John Stuart Mill

Western Philosophy 19th-century philosophy
Name: John Stuart Mill
Birth: May 20, 1806 (Pentonville, London, England)
Death: May 8, 1873 (Avignon, France)
School/tradition: Utilitarianism
Main interests
Political philosophy, Ethics, Economics, Inductive Logic
Notable ideas
public/private sphere, hierarchy of pleasures in Utilitarianism, liberalism, early liberal feminism, first system of inductive logic
Influences	Influenced
Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, Smith, Ricardo, Tocqueville, James Mill, Saint-Simon	Many political philosophers after him, including John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Bertrand Russell , Karl Popper, Ronald Dworkin, H.L.A. Hart, Peter Singer

John Stuart Mill (May 20, 1806 – May 8, 1873), an English philosopher and political economist, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He was an advocate of utilitarianism, the ethical theory that was systemized by his godfather Jeremy Bentham.

Biography

John Stuart Mill was born in Pentonville, London, the oldest son of the Scottish philosopher and historian 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 were dead.

His feats as a child were exceptional; at the age of three he was taught the Greek alphabet and long lists of Greek words with their English equivalents. By the age of eight he had read Aesop's Fables, Xenophon's Anabasis, and the whole of Herodotus, and was acquainted with Lucian, Diogenes Laërtius, Isocrates and six dialogues of Plato (see his Autobiography). He had also read a great deal of history in English and had been taught arithmetic.

A contemporary record of Mill's studies from eight to thirteen is published in Bain's sketch of his life. It suggests that his autobiography rather understates the amount of work done. At the age of eight he began learning Latin, 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 Latin and Greek authors commonly read in the schools and universities at the time. He was not taught to compose either in Latin or in Greek, and he was never an exact scholar; it was for the subject matter that he was required to read, and by the age of ten he could read Plato and Demosthenes with ease. His father's History of India was published in 1818; immediately thereafter, about the age of twelve, John 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.

In 1823, he co-founded the Westminster Review with Jeremy Bentham as a journal for philosophical radicals.

This intensive study however had injurious effects on Mill's mental health, and state of mind. At the age of 21 he suffered a nervous breakdown; as explained in chapter V of his Autobiography, this was caused by the great physical and mental arduousness of his studies which had suppressed any feelings he might have developed normally in childhood. Nevertheless, this depression eventually began to dissipate, as he began to find solace in the poetry of William Wordsworth. His capacity for emotion resurfaced, Mill remarking that the "cloud gradually drew off".

Mill was offered a place to study at Cambridge University, but instead followed his father to work for the British East India Company, and after the company was dissolved he was elected for a brief period as an independent Member of Parliament, representing the City and Westminster constituency from 1865 to 1868. During his time as an MP, Mill advocated easing the burdens on Ireland, and became the first person in parliament to call for women to be given the right to vote. In Considerations on Representative Government, Mill called for various reforms of Parliament and voting, especially proportional representation, the Single Transferable Vote, and the extension of suffrage. He was godfather to Bertrand Russell.

Harriet Taylor

In 1851, Mill married Harriet Taylor after 21 years of an at times intense friendship and love affair. Taylor was a significant influence on Mill's work and ideas during both friendship and marriage. His relationship with Harriet Taylor reinforced Mill's advocacy of women's rights. He cites her influence in his final revision of On Liberty, which was published shortly after her death, and appears to be obliquely cited in the text of The Subjection of Women.

He died in Avignon, France in 1873, and is buried alongside his wife.

Work

One foundational book on the concept of liberty was On Liberty, about the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. One argument that Mill developed further than any previous philosopher was the harm principle, that is, people should be free to engage in whatever behavior they wish as long as it does not harm others, acting in order to prevent the individual from harming himself is not legitimate, however from this Mill excludes those "incapable of self-government" such as young children or 'barbarians'.

The liberty John Stuart Mill speaks of in On Liberty is negative liberty, defined by Isaiah Berlin as an absence or lack of impediments, obstacles or coercion. This is in contrast with his other idea of positive liberty, a capacity for behavior, and the presence of conditions for freedom, be they material resources, a level of enlightenment, or the opportunity for political participation.

Thus Mill argued that it is Government's role only to remove the barriers, such as laws, to behaviors that do not harm others. Crucially, he felt that offense did not constitute harm, and therefore supported almost total freedom of speech; only in cases where free speech would lead to direct harm did Mill wish to limit it. For example, whipping up an angry mob to go and attack people would not be defended in Mill's system. Mill argued that free discourse was vital to ensure progress. He argued that we could never be sure if a silenced opinion did not hold some portion of the truth. Ingeniously he also argued that even false opinions have worth, in that in refuting false opinions the holders of true opinions have their beliefs reaffirmed. Without having to defend one's beliefs, Mill argued, the beliefs would become dead and we would forget why we held them at all. Mill argued that opposing arguments and opinions should be encouraged. The more a position is accepted the more it is important to have an advocate making the best contrary argument against it, and if one did not exist it should even be invented.

