill, Autobiography". laits.utexas.edu. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
- ^ "Ifaw.org" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 June 2008.
- ^ IREF | Pour la liberte economique et la concurrence fiscale Archived 27 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine (PDF)
- ^ Strasser 1991.
- ISBN 978-0140432725.
- ^ Wilson, Fred (2007). "John Stuart Mill: Political Economy". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 4 May 2009.
- Library of Economics and Liberty. The passage about flat taxation was altered by the author in this edition, which is acknowledged in this online edition's footnote 8: "[This sentence replaced in the 3rd ed. a sentence of the original: 'It is partial taxation, which is a mild form of robbery.']")
- ^ McManus, Matt (30 May 2021). "Was John Stuart Mill a Socialist?". Jacobin. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
- ^ Mill, John Stuart (2011) [1st pub. Belfords, Clarke & Co.:1879]. Socialism. Project Gutenberg. p. 29. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
- ISBN 978-1577663812.
- ^ Marx. "Grundrisse".
The aim is, rather, to present production – see e.g. Mill – as distinct from distribution etc., as encased in eternal natural laws independent of history, at which opportunity bourgeois relations are then quietly smuggled in as the inviolable natural laws on which society in the abstract is founded. This is the more or less conscious purpose of the whole proceeding. In distribution, by contrast, humanity has allegedly permitted itself to be considerably more arbitrary. Quite apart from this crude tearing-apart of production and distribution and of their real relationship, it must be apparent from the outset that, no matter how differently distribution may have been arranged in different stages of social development, it must be possible here also, just as with production, to single out common characteristics, and just as possible to confound or to extinguish all historic differences under general human laws.
- ^ Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy, IV.7.21 John Stuart Mill: Political Economy, IV.7.21
- ^ Principles of Political Economy and On Liberty, Chapter IV, Of the Limits to the Authority of Society Over the Individual
- ISBN 978-0691021874.
- ISBN 978-0865971943.
- ISBN 978-0521290043.
- ISBN 978-0521677561.
- JSTOR 2553857.
- JSTOR 23722559.
- S2CID 260335019.
- ^ Mill, John Stuart (1885). Principles of Political Economy. New York: D. Appleton and Company.
- S2CID 145340813.
- ^ JSTOR 134519.
- ^ "The Principles of Political Economy, Book 4, Chapter VI". Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 9 March 2008.
- .
- ^ Mill, John Stuart. Principles of Political Economy (PDF). p. 25. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
- ^ Hansard report of Commons Sitting: Capital Punishment Within Prisons Bill – [Bill 36.] Committee stage: HC Deb 21 April 1868 vol. 191 cc 1033–63 including Mill's speech Col. 1047–1055 Archived 30 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ His speech against the abolition of capital punishment was commented upon in an editorial in The Times, Wednesday, 22 April 1868; p. 8; Issue 26105; col E:
References
Mill's work
- Mill, John Stuart (1863). Utilitarianism. London: Parker, Son, and Bourn, West Strand. OCLC 78070085.
Other sources
- Bell, Duncan (2010). "John Stuart Mill on Colonies". Political Theory. 38 (1): 34–64. S2CID 145582945.
- Brink, David O. (1992). "Mill's Deliberative Utilitarianism". Philosophy & Public Affairs. 21 (1): 67–103. JSTOR 2265175.
- Brink, David, "Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy" Archived 17 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
- Claeys, Gregory. Mill and Paternalism (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
- Christians, Clifford G. & John C. Merrill (eds) Ethical Communication: Five Moral Stances in Human Dialogue, Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2009
- Fitzpatrick, J. R. (2006). John Stuart Mill's Political Philosophy. Continuum Studies in British Philosophy. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1847143440.
- George, Roger Z.; Kline, Robert D. (2006). Intelligence and the national security strategist: enduring issues and challenges. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0742540385.
- Garrard, Graeme (2021). "John Stuart Mill and the Liberal Idea of Canada" (PDF). British Journal of Canadian Studies. 33 (1): 31–46. S2CID 233833435.
- Gopnick, Adam, "Right Again, The passions of John Stuart Mill", The New Yorker, 6 October 2008 Archived 20 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- Harrington, Jack (2010). Sir John Malcolm and the Creation of British India, Ch. 5. New York: ISBN 978-0230108851.
- Harwood, Sterling. "Eleven Objections to Utilitarianism", in Louis P. Pojman, ed., Moral Philosophy: A Reader (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1998), and in Sterling Harwood, ed., Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), Chapter 7
- Hollander, Samuel, The Economics of John Stuart Mill (University of Toronto Press, 1985)
- Kitcher, Philip. On John Stuart Mill. Columbia University Press, 2023.
