View source for Biography:John Stuart Mill

{{short description|British philosopher and political economist (1806–1873)}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix    = 
| name                = John Stuart Mill
| honorific-suffix    = 
| image               = Stuart Mill G F Watts.jpg
| caption             = 1873 portrait by George Frederic Watts
| parliament          = United Kingdom
| constituency_MP     = City of Westminster
| term_start          = 25 July 1865
| term_end            = 17 November 1868
| alongside           = Robert Grosvenor
| predecessor         = De Lacy Evans
| successor           = William Henry Smith
| birth_date          = {{Birth date|1806|5|20|df=y}}
| birth_place         = Pentonville, Middlesex, England
| death_date          = {{Death date and age|1873|5|7|1806|5|20|df=y}}
| death_place         = Avignon, Vaucluse, France
| party               = Liberal
| spouse              = {{marriage|[[Biography:Harriet Taylor Mill|Harriet Taylor]]|21 April 1851|3 November 1858|end=d}}
| father              = [[Biography:James Mill|James Mill]]
| alma_mater          = [[Organization:University College London|University College London]]
| module              = {{Infobox philosopher|embed=yes
| era              = {{plainlist| * [[Philosophy:19th-century philosophy|19th-century philosophy]]
* [[Finance:Classical economics|Classical economics]]
}}
| region           = [[Philosophy:Western philosophy|Western philosophy]]
| school_tradition = {{plainlist| * [[Philosophy:Empiricism|Empiricism]]
* [[Philosophy:Utilitarianism|Utilitarianism]]
* [[Philosophy:Consequentialism|Consequentialism]]
* [[Psychologism]]
* [[Philosophy:Classical liberalism|Classical liberalism]]
}}
| main_interests   = {{flatlist|
* Economics
* ethics
* [[Logic|logic]]
* [[Philosophy:Political philosophy|politics]]
}}
| notable_ideas    = {{flatlist|
* [[Philosophy:Public sphere|Public]]/[[Philosophy:Private sphere|private sphere]]
* social liberty
* hierarchy of pleasures in utilitarianism
* [[Philosophy:Rule utilitarianism|rule utilitarianism]]
* classical liberalism
* early [[Social:Liberal feminism|liberal feminism]]
* [[Philosophy:Harm principle|harm principle]]
* [[Philosophy:Mill's Methods|Mill's Methods]]
* [[Philosophy:Direct reference theory|direct reference theory]]
* Millian theory of proper names
* [[Philosophy:Emergentism|emergentism]]
}}
| signature        = John Stuart Mill signature.svg
}}
}}
{{Utilitarianism}}
{{Capitalism sidebar}}
'''John Stuart Mill''' (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873)<ref>Thouverez, Emile. 1908. ''Stuart Mill'' (4th ed.) Paris: Bloud & Cie. p. 23.</ref> was an English philosopher, [[Finance:Political economy|political economist]], politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of [[Philosophy:Classical liberalism|classical liberalism]], he contributed widely to [[Social:Social theory|social theory]], political theory, and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century" by the ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'',<ref name=":1">{{cite book|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/mill/|title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|first=Christopher|last=Macleod|chapter=John Stuart Mill |editor-first=Edward N.|editor-last=Zalta|date=14 November 2017|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|via=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> he conceived of [[Philosophy:Liberty|liberty]] as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and [[Social:Social control|social control]].<ref>{{cite web |title=John Stuart Mill's ''On Liberty'' |url=http://www.victorianweb.org/philosophy/mill/liberty.html |publisher=victorianweb |access-date=23 July 2009 |quote=On Liberty is a rational justification of the freedom of the individual in opposition to the claims of the state to impose unlimited control and is thus a defense of the rights of the individual against the state.}}</ref>

Mill was a proponent of [[Philosophy:Utilitarianism|utilitarianism]], an ethical theory developed by his predecessor [[Biography:Jeremy Bentham|Jeremy Bentham]]. He contributed to the investigation of [[Scientific method|scientific method]]ology, though his knowledge of the topic was based on the writings of others, notably [[Biography:William Whewell|William Whewell]], [[Biography:John Herschel|John Herschel]], and [[Biography:Auguste Comte|Auguste Comte]], and research carried out for Mill by Alexander Bain. He engaged in written debate with Whewell.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill/#SciMet |title=John Stuart Mill (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) |publisher=plato.stanford.edu |access-date=31 July 2009}}</ref>

A member of the Liberal Party and author of the early feminist work ''The Subjection of Women'', Mill was also the second member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/1866-suffrage-petition/the-first-petition/|title=Orator Hunt and the first suffrage petition 1832|website=UK Parliament}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/1866-suffrage-petition/john-stuart-mill/|title=John Stuart Mill and the 1866 petition|website=UK Parliament}}</ref>

==Biography==
John Stuart Mill was born at 13 Rodney Street in Pentonville, then on the edge of the capital and now in central London, the eldest son of Harriet Barrow and the Scottish philosopher, historian, and economist [[Biography:James Mill|James Mill]]. John Stuart was educated by his father, with the advice and assistance of [[Biography:Jeremy Bentham|Jeremy Bentham]] and Francis Place. He was given an extremely rigorous upbringing, and was deliberately shielded from association with children his own age other than his siblings. His father, a follower of Bentham and an adherent of [[Philosophy:Associationism|associationism]], had as his explicit aim to create a [[Philosophy:Genius|genius]] intellect that would carry on the cause of [[Philosophy:Utilitarianism|utilitarianism]] and its implementation after he and Bentham had died.<ref>{{cite book |last=Halevy |first=Elie |title=The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism |year=1966 |publisher=Beacon Press |isbn=978-0191010200 |pages=282–284}}</ref>

Mill was a notably precocious child. He describes his education in his autobiography. At the age of three he was taught [[Social:Ancient Greek|Greek]].<ref name="digital.library.cornell.edu">{{cite web|url=http://collections.library.cornell.edu/moa_new/index.html?c=nwng;cc=nwng;rgn=full+text;idno=nwng0033-4;didno=nwng0033-4;view=image;seq=620;node=nwng0033-4:1;page=root;size=s;frm=frameset|title=Cornell University Library Making of America Collection|website=collections.library.cornell.edu}}</ref> By the age of eight, he had read ''Aesop's Fables'', [[Biography:Xenophon|Xenophon]]'s ''Anabasis'',<ref name="digital.library.cornell.edu" /> and the whole of Herodotus,<ref name="digital.library.cornell.edu" /> and was acquainted with Lucian, [[Biography:Diogenes Laërtius|Diogenes Laërtius]], Isocrates and six dialogues of [[Biography:Plato|Plato]].<ref name="digital.library.cornell.edu" /> He had also read a great deal of history in English and had been taught [[Arithmetic|arithmetic]], physics and astronomy.

At the age of eight, Mill began studying [[Social:Latin|Latin]], the works of [[Biography:Euclid|Euclid]], and [[Algebra|algebra]], and was appointed schoolmaster to the younger children of the family. His main reading was still history, but he went through all the commonly taught Latin and Greek authors and by the age of ten could read Plato and Demosthenes with ease. His father also thought that it was important for Mill to study and compose poetry. One of his earliest poetic compositions was a continuation of the ''[[Religion:Iliad|Iliad]]''. In his spare time he also enjoyed reading about [[Natural science|natural science]]s and popular novels, such as ''Don Quixote'' and ''Robinson Crusoe''.

His father's work, ''The History of British India'', was published in 1818; immediately thereafter, at about the age of twelve, Mill began a thorough study of the [[Philosophy:Scholasticism|scholastic]] [[Logic|logic]], at the same time reading [[Biography:Aristotle|Aristotle]]'s logical treatises in the original language. In the following year he was introduced to [[Finance:Political economy|political economy]] and studied [[Biography:Adam Smith|Adam Smith]] and David Ricardo with his father, ultimately completing their [[Finance:Classical economics|classical economic view]] of [[Finance:Factors of production|factors of production]]. Mill's ''comptes rendus'' of his daily economy lessons helped his father in writing ''Elements of Political Economy'' in 1821, a textbook to promote the ideas of [[Finance:Ricardian economics|Ricardian economics]]; however, the book lacked popular support.<ref name="Rothbard2006">{{cite book |author=Murray N. Rothbard |title=An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_MCcWhLmRo-cC |access-date=21 January 2011 |date=1 February 2006 |publisher=Ludwig von Mises Institute |isbn=978-0945466482 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_MCcWhLmRo-cC/page/n121 105]}}</ref> Ricardo, who was a close friend of his father, used to invite the young Mill to his house for a walk to talk about [[Finance:Political economy|political economy]].

At the age of fourteen, Mill stayed a year in France with the family of Sir Samuel Bentham, brother of [[Biography:Jeremy Bentham|Jeremy Bentham]] and in the company of George Ensor, then pursuing his polemic against the political economy of Thomas Malthus.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ritchey |first=Rosemary |date=2009 |title=Ensor, George {{!}} Dictionary of Irish Biography |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/ensor-george-a2931 |access-date=2023-02-17 |website=www.dib.ie |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mill |first=John Stuart |url=https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/260/Mill_0223-26_EBk_v6.0.pdf |title=The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVI - Journals and Debating Speeches, Part I [1820] |publisher=Routledge and Kegan Paul |year=1988 |location=London |pages=53–58}}</ref> The mountain scenery he saw led to a lifelong taste for mountain landscapes. The lively and friendly way of life of the French also left a deep impression on him. In Montpellier, he attended the winter courses on [[Chemistry:Chemistry|chemistry]], [[Biology:Zoology|zoology]], [[Logic|logic]] of the ''Faculté des Sciences'', as well as taking a course in higher mathematics. While coming and going from France, he stayed in Paris for a few days in the house of the renowned economist Jean-Baptiste Say, a friend of Mill's father. There he met many leaders of the Liberal party, as well as other notable Parisians, including Henri Saint-Simon.

Mill went through months of sadness and contemplated suicide at twenty years of age. According to the opening paragraphs of Chapter V of his autobiography, he had asked himself whether the creation of a just society, his life's objective, would actually make him happy. His heart answered "no", and unsurprisingly he lost the happiness of striving towards this objective. Eventually, the poetry of [[Biography:William Wordsworth|William Wordsworth]] showed him that beauty generates compassion for others and stimulates joy.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/philosophy/mill/crisis.html|title=John Stuart Mill's Mental Breakdown, Victorian Unconversions, and Romantic Poetry|website=victorianweb.org}}</ref> With renewed vigour, he continued to work towards a just society, but with more relish for the journey. He considered this one of the most pivotal shifts in his thinking. In fact, many of the differences between him and his father stemmed from this expanded source of joy.

