The Philosophy Book

190

OVER HIS OWN

BODY AND MIND,

THE INDIVIDUAL

IS SOVEREIGN

JOHN STUART MILL (1806–1873)

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Political philosophy

APPROACH

Utilitarianism

BEFORE

1651 In Leviathan, Thomas

Hobbes says that people

are “brutish” and must be

controlled by a social contract.

1689 John Locke’s book, Tw o

Treatises of Government, looks

at social contract theory in the

context of empiricism.

1789 Jeremy Bentham

advocates the “greatest

happiness principle.”

AFTER

1930s Economist J.M. Keynes,

influenced by Mill, develops

liberal economic theories.

1971 John Rawls publishes

A Theory of Justice, based on

the idea that laws should be

those everyone would accept.

J

ohn Stuart Mill was born into

an intellectually privileged

family, and he was aware

from an early age of the British

traditions of philosophy that had

emerged during the Enlightenment

of the 18th century. John Locke and

David Hume had established a

philosophy whose new empiricism

stood in stark contrast to the

rationalism of continental European

philosophers. But during the late

18th century, Romantic ideas from

Europe began to influence British

moral and political philosophy. The

most obvious product of this

influence was utilitarianism, which

was a very British interpretation of

the political philosophy that had