- Kolmar, Wendy & Frances Bartowski. Feminist Theory. 2nd ed. New York: Mc Graw Hill, 2005
- ISBN 978-0865971943
- Packe, Michael St. John, The Life of John Stuart Mill (Macmillan, 1952)
- ISBN 978-0521290043
- Reeves, Richard, John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand, Atlantic Books (2007), paperback 2008. ISBN 978-1843546443
- Robinson, Dave & Groves, Judy (2003). Introducing Political Philosophy. Icon Books. ISBN 184046450X
- Rosen, Frederick, Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill (ISBN 0415220947
- Skoble, Aeon (2008). "Mill, John Stuart (1806–1873)". In ISBN 978-1412965804.
- Spiegel, H. W. (1991). The Growth of Economic Thought. Economic history. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0822309734.
- Strasser, Mark Philip (1991). The Moral Philosophy of John Stuart Mill: Toward Modifications of Contemporary Utilitarianism. Longwood Academic. ISBN 978-0-89341-681-2.
- Ten, Chin Liew, Mill on Liberty, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980, full-text online at Contents Victorianweb.org (National University of Singapore)
- ISBN 978-0691021874
- Thompson, Dennis F., "Mill in Parliament: When Should a Philosopher Compromise?" in J. S. Mill's Political Thought, eds. N. Urbinati and A. Zakaras (Cambridge University Press, 2007). ISBN 978-0521677561
- Walker, Francis Amasa (1876). The Wages Question: A Treatise on Wages and the Wages Class. Henry Holt.
Further reading
- Alican, Necip Fikri (1994). Mill's Principle of Utility: A Defense of John Stuart Mill's Notorious Proof. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi B. V. ISBN 978-9051837483.
- Bayles, M. D. (1968). Contemporary Utilitarianism. Anchor Books, Doubleday.
- Bentham, Jeremy (2009). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Dover Philosophical Classics). Dover Publications Inc. ISBN 978-0486454528.
- ISBN 978-0198245506.
- Lee, Sidney, ed. (1894). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 37. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- López, Rosario (2016). Contexts of John Stuart Mill's Liberalism: Politics and the Science of Society in Victorian Britain. Baden-Baden, Nomos. ISBN 978-3848736959.
- ISBN 978-0198241973.
- Mill, John Stuart (2011). ISBN 978-1440090820.
- Mill, John Stuart (1981). "Autobiography". In Robson, John (ed.). Collected Works, volume XXXI. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0710007186.
- Moore, G. E. (1903). Principia Ethica. Prometheus Books UK. ISBN 978-0879754983.
- Rosen, Frederick (2003). Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill. Routledge.
- Scheffler, Samuel (August 1994). The Rejection of Consequentialism: A Philosophical Investigation of the Considerations Underlying Rival Moral Conceptions, Second Edition. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0198235118.
- ISBN 978-0521098229.
- Francisco Vergara, « Bentham and Mill on the "Quality" of Pleasures», Revue d'études benthamiennes, Paris, 2011.
- Vergara, Francisco (1998). "A Critique of Elie Halévy: Refutation of an Important Distortion of British Moral Philosophy". Philosophy. 73 (283): 97–111. S2CID 170370954.
External links
This section's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. (December 2015) |
Mill's works
- Works by John Stuart Mill in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
- Works by John Stuart Mill at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about John Stuart Mill at Internet Archive
- Works by John Stuart Mill at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- The Online Books Page lists works on various sites
- Works, readable and downloadable
- Primary and secondary works
- More easily readable versions of On Liberty, Utilitarianism, Three Essays on Religion, The Subjection of Women, A System of Logic, and Autobiography
- Of the Composition of Causes, Chapter VI of System of Logic (1859)
- John Stuart Mill's diary of a walking tour at Mount Holyoke College Archived 3 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 1410202526
Secondary works
- Macleod, Christopher. "John Stuart Mill". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- John Stuart Mill in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Further information
- Minto, William; Mitchell, John Malcolm (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). pp. 454–459.
- Catalogue of Mill's correspondence and papers held at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics. View the Archives Catalogue of the contents of this important holding, which also includes letters of James Mill and Helen Taylor.
- John Stuart Mill's library, Somerville College Library in Oxford holds ≈ 1700 volumes owned by John Stuart Mill and his father James Mill, many containing their marginalia
- "John Stuart Mill (Obituary Notice, Tuesday, November 4, 1873)". Eminent Persons: Biographies reprinted from The Times. Vol. I (1870–1875). – via HathiTrust.
- Mill, BBC Radio 4 discussion with A. C. Grayling, Janet Radcliffe Richards & Alan Ryan (In Our Time, 18 May 2006)
- Portraits of John Stuart Mill at the National Portrait Gallery, London
- John Stuart Mill Archived 17 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine on Google Scholar
- John Stuart Mill, biographical profile, including quotes and further resources, at Utilitarianism.net.