Mill met [[Biography:Thomas Carlyle|Thomas Carlyle]] during one of the latter's visits to London in the early 1830s, and the two quickly became companions and correspondents. Mill offered to print Carlyle's works at his own expense and encouraged Carlyle to write his ''French Revolution'', supplying him with materials in order to do so. In March 1835, while the manuscript of the completed first volume was in Mill's possession, Mill's housemaid unwittingly used it as tinder, destroying all "except some three or four bits of leaves".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Carlyle |first1=T. |title=TC TO JAMES FRASER |journal=The Carlyle Letters Online |date=10 January 1835 |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=66–70 |doi=10.1215/lt-18350307-TC-JFR-01 |doi-broken-date=27 January 2024 }}</ref> Mortified, Mill offered Carlyle £200 (£17,742.16 in 2021) as compensation (Carlyle would only accept £100). Ideological differences would put an end to the friendship during the 1840s, though Carlyle's early influence on Mill would colour his later thought.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Baumgarten |first=Murray |title=The Carlyle Encyclopedia |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |year=2004 |editor-last=Cumming |editor-first=Mark |location=Madison and Teaneck, NJ |pages=326 |chapter=Mill, John Stuart |isbn=978-0-8386-3792-0 }}</ref>

Mill had been engaged in a pen-friendship with [[Biography:Auguste Comte|Auguste Comte]], the founder of [[Philosophy:Positivism|positivism]] and sociology, since Mill first contacted Comte in November 1841. Comte's ''sociologie'' was more an early [[Philosophy:Philosophy of science|philosophy of science]] than modern sociology is. Comte's positivism motivated Mill to eventually reject Bentham's [[Philosophy:Psychological egoism|psychological egoism]] and what he regarded as Bentham's cold, abstract view of human nature focused on legislation and politics, instead coming to favour Comte's more sociable view of human nature focused on historical facts and directed more towards human individuals in all their complexities.<ref>Pickering, Mary. 1993. ''Auguste Comte: an intellectual biography.'' {{wipe|Cambridge University Press}}. pp. 509, 512, 535, 537.</ref>

As a [[Religion:Nonconformist (Protestantism)|nonconformist]] who refused to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, Mill was not eligible to study at the [[Organization:University of Oxford|University of Oxford]] or the [[Organization:University of Cambridge|University of Cambridge]].<ref name="bio">Capaldi, Nicholas. ''John Stuart Mill: A Biography.'' p. 33, Cambridge, 2004, {{ISBN|0521620244}}.</ref> Instead he followed his father to work for the East India Company, and attended University College, London, to hear the lectures of [[Biography:John Austin (legal philosopher)|John Austin]], the first Professor of [[Social:Jurisprudence|Jurisprudence]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://collections.library.cornell.edu/moa_new/index.html?c=nwng&cc=nwng&idno=nwng0033-4&node=nwng0033-4:1&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=623|title=Cornell University Library Making of America Collection|website=collections.library.cornell.edu}}</ref> He was elected a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1856.<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web |title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter M |url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterM.pdf |publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences |access-date=15 April 2011}}</ref>

Mill's career as a colonial administrator at the East India Company spanned from when he was 17 years old in 1823 until 1858, when the company's territories in India were directly annexed by the Crown, establishing [[History:British Raj|direct Crown control over India]].<ref>Mill, John Stuart. ''Writings on India''. Edited by John M. Robson, Martin Moir and Zawahir Moir. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; London: Routledge, c. 1990.</ref> In 1836, he was promoted to the company's political department, where he was responsible for correspondence pertaining to the company's relations with the princely states, and, in 1856, was finally promoted to the position of Examiner of Indian Correspondence. In ''On Liberty'', ''A Few Words on Non-Intervention'', and other works, he opined that "To characterize any conduct whatever towards a barbarous people as a violation of the law of nations, only shows that he who so speaks has never considered the subject."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Klausen |first1=Jimmy Casas |title=Violence and Epistemology: J. S. Mill's Indians after the 'Mutiny' |journal=Political Research Quarterly |date=March 2016 |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=96–107 |doi=10.1177/1065912915623379 |s2cid=157038995 }}</ref> (However, Mill immediately added that "A violation of the great principles of morality it may easily be.")<ref>Jennifer Pitts, Boundaries of the International: Law and Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2018), 165.</ref> Mill viewed places such as {{wipe|India}} as having once been progressive in their outlook, but had now become stagnant in their development; he opined that this meant these regions had to be ruled via a form of "benevolent despotism...provided the end is improvement".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Harris |first1=Abram L. |title=John Stuart Mill: Servant of the East India Company |journal=The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science |date=1964 |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=185–202 |doi=10.2307/139555 |jstor=139555 }}</ref> When the Crown proposed to take direct control over the territories of the East India Company, Mill was tasked with defending Company rule and penned ''Memorandum on the Improvements in the Administration of India during the Last Thirty Years'', among other petitions.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |last1=Lal |first1=Vinay |date=1998 |title='John Stuart Mill and India', a review-article |journal=New Quest |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=54–64 }}</ref> He was offered a seat on the Council of India, the body created to advise the new Secretary of State for India, but declined, citing disapproval of the new system of administration in India.<ref name=":0" />

On 21 April 1851, Mill married [[Biography:Harriet Taylor Mill|Harriet Taylor]] after 21 years of intimate friendship. Taylor was married when they met, and their relationship was close but generally believed to be chaste during the years before her first husband died in 1849. The couple waited two years before marrying in 1851. Accomplished in her own right, Taylor was a significant influence on Mill's work and ideas during both friendship and marriage. His relationship with Taylor reinforced Mill's advocacy of women's rights. He said that in his stand against domestic violence, and for women's rights he was "chiefly an amanuensis to my wife". He called her mind a "perfect instrument", and said she was "the most eminently qualified of all those known to the author". He cites her influence in his final revision of ''On Liberty'', which was published shortly after her death. Taylor died in 1858 after developing severe lung congestion, after only seven years of marriage to Mill.

Between the years 1865 and 1868 Mill served as Lord Rector of the [[Organization:University of St Andrews|University of St Andrews]]. At his inaugural address, delivered to the University on 1 February 1867, he made the now-famous (but often wrongly attributed) remark that "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing".<ref>''Inaugural Address at St Andrews'', Longmans, Green, Reader, And Dyer, 1867.</ref> That Mill included that sentence in the address is a matter of historical record, but it by no means follows that it expressed a wholly original insight.   During the same period, 1865–68, he was also a Member of Parliament (MP) for City of Westminster.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=22991|date=14 July 1865 |page=3528}}</ref><ref name="bi2o">Capaldi, Nicholas. ''John Stuart Mill: A Biography.'' pp. 321–322, Cambridge, 2004, {{ISBN|0521620244}}.</ref> He was sitting for the Liberal Party. During his time as an MP, Mill advocated easing the burdens on Ireland. In 1866, he became the first person in the history of Parliament to call for women to be given the right to vote, vigorously defending this position in subsequent debate. He also became a strong advocate of such social reforms as labour unions and farm cooperatives. In ''Considerations on Representative Government'', he called for various reforms of Parliament and voting, especially [[Social:Proportional representation|proportional representation]], the [[Social:Single transferable vote|single transferable vote]], and the extension of suffrage. In April 1868, he favoured in a Commons debate the retention of capital punishment for such crimes as aggravated murder; he termed its abolition "an effeminacy in the general mind of the country".<ref name=":2">[[Biography:George Sher|Sher, George]], ed. 2001. ''Utilitarianism and the 1868 Speech on Capital Punishment'', by J. S. Mill. Hackett Publishing Co.</ref>

He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1867.<ref>{{cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=1867&year-max=1867&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-04-21|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

He was [[Social:Godparent|godfather]] to the philosopher [[Biography:Bertrand Russell|Bertrand Russell]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/06/books/more-adept-with-concepts-than-people.html |title=More Adept With Concepts Than People |newspaper={{wipe|The New York Times}} |date=1996-12-06 |access-date=2022-03-19}}</ref>

In his views on religion, Mill was an agnostic and a [[Skepticism|sceptic]].<ref>{{cite journal |journal=[[Philosophy:Secular Review|Secular Review]] |title=Editorial Notes |date=28 March 1885 |volume=16 |number=13 |page=203 |quote=It has always seemed to us that this is one of the instances in which Mill approached, out of deference to conventional opinion, as near to the borderland of [[Biography:Immanuel Kant|Cant]] as he well could without compromising his pride of place as a recognised thinker and sceptic |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mbxCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA203}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=John Stuart Mill and the Religion of Humanity |year=2002 |publisher=University of Missouri Press |isbn=978-0826263278 |page=65 |author=Linda C. Raeder |chapter=Spirit of the Age |quote=Comte welcomed the prospect of being attacked publicly for his irreligion, he said, as this would permit him to clarify the nonatheistic nature of his and Mill's "atheism".}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| author-last=Larsen| author-first=Timothy| title=John Stuart Mill: A Secular Life| year=2018| publisher=[[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press]]|quote=A letter John wrote from Forde Abbey when he was eight years old casually mentions in his general report of his activities that he too had been to Thorncombe parish church, so even when Bentham had home-field advantage, the boy was still receiving a Christian spiritual formation. Indeed, Mill occasionally attended Christian worship services during his teen years and thereafter for the rest of his life. The sea of faith was full and all around|page=14|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EP9eDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA15| isbn=978-0198753155}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=A surprisingly religious John Stuart Mill|url=https://blog.oup.com/2018/12/surprisingly-religious-john-stuart-mill/|author-last=Larsen|author-first=Timothy|author-link=Timothy Larsen|quote=TL: Mill decided that strictly in terms of proof the right answer to that question of God's existence is that it is 'a very probable hypothesis.' He also thought it was perfectly rational and legitimate to believe in God as an act of hope or as the result of one's efforts to discern the meaning of life as a whole.|date=7 December 2018}}</ref>

Mill died in 1873, thirteen days before his 67th birthday, of [[Medicine:Erysipelas|erysipelas]] in Avignon, France, where his body was buried alongside his wife's.

==Works and theories==
===''A System of Logic''===
{{Main|Philosophy:A System of Logic}}
Mill joined the debate over [[Scientific method|scientific method]] which followed on from [[Biography:John Herschel|John Herschel]]'s 1830 publication of ''A Preliminary Discourse on the study of Natural Philosophy'', which incorporated [[Philosophy:Inductive reasoning|inductive reasoning]] from the known to the unknown, discovering general laws in specific facts and verifying these laws empirically. [[Biography:William Whewell|William Whewell]] expanded on this in his 1837 ''History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Time'', followed in 1840 by ''The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded Upon their History'', presenting induction as the mind superimposing concepts on facts. Laws were [[Self-evidence|self-evident]] truths, which could be known without need for empirical verification.

