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Oct 9, 2007 · John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was the most famous and influential British philosopher of the nineteenth century. He was one of the last systematic philosophers, making significant contributions in logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and social theory. He was also an important public figure, articulating the liberal ...
An essay that defends utilitarianism as a moral theory based on happiness and justice. Mill argues that pleasure is the sole basis of morality, and that rights are necessary for human happiness.
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Educated by his father James Mill who was a close friend to Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill came in contact with utilitarian thought at a very early stage of his life. In his Autobiography he claims to have introduced the word utilitarian into the English language when he was sixteen. Mill remained a utilitarian throughout his life. Beginning in t...
Mill tells us in his Autobiography that the little work with the name Utilitarianism arose from unpublished material, the greater part of which he completed in the final years of his marriage to Harriet Taylor, that is, before 1858. For its publication he brought old manuscripts into form and added some new material.
The work first appeared in 1861 as a series of three articles for Frasers Magazine, a journal that, though directed at an educated audience, was by no means a philosophical organ. Mill planned from the beginning a separate book publication, which came to light in 1863. Even if the circumstances of the genesis of this work gesture to an occasional p...
The priority of the text was to popularize the fundamental thoughts of utilitarianism within influential circles. This goal explains the composition of the work. After some general introductory comments, the text defends utilitarianism from common criticisms (\"What Utilitarianism Is\"). After this Mill turns to the question concerning moral motiva...
Modern readers are often confused by the way in which Mill uses the term utilitarianism. Today we routinely differentiate between hedonism as a theory of the good and utilitarianism as a consequentialist theory of the right. Mill, however, considered both doctrines to be so closely intertwined that he used the term utilitarianism to signify both th...
The fifth and final chapter of Utilitarianism is of unusual importance for Mills theory of moral obligation. Until the 1970s, the significance of the chapter had been largely overlooked. It then became one of the bridgeheads of a revisionist interpretation of Mill, which is associated with the work of David Lyons, John Skorupski and others. The Sec...
Mill worked very hard to hammer the fifth chapter into shape and his success has great meaning for him. Towards the end of the book he maintains the considerations which have now been adduced resolve, I conceive, the only real difficulty in the utilitarian theory of morals. (CW 10, 259) [T]he mind is not in a right state, not in a state conformable...
In Utilitarianism he seems to give two different formulations of the utilitarian standard. The first points in an act utilitarian, the second in a rule utilitarian direction. Since act and rule utilitarianism are incompatible claims about what makes actions morally right, the formulations open up the fundamental question concerning what style of ut...
In the first and more famous formulation of the utilitarian standard (First Formula) Mill states: Take, for example, the case of murder. There are many persons to kill whom would be to remove men who are a cause of no good to any human being, of cruel physical and moral suffering to several, and whose whole influence tends to increase the mass of u...
Mill gives no concrete case. Since he wrote together with his wife Harriet Taylor a couple of articles on horrible cases of domestic violence in the early 1850s, he might have had the likes of Robert Curtis Bird in mind, a man who tortured his servant Mary Ann Parsons to death [see CW 25 (The Case of Mary Ann Parsons), 1151-1153].Does utilitariani...
Mill argues that in many cases we can assess the actual, expected consequences of an action, only if we hypothetically consider that all would act in the same manner. This means we recognize that the consequences of this particular action would be damaging if everyone acted that way. A similar consideration is found in the Whewell essay. Here Mill ...
Accordingly, the First Formula is not to be interpreted as drafting a moral duty. It is a general statement about what makes actions right (reasonable, expedient) or wrong. The First Formula gives a general characterization of practical reason. It says that the promotion of happiness makes an action objectively right (but not necessarily morally ri...
(i) For contemporary readers it is striking that Mills First Formula does not explicitly relate to maximization. Mill does not write, as one might expect, that only the action which leads to the best consequences is right. In other places in the text we hear of the promotion or multiplication of happiness, and not of the maximization. Alone does th...
An overview of Mill's ethical theory, which is based on the principle of utility and the pursuit of happiness. Learn about his criticisms of Bentham, his proof of utilitarianism, his views on moral rules and rights, and his relation to justice.
Mar 27, 2009 · 2.2 John Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was a follower of Bentham, and, through most of his life, greatly admired Bentham's work even though he disagreed with some of Bentham's claims — particularly on the nature of ‘happiness.’
Utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory that evaluates actions by their consequences for happiness or pleasure. Learn about its history, concepts, methodologies, criticisms, and variations from Bentham, Mill, Sidgwick, and others.
May 16, 2024 · John Stuart Mill (born May 20, 1806, London, England—died May 8, 1873, Avignon, France) was an English philosopher, economist, and exponent of utilitarianism.He was prominent as a publicist in the reforming age of the 19th century, and remains of lasting interest as a logician and an ethical theorist.
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Aug 25, 2016 · John Stuart Mill (1806–73) was the most influential English language philosopher of the nineteenth century. He was a naturalist, a utilitarian, and a liberal, whose work explores the consequences of a thoroughgoing empiricist outlook. In doing so, he sought to combine the best of eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinking with newly emerging ...
