John Stuart Mill
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Mill c. 1870
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| Member of the British Parliament for City and Westminster | |
| In office 25 July 1865 – 17 November 1868 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 20 May 1806 Pentonville, London, England |
| Died | 8 May 1873 (aged 66) Avignon, France |
| Political party | Liberal |
| Spouse(s) |
Harriet Taylor
(m. 1851; died 1858) |
| Alma mater | University College, London |
Philosophy career | |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy Classical economics |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Empiricism, utilitarianism, psychologism, classical liberalism |
Main interests
| Political philosophy, ethics, economics, inductive logic |
Notable ideas
| Public/private sphere, social liberty, hierarchy of pleasures in utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, classical liberalism, early liberal feminism, harm principle, Mill's Methods, direct reference theory |
| Signature | |
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John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, political economist, and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century", Mill's conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.
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. Mill engaged in written debate with Whewell.
A member of the Liberal Party, he was also the second Member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832.
Biography
John Stuart Mill was born at 13 Rodney Street in Pentonville, Middlesex, the eldest son of the Scottish philosopher, historian and economist James Mill, and Harriet Barrow. 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.
Mill was a notably precocious child. He describes his education in his autobiography. At the age of three he was taught Greek. 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. He had also read a great deal of history in English and had been taught arithmetic, physics and astronomy.
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 Mill's 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. Ricardo, who was a close friend of his father, used to invite the young Mill to his house for a walk in order to talk about political economy.
At the age of fourteen, Mill stayed a year in France with the family of Sir Samuel Bentham, brother of Jeremy Bentham.
The mountain scenery he saw led to a lifelong taste for mountain
landscapes. The lively and friendly way of life of the French also left a
deep impression on him. In Montpellier, he attended the winter courses on chemistry, zoology, logic of the Faculté des Sciences,
as well as taking a course in higher mathematics. While coming and
going from France, he stayed in Paris for a few days in the house of the
renowned economist Jean-Baptiste Say, a friend of Mill's father. There he met many leaders of the Liberal party, as well as other notable Parisians, including Henri Saint-Simon.
Mill went through months of sadness and pondered 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.
With renewed joy 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 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 we perhaps know it today, and the positive philosophy aided in Mill's broad rejection of Benthamism.
As a nonconformist who refused to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, Mill was not eligible to study at the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge. Instead he followed his father to work for the East India Company, and attended University College, London, to hear the lectures of John Austin, the first Professor of Jurisprudence. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1856.
Mill's career as a colonial administrator at the British East India Company spanned from when he was 17 years old in 1823 until 1858, when the Company was abolished in favor of direct rule by the British crown over India.
In 1836, he was promoted to the Company's Political Department, where
he was responsible for correspondence pertaining to the Company's
relations with the princely states, and in 1856, was finally promoted to the position of Examiner of Indian Correspondence. In On Liberty, A Few Words on Non-Intervention, and other works, Mill defended British imperialism by arguing that a fundamental distinction existed between civilized and barbarous peoples.
Mill viewed countries such as India and China as having once been
progressive, but that were now stagnant and barbarous, thus legitimizing
British rule as benevolent despotism, "provided the end is [the
barbarians'] improvement." When the crown proposed to take direct control over the colonies in India, he was tasked with defending Company rule, penning Memorandum on the Improvements in the Administration of India during the Last Thirty Years among other petitions. He was offered a seat on the Council of India, the body created to advise the new Secretary of State for India, but declined, citing his disapproval of the new system of rule.
In 1851, Mill married Harriet Taylor
after 21 years of intimate friendship. Taylor was married when they
met, and their relationship was close but generally believed to be
chaste during the years before her first husband died. Brilliant in her
own right, 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. Taylor died in 1858 after developing severe lung congestion, after only seven years of marriage to Mill.
Between the years 1865 and 1868 Mill served as Lord Rector of the University of St. Andrews. During the same period, 1865–68, he was a Member of Parliament for City and Westminster. He was sitting for the Liberal Party. During his time as an MP,
Mill advocated easing the burdens on Ireland. In 1866, Mill became the
first person in the history of Parliament to call for women to be given
the right to vote, vigorously defending this position in subsequent
debate. Mill became a strong advocate of such social reforms as labour
unions and farm cooperatives. 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. In April 1868, Mill favoured in a Commons debate the retention of capital punishment for such crimes as aggravated murder; he termed its abolition "an effeminacy in the general mind of the country."
He was godfather to the philosopher Bertrand Russell.