Though Mill's statement of the harm principle in Chapter 1 of On Liberty, i.e., "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," might seem particularly determinate, Mill notes a number of exceptions that connect his work in On Liberty with his mature philosophy of Utilitarianism. Mill notes that the state can and ought to prevent people from selling themselves into slavery. Furthermore, he insists that it would be acceptable to require people to pay taxes for the maintenance of public goods. He also seems to explicitly support "Good Samaritain" laws, which insist that important benefits to others are legally required. Though these exceptions appear to be patently incompatible with his harm principle, Mill notes that the principles of On Liberty are explicitly defended by the principle of Utility. Thus, when the principle of Utility is applied to the categorical statement of the harm principle, yield certain important exceptions.

The canonical statement of Mill's Utilitarianism is to be found in Utilitarianism. This philosophy had a long tradition, arguably stretching (in some form or other) back to Aristotle, although Mill's account was primarily influenced by Jeremy Bentham, and Mill's father James Mill. Utilitarianism holds that actions are good in proportion to the amount of happiness produced and number of people happiness is produced in. Mill's main contribution to Utilitarianism is the argument for a qualitative separation of pleasures. Bentham had treated all forms of happiness as equal, whereas Mill argued that intellectual and moral pleasures and developments were superior to more physical forms of pleasure. Mill separated "happiness" and "contentment", and claimed that the former was more clearly constituted by the higher modes of existence, as illustrated by his claim that it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.

The qualitative account of happiness Mill advocates thus sheds light on his account presented in On Liberty. As Mill suggests in that text, utility is to be conceived in relation to mankind "as a progressive being," which include the development and exercise of our rational capacities in the living of a higher "mode of existence". Thus the rejection of censorship and paternalist, offense, and moralist legislation is intended to provide the necessary social conditions of the achievement of knowledge and the greatest ability for the greatest number to develop and exercise their deliberative and rational capacities - most clearly stated in Chapter Three of On Liberty. The exceptions, however, also follow from his Utilitarianism, including most notably the rejection of selling one's self into slavery - for this is a clear case in which the state can successfully intervene in requiring particular citizens to live according to their higher capacities.

Mill's main economic philosophy was one of laissez faire, but he accepted interventions in the economy, such as a tax on alcohol, if there were sufficient utilitarian grounds. He also accepted the principle of legislative intervention for the purpose of animal welfare. [2]

Mill's magnum opus was his A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, which went through several revisions and editions. William Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences (1837) was a chief influence. The reputation of this work is largely due to his analysis of inductive proof, in contrast to Aristotle's syllogisms, which are deductive. Mill describes the five basic principles of induction which have come to be known as Mill's Methods - the method of agreement, the method of difference, the joint or double method of agreement and difference, the method of residues, and that of concomitant variations. The common feature of these methods, the one real method of scientific inquiry, is that of elimination. All the other methods are thus subordinate to the method of difference. It was also Mill's attempt to postulate a theory of knowledge, in the same vein as John Locke.

Mill is also famous for being one of the earliest and strongest male supporters of women's liberation. His book The Subjection of Women is one of the earliest written on this subject by a male author. He felt that the oppression of women was one of the few remaining relics from ancient times, one which impeded the progress of humanity. This was an issue he actively supported throughout his life, writing many newspaper articles and delivering many speeches on it.

He was also the first to use the term dystopia.

Books written by John Stuart Mill

• On Liberty (ISBN 159986973X)

Writings

Major works are in bold type.

• (1843) A System of Logic
• (1844) Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy
• (1848) Principles of Political Economy
• (1859) On Liberty
• (1861) Considerations on Representative Government
• (1863) Utilitarianism
• (1865) Examinations of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy
• (1865) Auguste Comte and Positivism
• (1869) The Subjection of Women
• (1873) Autobiography
• (1874) Three Essays on Religion

Other

• (1867) Inaugural Address at St. Andrews - Rectorial Inaugural Address at the University of St. Andrews, concerning the value of culture.

See also

• Liberalism
• Utilitarianism
• Contributions to liberal theory

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Inline:

General:

• David O. Brink, "Mill's Deliberative Utilitarianism," in Philosophy and Public Affairs 21 (1992), 67-103.
• Sterling Harwood, "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, and in [3]www.sterlingharwood.com.
• Robinson, Dave & Groves, Judy (2003). Introducing Political Philosophy. Icon Books. ISBN 1-84046-450-X.
• Samuel Hollander - The Economics of John Stuart Mill (University of Toronto Press, 1985)
• Mill, John Stuart, A System of Logic, University Press of the Pacific, Honolulu, 2002, ISBN 1-4102-0252-6

External links

• John Stuart Mill in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• John Stuart Mill in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• MetaLibri Digital Library: John Stuart Mill's folder.
• Works by John Stuart Mill. Project Gutenberg
• John Stuart Mill. Extensive collection of links to writings by and about J.S. Mill.
• Biography, works and quotes of John Stuart Mill
• More easily readable versions of On Liberty and Utilitarianism
• Autobiography of John Stuart Mill
• How far did JS Mill let liberalism down? Did he prefer Socialism to Liberalism? by David McDonagh
• Mill-fest: The Bicentennial Edition by the blog Catallarchy

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