Saturday, February 2, 2013 in

An Analysis on John Stuart Will

John Stuart Mill
BACKGROUND:
Born in London in 1806, son of James Mill, philosopher, economist and senior official in the East India Company. Mill was educated by his father, with the advice and assistance of Jeremy Bentham and Francis Place. He learned Greek at three, Latin a little later; by the age of 12, he was a competent logician and by 16 a well-trained economist. At 20 he suffered a nervous breakdown that persuaded him that more was needed in life than devotion to the public good and an analytically sharp intellect.
The younger Mill was seen as the crown prince of the Philosophic Radical movement and his famous education reflected the hopes of his father and Bentham.
As he matured, his father and Bentham both employed him as an editor. In addition, he founded a number of intellectual societies and study groups and began to contribute to periodicals, including the London and Westminster Review.
In his twenties, the younger Mill felt the influence of historicism, French social thought, and Romanticism, in the form of thinkers like Coleridge, the St. Simonians, Thomas Carlyle, Goethe, and Wordsworth. This led him to begin searching for a new philosophic radicalism that would be more sensitive to the limits on reform imposed by culture and history and would emphasize the cultivation of our humanity, including the cultivation of dispositions of feeling and imagination (something he thought had been lacking in his own education). 
In 1851, Mill married Harriet Taylor after 21 years of an intimate friendship. Taylor was married when they met, and their relationship was close but 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, and she appears to be obliquely referenced in The Subjection of Women.
On his retirement and after the death of his wife, Harriet Taylor, Mill was recruited to stand for a Parliamentary seat. Though he was not particularly effective during his one term as an MP, he participated in three dramatic events. First, Mill attempted to amend the 1867 Reform Bill to substitute “person” for “man” so that the franchise would be extended to women. Though the effort failed, it generated momentum for women’s suffrage. Second, he headed the Jamaica Committee, which pushed (unsuccessfully) for the prosecution of Governor Eyre of Jamaica, who had imposed brutal martial law after an uprising by blacks. Third, Mill used his influence with the leaders of the laboring classes to defuse a potentially dangerous confrontation between government troops and workers who were protesting the defeat of the 1866 Reform Bill.
            Philosophically, Mill was a radical empiricist who held that all human knowledge, including even mathematics and logic, is derived by generalization from sensory experience. In A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (1843) he explained in great detail the canons for reasoning inductively to conclusions about the causal connections exhibited in the natural world.
Mill's moral philosophy was a modified version of the utilitarian theory he had learned from his father and Bentham. In the polemical Utilitarianism (1861) Mill developed a systematic statement of utilitarian ethical theory. He modified and defended the general principle that right actions are those that tend to produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people, being careful to include a distinction in the quality of the pleasures that constitute happiness. There Mill also attempted a proof of the principle of utility, explained its enforcement, and discussed its relation to a principle of justice.
Mill's greatest contribution to political theory occurs in On Liberty (1859), where he defended the broadest possible freedom of thought and expression and argued that the state can justify interference with the conduct of individual citizens only when it is clear that doing so will prevent a greater harm to others. Mill also addressed matters of social concern in Principles of Political Economy (1848) and Considerations on Representative Government (1861) and eloquently supported the cause of women's rights in The Subjection of Women (1869).

WORKS:

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism, by John Stuart Mill, is an essay written to provide support for the value of utilitarianism as a moral theory, and to respond to misconceptions about it. Mill defines utilitarianism as a theory based on the principle that "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." Mill defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. He argues that pleasure can differ in quality and quantity, and that pleasures that are rooted in one's higher faculties should be weighted more heavily than baser pleasures. Furthermore, Mill argues that people's achievement of goals and ends, such as virtuous living, should be counted as part of their happiness.  
Mill argues that utilitarianism coincides with "natural" sentiments that originate from humans' social nature. Therefore, if society were to embrace utilitarianism as an ethic, people would naturally internalize these standards as morally binding. Mill argues that happiness is the sole basis of morality, and that people never desire anything but happiness. He supports this claim by showing that all the other objects of people's desire are either means to happiness, or included in the definition of happiness. Mill explains at length that the sentiment of justice is actually based on utility, and that rights exist only because they are necessary for human happiness.
 The theory of utilitarianism has been criticized for many reasons. Critics hold that it does not provide adequate protection for individual rights, that not everything can be measured by the same standard, and that happiness is more complex than reflected by the theory. Mill's essay represents his attempt to respond to these criticisms, and thereby to provide a more complex and nuanced moral theory.
 Mill's argument comprises five chapters. His first chapter serves as an introduction to the essay. In his second chapter, Mill discusses the definition of utilitarianism, and presents some misconceptions about the theory. The third chapter is a discussion about the ultimate sanctions (or rewards) that utilitarianism can offer. The fourth chapter discusses methods of proving the validity of utilitarianism. In his fifth chapter, Mill writes about the connection between justice and utility, and argues that happiness is the foundation of justice.

I. History of the Principle of Utility

By Mill’s time, the principle of utility possessed a long history stretching back to the 1730’s (with roots going further back to Hobbes, Locke, and even to Epicurus). In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it had been explicitly invoked by three British intellectual factions. Though all may have agreed that an action’s consequences for the general happiness were to dictate its rightness or wrongness, the reasons behind the acceptance of that principle and the uses to which the principle was put varied greatly.
The earliest supporters of the principle of utility were the religious utilitarians represented by, among others, John Gay, John Brown, Soame Jenyns, and, most famously, William Paley, whose 1785 The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy was one of the most frequently re-printed and well read books of moral thought of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (to Mill’s dismay, Bentham’s utilitarianism was often conflated with Paley’s). Religious utilitarianism was very popular among the educated classes and dominated in the universities until the 1830’s. These thinkers were all deeply influenced by Locke’s empiricism and psychological hedonism and often stood opposed to the competing moral doctrines of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Clarke, and Wollaston.
The religious utilitarians looked to the Christian God to address a basic problem, namely how to harmonize the interests of individuals, who are motivated by their own happiness, with the interests of the society as a whole. Once we understand that what we must do is what God wills (because of God’s power of eternal sanction) and that God wills the happiness of his creatures, morality and our own self-interest will be seen to overlap. God guarantees that an individual’s self-interest lies in virtue, in furthering the happiness of others. Without God and his sanctions of eternal punishment and reward, it would be hard to find motives that “are likely to be found sufficient to withhold men from the gratification of lust, revenge, envy, ambition, avarice.” (Paley 2002 [1785], 39). As we shall see in a moment, another possible motivation for caring about the general happiness—this one non-religious—is canvassed by Mill in Chapter Three of Utilitarianism.
In contrast to religious utilitarianism, which had few aspirations to be a moral theory that revises ordinary moral attitudes, the two late-eighteenth century secular versions of utilitarianism grew out of various movements for reform. The principle of utility—and the correlated commitments to happiness as the only intrinsically desirable end and to the moral equivalency of the happiness of different individuals—was itself taken to be an instrument of reform.
One version of secular utilitarianism was represented by William Godwin (husband of Mary Wollstonecraft and father of Mary Shelley), who achieved great notoriety with the publication of his Political Justice of 1793. Though his fame (or infamy) was relatively short-lived, Godwin’s use of the principle of utility for the cause of radical political and social critique began the identification of utilitarianism with anti-religiosity and with dangerous democratic values.
The second version of secular utilitarianism, and the one that inspired Mill, arose from the work of Jeremy Bentham. Bentham, who was much more successful than Godwin at building a movement around his ideas, employed the principle of utility as a device of political, social, and legal criticism. It is important to note, however, that Bentham’s interest in the principle of utility did not arise from concern about ethical theory as much as from concern about legislative and legal reform.
This history enables us to understand Mill’s invocation of the principle of utility in its polemical context—Mill’s support of that principle should not be taken as mere intellectual exercise. In the realm of politics, the principle of utility served to bludgeon opponents of reform. First and foremost, reform meant extension of the vote. But it also meant legal reform, including overhaul of the common law system and of legal institutions, and varieties of social reform, especially of institutions that tended to favor aristocratic and moneyed interests. Though Bentham and Godwin intended it to have this function in the late eighteenth century, utilitarianism became influential only when tied with the political machinery of the Radical party, which had particular prominence on the English scene in the 1830’s.
In the realm of ethical debate, Mill took his opponents to be the “intuitionists” led by Sedgwick and Whewell, both Cambridge men. They were the contemporary representatives of an ethical tradition that understood its history as tied to Butler, Reid, Coleridge, and turn of the century German thought (especially that of Kant). Though intuitionists and members of Mill’s a posteriori or “inductive” school recognize “to a great extent, the same moral laws,” they differ “as to their evidence and the source from which they derive their authority. According to the one opinion, the principles of morals are evident a priori, requiring nothing to command assent except that the meaning of the terms be understood. According to the other doctrine, right and wrong, as well as truth and falsehood, are questions of observation and experience.” (CW, X.206).
The chief danger represented by the proponents of intuitionism was not from the ethical content of their theories per se, which defended honesty, justice, benevolence, etc., but from the kinds of justifications offered for their precepts and the support such a view lent to the social and political status quo. As we saw in the discussion of the System of Logic and with reference to Mill’s statements in his Autobiography, he takes intuitionism to be dangerous because it allegedly enables people to ratify their own prejudices as moral principles—in intuitionism, there is no “external standard” by which to adjudicate differing moral claims (for example, Mill understood Kant’s categorical imperative as getting any moral force it possesses either from considerations of utility or from mere prejudice hidden by hand-waving). The principle of utility, alternatively, evaluates moral claims by appealing to the external standard of pain and pleasure. It presented each individual for moral consideration as someone capable of suffering and enjoyment.