Mill countered this in 1843 in ''[[Philosophy:A System of Logic|A System of Logic]]'' (fully titled ''A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation''). In "[[Philosophy:Mill's Methods|Mill's Methods]]" (of induction), as in Herschel's, laws were discovered through observation and induction, and required empirical verification.<ref name="Shermer2002">{{cite book |first=Michael |last=Shermer |title=In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace: A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eu9Uu3PbdcgC&pg=PP212 |date=15 August 2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199923854 |page=212}}</ref> Matilal remarks that [[Philosophy:Dignāga|Dignāga]] analysis is much like John Stuart Mill's Joint Method of Agreement and Difference, which is inductive. He suggested that it was very likely that during his stay in India he came across the tradition of logic, in which scholars started taking interest after 1824, though it is unknown whether it influenced his work.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Matilal |first1=Bimal K. |last2=Chakrabarti |first2=A. |title=Knowing from Words: Western and Indian Philosophical Analysis of Understanding and Testimony |date=1994 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-0-7923-2345-7 |oclc=28016267 }}{{page needed|date=March 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Matilal |first1=BimalKrishna |title=Nyāya critique of the Buddhist doctrine of non-soul |journal=Journal of Indian Philosophy |date=March 1989 |volume=17 |issue=1 |doi=10.1007/bf00160139 |s2cid=170181380 }}</ref>

===Theory of liberty===
Mill's ''On Liberty'' (1859) addresses the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the [[Philosophy:Individual|individual]]. Mill's idea is that only if a democratic society follows the Principle of Liberty can its political and social institutions fulfill their role of shaping national character so that its citizens can realise the permanent interests of people as progressive beings (Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy; p 289).

Mill states the Principle of Liberty as: "the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection". "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant."<ref name="handle21">Mill, John Stuart. [1859] 1869. ''On Liberty'' (4th ed.). London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer. [https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hn3phv?urlappend=%3Bseq=25 pp. 21–22] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221117165326/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/imgsrv/html?id=hvd.hn3phv;seq=22 |date=17 November 2022 }}.</ref>

One way to read Mill's Principle of Liberty as a principle of public reason is to see it excluding certain kinds of reasons from being taken into account in legislation, or in guiding the moral coercion of public opinion. (Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy; p.&nbsp;291). These reasons include those founded in other persons good; reasons of excellence and ideals of human perfection; reasons of dislike or disgust, or of preference.

Mill states that "harms" which may be prevented include acts of omission as well as acts of commission. Thus, failing to rescue a [[Medicine:Drowning|drowning]] child counts as a harmful act, as does failing to pay taxes, or failing to appear as a witness in court. All such harmful omissions may be regulated, according to Mill. By contrast, it does not count as harming someone if—without force or fraud—the affected individual [[Philosophy:Consent|consent]]s to assume the risk: thus one may permissibly offer unsafe employment to others, provided there is no deception involved. (He does, however, recognise one limit to consent: society should not permit people to sell themselves into slavery.)

The question of what counts as a self-regarding action and what actions, whether of omission or commission, constitute harmful actions subject to regulation, continues to exercise interpreters of Mill. He did not consider giving offence to constitute "harm"; an action could not be restricted because it violated the conventions or morals of a given society.<ref name=":4">Mill, John Stuart. [1859] 2001. ''[https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/mill/liberty.pdf On Liberty] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191114024129/https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/mill/liberty.pdf |date=14 November 2019 }}''. Kitchener, ON: Batoche Books. Retrieved 17 June 2020.</ref>
[[File:J S Mill and H Taylor.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.15|John Stuart Mill and Helen Taylor. Helen was the daughter of Harriet Taylor and collaborated with Mill for fifteen years after her mother's death in 1858.]]

====Social liberty and tyranny of majority====
Mill believed that "the struggle between [[Philosophy:Liberty|Liberty]] and [[Philosophy:Authority|Authority]] is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history."<ref name="OnLiberty-Bartleby">{{cite web|url=https://www.bartleby.com/130/1.html|title=I. Introductory. Mill, John Stuart. 1869. On Liberty|website=bartleby.com|access-date=16 July 2018}}</ref> For him, liberty in antiquity was a "contest…between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government."<ref name="OnLiberty-Bartleby" />

Mill defined ''social liberty'' as protection from "the [[Social:Tyrant|tyranny]] of political rulers". He introduced a number of different concepts of the form tyranny can take, referred to as social tyranny, and ''[[Social:Tyranny of the majority|tyranny of the majority]]''. ''Social liberty'' for Mill meant putting limits on the ruler's power so that he would not be able to use that power to further his own wishes and thus make decisions that could harm society. In other words, people should have the right to have a say in the government's decisions. He said that ''social liberty'' was "the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual." It was attempted in two ways: first, by obtaining recognition of certain immunities (called ''political liberties'' or [[Social:Civil and political rights|''rights'']]); and second, by establishment of a system of "constitutional checks".

However, in Mill's view, limiting the power of government was not enough:<ref>Mill, John Stuart. [1859] 2006. ''On Liberty.'' Penguin Classics. {{ISBN|978-0141441474}}. pp. 10–11.</ref><blockquote>Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.</blockquote>

====Liberty====
Mill's view on [[Philosophy:Liberty|liberty]], which was influenced by [[Biography:Joseph Priestley|Joseph Priestley]] and Josiah Warren, is that individuals ought to be free to do as they wished unless they caused harm to others. Individuals are rational enough to make decisions about their well-being. Government should interfere when it is for the protection of society. Mill explained:<ref name="handle21"/>

<blockquote>The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right.… The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns him, his independence is, of right, [[Philosophy:Absolute|absolute]]. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the [[Philosophy:Individual|individual]] is sovereign.</blockquote>

====Freedom of speech====
''On Liberty'' involves an impassioned defense of [[Philosophy:Freedom of speech|free speech]]. Mill argues that free [[Social:Discourse|discourse]] is a necessary condition for intellectual and social progress. We can never be sure, he contends, that a silenced opinion does not contain some element of the truth. He also argues that allowing people to air false opinions is productive for two reasons. First, individuals are more likely to abandon erroneous beliefs if they are engaged in an open exchange of ideas. Second, by forcing other individuals to re-examine and re-affirm their beliefs in the process of debate, these beliefs are kept from declining into mere [[Philosophy:Dogma|dogma]]. It is not enough for Mill that one simply has an unexamined belief that happens to be true; one must understand why the belief in question is the true one. Along those same lines Mill wrote, "unmeasured vituperation, employed on the side of prevailing opinion, really does deter people from expressing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who express them."<ref>Mill, John Stuart. [1859] 1909. "On Liberty". pp. 195–290 in ''Harvard Classics'' 25, edited by C. W. Eliot. New York: PF Collier & Son. p. 248.</ref><ref name=":4" />{{Rp|51}}

As an influential advocate of freedom of speech, Mill objected to censorship:<ref>Mill, John Stuart. [1859] 1985. ''On Liberty'', edited by [[Biography:Gertrude Himmelfarb|G. Himmelfarb]], UK: Penguin. pp. 83–84.</ref>

<blockquote>I choose, by preference the cases which are least favourable to me—In which the argument opposing freedom of opinion, both on truth and that of [[Utility|utility]], is considered the strongest. Let the opinions impugned be the belief of God and in a future state, or any of the commonly received doctrines of morality ... But I must be permitted to observe that it is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I call an assumption of [[Infallibility|infallibility]]. It is the undertaking to decide that question ''for others'', without allowing them to hear what can be said on the contrary side. And I denounce and reprobate this pretension not the less if it is put forth on the side of my most solemn convictions. However positive anyone's persuasion may be, not only of the faculty but of the pernicious consequences, but (to adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the immorality and impiety of opinion.—yet if, in pursuance of that private judgement, though backed by the public judgement of his country or contemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being heard in its defence, he assumes infallibility. And so far from the assumption being less objectionable or less dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or impious, this is the case of all others in which it is most fatal.</blockquote>

Mill outlines the benefits of "searching for and discovering the truth" as a way to further knowledge. He argued that even if an opinion is false, the truth can be better understood by refuting the error. And as most opinions are neither completely true nor completely false, he points out that allowing free expression allows the airing of competing views as a way to preserve partial truth in various opinions.<ref name="Freedomof">Paul, Ellen Frankel, Fred Dycus Miller, and Jeffrey Paul. 2004. ''Freedom of Speech'' 21. {{wipe|Cambridge University Press}}.</ref> Worried about minority views being suppressed, he argued in support of freedom of speech on political grounds, stating that it is a critical component for a [[Social:Representative democracy|representative government]] to have to empower debate over [[Social:Public policy|public policy]].<ref name="Freedomof" /> He also eloquently argued that freedom of expression allows for personal growth and [[Philosophy:Self-realization|self-realization]]. He said that freedom of speech was a vital way to develop talents and realise a person's potential and creativity. He repeatedly said that eccentricity was preferable to uniformity and stagnation.<ref name="Freedomof" />

=====Harm principle=====
The belief that freedom of speech would advance society presupposed a society sufficiently culturally and institutionally advanced to be capable of progressive improvement. If any argument is really wrong or harmful, the public will judge it as wrong or harmful, and then those arguments cannot be sustained and will be excluded. Mill argued that even any arguments which are used in justifying murder or [[Social:Rebellion|rebellion]] against the government should not be [[Social:Political repression|politically suppressed]] or socially persecuted. According to him, if rebellion is really necessary, people should rebel; if murder is truly proper, it should be allowed. However, the way to express those arguments should be a public speech or writing, not in a way that causes actual harm to others. Such is the ''[[Philosophy:Harm principle|harm principle]]'': "That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."<ref>Mill, John Stuart. [1859] 1863. ''On Liberty''. Ticknor and Fields. p. 23</ref>

At the beginning of the 20th century, Associate justice [[Biography:Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.|Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.]] made the standard of "clear and present danger" based on Mill's idea. In the majority opinion, Holmes writes:

<blockquote> The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.<ref>''Schenck v. United States'', 249 U.S. 47 (1919).</ref></blockquote>

Holmes suggested that falsely shouting out "Fire!" in a dark theatre, which evokes panic and provokes injury, would be such a case of speech that creates an illegal danger.{{sfn|George|Kline|2006|p=409}} But if the situation allows people to [[Philosophy:Reason|reason]] by themselves and decide to accept it or not, any argument or theology should not be blocked.

