Introduction to one of the most important, controversial, and suggestive works of moral philosophy ever written.

J.S. Mill argued that Bentham was ‘not a great philosopher’, asserting that one reason for his judgment was ‘the incompleteness of his [i. e. Bentham’s] own mind as a representative of universal human nature’. This paper argues that Mill’s judgment of Bentham on human nature and his assumptions about Bentham’s ‘own mind’ were seriously mistaken. In fact, Bentham understood many of the most natural and strongest feelings of human nature; he recognized spiritual or mental perfection, and recognized many (...) pleasures associated with a desire for self-perfection, or at least self-improvement; he never denied the importance of the faculty of imagination; he was by no means cut off from life’s graver experiences; his conception of arts and sciences was much broader, more metaphysically-based, consistent and sophisticated than Mill appreciated; and he enthusiastically embraced and encouraged arts and sciences. Mill’s mistake was partly caused by his limited reading of Bentham’s works, but mainly because he failed to grasp the ontological basis and fundamental principles of Bentham’s philosophy. (shrink)

The weaver ant, Oecophylla smaragdina Fabricius (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), has long been known as perhaps the first example of human manipulation of a natural predator population to enhance the natural biological control of insect pests. The practice of ant husbandry in Vietnamese citrus orchards and the knowledge associated with the use of weaver ants in the Mekong delta are described. In contrast to other regions of Asia, where weaver ants are noted for their role in the protection of citrus from insect (...) damage, citrus farmers in the Mekong delta explain the benefits of ant husbandry in terms of an improvement in fruit quality, likened to the influence of fertilizers, that occurs in direct response to excretory products deposited by the weaver ants as they patrol the fruit. A series of tests, carried out in 1993–94, rated the external shine, sweetness, juiciness, and overall appeal, as characteristics of fruit quality, for paired comparisons of sweet orange, mandarin, and pummelo fruit that had been grown in the presence of weaver ants or from which ants had been excluded. The tests indicate a strong influence of the presence of the weaver ant on external shine, juiciness, and overall appeal for each of the citrus fruits, but particularly for mandarin. The significance of these results and ant husbandry practices in the Mekong delta are discussed in relation to the development of citrus production in Vietnam. (shrink)

J.S. Mill's plural voting proposal in Considerations on Representative Government presents political theorists with a puzzle: the elitist proposal that some individuals deserve a greater voice than others seems at odds with Mill's repeated arguments for the value of full participation in government. This essay looks at Mill's arguments for plural voting, arguing that, far from being motivated solely by elitism, Mill's account is actually driven by a commitment to both competence and participation. It goes on (...) to argue that, for Mill, much of the value of political participation lies in its unique ability to educate the participants. That ability to educate is not, however, a product of participation alone; rather, for Mill, the true educative benefits of participation obtain only when competence and participation work together in the political sphere. Plural voting, then, is a mechanism for allowing Mill to take advantage of the educative benefits that arise from the intersection of competence and participation. (shrink)

J. S. Mill's role in the Indian education controversy is well known, but scarcely well understood. That he drafted, in 1836, a despatch sharply critical of Macaulay's infamous Minute on Indian Education, is general knowledge now. That in drafting the despatch Mill drew upon the ideas of H. H. Wilson, a noted Orientalist and sharp critic of Macaulay and the Anglicists, has been adequately demonstrated. That the despatch was never sent to India, because of the objections of the (...) President of the Board of Trade, John Hobhouse, a Whig with some utilitarian connections, has been common knowledge for several decades. (shrink)

J. S. Mill and the Art of Compromise The word compromise means a kind of agreement and a concession to something harmful or wrong. I argue that particularly this second sense is quite relevant in the ethics of political action. John Stuart Mill focused upon this issue in his Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform 1859. I outline Mill's doctrine on compromise looking at the external and internal features of an acceptable measure of compromise. These features provide a set (...) of conditions necessary in order for compromise to take place, but they do not guarantee sufficient conditions. In order to assess Mill's political coherence and to draw a general distinction between strategic and ethical compromises the paper concludes by considering two compromise measures that Mill adopted while he was a Member of Parliament. (shrink)

