John Stuart Mill: A Biography

John Stuart Mill was born at 13 Rodney Street in Pentonville, The lively and friendly way of life of the French also left a deep.
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At the time, The Times commented that many of his electors were unlikely to agree with his radical policies, but were willing to elect him for his personal qualities.

Early life and career

As the elected member for Westminster, he was the first MP to introduce a bill calling for women to be given the vote. Though he was defeated, he strongly defended his position and it was an important milestone for the suffragist campaign. Mill also called for the extension of the vote to all adults and the introduction of proportional representation. Mill sought to offer help for Ireland. Mill was also an opponent of slavery and spoke against colonialism in the West Indies. These views contributed to him losing the election in Although Mill was brought up in the Utilitarian school of Jeremy Bentham, Mill sought to refine the philosophy.

Mill rejected a crude push-pin quantity of pleasure. Mill sought to distinguish between higher and lower forms of happiness. He also tempered Utilitarianism with an appeal to the importance of liberty of the individual. To Mill, he saw utility as humanity growing into a more progressive being. Mill did not enter Oxford or Cambridge because he did not subscribe to the 39 articles of the Church of England which were compulsory for students in those days.

He described himself as an atheist and was critical of dogmatic views in general. However, he admired part of the ethics of Christianity. He noted that Christianity may have been very different if it had been adopted by the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aureolas rather than Constantine. He set out limits to state intervention in the rights of man. Individuals are rational enough to make decisions about their well being. Government should interfere when it is for the protection of society.

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. An influential advocate of freedom of speech , Mill objected to censorship. 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. 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.


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He said that freedom of speech was a vital way to develop talents and realise a person's potential and creativity. He repeatedly said that eccentricity was preferable to uniformity and stagnation. If any argument is really wrong or harmful, the public will judge it as wrong or harmful, and then those arguments cannot be sustained and will be excluded. According to him, if rebellion is really necessary, people should rebel; if murder is truly proper, it should be allowed.

But, the way to express those arguments should be a public speech or writing, not in a way that causes actual harm to others. This is the harm principle. That 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. 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.

Holmes suggested that shouting out "Fire! Nowadays, Mill's argument is generally accepted by many democratic countries, and they have laws at least guided by the harm principle. For example, in American law some exceptions limit free speech such as obscenity, defamation, breach of peace, and "fighting words".

John Stuart Mill Biography

Mill, an employee for the British East India Company from to , [39] argued in support of what he called a 'benevolent despotism' with regard to the colonies. 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.

In , Mill sent an anonymous letter which came to be known under the title " The Negro Question " , [42] in rebuttal to Thomas Carlyle 's anonymous letter to Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country in which Carlyle argued for slavery. Mill supported abolition in the United States. 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: 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: 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. His book The Subjection of Women , published is one of the earliest written on this subject by a male author. There, Mill comments on three major facets of women's lives that he felt are hindering them: He argued 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.

John Stuart Mill

As a Member of Parliament, Mill introduced an unsuccessful amendment to the Reform Bill to substitute the word 'person' in place of 'man'. The canonical statement of Mill's utilitarianism can be found in Utilitarianism. This philosophy has a long tradition, although Mill's account is primarily influenced by Jeremy Bentham and Mill's father James Mill.

Jeremy 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 sentient beings, within reason. Happiness in this context is understood as the production of pleasure or privation of pain. Given that determining the action that produces the most utility is not always so clear cut, Mill suggests that the utilitarian moral agent, when attempting to rank the utility of different actions, should refer to the general experience of persons.

That is, if people generally experience more happiness following action X than they do action Y, the utilitarian should conclude that action X produces more utility than, and is thus favorable to, action Y.


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Utilitarianism is built upon the basis of consequentialism, that is, the means are justified based solely off the result of said actions. To that extent, the Utilitarianism that Mill is describing is a default lifestyle that he believes is what people who have not studied a specific opposing field of ethics would naturally and subconsciously utilize when faced with decision. 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.