II. Basic Argument
Mill’s defense of the principle of utility in Utilitarianism includes five chapters. In the first, Mill sets out the problem, distinguishes between the intuitionist and “inductive” schools of morality, and also suggests limits to what we can expect from proofs of first principles of morality. He argues that “(q)uestions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof.” (CW, X.207). All that can be done is to present considerations “capable of determining the intellect either to give or withhold its assent to the doctrine; and this is equivalent to proof.” (CW, X.208). Ultimately, he will want to prove in Chapter Four the basis for the principle of utility—that happiness is the only intrinsically desirable thing—by showing that we spontaneously accept it on reflection. (Skorupski 1989, 8). It is rather easy to show that happiness is something we desire intrinsically, not for the sake of other things. What is hard is to show that it is the only thing we intrinsically desire or value. Mill agrees that we do not always value things like virtue as means or instruments to happiness. We do sometimes seem to value such things for their own sakes. Mill contends, however, that on reflection we will see that when we appear to value them for their own sakes we are actually valuing them as parts of happiness (rather than as intrinsically desirable on their own or as means to happiness). That is, we value virtue, freedom, etc. as things that make us happy by their mere possession. This is all the proof we can give that happiness is our only ultimate end; it must rely on introspection and on careful and honest examination of our feelings and motives.
In Chapter Two, Mill corrects misconceptions about the principle of utility. One misconception is that utilitarianism, by endorsing the Epicurean view “that life has…no higher end than pleasure” is a “doctrine worthy only of swine.” (CW, X.210). Mill counters that “the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable.” (CW, X.210). He proffers a distinction (one not found in Bentham) between higher and lower pleasures, with higher pleasures including mental, aesthetic, and moral pleasures. When we are evaluating whether or not an action is good by evaluating the happiness that we can expect to be produced by it, he argues that higher pleasures should be taken to be in kind (rather than by degree) preferable to lower pleasures. This has led scholars to wonder whether Mill’s utilitarianism differs significantly from Bentham’s and whether Mill’s distinction between higher and lower pleasures creates problems for our ability to know what will maximize aggregate happiness.
A second objection to the principle of utility is that “it is exacting too much to require that people shall always act from the inducement of promoting the general interest of society.” (CW, X.219). Mill replies that this is to “confound the rule of action with the motive of it.” (CW, X.219). Ethics is supposed to tell us what our duties are, “but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a feeling of duty; on the contrary, ninety-nine hundredths of all our actions are done from other motives, and rightly so done if the rule of duty does not condemn them.” (CW, X.219). To do the right thing, in other words, we do not need to be constantly motivated by concern for the general happiness. The large majority of actions intend the good of individuals (including ourselves) rather than the good of the world. Yet the world’s good is made up of the good of the individuals that constitute it and unless we are in the position of, say, a legislator, we act properly by looking to private rather than to public good. Our attention to the public well-being usually needs to extend only so far as is required to know that we aren’t violating the rights of others.
Chapter Three addresses the topic of motivation again by focusing on the following question: What is the source of our obligation to the principle of utility? What, in other words, motivates us to act in ways approved of by the principle of utility? With any moral theory, one must remember that ‘ought implies can,’ i.e. that if moral demands are to be legitimate, we must be the kind of beings that can meet those demands. Mill defends the possibility of a strong utilitarian conscience (i.e. a strong feeling of obligation to the general happiness) by showing how such a feeling can develop out of the natural desire we have to be in unity with fellow creatures—a desire that enables us to care what happens to them and to perceive our own interests as linked with theirs. Though Chapter Two showed that we do not need to attend constantly to the general happiness, it is nevertheless a sign of moral progress when the happiness of others, including the happiness of those we don’t know, becomes important to us.
Finally, Chapter Five shows how utilitarianism accounts for justice. In particular, Mill shows how utilitarianism can explain the special status we seem to grant to justice and to the violations of it. Justice is something we are especially keen to defend. Mill begins by marking off morality (the realm of duties) from expediency and worthiness by arguing that duties are those things we think people ought to be punished for not fulfilling. He then suggests that justice is demarcated from other areas of morality, because it includes those duties to which others have correlative rights, “Justice implies something which it is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but which some individual person can claim from us as his moral right.” (CW, X.247). Though no one has a right to my charity, even if I have a duty to be charitable, others have rights not to have me injure them or to have me repay what I have promised.