The essay opens with some background information about the period in which J.S. Mill wrote. The discussion revolves around the concept of blasphemy which Mill considered to be highly problematic. Tagging unpopular views as ‘blasphemous’ amounted to abuse of governmental powers and infringed on the basic liberties of the out-of-favour speakers. The discussion on blasphemy sets the scene to the understanding of Mill's concerns, his priorities and consequently his emphasis on the widest possible liberty of expression. Section (...) 2 presents the Millian principles that are pertinent to his philosophy of free speech: liberty and truth. Section 3 analyzes Mill's very limited boundaries to freedom of expression, asserting that the consequentialist reasoning had led Mill to ignore present tangible harm. It is argued that democracy is required to develop protective mechanisms against harm-facilitating speech. (shrink)

Many contemporary scholars defend the position that J. S. Mill was a ‘eudaimonist’, in a sense implying that he was not an ‘experiential’ hedonist. One ‘activist’ argument for this interpretation rests on the claim that Mill’s core axiological uses of ‘pleasure’ in Utilitarianism should be understood to refer to worthy or pleasurable activities rather than mental states. This paper offers a three-stage rebuttal of the activist interpretation. Firstly, in the Analysis, the Examination and the Logic, Mill explicitly (...) identifies pleasures and pains as mental states. Secondly, if we read Mill’s core axiological uses of ‘pleasure’ in Utilitarianism along activist lines, the text’s overall coherence and intelligibility becomes even more questionable than on the traditional experientialist reading. Finally, in his discussions of Plato, Mill seems to distance himself from the axiological view that non-hedonic features of mind or character have intrinsic value in their own right. In consequence, in the small number of cases in Utilitarianism in which Mill clearly speaks of ‘pleasures’ as activities, this is best construed as a derivative usage. (shrink)

This volume brings together J.S. Mills On Liberty and a selection of important essays by such eminent scholars as Isaiah Berlin, Alan Ryan, John Rees, C.L. Ten and Richard Wollheim. As well as providing authoritative commentary upon On Liberty , the essays reflect a broader debate about the philosophical foundations of Mill's liberalism, particularly the question of the connection betweenMill's professed utilitarianism and his commitment to individual liberty. Introduced and edited by John Gray and G.W. Smith, the book will (...) be of interest to students of Mill, to ethical and political philosophers and to anyone interested in the contemporary status of liberalism. (shrink)

J.S. Mill argues against licensing or forced medical examinations of prostitutes even if these would reduce harm, for two reasons: the state should not legitimize immoral conduct; and coercing prostitutes would violate Mill's harm principle as they do not risk causing non-consensual harm to others, their clients do. There is nothing puzzling about Mill opposing coercive restrictions on self-regarding immoral conduct while also opposing state support of that conduct. But why does Mill oppose restrictions on prostitutes’ (...) liberty if those restrictions could prevent harm to third parties? Mill's position is not puzzling once we recognize that his harm principle is not a harm-prevention principle that warrants restrictions on liberty to prevent harm no matter who caused it (as David Lyons famously argued) but instead warrants restrictions on liberty only of individuals who are the morally relevant cause of that harm. Mill's discussion of prostitution shows he prioritizes both individuality and moral progress over harm reduction. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In Chapter 4 of his essay Utilitarianism, “Of what sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is susceptible,” J. S. Mill undertakes to prove, in some sense of that term, the principle of utility. It has very commonly been argued that in the course of this “proof” Mill commits two very obvious fallacies. The first is the naturalistic fallacy which he is held to commit when he argues that since “the only proof capable of being given that an (...) object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible is that people hear it: and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner … the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.”1 Here Mill appears to hold that “X is desirable ”—a value judgment—follows deductively from “People desire x”—a factual statement. And the second is the fallacy of composition which seems to be involved in Mill'zs argument that since “each person's happiness is a good to that person … the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.”2. (shrink)

Introduction The unusually wide range of John Stuart Mill's interests and abilities does much to make him an intellectually live figure a century after his ...

