John Stuart Mill
Protect the freedom to think and live differently.
English philosopher, economist and Member of Parliament, John Stuart Mill defended individual liberty, a utilitarian ethics attentive to the quality of happiness, and the equality of women and men. Trained by his father in Bentham’s circle and employed for thirty-five years by the East India Company, he combined a reforming liberalism with an imperial career whose assumptions also call for critical examination.
How far may society interfere in a person’s life?
Biography
English philosopher, economist and Member of Parliament, John Stuart Mill defended individual liberty, a utilitarian ethics attentive to the quality of happiness, and the equality of women and men. Trained by his father in Bentham’s circle and employed for thirty-five years by the East India Company, he combined a reforming liberalism with an imperial career whose assumptions also call for critical examination.
02 /Philosophy
Society may restrict a person’s conduct, by law or by the pressure of opinion, only to prevent harm to others; that person’s own good is not a sufficient warrant.
03 /Reading guides
Original introductions to enter the works, discover their central questions and take the reflection further.
04 /Bibliography
Works, testimonies and further readings are distinguished. Dates refer to composition or first publication, as specified in each entry.
A first reading.
Testing the harm principle
Follow how On Liberty limits coercion by law and by opinion, and examine where its exceptions and boundaries lie.
On LibertyWeighing happiness
Reconstruct the greatest happiness principle and the distinction between higher and lower pleasures in Utilitarianism.
UtilitarianismArguing for equality
Examine how The Subjection of Women challenges custom, claims about nature and the marriage laws of its time.
The Subjection of Women