On Liberty

Mill's mission in writing On Liberty can perhaps be best understood by looking at how he discussed his work in his Autobiography. Mill wrote that he believed On Liberty to be about "the importance, to man and society, of a large variety in types of character, and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions." This celebration of individuality and disdain for conformity runs throughout On Liberty. Mill rejects attempts, either through legal coercion or social pressure, to coerce people's opinions and behavior. He argues that the only time coercion is acceptable is when a person's behavior harms other people--otherwise, society should treat diversity with respect.

Mill justifies the value of liberty through a Utilitarian approach. His essay tries to show the positive effects of liberty on all people and on society as a whole. In particular, Mill links liberty to the ability to progress and to avoid social stagnation. Liberty of opinion is valuable for two main reasons. First, the unpopular opinion may be right. Second, if the opinion is wrong, refuting it will allow people to better understand their own opinions. Liberty of action is desirable for parallel reasons. The nonconformist may be correct, or she may have a way of life that best suits her needs, if not anybody else's. Additionally, these nonconformists challenge social complacency, and keep society from stagnating.

Mill's argument proceeds in five chapters. In his first chapter, Mill provides a brief overview of the meaning of liberty. He also introduces his basic argument in favor of respecting liberty; to the degree it does not harm anybody else. His next two chapters detail why liberty of opinion and liberty of action are so valuable. His fourth chapter discusses the appropriate level of authority that society should have over the individual. His fifth chapter looks at particular examples and applications of the theory, to clarify the meaning of his claims.