In his views on religion, Mill was an atheist and a skeptic.
Mill died in 1873 of erysipelas in Avignon, France, where his body was buried alongside his wife's.
Works
Portrait of Mill by George Frederic Watts (1873)
A System of Logic
Mill joined the debate over scientific method which followed on from John Herschel's 1830 publication of A Preliminary Discourse on the study of Natural Philosophy, which incorporated inductive reasoning from the known to the unknown, discovering general laws in specific facts and verifying these laws empirically. William Whewell expanded on this in his 1837 History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Time followed in 1840 by The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded Upon their History,
presenting induction as the mind superimposing concepts on facts. Laws
were self-evident truths, which could be known without need for
empirical verification. Mill countered this in 1843 in 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, like Herschel's, laws were discovered through observation and induction, and required empirical verification.
Theory of liberty
Mill's On Liberty addresses the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.
However Mill is clear that his concern for liberty does not extend to
all individuals and all societies. He states that "Despotism is a
legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians".
Mill states that it is acceptable to harm oneself as long as the
person doing so is not harming others. He also argues that individuals
should be prevented from doing lasting, serious harm to themselves or
their property by the harm principle.
Because no one exists in isolation, harm done to oneself may also harm
others, and destroying property deprives the community as well as
oneself. Mill excuses those who are "incapable of self-government" from this principle, such as young children or those living in "backward states of society".
Though this principle seems clear, there are a number of
complications. For example, Mill explicitly states that "harms" may
include acts of omission as well as acts of commission. Thus, failing to
rescue a drowning child counts as a harmful act, as does failing to pay taxes, or failing to appear as a witness
in court. All such harmful omissions may be regulated, according to
Mill. By contrast, it does not count as harming someone if – without
force or fraud – the affected individual consents to assume the risk:
thus one may permissibly offer unsafe employment to others, provided
there is no deception involved. (Mill does, however, recognise one limit
to consent: society should not permit people to sell themselves into slavery). In these and other cases, it is important to bear in mind that the arguments in On Liberty are grounded on the principle of Utility, and not on appeals to natural rights.
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. It is
important to emphasise that Mill 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.
On Liberty involves an impassioned defense of free speech. Mill argues that free discourse is a necessary condition
for intellectual and social progress. We can never be sure, he
contends, that a silenced opinion does not contain some element of the
truth. He also argues that allowing people to air false opinions is
productive for two reasons. First, individuals are more likely to
abandon erroneous beliefs if they are engaged in an open exchange of
ideas. Second, by forcing other individuals to re-examine and re-affirm
their beliefs in the process of debate, these beliefs are kept from
declining into mere dogma.
It is not enough for Mill that one simply has an unexamined belief that
happens to be true; one must understand why the belief in question is
the true one. Along those same lines Mill wrote, "unmeasured
vituperation, employed on the side of prevailing opinion, really does
deter people from expressing contrary opinions, and from listening to
those who express them."
John Stuart Mill and Helen Taylor. Helen was the daughter of Harriet Taylor and collaborated with Mill for fifteen years after her mother's death in 1858.
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". For him, liberty in antiquity was a "contest ... between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government." Mill defined "social liberty"
as protection from "the tyranny of political rulers". He introduced a
number of different concepts of the form tyranny can take, referred to
as social tyranny, and tyranny of the majority.
Social liberty
for Mill meant putting limits on the ruler's power so that he would not
be able to use his power on his own wishes and make decisions which
could harm society; in other words, people should have the right to have
a say in the government's decisions. He said that social liberty
was "the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately
exercised by society over the individual". It was attempted in two ways:
first, by obtaining recognition of certain immunities, called political
liberties or rights; second, by establishment of a system of "constitutional checks".
However, in Mill's view, limiting the power of government was not
enough. He stated, "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 practices 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
John Stuart Mill's view on liberty, which was influenced by Joseph Priestley and Josiah Warren, is that the individual
ought to be free to do as she/he wishes unless she/he harms others.
Individuals are rational enough to make decisions about their well
being. Government should interfere when it is for the protection of
society. Mill explained:
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
An influential advocate of freedom of speech, Mill objected to censorship. He says:
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.
Worried about minority views being suppressed, Mill also argued in
support of freedom of speech on political grounds, stating that it is a
critical component for a representative government to have in order to
empower debate over public policy.
Mill also eloquently argued that freedom of expression allows for
personal growth and self-realization. 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.
