people, frequent elections, and secret ballots. Mill’s
utilitarianism, then, was the early form of democratic
LIBERALISMand WELFARE-STATELiberalism (public educa-
tion, social services to the needy, etc.). He tended to
favor the educated middle class as the best leader of
society; professional, scientific Britons would make the
best rulers, in his view.
Educated at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland,
James Mill trained to become a PRESBYTERIAN clergy-
man, but his unbelief in CHRISTIANITYended that career.
He worked for the British East India Company, after-
ward writing a History of British India(1817). Much of
Mill’s political writings were in the form of popular
pamphlets.
Further Reading
Bain, A. James Mill: A Biography.London: Longmans, 1882.
Mill, John Stuart (1806–1873) British political
philosopher, utilitarian, and advocate of liberty
As the oldest son of James MILL, John Stuart Mill was
educated in the RADICALanalytical school of his father.
He was taught Greek at the age of three, Latin by eight,
and a full Liberal Arts education by age 14. After this,
he had a nervous breakdown.
John Stuart Mill applied the British LIBERALISMof
Thomas HOBBES and John LOCKE to 19th-century
society, especially intellectual LIBERTY. His belief in
materialism, PROGRESS, women’s rights (FEMINISM), DE-
MOCRACY, and SOCIALISMpaved the way for 20th-cen-
tury WELFARE-STATE liberalism. His inductive logic
formed the basis of much modern social science and
BEHAVIORISM.
Mill conceived of HUMAN NATUREas both rationally
independent and individual and emotionally social.
Like Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Mill resented the cold, cal-
culating reason of Hobbes and Locke, concerned only
with personal, selfish INTERESTS. He perceived a human
capacity for sympathetic feelings for others’ suffering.
“... [T]he good of others becomes... a thing natu-
rally and necessarily attended to, like any of the physi-
cal conditions of our existences,” he said. This human
altruism should be developed by society and institu-
tionalized in benevolent government (welfare state).
Social PROGRESS requires civilized, sensitive human
beings, and this depends on “liberty.” By liberty,Mill
means more than FREEDOMfrom arbitrary authority or
formal restrictions. Even with political and legal lib-
erty, one’s freedom can be inhibited by social preju-
dices and conventions. The majority’s attitudes can
become a TYRANNYagainst the individual’s free thought.
In his famous essay On Liberty,Mill argues for com-
plete freedom of opinion, conscience, and expression,
even of socially obnoxious ideas. The most radical or
crazy ideas should be allowed to be expressed because
(1) they may turn out to be correct and may lead to
great progress and social benefits, and (2) even if they
are wrong, the correct opinion will be strengthened by
meeting and defeating the erroneous opinion. This
Socratic view of the benefits of absolute liberty of
thought and speech underlies Mill’s idea of the civi-
lized, progressive society and individual. Sometimes
called “the free marketplace of ideas,” it assumes that
the competition of different perspectives will lead to
the victory of the truth. The adversarial trial system of
Anglo-American law (with competing prosecution and
defense lawyers), the principle of a “free press” (with
competing political publications and media), and “aca-
demic freedom” (where universities teach all sides of
an issue) reflect J. S. Mill’s advocacy of pure liberty. For
him, a person is not truly educated unless he or she
can present allangles of an issue, even those with
which they disagree. To be able to serve as a devil’s
advocate—presenting persuasively one’s opponent’s
argument—is the ideal intellectual for Mill. A DEMOC-
RACYfull of such detached, objective intellectuals will
be the most free, happy, prosperous, and progressive
society.
A step towards this, for Mill, is the objective,
value-free social science described in his book A
System of Logic,in which he asserts that economics,
politics, and sociology can be studied scientifically
and that “intuition” or “given” truths are simply
prejudices to be dismissed. Only factually proven as-
sumptions are valid. This rejects the CONSERVATIVE,
religious, cultural, and racial basis of much of tradi-
tional British knowledge.
Politically, this led Mill to advocate extending the
SUFFRAGE (voting rights) to the middle classes, the
poor, the working class, and women. An early FEMINIST,
he said that discriminating between men and women
made no more sense than judging people by their hair
color. Still, he proposed a “proportional representa-
tion,” where the better-educated citizens would have
more than one vote. A simple majority rule would not
lead to better, wiser government or public policy; the
mass of people remains ignorant and self-seeking, self-
ish, and foolish.208 Mill, John Stuart