Mill 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. 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", [50] that, if a simple child's game like hopscotch causes more pleasure to more people than a night at the opera house, it is more imperative upon a society to devote more resources to propagating hopscotch than running opera houses. Mill's argument is that the "simple pleasures" tend to be preferred by people who have no experience with high art, and are therefore not in a proper position to judge.

Mill also argues that people who, for example, are noble or practice philosophy, benefit society more than those who engage in individualist practices for pleasure, which are lower forms of happiness. It is not the agent's own greatest happiness that matters "but the greatest amount of happiness altogether". 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.

John Stuart Mill: A Biography by Nicholas Capaldi

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". He quotes Utilitarianism as "The greatest happiness principle" And defines 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. He also says in this chapter that the happiness principle is based not exclusively on the individual but mainly on the community. In his next chapter he focuses in more on the specifics of Utilitarianism when he writes about the sanctions of oneself. He states that a person possesses two sanctions; the internal sanction and the external sanction. According to Mill, the internal sanction is "a feeling in our own mind; a pain, more or less intense, attendant on violation of duty, which in properly cultivated moral natures rises, in the more serious cases, into shrinking from it as an impossibility.

The external sanction he says is "the hope of favour and the fear of displeasure, from our fellow creatures or from the Ruler of the Universe". This states that the external sanction is almost a form of fear of God himself. The sanctions are mentioned because according to Mill the internal sanction is what grasps onto the concept of Utilitarianism and is what make people want to accept Utilitarianism.

In Mill's fourth chapter 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 is 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. 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. The qualitative account of happiness that 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 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".

While John Stuart Mill is not a standard act or rule utilitarian, he is a minimizing utilitarian, which "affirms that it would be desirable to maximize happiness for the greatest number, but not that we are not morally required to do so". He frequently discusses the importance of acknowledgement of higher pleasures.

Mill's early economic philosophy was one of free markets. However, 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. 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.

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. Later he altered his views toward a more socialist bent, adding chapters to his Principles of Political Economy in defence of a socialist outlook, and defending some socialist causes. Nonetheless, some of his views on the idea of flat taxation remained, [64] albeit altered in the third edition of the Principles of Political Economy to reflect a concern for differentiating restrictions on "unearned" incomes, which he favoured, and those on "earned" incomes, which he did not favour.

Mill's Principles , first published in , was one of the most widely read of all books on economics in the period. In the case of Oxford University it was the standard text until , when it was replaced by Marshall's Principles of Economics. Mill promoted economic democracy instead of capitalism , in the manner of substituting capitalist businesses with worker cooperatives. 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.

Mill's major work on political democracy, Considerations on Representative Government , defends two fundamental principles: But in chapter 3 he presents what is still one of the most eloquent cases for the value of participation by all citizens. He believed that the incompetence of the masses could eventually be overcome if they were given a chance to take part in politics, especially at the local level.

Who Was John Stuart Mill? (Famous Philosophers)

Mill is one of the few political philosophers ever to serve in government as an elected official. In his three years in Parliament, he was more willing to compromise than the "radical" principles expressed in his writing would lead one to expect. He concluded that a stationary state could be preferable to unending economic growth:. 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.

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Mill regarded economic development as a function of land, labour and capital. While land and labour are the two original factors of production, capital is "a stock, previously accumulated of the products of former labour. It is productive labour that is productive of wealth and capital accumulation. Profits earned by employing unproductive labours are merely transfers of income; unproductive labour does not generate wealth or income".

It is productive labourers who do productive consumption. Productive consumption is that "which maintains and increase the productive capacity of the community. Mill supported the Malthusian theory of population. By population he meant the number of the working class only. He was therefore concerned about the growth in number of labourers who worked for hire. Add to cart Add to wishlist Other available formats: Hardback , eBook Looking for an examination copy? First accessible integration of life and thought Special attention to influence of Harriet Taylor on Mill's thought.

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