Mill's argument is now generally accepted by many [[Social:Democracy|democratic countries]], and they have laws at least guided by the harm principle. For example, in American law some exceptions limit free speech such as obscenity, defamation, breach of peace, and "fighting words".{{sfn|George|Kline|2006|p=410}}

=====Freedom of the press=====

In ''On Liberty'', Mill thought it was necessary for him to restate the case for press freedom. He considered that argument already won. Almost no politician or commentator in mid-19th-century Britain wanted a return to Tudor and Stuart-type press censorship. However, Mill warned new forms of censorship could emerge in the future.<ref>''John Stuart Mill's On Liberty: A Translation into Modern English'', Kindle edition, 2013. . 38. {{ISBN|978-0906321638}}</ref> Indeed, in 2013 the Cameron Tory government considered setting up a so-called independent official regulator of the UK press.<ref>"British Press Freedom under Threat", New York Times, 14 November 2013.</ref> This prompted demands for better basic legal protection of press freedom.  A new British Bill of Rights could include a US-type constitutional ban on governmental infringement of press freedom and block other official attempts to control freedom of opinion and expression.<ref>Abbott, Lewis F. ''Defending Liberty: the Case for a New Bill of Rights''. ISR/Google Books, 2019. p. 22. {{ISBN|978-0906321737}}</ref>

===Colonialism===

Mill, an employee of the East India Company from 1823 to 1858,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/philosophy/mill/career.html|title=J. S. Mill's Career at the East India Company|website=victorianweb.org}}</ref> argued in support of what he called a "benevolent despotism" with regard to the administration of overseas colonies.<ref name="David Theo Goldberg 2000">{{cite journal |last1=Goldberg |first1=David Theo |year=2000 |title=Liberalism's limits: Carlyle and Mill on 'the negro question' |journal=Nineteenth-Century Contexts |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=203–216 |doi=10.1080/08905490008583508 |s2cid=194002917}}</ref> Mill argued:<ref>John Stuart Mill,'' Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical'' (New York 1874) Vol. 3, pp. 252–253.</ref><blockquote>To suppose that the same international customs, and the same rules of international morality, can obtain between one civilized nation and another, and between civilized nations and barbarians, is a grave error.… To characterize any conduct whatever towards a barbarous people as a violation of the law of nations, only shows that he who so speaks has never considered the subject.</blockquote> Mill expressed general support for Company rule in India, but expressed reservations on specific Company policies in India which he disagreed with.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Williams |first1=David |title=John Stuart Mill and the practice of colonial rule in India |journal=Journal of International Political Theory |date=October 2021 |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=412–428 |doi=10.1177/1755088220903349 |s2cid=214445850 |url=https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/62722 }}</ref>

===Slavery and racial equality===
In 1850, Mill sent an anonymous letter (which came to be known under the title "The Negro Question"),<ref>Mill, John Stuart. 1850. "[https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044092641992?urlappend=%3Bseq=33 The Negro Question] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221117165324/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044092641992;seq=33|date=17 November 2022}}". ''Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country'' 41:25–31.</ref>  in rebuttal to [[Biography:Thomas Carlyle|Thomas Carlyle]]'s letter to ''Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country'' in which Carlyle argued for [[Social:Slavery|slavery]]. Mill supported abolishing slavery in the United States, expressing his opposition to slavery in his essay of 1869, ''The Subjection of Women'':<ref name="The Subjection of Women">Mill, John Stuart. 1869. [http://www.constitution.org/jsm/women.htm ''The Subjection of Women''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150429185554/http://www.constitution.org/jsm/women.htm |date=29 April 2015 }}. ch. 1.</ref>

<blockquote>This absolutely extreme case of the law of force, condemned by those who can tolerate almost every other form of arbitrary power, and which, of all others, presents features the most revolting to the feeling of all who look at it from an impartial position, was the law of civilized and Christian England within the memory of persons now living: and in one half of Anglo-Saxon America three or four years ago, not only did slavery exist, but the slave trade, and the breeding of slaves expressly for it, was a general practice between slave states. Yet not only was there a greater strength of sentiment against it, but, in England at least, a less amount either of feeling or of interest in favour of it, than of any other of the customary abuses of force: for its motive was the love of gain, unmixed and undisguised: and those who profited by it were a very small numerical fraction of the country, while the natural feeling of all who were not personally interested in it, was unmitigated abhorrence.</blockquote>

Mill corresponded with John Appleton, an American [[Philosophy:Law reform|legal reformer]] from Maine, extensively on the topic of racial equality. Appleton influenced Mill's work on such, especially swaying him on the optimal economic and social welfare plan for the Antebellum South.<ref name=":3">{{cite web|url=https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/mill-the-collected-works-of-john-stuart-mill-volume-xv-the-later-letters-1849-1873-part-ii|title=The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XV – The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849–1873 Part II – Online Library of Liberty|website=oll.libertyfund.org|access-date=28 April 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Vile|first=John R.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U6uJ-oWsZFYC&q=%22John+Appleton%22+and+john+stuart+mill&pg=PA33|title=Great American Judges: An Encyclopedia|date=2003|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1576079898|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=P |first1=T. Peter |title=John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, And The U.S. Civil War |journal=The Historian |date=1 September 1991 |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=93–106 |doi=10.1111/j.1540-6563.1991.tb00843.x }}</ref> In a letter sent to Appleton in response to a previous letter, Mill expressed his view on antebellum integration:<ref name=":3" /><blockquote>I cannot look forward with satisfaction to any settlement but complete emancipation—land given to every negro family either separately or in organized communities under such rules as may be found temporarily necessary—the schoolmaster set to work in every village & the tide of free immigration turned on in those fertile regions from which slavery has hitherto excluded it. If this be done, the gentle & docile character which seems to distinguish the negroes will prevent any mischief on their side, while the proofs they are giving of fighting powers will do more in a year than all other things in a century to make the whites respect them & consent to their being politically & socially equals.</blockquote>Unlike many of his peers, Mill supported the Union in the American Civil War, seeing it as a necessary evil that would deliver a vital “salutary shock” to the national conscience and help preserve liberal ideals while eradicating the "stain" of slavery in the United States.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2008 |title=John Stuart Mill believed the American Civil War to be a necessary evil, worth the terrible cost to eradicate slavery from society. |url=https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/summer-2008-saving-the-world/blood-for-liberty |access-date=2024-01-25 |website=THE WILSON QUARTERLY}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Somin |first=Ilya |date=2013-07-17 |title=John Stuart Mill on Slavery, the Confederacy, and the American Civil War |url=https://volokh.com/2013/07/17/john-stuart-mill-on-slavery-the-confederacy-and-the-american-civil-war/ |access-date=2024-01-25 |website=The Volokh Conspiracy |language=en-US}}</ref> Mill expressed his views in an article for ''Fraser's Magazine'', arguing against the defenders of the [[Place:Confederate States of America|Confederate States of America]].<blockquote>There are people who tell us that, on the side of the North, the question is not one of slavery at all. The North, it seems, have no more objection to slavery than the South have. [...] If this be the true state of the case, what are the Southern chiefs fighting about? Their apologists in England say that it is about tariffs, and similar trumpery. They say nothing of the kind. They tell the world, and they told their own citizens when they wanted their votes, that the object of the fight was slavery. [...] The world knows what the question between the North and South has been for many years, and still is. Slavery alone was thought of, alone talked of.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Contest In America - John Stuart Mill on emancipation |url=https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/contest-america |access-date=2024-01-25 |website=American Battlefield Trust |language=en-US}}</ref></blockquote>{{For|more information about the [[History:Historical revisionism|historical revisionism]] of the role of slavery in the Confederate States during the American Civil War|Lost Cause of the Confederacy}}

===Women's rights===
[[File:John Stuart Mill, Vanity Fair, 1873-03-29.jpg|thumb|"A Feminine Philosopher". Caricature by Spy published in ''Vanity Fair'' in 1873]]
Mill's view of history was that right up until his time "the whole of the female" and "the great majority of the male sex" were simply "slaves". He countered arguments to the contrary, arguing that relations between sexes simply amounted to "the legal subordination of one sex to the other – [which] is wrong itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality". Here, then, we have an instance of Mill's use of "slavery" in a sense which, compared to its fundamental meaning of absolute unfreedom of person, is an extended and arguably a rhetorical rather than a literal sense.

With this, Mill can be considered among the earliest male proponents of gender equality, having been recruited by American feminist [[Biography:John Neal (writer)|John Neal]] during his stay in London circa 1825–1827.<ref>{{Cite book | publisher = A.J. Huston | last = Daggett | first = Windsor | title = A Down-East Yankee From the District of Maine | location = Portland, Maine | year = 1920 | url = https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007921667 | page = 32}}</ref> His book ''The Subjection of Women'' (1861, publ.1869) is one of the earliest written on this subject by a male author.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thoughtco.com/john-stuart-mill-male-feminist-3530510|title=About Male Feminist John Stuart Mill|last1=Divinity|first1=Jone Johnson Lewis Jone Johnson Lewis has a Master of|last2=Member|first2=Is a Humanist Clergy|website=ThoughtCo|language=en|access-date=9 July 2019|last3=late 1960s|first3=certified transformational coach She has been involved in the women's movement since the}}</ref> In ''The Subjection of Women'', Mill attempts to make a case for perfect equality.<ref>Cunningham Wood, John. ''John Stuart Mill: Critical Assessments'' 4.</ref>

In his proposal for a universal education system sponsored by the state, Mill expands benefits for many marginalized groups, especially for women. For Mill, a universal education held the potential to create new abilities and novel types of behavior of which the current receiving generation and their descendants could both benefit from. Such a pathway to opportunity would enable women to gain "industrial and social independence" that would allow them the same movement in their agency and citizenship as men.
Mill's view of opportunity stands out in its reach, but even more so for the population he foresees who could benefit from it. Mill was hopeful of the autonomy such an education could allow for its recipients and especially for women. Through the consequential sophistication and knowledge attained, individuals are able to properly act in ways that recedes away from those leading towards overpopulation.
This stands directly in contrast with the view held by many of Mill's contemporaries and predecessors who viewed such inclusive programs to be counter intuitive. Aiming such help at marginalized groups, such as the poor and working class, would only serve to reward them with the opportunity to move to a higher status, thus encouraging greater fertility which at its extreme could lead to overproduction.

