Mill

John Stuart Mill 1806-1873

Life

• Background
  • Pax Britannica (1815 -1 914): industrialization and increase in prosperity
  • Expansion of rights, transformation of government
  • Victorian Age (1837 - 1901)
• Early life
  • 1806: Born in Pentonville, northern suburb of London
  • Had received classical education at a young age
  • Raised in the tradition of Philosophical Radicalism
  • Father wanted him to be the ultimate Victorian intellectual and utilitarian reformer
  • Tasked with the education of his siblings at the age of 8
  • 1818: Began study of scholastic logic
  • 1820: Went to France for a year
  • 1826: Beginning of depression
• Career
  • Began to work on the major treatises of philosophy, psychology, and government at 15
  • Suffered a depression in his early 20s, was assisted by friendships with Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Coleridge, introducing him to Romantic and Conservative traditions
  • Realized he had not developed emotionally
  • After his depression, he became more concerned with the development of well-rounded individuals: the place of feeling, culture, and creativity in happiness
  • He does not renounce the liberal and utilitarian tradition he was raised with, but his crisis changed his interpretation
  • Became critical of the moral psychology of Bentham and his father, who viewed him as a defector of the utilitarian cause
  • 1823: worked for the East India Company.
  • 1858: Crown nationalized trading company, ending his career as a colonial administer
  • 1865 - 1868: Served as member of parliament

Philosophy

Utilitarianism

• Philosophical radicals
  • Bentham and James Mill understood happiness hedonistically: consists of pleasure and the individual aim of promoting one’s own happiness
  • Bentham believed that people pursue their own happiness above all else
  • Elaboration by James Mill in his Essay on Government
  • Each person acts only (or predominantly) to promote his own interests.
  • The proper object of government is the interest of the governed.
  • Hence, rulers will pursue the proper object of government if and only if their interests coincide with those of the governed.
  • A ruler’s interest will coincide with those of the governed if and only if he is politically accountable to the governed.
  • Hence, rulers must be democratically accountable.
  • These radical reformers therefore advocated for democratic reforms and enfranchisement
• Mill’s utilitarianism
  • Pleasure or happiness is the only thing that has true, intrinsic value.
  • Actions are right insofar as they promote happiness; wrong insofar as they produce unhappiness.
  • Everyone's happiness counts equally
• Forms of pleasure
  • Content: carnal desires
  • Cultural, intellectual, and spiritual pleasures were more potent and longer lasting

Economics

• Believed it was closely tied to politics and philosophy
  • Wealth is the product of labor
  • The distribution of wealth is determined by the decisions and the will of actual people
  • Therefore, laws and institutions can and should determine wealth distribution
  • Later in his life he believed in socialism (syndicalism, worker-owned cooperatives)
  • Still believed in free enterprise, competition, individual initiative
  • Gov needed to prevent monopiles, care for the poor and provide education, but should not be paternalistic
  • Individuals had responsibility
• Principles of Political Economy (1848)
  • Free market with little gov interference
  • Fair income tax, inheritance tax, and policy to restrict over consumption
  • Economic growth did not equate healthy environment

Freedom

• Religion
  • Did not like the dogmatisms of religion
  • Believed in freedom of conscious to follow whatever religion
• Taste
  • Freedom to enjoy whatever what likes so long as it does not harm others
• Slavery
  • People should not rule over others '
  • Slavery abolished in law in Britain in 1835
• Education
  • Workers should be educated
  • Women should be educated
  • Women would be more connected to their husbands
• Politics
  • Participation leads to higher moral capacities

On Liberty (1859)

• Harriet Taylor
  • Published shortly after her death
  • She had a lot of influence
• Concept of liberty
  • Saw a constant historical struggle between liberty and tyranny, focus of liberalism should be liberty
  • Right and freedoms should be protected from government and from the majority (social tyranny)
• Tyranny
  • Rulers are not always the same class of the ruled
  • Tyranny of the majority penetrates deeper into daily life and psyche
  • Protecting minority is important, no suppression of ideas
• Freedom of thought and expression
  • Even the most unorthodox ideas should be allowed
  • Even if the majority has an idea they are certain is true, they should not suppress criticism because the truth should be able to defend itself
  • Individuals should practice non-conformity
• Harm principle
  • Gov should only interfere if an action causes harm to others
  • People should be able to do whatever they want as long as it does not harm others
  • does not apply to the ill, barbaric, and minors
  • Shows his mindset towards colonialism: did not extend to colonized nations
  • Act of omission and commission could also harm
  • Greater good is served by allowing freedom
  • Difference between private and public life became more apparent latter
  • Harm principle applied to physical harm
  • Claims of harm limits the freedom of others, it is subjective

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Utilitarianism (1861)

• Education
  • Brought up in this school of thought
  • Rigorous training by his father
• Ideas
  • Principle of utility: goal of ethical life is to maximize happiness
  • Unlike Bentham, distinguishes between higher and lower forms
  • Philosophical/intellectual happiness is higher
  • Goal is to achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people through human action

Considerations of Representative Government (1861)

• Suffrage
  • Part of life, needed to be available to those with some educational who were self-sufficient
  • Some voices were more important, therefore votes should be weighed by education
• Proportional rep
  • Allowed voters to not be limited by region
  • Better representation by government
  • Second chamber of senate for those who held important positions previously

Subjection of Women (1669)

• Early essay advocating equality by a male author
  • Argues it goes against human improvement
  • Woman are not be utilized
  • Need to be given chance, would lead to more happiness for all society
  • Felt suppression of women was an old idea
  • Expresses opposition to slavery in same essay
• Reforms
  • State-sponsored education for women
  • Aim for their social independence
  • Advocated for women’s suffrage several times in parliament

Impact

• On liberty
  • Important for liberal parties
  • Harm Principle is the NAP
  • Symbolic for parties
• Utilitarianism
  • Important ethical work
  • Happiness is however, very relative
• Liberalism
  • Mill was in the Classical Liberal movement
  • Minimal state
  • Protect property, law, safety
  • Called the nightwatch state
  • Negative freedom: protect freedom of individuals
  • Social liberalism
  • Positive freedom: people are more free by intervention
  • Government should be as large as necessary
  • Should intervene wherever necessary: health, security, economy
  • Neo Liberalism
  • Free market and privatization
  • Smaller state
  • Civil freedoms