John Stuart Mill's civic liberalism
Although it is frequently overlooked, J.S. Mill's political philosophy has a significant civic component; he is a committed believer in the value of active and disinterested participation in public affairs by the citizens of liberal democracies, and he advocates a programme of civic education intended to cultivate public spirit. In the first half of this essay I present a brief but systematic exploration of his thought's civic dimension. In the second half I defend Mill's civic liberalism against various critics who have explicitly or implicitly charged that the civic and liberal components of his political philosophy are inconsistent.
Keywords: Arneson, Richard; Himmelfarb, Gertrude; Justman, Stewart; Mill, John Stuart; civic liberalism; civic republicanism; liberalism; participation; republicanism
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: Dept of Philosophy, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529-0083, USA. Email:[email protected]
Publication date: 2000
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content