He talks about the role of women in marriage and how it must be changed.  Mill comments on three major facets of women's lives that he felt are hindering them:

# [[Social:Social construction of gender|society and gender construction]];
# education; and
# [[Social:Wife|marriage]].

He argues that the oppression of women was one of the few remaining relics from ancient times, a set of prejudices that severely impeded the progress of humanity.<ref name="The Subjection of Women" /><ref>Mill, John Stuart. [1869] 2005. "The Subjection of Women". pp. 17–26 in ''Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology'', edited by [[Biography:Ann Cudd|A. E. Cudd]] and R. O. Andreasen. Oxford, UK: [[Company:Wiley-Blackwell|Blackwell Publishing]]. {{ISBN|978-1405116619}}.</ref> As a Member of Parliament, Mill introduced an unsuccessful amendment to the Reform Bill to substitute the word "person" in place of "man".<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Oxford handbook of the history of ethics|last=West|first=Henry R.|isbn=978-0198744405|editor-last=Crisp|editor-first=Roger|location=Oxford|page=528|chapter=J. S. Mill|oclc=907652431|date = 1 September 2015}}</ref>

===''Utilitarianism''===
[[File:JohnStuartMill.jpg|thumb|"The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end." ~ John Stuart Mill, ''Utilitarianism'' (1863){{sfn|Mill|1863|p=51}}]]
The canonical statement of Mill's [[Philosophy:Utilitarianism|utilitarianism]] can be found in his book, ''Utilitarianism''. Although this philosophy has a long tradition, Mill's account is primarily influenced by [[Biography:Jeremy Bentham|Jeremy Bentham]] and Mill's father [[Biography:James Mill|James Mill]].

John Stuart Mill believed in the philosophy of ''utilitarianism'', which he would describe as the principle that holds "that actions are right in the proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness". By ''happiness'' he means, "intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mill |first1=John |title=The Basic Writings of John Stuart Mill |date=2002 |publisher=The Modern Library |page=239}}</ref> It is clear that we do not all value virtues as a path to happiness and that we sometimes only value them for selfish reasons. However, Mill asserts that upon reflection, even when we value virtues for selfish reasons we are in fact cherishing them as a part of our happiness.

Bentham's famous formulation of utilitarianism is known as the '''greatest-happiness principle'''. It holds that one must always act so as to produce the greatest aggregate happiness among all [[Philosophy:Sentience|sentient beings]], within reason. In a similar vein, Mill's method of determining the best utility is that a moral agent, when given the choice between two or more actions, ought to choose the action that contributes most to (maximizes) the total happiness in the world. ''Happiness'', in this context, is understood as the production of [[Philosophy:Pleasure|pleasure]] or [[Philosophy:Privation|privation]] of pain. Given that determining the action that produces the most utility is not always so clear cut, Mill suggests that the utilitarian moral agent, when attempting to rank the utility of different actions, should refer to the general experience of persons. That is, if people generally experience more happiness following action ''X'' than they do action ''Y'', the utilitarian should conclude that action ''X'' produces more utility than action ''Y'', and so is to be preferred.<ref name="John Stuart Mill">{{cite book|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11224|title=Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill |via=Project Gutenberg |date=February 2004}}</ref>

Utilitarianism is a [[Philosophy:Consequentialism|consequentialist]] ethical theory, meaning that it holds that acts are justified insofar as they produce a desirable outcome. The overarching goal of utilitarianism—the ideal consequence—is to achieve the "greatest good for the greatest number as the end result of human action."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Freeman |first1=Stephen J. |last2=Engels |first2=Dennis W. |last3=Altekruse |first3=Michael K. |title=Foundations for Ethical Standards and Codes: The Role of Moral Philosophy and Theory in Ethics |journal=Counseling and Values |date=April 2004 |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=163–173 |doi=10.1002/j.2161-007X.2004.tb00243.x }}</ref> In ''Utilitarianism,'' Mill states that "happiness is the sole end of human action".<ref name=":2" /> This statement aroused some controversy, which is why Mill took it a step further, explaining how the very nature of humans wanting happiness, and who "take it to be reasonable under free consideration", demands that happiness is indeed desirable.<ref name=":1" /> In other words, [[Philosophy:Free will|free will]] leads everyone to make actions inclined on their own happiness, unless reasoned that it would improve the happiness of others, in which case, the greatest utility is still being achieved. To that extent, the ''utilitarianism'' that Mill is describing is a default lifestyle that he believes is what people who have not studied a specific opposing field of ethics would naturally and subconsciously use when faced with a decision.

Utilitarianism is thought of by some of its activists to be a more developed and overarching [[Philosophy:Kantian ethics|ethical theory of Immanuel Kant]]'s belief in goodwill, and not just some default [[Cognition|cognitive process]] of humans. Where [[Biography:Immanuel Kant|Kant]] (1724–1804) would argue that reason can only be used properly by goodwill, Mill would say that the only way to universally create fair laws and systems would be to step back to the consequences, whereby Kant's ethical theories become based around the ultimate good—utility.<ref>Davis, G. Scott. 2005. "Introduction", ''Introduction to Utilitarianism, by John Stuart Mill'', vii–xiv. Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading.</ref> By this logic the only valid way to discern what is the proper reason would be to view the consequences of any action and weigh the good and the bad, even if on the surface, the ethical reasoning seems to indicate a different train of thought.

==== Higher and lower pleasures ====
Mill's major contribution to utilitarianism is his argument for the [[Qualitative research|qualitative]] separation of pleasures. Bentham treats all forms of happiness as equal, whereas Mill argues that intellectual and moral pleasures (''higher pleasures'') are superior to more physical forms of pleasure (''lower pleasures''). He distinguishes between happiness and [[Philosophy:Contentment|contentment]], claiming that the former is of higher value than the latter, a belief wittily encapsulated in the statement that, "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be [[Biography:Socrates|Socrates]] dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question."<ref name="John Stuart Mill" />

This made Mill believe that "our only ultimate end"<ref name="auto">{{cite web |last1=Heydt |first1=Colin |title=John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/milljs |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> is happiness. One unique part of his utilitarian view, that is not seen in others, is the idea of higher and lower pleasures. Mill explains the different pleasures as:
{{blockquote|If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference […] that is the more desirable pleasure.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mill |first1=John |title=Utilitarianism |date=1961 |publisher=Doubleday |page=211}}</ref>}}
He defines '''higher pleasures''' as mental, moral, and aesthetic pleasures, and '''lower pleasures''' as being more sensational. He believed that higher pleasures should be seen as preferable to lower pleasures since they have a greater quality in virtue. He holds that pleasures gained in activity are of a higher quality than those gained passively.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Driver |first1=Julia |title=The History of Utilitarianism |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/utilitarianism-history |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|date=27 March 2009 }}</ref>

Mill defines the difference between higher and lower forms of pleasure with the principle that those who have experienced both tend to prefer one over the other. This is, perhaps, in direct contrast with Bentham's statement that "Quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry",<ref name="Bronfenbrenner">{{cite journal|doi=10.1111/j.1465-7295.1977.tb00452.x | volume=15 | title=Poetry, Pushpin, and Utility | year=1977 | journal=Economic Inquiry | pages=95–110 | last1 = Bronfenbrenner | first1 = Martin}}</ref> that, if a simple child's game like hopscotch causes more pleasure to more people than a night at the opera house, it is more incumbent upon a society to devote more resources to propagating hopscotch than running opera houses. Mill's argument is that the "simple pleasures" tend to be preferred by people who have no experience with high art, and are therefore not in a proper [[Philosophy:Informed judge|position to judge]]. He also argues that people who, for example, are noble or practise philosophy, benefit society more than those who engage in [[Philosophy:Individualism|individualist]] practices for pleasure, which are lower forms of happiness. It is not the agent's own greatest happiness that matters "but the greatest amount of happiness altogether".{{sfn|Mill|1863|p=[https://archive.org/stream/a592840000milluoft#page/16 16]}}

====Chapters====
Mill separated his explanation of Utilitarianism into five different sections:

# General Remarks;
# What Utilitarianism Is;
# Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility;
# Of What Sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible;
# and Of the Connection between Justice and Utility.

In the General Remarks portion of his essay, he speaks how next to no progress has been made when it comes to judging what is right and what is wrong of morality and if there is such a thing as moral instinct (which he argues that there may not be). However, he agrees that in general "Our moral faculty, according to all those of its interpreters who are entitled to the name of thinkers, supplies us only with the general principles of moral judgments".{{sfn|Mill|1863|p=2}}

In '''What Utilitarianism Is''', he focuses no longer on background information but utilitarianism itself. He quotes utilitarianism as "The greatest happiness principle", defining this theory by saying that pleasure and no pain are the only inherently good things in the world and expands on it by saying that "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure."{{sfn|Mill|1863|p=3}} He views it not as an [[Philosophy:Animalism|animalistic]] concept because he sees seeking out pleasure as a way of using our higher facilities. He also says in this chapter that the happiness principle is based not exclusively on the individual but mainly on the community.

Mill also defends the idea of a "strong utilitarian conscience (i.e. a strong feeling of obligation to the general happiness)".<ref name="auto"/> He argued that humans have a desire to be happy and that that desire causes us to want to be in unity with other humans. This causes us to care about the happiness of others, as well as the happiness of complete strangers. But this desire also causes us to experience pain when we perceive harm to other people. He believes in internal sanctions that make us experience guilt and appropriate our actions. These internal sanctions make us want to do good because we do not want to feel guilty for our actions. Happiness is our ultimate end because it is our duty. He argues that we do not need to be constantly motivated by the concern of people's happiness because most of the actions done by people are done out of good intention, and the good of the world is made up of the good of the people.

In Mill's fourth chapter, '''Of What Sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible''', he speaks of what proofs of Utility are affected. He starts this chapter off by saying that all of his claims cannot be backed up by reasoning. He claims that the only proof that something brings one pleasure is if someone finds it pleasurable. Next, he talks about how morality is the basic way to achieve happiness. He also discusses in this chapter that [[Philosophy:Utilitarianism|Utilitarianism]] is beneficial for virtue. He says that "it maintains not only that virtue is to be desired, but that it is to be desired disinterestedly, for itself."{{sfn|Mill|1863|p=24}} In his final chapter he looks at the connection between Utilitarianism and [[Philosophy:Justice|justice]]. He contemplates the question of whether justice is something distinct from Utility or not. He reasons this question in several different ways and finally comes to the conclusion that in certain cases justice is essential for Utility, but in others, social duty is far more important than justice. Mill believes that "justice must give way to some other moral principle, but that what is just in ordinary cases is, by reason of that other principle, not just in the particular case."{{sfn|Mill|1863|p=29}}

The qualitative account of happiness that Mill advocates thus sheds light on his account presented in ''On Liberty''. As he suggests in that text, utility is to be conceived in relation to humanity "as a progressive being", which includes the development and exercise of rational capacities as we strive to achieve a "higher mode of existence". The rejection of censorship and [[Philosophy:Paternalism|paternalism]] is intended to provide the necessary social conditions for the achievement of knowledge and the greatest ability for the greatest number to develop and exercise their deliberative and rational capacities.

