Love, Poetry, and the Good Life: Mill's Autobiography and Perfectionist Ethics
Inquiry 53 (6):565-578 (2011)
| Abstract | I argue for a perfectionist reading of Mill’s account of the good life, by using the failures of development recorded in his Autobiography as a way to understand his official account of happiness in Utilitarianism. This work offers both a new perspective on Mill’s thought, and a distinctive account of the role of aesthetic and emotional capacities in the most choiceworthy human life. I consider the philosophical purposes of autobiography, Mill’s disagreements with Bentham, and the nature of competent judges and the pleasure they take in higher culture. I conclude that Millian perfectionism is an attractive and underappreciated option for contemporary value theory. | |||||||||
| Keywords | John Stuart Mill Autobiography Hedonism Perfectionism Well-being Happiness | |||||||||
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