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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