Mill redefines the definition of happiness as "the ultimate end, for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people) is an existence as free as possible from pain and as rich as possible in enjoyments".{{sfn|Mill|1863|p=8}} He firmly believed that moral rules and obligations could be referenced to promoting happiness, which connects to having a noble character. While Mill is not a standard act utilitarian or rule utilitarian, he is a minimizing utilitarian, which "affirms that it would be ''desirable'' to maximize happiness for the greatest number, but not that we are morally ''required'' to do so".{{sfn|Fitzpatrick|2006|p=84}}

===Achieving happiness===
Mill believed that for the majority of people (those with but a moderate degree of sensibility and of capacity for enjoyment) happiness is best achieved en passant, rather than striving for it directly. This meant no self-consciousness, scrutiny, self-interrogation, dwelling on, thinking about, imagining or questioning on one's happiness. Then, if otherwise fortunately circumstanced, one would "inhale happiness with the air you breathe".<ref>{{cite web|title=Autobiography, by John Stuart Mill|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10378/10378-h/10378-h.htm#link2H_NOTE|access-date=2021-03-11|via=Project Gutenberg}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=AUTO Chapter 5, John Stuart Mill, Autobiography|url=https://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/mill/auto/auto.c05.html|access-date=2021-03-11|website=laits.utexas.edu}}</ref>

===Economic philosophy===
{{Main|Finance:Principles of Political Economy}}
[[File:Mill - Essays on economics and society, 1967 - 5499347.tif|thumb|''Essays on Economics and Society'', 1967]]
Mill's early economic philosophy was one of [[Social:Free market|free market]]s. However, he accepted interventions in the economy, such as a tax on alcohol, if there were sufficient utilitarian grounds. He also accepted the principle of legislative intervention for the purpose of animal welfare.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/dfiles/file_285.pdf |title=Ifaw.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080626225342/http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/dfiles/file_285.pdf|archive-date=26 June 2008}}</ref> He originally believed that "equality of taxation" meant "[[Social:Equality of sacrifice|equality of sacrifice]]" and that [[Finance:Progressive tax|progressive tax]]ation penalized those who worked harder and saved more and was therefore "a mild form of robbery".<ref>
[http://www.irefeurope.org/col_docs/doc_51_fr.pdf IREF | Pour la liberte economique et la concurrence fiscale] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090327011315/http://www.irefeurope.org/col_docs/doc_51_fr.pdf |date=27 March 2009 }} (PDF)
</ref>

Given an equal tax rate regardless of income, Mill agreed that [[Social:Inheritance|inheritance]] should be taxed. A utilitarian society would agree that everyone should be equal one way or another. Therefore, receiving inheritance would put one ahead of society unless taxed on the inheritance. Those who donate should consider and choose carefully where their money goes—some charities are more deserving than others. Considering public charities boards such as a government will disburse the money equally. However, a private charity board like a church would disburse the monies fairly to those who are in more need than others.{{sfn|Strasser|1991}}{{page needed|date=October 2023}}

Later he altered his views toward a more socialist bent, adding chapters to his ''Principles of Political Economy'' in defence of a socialist outlook, and defending some socialist causes.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mill |first1=John Stuart |last2=Bentham |first2=Jeremy |editor-last=Ryan |editor-first=Alan. |title=Utilitarianism and other essays |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2004 |location=London |isbn=978-0140432725 |page=[https://archive.org/details/utilitarianismot00mill/page/11 11] |url=https://archive.org/details/utilitarianismot00mill/page/11 }}</ref> Within this revised work he also made the radical proposal that the whole wage system be abolished in favour of a co-operative wage system. Nonetheless, some of his views on the idea of flat taxation remained,<ref name="stanford">{{cite journal |last=Wilson |first=Fred |title=John Stuart Mill: Political Economy |journal=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |year=2007 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/mill/#PolEco |access-date=4 May 2009}}</ref> albeit altered in the third edition of the ''Principles of Political Economy'' to reflect a concern for differentiating restrictions on "unearned" incomes, which he favoured, and those on "earned" incomes, which he did not favour.<ref name="principles online">{{cite book |last=Mill |first=John Stuart |chapter=On The General Principles of Taxation, V.2.14 |title=Principles of Political Economy |publisher=Library of Economics and Liberty |edition=3rd |year=1852}} The passage about flat taxation was altered by the author in this edition, which is acknowledged in this online edition's footnote 8: "[This sentence replaced in the 3rd ed. a sentence of the original: 'It is partial taxation, which is a mild form of robbery.']")</ref>

In his autobiography, Mill stated that in relation to his later views on political economy, his "ideal of ultimate improvement... would class [him] decidedly under the general designation of Socialists". His views shifted partly due to reading the works of utopian socialists, but also from the influence of Harriet Taylor.<ref name=mcmanus>{{cite web |url=https://jacobinmag.com/2021/05/john-stewart-js-mill-liberal-socialism-locke-madison |title=Was John Stuart Mill a Socialist? |last=McManus |first=Matt |date=30 May 2021 |website=Jacobin |access-date=1 June 2021}}</ref> In his work ''Socialism'', Mill argued that the prevalence of poverty in contemporary industrial capitalist societies was "''pro tanto'' a failure of the social arrangements", and that attempts to condone this state of affairs as being the result of individual failings did not represent a justification of them but instead were "an irresistible claim upon every human being for protection against suffering".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mill |first1=John Stuart |year=2011 |orig-date=1st pub. Belfords, Clarke & Co.:1879 |title=Socialism |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38138/38138-h/38138-h.htm|publisher=[[Project Gutenberg]] |page=29|access-date=1 June 2021}}</ref>

Mill's ''Principles'', first published in 1848, was one of the most widely read of all books on economics in the period.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Ekelund, Robert B. Jr. |author2=Hébert, Robert F. |title=A History of Economic Theory and Method |edition=4th |publisher=Waveland Press [Long Grove, Illinois] |year=1997 |isbn=978-1577663812 |page=172}}</ref> As [[Biography:Adam Smith|Adam Smith]]'s ''[[Finance:The Wealth of Nations|Wealth of Nations]]'' had during an earlier period, ''Principles'' came to dominate economics teaching. In the case of Oxford University it was the standard text until 1919, when it was replaced by [[Finance:Principles of Economics (Marshall)|Marshall's ''Principles of Economics'']].

==== Criticism ====
Karl Marx, in his [[Philosophy:Critique of political economy|critique of political economy]], mentioned Mill in the ''[[Philosophy:Grundrisse|Grundrisse]]''. Marx contended that Mill's thinking posited the categories of capital in an ahistorical fashion.<ref>{{cite web|last=Marx|title=Grundrisse|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm|quote=The aim is, rather, to present production – see e.g. Mill – as distinct from distribution etc., as encased in eternal natural laws independent of history, at which opportunity bourgeois relations are then quietly smuggled in as the inviolable natural laws on which society in the abstract is founded. This is the more or less conscious purpose of the whole proceeding. In distribution, by contrast, humanity has allegedly permitted itself to be considerably more arbitrary. Quite apart from this crude tearing-apart of production and distribution and of their real relationship, it must be apparent from the outset that, no matter how differently distribution may have been arranged in different stages of social development, it must be possible here also, just as with production, to single out common characteristics, and just as possible to confound or to extinguish all historic differences under general human laws.}}</ref>

====Economic democracy====
Mill's main objection to Marxism focused on what he saw its destruction of competition. He wrote, "I utterly dissent from the most conspicuous and vehement part of their teaching—their declamations against competition." Though he was an [[Philosophy:Egalitarianism|egalitarian]], Mill argued more for equal opportunity and placed meritocracy above all other ideals in this regard. He further argued that a socialist society would only be attainable through the provision of basic education for all, promoting [[Finance:Economic democracy|economic democracy]] instead of [[Philosophy:Capitalism|capitalism]], in the manner of substituting capitalist businesses with [[Social:Worker cooperative|worker cooperative]]s. He says:

{{blockquote|The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.<ref>Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy, IV.7.21 John Stuart Mill: Political Economy, IV.7.21</ref><ref>Principles of Political Economy and On Liberty, Chapter IV, Of the Limits to the Authority of Society Over the Individual</ref>}}

====Political democracy====
Mill's major work on [[Social:Democracy|political democracy]], ''Considerations on Representative Government'', defends two fundamental principles: extensive participation by citizens and enlightened competence of rulers.<ref>{{cite book |last=Thompson |first=Dennis F. |title=John Stuart Mill and Representative Government |location=Princeton, NJ |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1976 |isbn=978-0691021874 }}</ref> The two values are obviously in tension, and some readers have concluded that he is an elitist democrat,<ref>{{cite book |last=Letwin |first=Shirley |title=The Pursuit of Certainty |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1965 |page=306 |isbn=978-0865971943 }}</ref> while others count him as an earlier [[Social:Participatory democracy|participatory democrat]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Pateman |first=Carole |title=Participation and Democratic Theory |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1970 |page=28 |isbn=978-0521290043 }}</ref> In one section, he appears to defend [[Social:Plural voting|plural voting]], in which more competent citizens are given extra votes (a view he later repudiated). However, in another chapter he argues cogently for the value of participation by all citizens. He believed that the incompetence of the masses could eventually be overcome if they were given a chance to take part in politics, especially at the local level.

Mill is one of the few political philosophers ever to serve in government as an elected official. In his three years in Parliament, he was more willing to compromise than the "radical" principles expressed in his writing would lead one to expect.<ref>{{cite book |last=Thompson |first=Dennis |chapter=Mill in Parliament: when should a philosopher compromise? |title=J. S. Mill's Political Thought |editor1-first=N. |editor1-last=Urbinati |editor2-first=A. |editor2-last=Zakaras |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2007 |pages=166–199 |isbn=978-0521677561 }}</ref>

Mill was a major proponent of the diffusion and use of public education to the working class. He saw the value of the individual person, and believed that "man had the inherent capability of guiding his own destiny-but only if his faculties were developed and fulfilled", which could be achieved through education.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Davis |first1=Elynor G. |title=Mill, Socialism and the English Romantics: An Interpretation. |journal=Economica |date=1985 |volume=52 |issue=207 |pages=345–358 (351) |doi=10.2307/2553857 |jstor=2553857 }}</ref> He regarded education as a pathway to improve human nature which to him meant "to encourage, among other characteristics, diversity and originality, the energy of character, initiative, autonomy, intellectual cultivation, aesthetic sensibility, non-self-regarding interests, [[Philosophy:Prudence|prudence]], responsibility, and [[Philosophy:Self-control|self-control]]".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=de Mattos |first1=Laura Valladão |title=John Stuart Mill, socialism, and his liberal utopia: an application of his view of social institutions |journal=History of Economic Ideas |date=2000 |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=95–120 |jstor=23722559 }}</ref> Education allowed for humans to develop into full informed citizens that had the tools to improve their condition and make fully informed electoral decisions. The power of education lay in its ability to serve as a great equalizer among the classes allowing the working class the ability to control their own destiny and compete with the upper classes. Mill recognised the paramount importance of public education in avoiding the tyranny of the majority by ensuring that all the voters and political participants were fully developed individuals. It was through education, he believed, that an individual could become a full participant within representative democracy.