Mill's essay has been criticized for being overly vague about the limits of liberty, for placing too much of an emphasis on the individual, and for not making a useful distinction between actions that only harm oneself, and actions that harm others. That said, the essay does provide an impassioned defense of nonconformity as a positive good for society, and an equally impassioned reminder that no one can be completely sure that his or her way of life is the best or the only way to live.


Principles of Political Economy
Mill's Principles of Political Economy was first published in 1848, and it went through various editions; the final edition was the seventh, which appeared in 1871. Political Economy is the term nineteenth-century writers use to refer to the study of what we today call macroeconomics, though its practitioners, such as Adam Smith, Mill, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx, were more philosophical and less empirical in their methods than modern economists. In this book, Mill examines the fundamental economic processes on which society is based: production, the distribution of goods, exchange, the effect of social progress on production and distribution, and the role of government in economic affairs.
Book I deals with production and begins by identifying the basic requisites that enable production to exist: labor and natural objects. Labor may be defined as an agent of production, though not all labor leads to the production of a material object. Labor produces three types of utilities. The first is the creation of objects for human use, wherein labor invests external material things with properties that make these things usable. Second, some labor renders human beings serviceable to society and to themselves, such as the labor of teachers and doctors. The third utility is the labor of giving pleasure or entertainment, which does not make other people more productive or result in a tangible product. In addition to labor and natural objects, production requires capital, without which it would cease. In essence, capital is the accumulated stock of the products of labor
Book II examines distribution as it is manifested in the allocation of property and produce. Mill discusses the effect on distribution of such factors as competition; customs; slavery; ownership by peasants; and the various types of laborers, wages, profits, and rents. Mill acknowledges the difference between workers and capitalists (he includes landowners in this category), both of whom share the products of labor.
In book III, Mill addresses the topics of exchange and value, defining the latter in terms of supply and demand. Mill sees value as relative, since it depends on the quantity of another thing or things. There is no general rise and fall of value, for it rises only when a fall is supposed and it falls when a rise is supposed. Mill considers money and its relationship to supply and demand, cost of production, and credit (which is a substitute for money). Further, he looks at the influence of credit on prices, the function of currency, international trade and values, and rates of interest.
Book IV deals with the relationship between a society's progress and its economic affairs. Mill defines social progress in terms of the increase of knowledge, the improved protection of citizens and property, the transformation of taxes so they are less oppressive, the avoidance of war, and the increase in the prosperity of the people brought about by improvements in business capacities, including the more effective employment of the citizens through education The newly empowered working class will generate massive change in society.
 Book V analyzes the influence of government on society, arguing that the functions of government can be divided into the necessary and the optional. Mill asserts that government should always restrict itself to doing only what is necessary. First, a government should prohibit and punish individual behavior that harms other people, such as force, fraud, or negligence. Second, a government should work to limit or even eliminate the great amount of energy being spent on the harming of one nation by another. Third, a government should turn such destructive behavior into bettering human faculties, namely, transforming the powers of nature so they serve the greatest physical and moral good. Finally, Mill proposes that governments should adopt a laissez-faire policy, in that they would abstain from interfering with individual choice and grant unconstrained freedom to people, who should be able to pursue their happiness without restrictions.

 Analysis:
In Principles, Mill turns economics into a viable philosophical area of inquiry by exploring what people really want and what economics can measure and assess. Mill's approach to economics is based on his belief in the superiority of socialism, in which economic production would be driven by cooperatives owned by the workers. To this end, Mill argues that the laws of production may be natural laws, but the laws of distribution are created and enacted by human beings
Mill believes that society will continue to grow and change, but he recognizes that such change is limited by the capabilities of the land and of labor, both of which have to be handled with care since neither can continue to produce an increasing amount in order to satisfy a growing demand. Mill agrees with Thomas Malthus that population must be controlled so that it does not outgrow its food supply.
Mill does discuss the benefits of free competition and the useful and favorable social energies that competition releases. He goes so far as to note that if a society becomes too entrenched in protecting its members from competition, the result is stagnation and mental inertia in its citizens. Therefore, it is important to encourage self-initiative and individual responsibility, and government policy should never weaken or discourage this positive force. Although this does not free the state from its responsibilities of providing security and well-being for its citizens, Mill does modify his generally laissez-faire stance by stating that private monopolies must be prevented, the poor must be properly looked after, and the education of children must be suitably available. Mill firmly believes that it is only the well educated and therefore enlightened citizen who can help society grow, change, and progress. Moreover, education allows the lower classes to become more socially active and responsible.



POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE:

a. Theory on utilitarianism
            Mill’s account on Utilitarianism is primarily influenced by Jeremy Bentham and Mill’s father, James Mill. However his conception of utilitarianism is so different from Bentham’s. Mill argued that life had more important ends than simply the pursuit of pleasure. Moreover, not all pleasures according to him were equally valuable. He claimed that the “rationalistic utilitarianism concept” neglected quality. Bentham had never recognized man as a being capable of pursuing spiritual perfection as an end. He said that intellectual and moral pleasures are superior to more physical forms of pleasure. In mill’s principle of utility, he said that to do the right thing, we do not need to be constantly motivated by this concern for general happiness. This is because utility should be perceived in relation to mankind “as a progressive being” which includes the development and exercise of his rational capacities as he tries to achieve a “higher mode of existence”. Our attention to the public well being usually needs to extend only so far as is required to know that we aren’t violating the rights of others. Mill defends the possibility of a “strong utilitarian conscience” which is the strong feeling of obligation to the general happiness. He said that though we do not have to be constantly motivated by the concern to the general happiness, it is a sign of moral progress, if the happiness of our fellowmen becomes important to us.

b. Theory on liberty
John Stuart Mill’s view on liberty, which was influenced by John Locke, is that man is free to do anything unless he harms others. Individuals are rational enough to make decisions about their good being and choose any religion they want to. Government should interfere when it is for the protection of society. Mill explains, “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.

Harm Principle
The harm principle holds that each individual has the right to act as he wants, so long as these actions do not harm others. If the action is self-regarding, that is, if it only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself. Mill excuses those who are "incapable of self-government" from this principle, such as young children or those living in "backward states of society".

Social liberty
Social Liberty for Mill was to put limits on the ruler’s power so that he would not be able to use his power on his own wishes and make every kind of decision which could harm society; in other words, people should have the right to 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".

Tyranny of the majority
The people, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this, as against any other abuse of power. He calls this type of power the “tyranny of majority” when the majority oppresses the minority by their decisions which could be harmful and wrong sometimes.

View on freedom of 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.

Human rights and 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. Carlyle had defended slavery on grounds of genetic inferiority and claimed that the West Indies development was due to British ingenuity alone and dismissed any notion that there was a debtedness to imported slaves for building the economy there. An excerpt:
“But I again renounce all advantage from facts: were the whites born ever so superior in intelligence to the blacks, and competent by nature to instruct and advise them, it would not be the less monstrous to assert that they had therefore a right either to subdue them by force, or circumvent them by superior skill; to throw upon them the toils and hardships of life, reserving for themselves, under the misapplied name of work, its agreeable excitements.”
Mill is also famous for being one of the earliest and strongest 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, a set of prejudices that severely impeded the progress of humanity.


c. Proportional Representation
            Mill favored democracy, although he entertained the fear that it could lead to the tyranny of the majority. To counteract this tendency of democratic government, mill argued for a system of proportional representation, as well as for plural voting in favor of the educated.

References:
  • 1.      Curtis, Michael (1981) The Great Political Thinkers, USA: Avon Books
  • 2.      Santiago, Mirriam (2002) Great Political Philosophers
  • 3.      Michael St. John Packe, The Life of John Stuart Mill, MacMillan (1952).
  • 4.      David O. Brink, "Mill's Deliberative Utilitarianism," in Philosophy and Public Affairs 21 (1992), 67-103
  • 5.      Samuel Hollander, The Economics of John Stuart Mill (University of Toronto Press, 1985)

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