Mill
May 10, 2023•1,198 words
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