In regards to higher education, Mill defended liberal education against contemporary arguments for models of higher education focused on religion or science. His 1867 St. Andrews Address called on elites educated in reformed universities to work towards education policy committed to liberal principles.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ward |first1=Lee |title=John Stuart Mill on the Political Significance of Higher Education |journal=History of Education Quarterly |date=August 2023 |volume=63 |issue=3 |pages=336–356 |doi=10.1017/heq.2023.22|s2cid=260335019 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

====Theories of wealth and income distribution====
In ''[[Finance:Principles of Political Economy|Principles of Political Economy]]'', Mill offered an analysis of two economic phenomena often linked together: the laws of production and wealth and the modes of its distribution. Regarding the former, he believed that it was not possible to alter to laws of production, "the ultimate properties of matter and mind... only to employ these properties to bring about events we are interested".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mill |first1=John Stuart |title=Principles of Political Economy |date=1885 |publisher=D. Appleton and Company |location=New York}}</ref> The modes of distribution of wealth is a matter of human institutions solely, starting with what Mill believed to be the primary and fundamental institution: Individual Property.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Jensen |first1=Hans |title=John Stuart Mill's Theories of Wealth and Income Distribution |journal=Review of Social Economy |date=December 2001 |volume=59 |issue=4 |pages=491–507|doi=10.1080/00346760110081599 |s2cid=145340813 }}</ref> He believed that all individuals must start on equal terms, with division of the instruments of production fairly among all members of society. Once each member has an equal amount of individual property, they must be left to their own exertion not to be interfered with by the state. Regarding [[Social:Economic inequality|inequality of wealth]], Mill believed that it was the role of the government to establish both [[Social:Social policy|social]] and [[Finance:Economic policy|economic policies]] that promote the equality of opportunity.

The government, according to Mill, should implement three tax policies to help alleviate poverty:<ref name="Ek&Tol">{{cite journal|last1=Ekelund|first1=Robert|last2=Tollison|first2=Robert|date=May 1976|title=The New Political Economy of J. S. Mill: Means to Social Justice|journal=The Canadian Journal of Economics|volume=9|issue=2|pages=213–231|doi=10.2307/134519|jstor=134519}}</ref>

# fairly assessed income tax;
# an inheritance tax; and
# a policy to restrict sumptuary consumption.

[[Social:Inheritance|Inheritance]] of capital and wealth plays a large role in development of inequality, because it provides greater opportunity for those receiving the inheritance. Mill's solution to inequality of wealth brought about by inheritance was to implement a greater tax on inheritances, because he believed the most important authoritative function of the government is taxation, and taxation judiciously implemented could promote equality.<ref name="Ek&Tol" />

====The environment====
Mill demonstrated an early insight into the value of the natural world. In Book IV, chapter VI of ''[[Finance:Principles of Political Economy|Principles of Political Economy]]'': "Of the Stationary State",<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/mill/book4/bk4ch06|title=''The Principles of Political Economy'', Book 4, Chapter VI|access-date=9 March 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923234230/http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/mill/book4/bk4ch06|archive-date=23 September 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=The early history of modern ecological economics |first=Inge |last=Røpke |issue=3–4|date= 1 October 2004 |doi=10.1016/j.ecolecon.2004.02.012 |volume=50 |journal=Ecological Economics |pages=293–314}}</ref>  Mill recognised wealth beyond the material and argued that the logical conclusion of unlimited growth was destruction of the environment and a reduced quality of life. He concluded that a [[Social:Steady-state economy|stationary state]] could be preferable to unending [[Finance:Economic growth|economic growth]]:

<blockquote>I cannot, therefore, regard the stationary states of capital and wealth with the unaffected aversion so generally manifested towards it by political economists of the old school.</blockquote>

<blockquote>If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a better or a happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compel them to it.</blockquote>

====Rate of profit====
According to Mill, the ultimate tendency in an economy is for the rate of profit to decline due to diminishing returns in agriculture and increase in population at a [[Unsolved:Malthusianism|Malthusian rate]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mill |first1=John Stuart |title=Principles of Political Economy |page=25 |url=http://eet.pixel-online.org/files/etranslation/original/Mill,%20Principles%20of%20Political%20Economy.pdf |access-date=1 November 2016}}</ref>

==Major publications==
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! scope="col" | Title
! scope="col" | Date
! scope="col" | Source
|-
| "Two Letters on the Measure of Value" || 1822 || "The Traveller"
|-
| "Questions of Population" || 1823 || "Black Dwarf"
|-
| "War Expenditure" || 1824 || ''Westminster Review''
|-
| "Quarterly Review – Political Economy" || 1825 || ''Westminster Review''
|-
| "Review of Miss Martineau's Tales" || 1830 || ''Examiner''
|-
| "The Spirit of the Age" || 1831 || ''Examiner''
|-
| "Use and Abuse of Political Terms" || 1832 ||
|-
| "What is Poetry" || 1833, 1859 ||
|-
| "Rationale of Representation" || 1835 ||
|-
| "De Tocqueville on Democracy in America [i]" || 1835 ||
|-
| "State of Society in America" || 1836 ||
|-
| "Civilization" || 1836 ||
|-
| "Essay on Bentham" || 1838 ||
|-
| "Essay on Coleridge" || 1840 ||
|-
| "Essays on Government" || 1840 ||
|-
| "De Tocqueville on Democracy in America [ii]" || 1840 ||
|-
| ''[[Philosophy:A System of Logic|A System of Logic]]'' || 1843 ||
|-
| ''Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy'' || 1844 ||
|-
| "Claims of Labour" || 1845 || ''Edinburgh Review''
|-
| ''The Principles of Political Economy: with some of their applications to social philosophy'' || 1848 ||
|-
| "The Negro Question" || 1850 || ''Fraser's Magazine''
|-
| "Reform of the Civil Service" || 1854 ||
|-
| ''Dissertations and Discussions'' || 1859 ||
|-
| ''A Few Words on Non-intervention'' || 1859 ||
|-
| ''On Liberty'' || 1859 ||
|-
| ''Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform'' || 1859 ||
|-
| ''Considerations on Representative Government'' || 1861 ||
|-
| "Centralisation" || 1862 || ''Edinburgh Review''
|-
| "The Contest in America" || 1862 || ''Harper's Magazine''
|-
| ''Utilitarianism'' || 1863 || <!-- https://archive.org/details/a592840000milluoft-->
|-
| ''An Examination of [[Biography:Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet|Sir William Hamilton]]'s Philosophy'' || 1865 ||
|-
| ''Auguste Comte and Positivism'' || 1865 ||
|-
| ''Inaugural Address at St. Andrews'' Concerning the value of culture || 1867 ||
|-
| "Speech in Favour of Capital Punishment"<ref>Hansard report of Commons Sitting: Capital Punishment Within Prisons Bill{{snd}}[Bill 36.] Committee stage: [https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1868/apr/21/committee#S3V0191P0_18680421_HOC_33 HC Deb 21 April 1868 vol. 191 cc 1033–63 including Mill's speech Col. 1047–1055] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090630072057/http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1868/apr/21/committee#S3V0191P0_18680421_HOC_33 |date=30 June 2009 }}</ref><ref>His speech against the abolition of capital punishment was commented upon in an editorial in ''The Times'', Wednesday, 22 April 1868; p. 8; Issue 26105; col E:</ref> || 1868 ||
|-
| ''England and Ireland'' || 1868 ||
|-
| "Thornton on Labour and its Claims" || 1869 || ''Fortnightly Review''
|-
| ''The Subjection of Women'' || 1869 ||
|-
| ''Chapters and Speeches on the Irish Land Question'' || 1870 ||
|-
| ''Autobiography'' || 1873 ||
|-
| ''[[Philosophy:Three Essays on Religion|Three Essays on Religion: Nature, the Utility of religion, and Theism]]'' || 1874 || Internet Archive
|-
| ''Socialism'' || 1879 || Belfords, Clarke & Co.
|-
| "Notes on N. W. Senior's Political Economy" || 1945 || ''Economica'' N.S. 12
|}

==See also==
{{div col}}
* [[Organization:John Stuart Mill Institute|John Stuart Mill Institute]]
* Mill's methods
* John Stuart Mill Library
* [[Social:List of liberal theorists|List of liberal theorists]]
* ''On Social Freedom''
* Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom
{{div col end}}

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
===Mill's work===
{{refbegin}}
*{{Cite book|last=Mill|first=John Stuart|title=Utilitarianism|url=https://archive.org/details/a592840000milluoft/|year=1863|location=London|publisher=Parker, Son, and Bourn, West Strand|oclc=78070085}}
{{refend}}

