Jeremy Bentham
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Oct 9, 2007 · 2.7 Act Utilitarianism. Several of Mill’s characterizations of utilitarianism endorse the direct utilitarian claim that an action’s moral status is a function of its utility. Chapter II, we saw, is where Mill purports to say what the doctrine of utilitarianism does and does not say.
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.
- Overview
- Early life and career
John Stuart Mill 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.
What were John Stuart Mill’s most notable works?
Some of John Stuart Mill’s notable works included Principles of Political Economy, Autobiography, Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, On Liberty, A System of Logic, The Subjection of Women, and Utilitarianism.
Where was John Stuart Mill born?
English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill was born in his father’s house in Pentonville, London, on May 20, 1806.
John Stuart Mill (born May 20, 1806, London, England—died May 8, 1873, Avignon, France) 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.
The eldest son of the British historian, economist, and philosopher James Mill, he was born in his father’s house in Pentonville, London. He was educated exclusively by his father, who was a strict disciplinarian. By his eighth year he had read in the original Greek Aesop’s Fables, Xenophon’s Anabasis, and the whole of the historian Herodotus. He was acquainted with the satirist Lucian, the historian of philosophy Diogenes Laërtius, the Athenian writer and educational theorist Isocrates, and six dialogues of Plato. He had also read a great deal of history in English. At the age of eight he started Latin, the geometry of Euclid, and algebra and began to teach the younger children of the family. His main reading was still history, but he went through all the Latin and Greek authors commonly read in the schools and universities and, by the age of 10 could read Plato and the Athenian statesman Demosthenes with ease. About the age of 12, he began a thorough study of Scholastic logic, at the same time reading Aristotle’s logical treatises in the original. In the following year he was introduced to political economy and studied the work of the Scottish political economist and philosopher Adam Smith and that of the English economist David Ricardo.
While the training the younger Mill received has aroused amazement and criticism, its most important aspect was the close association it fostered with the strenuous character and vigorous intellect of his father. From his earliest days he spent much time in his father’s study and habitually accompanied him on his walks. He thus inevitably acquired many of his father’s speculative opinions and his father’s way of defending them. But he did not receive the impress passively and mechanically. The duty of collecting and weighing evidence for himself was at every turn impressed upon the boy. His childhood was not unhappy, but it was a strain on his constitution and he suffered from the lack of natural, unforced development.
From May 1820 until July 1821, Mill was in France with the family of Sir Samuel Bentham, brother of Jeremy Bentham, the English utilitarian philosopher, economist, and theoretical jurist. Copious extracts from a diary kept at this time show how methodically he read and wrote, studied chemistry and botany, tackled advanced mathematical problems, and made notes on the scenery and the people and customs of the country. He also gained a thorough acquaintance with the French language. On his return in 1821 he added to his work the study of psychology and of Roman law, which he read with John Austin, his father having half decided on the bar as the best profession open to him. This intention, however, was abandoned, and in 1823, when he had just completed his 17th year, he entered the examiner’s office of the India House. After a short probation he was promoted in 1828 to assistant examiner. For 20 years, from 1836 (when his father died) to 1856, Mill had charge of the British East India Company’s relations with the Indian states, and in 1856 he became chief of the examiner’s office.
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In 1822 Mill had read P.-E.-L. Dumont’s exposition of Bentham’s doctrines in the Traités de Législation, which made a lasting impression upon him. The impression was confirmed by the study of the English psychologists and also of two 18th-century French philosophers—Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, who was also a psychologist, and Claude-Adrien Helvétius, who was noted for his emphasis on physical sensations. Soon after, in 1822–23, Mill established among a few friends the Utilitarian Society, taking the word, as he tells us, from Annals of the Parish, a novel of Scottish country life by John Galt.
Mar 29, 2024 · 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.
- Introductory Remarks. 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.
- Mill’s Theory of Value and the Principle of Utility. Mill defines “utilitarianism” as the creed that considers a particular “theory of life” as the “foundation of morals” (CW 10, 210).
- Morality as a System of Social Rules. The fifth and final chapter of Utilitarianism is of unusual importance for Mill’s theory of moral obligation. Until the 1970s, the significance of the chapter had been largely overlooked.
- The Role of Moral Rules (Secondary Principles) In Utilitarianism, Mill designs the following model of moral deliberation. In the first step the actor should examine which of the rules (secondary principles) in the moral code of his or her society are pertinent in the given situation.
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.
utilitarianism Summary. Utilitarianism, in normative ethics, a tradition stemming from the late 18th- and 19th-century English philosophers and economists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill according to which an action (or type of action) is right if it tends to promote happiness or pleasure and wrong if it tends to.