Harm principle
The
belief that the freedom of speech will advance the society was formed
with trust of the public's ability to filter. 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. Mill argued
that even any arguments which are used in justifying murder or rebellion
against the government shouldn't be politically suppressed or socially
persecuted. 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.
At the beginning of the twentieth 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.
Holmes suggested that shouting out "Fire!" in a dark theatre, which
makes people panic and gets them injured, would be such a case of speech
that creates an illegal danger.
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.
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".
Colonialism
Mill, an employee for the British East India Company from 1823 to 1858, argued in support of what he called a 'benevolent despotism' with regard to the colonies.
Mill argued that "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."
Slavery
In 1850, Mill sent an anonymous letter (which came to be known under the title "The Negro Question"), 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.
In Mill's essay from 1869, "The Subjection of Women", he expressed his opposition to slavery:
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 Angle-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.
Women's rights
"A Feminine Philosopher". Caricature by Spy published in Vanity Fair in 1873.
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." With this, Mill can be considered among
the earliest male proponents of gender equality. His book The Subjection of Women (1861, published 1869) is one of the earliest written on this subject by a male author. In The Subjection of Women Mill attempts to make a case for perfect equality.
He talks about the role of women in marriage and how it needed to be
changed. There, Mill comments on three major facets of women's lives
that he felt are hindering them: society and gender construction,
education, and marriage. 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.
As a Member of Parliament, Mill introduced an unsuccessful
amendment to the Reform Bill to substitute the word 'person' in place of
'man'.
Utilitarianism
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. In a similar vein, Mill's method of determining
the best utility is that a moral agent, when given the choice between
two or more actions, ought to choose the action that contributes most to
(maximizes) the total happiness in the world. 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.
Utilitarianism is built upon the basis of consequentialism,
that is, the means are justified based solely off the result of said
actions. The overarching goal of Utilitarianism – the ideal consequence –
is to achieve the "greatest good for the greatest number as the end
result of human action". Mill states in his writings on Utilitarianism that "happiness is the sole end of human action."
This statement brought about a bit of controversy, which is why Mill
took it a step further, explaining how the very nature of humans wanting
happiness, and who "take it to be reasonable under free consideration",
demands that happiness is indeed desirable.
In other words, free will leads everyone to make actions inclined on
their own happiness, unless reasoned that it would improve the happiness
of others, in which case, the greatest utility is still being achieved.
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. Utilitarianism is thought of by some
of its activists to be a more developed and overarching ethical theory
of Kant's belief in good will however, and not just some default
cognitive process of humans. Where Kant would argue that reason can only
be used properly by good will, Mill would say that the only way to
universally create fair laws and systems would be to step back to the
consequences, whereby Kant's ethical theories become based around the
ultimate good – utility.
By this logic the only valid way to discern what is proper reason would
be to view the consequences of any action and weigh the good and the
bad, even if on the surface, the ethical reasoning seems to indicate a
different train of thought.
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", 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".
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".
In the second chapter of his essay he focuses no longer on background
information but Utilitarianism itself. 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 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.
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."
Shorthand, he basically just explains that your internal sanction is
your conscience. 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 makes 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 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."
In his final chapter Mill looks and 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."
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".
He firmly believed that moral rules and obligations could be referenced
to promoting happiness, which connects to having a noble character.
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".
Mill's thesis distinguishes between higher and lower pleasures.
He frequently discusses the importance of acknowledgement of higher
pleasures. "To suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end
than pleasure- no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit they
designate as utterly mean and groveling; as a doctrine worthy only of
swine".
When he says higher pleasures, he means the pleasures that access
higher abilities and capacities in humans such as intellectual
prosperity, whereas lower pleasures would mean bodily or temporary
pleasures. "But it must be admitted that when utilitarian writers have
said that mental pleasures are better than bodily ones they have mainly
based this on mental pleasures being more permanent, safer, less costly
and so on – i.e. from their circumstantial advantages rather than from
their intrinsic nature". All of this factors into John Mill's own definition of utilitarianism, and shows why it differs from other definitions.
Economic philosophy
Essays on economics and society, 1967
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. Mill originally believed that "equality of taxation" meant "equality of sacrifice" and that progressive taxation penalised those who worked harder and saved more and was therefore "a mild form of robbery".
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.
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.
Within this revised work he also made the radical proposal that the
whole wage system be abolished in favour of a co-operative wage system.
Nonetheless, some of his views on the idea of flat taxation remained, 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 1848, was one of the most widely read of all books on economics in the period. As Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations had during an earlier period, Mill's Principles dominated economics teaching. In the case of Oxford University it was the standard text until 1919, when it was replaced by Marshall's Principles of Economics.