This volume brings together J.S. Mills _On Liberty_ and a selection of important essays by such eminent scholars as Isaiah Berlin, Alan Ryan, John Rees, C.L. Ten and Richard Wollheim. As well as providing authoritative commentary upon _On Liberty_, the essays reflect a broader debate about the philosophical foundations of Mill's liberalism, particularly the question of the connection betweenMill's professed utilitarianism and his commitment to individual liberty. Introduced and edited by John Gray and G.W. Smith, the book will be (...) of interest to students of Mill, to ethical and political philosophers and to anyone interested in the contemporary status of liberalism. (shrink)

This volume brings together J.S. Mills _On Liberty_ and a selection of important essays by such eminent scholars as Isaiah Berlin, Alan Ryan, John Rees, C.L. Ten and Richard Wollheim. As well as providing authoritative commentary upon _On Liberty_, the essays reflect a broader debate about the philosophical foundations of Mill's liberalism, particularly the question of the connection betweenMill's professed utilitarianism and his commitment to individual liberty. Introduced and edited by John Gray and G.W. Smith, the book will be (...) of interest to students of Mill, to ethical and political philosophers and to anyone interested in the contemporary status of liberalism. (shrink)

Ki Su Kim; J. S. Mill's Concept of Maturity as the Criterion in Determining Children's Eligibility for Rights, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Is.

Is John Stuart Mill’s On liberty the source of present-day boundless self-tolerance and vacuous spontaneity and eccentricity? Professor Pedro Schwartz, in his work En busca de Montesquieu (2007), claims so. This article friendly discusses (o rather disputes) Schwartz’s views.

Endörfer has recently argued that proponents of the harm principle are wrong to exempt market harms as potential justifications for state interference. I argue that – contrary to suggestions in Endörfer’s article – John Stuart Mill did not exempt market harms from his harm principle. On Mill’s view, the state can (as a matter of principle) legitimately interfere with free markets to prevent market harms where they occur but, on the whole, it is better policy not to interfere. (...) Mill’s general preference for free trade rests on utilitarian considerations and not on his harm principle, which does not exclude market harms. (shrink)

Is j s mill's concept of liberty basically utilitarian? the 'utilitarian' justifies action if it promotes the ends of happiness or pleasure. But for mill liberty is neither defined nor justified by reference to any felicific calculus. Rather, His concept of liberty seems to be based on (1) natural rights theory and (2) a consideration of its social benefits.

The passage of Mill’s Utilitarianism that sets out the condition in which one pleasure has a superior quality than another stokes interpretive controversy. According to the Lexical Interpretation, Mill takes one pleasure, P1, to be of a superior quality than another, P2, if, and only if, the smallest quantity of P1 is more valuable than any finite quantity of P2. This paper argues that, while the Lexical Interpretation may be supported with supplementary evidence, the passage itself does not (...) rule out qualitative superiority without lexical dominance, as it only requires P1 to be more valuable than any quantity of P2 that it is possible for someone to experience. Some will object that this concession to opponents of the Lexical Interpretation still renders Mill’s condition for qualitative superiority too demanding to be plausible. However, if Mill’s qualitative rankings apply to higher-order pleasures taken in modes of existence as such rather than to the pleasures of different activities chosen from within these modes, the objection loses much of its force. One upshot is that Mill may have more to contribute to debates in contemporary population axiology than is usually acknowledged. (shrink)

Maximizing Hedonism maintains that the most pleasurable pleasures are the best. Francis Bradley argues that this is either incompatible with Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism, or renders the latter redundant. Some ‘sympathetic’ interpreters respond that Mill was either a Non-Maximizing Hedonist or a Non-Hedonist. However, Bradley’s argument is fallacious, and these ‘sympathetic’ interpretations cannot provide adequate accounts of: Mill’s identification with the Protagorean Socrates; his criticisms of the Gorgian Socrates; or his apparent belief that Callicles is misguided to attempt (...) to show that the pleasures of the intelligent can be more valuable than the pleasures of fools without also being more pleasurable. -/- L’hédonisme maximisateur maintient que les plaisirs les plus plaisants sont les meilleurs. Francis Bradley soutient que soit cela est incompatible avec l’hédonisme qualitatif de Mill, soit cela rend ce dernier redondant. Certains interprètes bien intentionnés répondent que Mill était soit un hédoniste non-maximisateur, soit un non-hédoniste. L’argument de Bradley est toutefois fallacieux et ces interprétations bien intentionnées ne peuvent rendre compte de manière adéquate de l’identification de Mill avec le Socrate protagorien, de ses critiques du Socrate gorgien, ni de sa conviction apparente que Calliclès a tort de tenter de montrer que les plaisirs de la personne intelligente peuvent être plus précieux que les plaisirs de l’idiot sans pour autant être plus plaisants. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)