===Other sources===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Bell |first1=Duncan |title=John Stuart Mill on Colonies |journal=Political Theory |date=2010 |volume=38 |issue=1 |pages=34–64 |doi=10.1177/0090591709348186 |jstor=25655532 |s2cid=145582945 }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Brink |first1=David O. |title=Mill's Deliberative Utilitarianism |journal=Philosophy & Public Affairs |date=1992 |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=67–103 |jstor=2265175 }}
* Brink, David, [https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/mill-moral-political/ "Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221117165324/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/mill-moral-political/ |date=17 November 2022 }}, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
* Claeys, Gregory. ''Mill and Paternalism'' (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
* Christians, Clifford G. & John C. Merrill (eds) Ethical Communication: Five Moral Stances in Human Dialogue, Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2009
* {{cite book | last=Fitzpatrick | first=J. R. | title=John Stuart Mill's Political Philosophy | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing | series=Continuum Studies in British Philosophy | year=2006 | isbn=978-1847143440 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zIyxAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA84 }}
* {{cite book |last1=George |first1=Roger Z. |last2=Kline |first2=Robert D. |title=Intelligence and the national security strategist: enduring issues and challenges |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n3ffAAAAMAAJ |year=2006 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0742540385}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Garrard |first1=Graeme |title=John Stuart Mill and the Liberal Idea of Canada |journal=British Journal of Canadian Studies |date=2021 |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=31–46 |doi=10.3828/bjcs.2021.2 |s2cid=233833435 |url=https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/135571/3/John%20Stuart%20Mill%20%26%20Liberal%20Idea%20of%20Canada%20Post%20Print.pdf }}
* Gopnick, Adam, [https://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/10/06/081006crat_atlarge_gopnik  "Right Again, The passions of John Stuart Mill", ''The New Yorker'', 6 October 2008] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140720074917/http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/10/06/081006crat_atlarge_gopnik |date=20 July 2014 }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Harrington |first1=Jack |year=2010 |title=Sir John Malcolm and the Creation of British India, Ch. 5 |publisher=New York: [[Company:Palgrave Macmillan|Palgrave Macmillan]]. |isbn=978-0230108851}}
* Harwood, Sterling. "Eleven Objections to Utilitarianism", in Louis P. Pojman, ed., ''Moral Philosophy: A Reader'' (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1998), and in Sterling Harwood, ed., ''Business as Ethical and Business as Usual'' (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), Chapter 7
* Hollander, Samuel, ''The Economics of John Stuart Mill'' (University of Toronto Press, 1985)
* [[Biography:Philip Kitcher|Kitcher, Philip]]. ''On John Stuart Mill''. Columbia University Press, 2023.
* Kolmar, Wendy & Frances Bartowski. ''Feminist Theory''. 2nd ed. New York: Mc Graw Hill, 2005
* Letwin, Letwin, ''The Pursuit of Certainty'' (Cambridge University Press, 1965). {{ISBN|978-0865971943}}
* Packe, Michael St. John, ''The Life of John Stuart Mill'' (Macmillan, 1952)
* Pateman, Carole, ''Participation and Democratic Theory'' (Cambridge University Press, 1970). {{ISBN|978-0521290043}}
* Reeves, Richard, ''John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand'', Atlantic Books (2007), paperback 2008. {{ISBN|978-1843546443}}
* Robinson, Dave & Groves, Judy (2003). ''Introducing Political Philosophy''. Icon Books. {{ISBN|184046450X}}
* Rosen, Frederick, ''Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill'' ([[Company:Routledge|Routledge]] Studies in Ethics & Moral Theory), 2003. {{ISBN|0415220947}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Skoble |first= Aeon | editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |chapter= Mill, John Stuart (1806–1873)|chapter-url=https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/libertarianism/n202.xml |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |year=2008 |publisher= [[Company:SAGE Publishing|Sage]]; [[Organization:Cato Institute|Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, CA |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n202 |pages= 329–331 |isbn= 978-1412965804 }}
* {{cite book | last=Spiegel | first=H. W. | title=The Growth of Economic Thought | publisher=Duke University Press | series=Economic history | year=1991 | isbn=978-0822309734 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oXJkjfVCOLoC&pg=PA390 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Strasser |first1=Mark Philip |title=The Moral Philosophy of John Stuart Mill: Toward Modifications of Contemporary Utilitarianism |date=1991 |publisher=Longwood Academic |isbn=978-0-89341-681-2 }}
* Ten, Chin Liew, ''Mill on Liberty'', Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980, full-text online at [https://web.archive.org/web/20070605032456/http://www.victorianweb.org/philosophy/mill/ten/contents.html Contents<!-- Bot generated title -->] Victorianweb.org (National University of Singapore)
* Thompson, Dennis F., ''John Stuart Mill and Representative Government'' (Princeton University Press, 1976). {{ISBN|978-0691021874}}
* Thompson, Dennis F., "Mill in Parliament: When Should a Philosopher Compromise?" in ''J. S. Mill's Political Thought'', eds. N. Urbinati and A. Zakaras (Cambridge University Press, 2007). {{ISBN|978-0521677561}}
* {{cite book | last=Walker | first=Francis Amasa | title=The Wages Question: A Treatise on Wages and the Wages Class | publisher=Henry Holt | year=1876 | url=https://archive.org/details/wagesquestiontre00walkiala }}
{{Refend}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last=Alican |first=Necip Fikri |title=Mill's Principle of Utility: A Defense of John Stuart Mill's Notorious Proof |publisher=Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi B. V. |date=1994 |isbn=978-9051837483}}
* {{cite book |last=Bayles |first=M. D. |title=Contemporary Utilitarianism |year=1968 |publisher=Anchor Books, Doubleday}}
* {{cite book |last=Bentham |first=Jeremy |title=An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Dover Philosophical Classics) |publisher=Dover Publications Inc. |date=2009 |isbn=978-0486454528}}
* {{cite book |last=Brandt |first=Richard B. |title=A Theory of the Good and the Right |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1979 |isbn=978-0198245506 |url=https://archive.org/details/theoryofgood00bran }}
* {{cite DNB|wstitle=Mill, John Stuart|volume=37}}
* {{cite book |last=López |first=Rosario |title=Contexts of John Stuart Mill's Liberalism: Politics and the Science of Society in Victorian Britain|publisher=Baden-Baden, Nomos |date=2016 |isbn=978-3848736959}}
* {{cite book |last=Lyons |first=David |title=Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism |date=1965 |publisher=Oxford University Press (UK) |isbn=978-0198241973}}
* {{cite book |last=Mill |first=John Stuart |title=A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (Classic Reprint) |publisher=Forgotten Books |date=2011 |isbn=978-1440090820|title-link=A System of Logic }}
* {{cite book |last=Mill |first=John Stuart |editor-first=John |editor-last=Robson |title=Collected Works, volume XXXI |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=1981 |chapter=Autobiography |isbn=978-0710007186}}
* {{cite book |last=Moore |first=G. E. |title=Principia Ethica |publisher=Prometheus Books UK |year=1903 |isbn=978-0879754983}}
* {{cite book |last=Rosen |first=Frederick |title=Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill |publisher=Routledge |year=2003}}
* {{cite book |last=Scheffler |first=Samuel |title=The Rejection of Consequentialism: A Philosophical Investigation of the Considerations Underlying Rival Moral Conceptions, Second Edition |publisher=Clarendon Press |date=August 1994 |isbn=978-0198235118}}
* {{cite book |last1=Smart |first1=J. J. C. |last2=Williams |first2=Bernard |title=Utilitarianism: For and Against |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=January 1973 |isbn=978-0521098229 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/utilitarianismfo00smar }}
* Francisco Vergara, « [http://www.fvergara.com/QUALITY.doc Bentham and Mill on the "Quality" of Pleasures]», ''Revue d'études benthamiennes'', Paris, 2011.
* {{cite journal |last1=Vergara |first1=Francisco |title=A Critique of Elie Halévy: Refutation of an Important Distortion of British Moral Philosophy |journal=Philosophy |date=1998 |volume=73 |issue=283 |pages=97–111 |doi=10.1017/S0031819197000144 |jstor=3752129 |s2cid=170370954 }}

==External links==

===Mill's works===
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-stuart-mill}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=1705| name=John Stuart Mill}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=John Stuart Mill}}
* {{Librivox author |id=2881}}
* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=Mill+John+Stuart&amode=words&title=&tmode=words The Online Books Page] lists works on various sites
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20071017213822/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/mill/john_stuart/ Works] , readable and downloadable
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120515050039/http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/mill/ Primary and secondary works]
* [http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/ More easily readable versions of ''On Liberty'', ''Utilitarianism'', ''Three Essays on Religion'', ''The Subjection of Women'', ''A System of Logic'', and ''Autobiography'']
* [http://isnature.org/Files/Mill1859-Composition_of_Causes.htm ''Of the Composition of Causes''], Chapter VI of ''System of Logic'' (1859)
* [http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/mountholyoke/mshm189_main.html John Stuart Mill's diary of a walking tour at Mount Holyoke College] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203000859/http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/mountholyoke/mshm189_main.html |date=3 December 2013 }}
* ''[[Philosophy:A System of Logic|A System of Logic]]'', University Press of the Pacific, Honolulu, 2002, {{ISBN|1410202526}}

===Secondary works===
* {{cite SEP |url-id=mill |title=John Stuart Mill |last=Macleod |first=Christopher }}
* [http://www.iep.utm.edu/milljs/ John Stuart Mill] in the [[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]

===Further information===
* [http://archives.lse.ac.uk/TreeBrowse.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&field=RefNo&key=MILL-TAYLOR Catalogue of Mill's correspondence and papers] held at the [https://web.archive.org/web/20070618035533/http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/archive/Default.htm Archives Division] of the [[Organization:London School of Economics|London School of Economics]]. View the Archives Catalogue of the contents of this important holding, which also includes letters of James Mill and Helen Taylor.
* [http://www.some.ox.ac.uk/library-it/special-collections/ John Stuart Mill's library], Somerville College Library in [[Organization:University of Oxford|Oxford]] holds ≈ 1700 volumes owned by John Stuart Mill and his father James Mill, many containing their marginalia
* {{Cite book |chapter= John Stuart Mill (Obituary Notice, Tuesday, November 4, 1873) |title= Eminent Persons: Biographies reprinted from The Times | volume=  I (1870–1875) |publisher=Macmillan & Co. |pages=195–224 |year=1892 |via=HathiTrust|hdl= 2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t6n011x45 }}
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003c1cx Mill], BBC Radio 4 discussion with A. C. Grayling, Janet Radcliffe Richards & Alan Ryan (''In Our Time'', 18 May 2006)
* {{NPG name}}
* [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1hKAITgAAAAJ John Stuart Mill] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190417082823/https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1hKAITgAAAAJ |date=17 April 2019 }} on [[Google Scholar]]
* [https://www.utilitarianism.net/utilitarian-thinker/john-stuart-mill John Stuart Mill], biographical profile, including quotes and further resources, at [https://www.utilitarianism.net Utilitarianism.net].

{{S-start}}
{{S-par|uk}}
{{s-bef|before = Sir George de Lacy Evans}}
{{s-ttl|title  = Member of Parliament for Westminster | years  = 1865–1868}}
{{s-aft|after  = William Henry Smith}}
{{S-aca}}
{{s-bef|before=William Stirling of Keir}}
{{s-ttl|title=Rector of the University of St Andrews | years=1865–1868}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Biography:James Anthony Froude|James Anthony Froude]]}}
{{S-end}}
{{Navboxes
|title=Articles related to John Stuart Mill
| list=
{{Economics}}
{{Social and political philosophy}}
{{Ethics}}
}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:Mill, John Stuart}}
[[Category:Logicians]]
[[Category:Philosophers of culture]]
[[Category:Philosophers of economics]]
[[Category:Philosophers of language]]
[[Category:Philosophers of logic]]
[[Category:Philosophers of mind]]
[[Category:Philosophers of science]]
[[Category:Philosophy writers]]
[[Category:Social philosophers]]

{{Sourceattribution|John Stuart Mill}}