Economic democracy
Mill promoted economic democracy instead of capitalism, in the manner of substituting capitalist businesses with worker cooperatives. He says:
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.
Political democracy
Mill's major work on political democracy, Considerations on Representative Government, defends two fundamental principles: extensive participation by citizens and enlightened competence of rulers. The two values are obviously in tension, and some readers have concluded that he is an elitist democrat, while others count him as an earlier participatory democrat.
In one section he appears to defend plural voting, in which more
competent citizens are given extra votes (a view he later repudiated).
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.
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.
The environment
Mill demonstrated an early insight into the value of the natural world – in particular in Book IV, chapter VI of Principles of Political Economy: "Of the Stationary State" in which Mill recognised wealth beyond the material, and argued that the logical conclusion of unlimited growth was destruction of the environment and a reduced quality of life. 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.
Economic development
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." Increase in wealth is possible only if land and
capital help to increase production faster than the labour force. It is
productive labour that is productive of wealth and capital accumulation.
"The rate of capital accumulation is the function of the proportion of
the labour force employed productively. 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." It implies that
productive consumption is an input necessary to maintain productive
labourers.
Control of population growth
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. He believed that population control was
essential for improving the condition of the working class so that they
might enjoy the fruits of the technological progress and capital
accumulation. Mill advocated birth control. In 1823 Mill and a friend
were arrested while distributing pamphlets on birth control by Francis
Place to women in working class areas.
Wage fund
According to Mill, supply is very elastic in response to wages. Wages
generally exceed the minimum subsistence level, and are paid out of
capital. Hence, wages are limited by existing capital for paying wages.
Thus, wage per worker can be derived by dividing the total circulating
capital by the size of the working population. Wages can increase by an
increase in the capital used in paying wages, or by decrease in the
number of workers. If wages rise, supply of labour will rise.
Competition among workers not only brings down wages, but also keeps
some workers out of employment. This is based on Mill's notion that
"demand for commodities is not demand for labourers". It means that
income invested as advances of wages to labour creates employment, and
not income spent on consumer goods. An increase in consumption causes a
decline in investment. So increased investment leads to increases in the
wage fund and to economic progress.
In 1869, Mill recanted his support of the Wage-Fund Doctrine due
to recognition that capital is not necessarily fixed in that it can be
supplemented through "income of the employer which might otherwise go
into saving or be spent on consumption."
Francis Amasa Walker also states in "The Wages Question" that the
limits on capital and the growth in population "were accidental, not
essential" to the formation of the doctrine. The limitation on the
growth of industrial capacity placed a limit on the number of workers
who could be accommodated more than the limit on capital. Furthermore,
English agriculture "had reached the condition of diminishing returns.";
therefore, each additional worker was not providing more output than he
needed for himself for survival. Given the improvements in technology
and productivity that followed 1848, the original reasons that gave rise
to the doctrine were seen to be unusual and not the basis for a
universal law.
Rate of capital accumulation
According to Mill, the rate of capital accumulation depends on: (1)
"the amount of fund from which saving can be made" or "the size of the
net produce of the industry", and (2) the "disposition to save". Capital
is the result of savings, and the savings come from the "abstinence
from present consumption for the sake of future goods". Although capital
is the result of saving, it is nevertheless consumed. This means saving
is spending. Since saving depends on the net produce of the industry,
it grows with profits and rent which go into making the net produce. On
the other hand, the disposition to save depends on (1) the rate of
profit and (2) the desire to save, or what Mill called "effective desire
of accumulation". However, profit also depends on the cost of labour,
and the rate of profit is the ratio of profits to wages. When profits
rise or wages fall, the rate of profits increases, which in turn
increases the rate of capital accumulation. Similarly, it is the desire
to save which tends to increase the rate of capital accumulation.
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
In popular culture
Statue of Mill near Victoria Embankment in London
- Mill is the subject of a 1905 clerihew by E. C. Bentley:
John Stuart Mill,
By a mighty effort of will,
Overcame his natural bonhomie
And wrote Principles of Political Economy.
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" | 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 |
|
| Nature, the Utility of Religion, and Theism | 1874 |
|
| Autobiography | 1873 |
|
| Three Essays on Religion | 1874 |
|
| Socialism | 1879 | Belfords, Clarke & Co. |
| "Notes on N. W. Senior's Political Economy" | 1945 | Economica N.S. 12 |
