John Stuart MILL Seminar

From Strauss:

• Philosophical Radicals – Utilitarians• Bentham, James Mill → Deductive method based on a simplistic anthropological axiom

(“men are guided by the desire for their own pleasure).• Argument for the “concrete deductive method”: aggregation of causes• Argument for the “inverse deduction”, “historical method”: The procedure here is to develop

empirical laws of society on the basis of induction and then to “verify” those laws by deducing them from the a priori laws of human nature.

• It was from Comte that Mill drew the general theory he believed to be necessary for bringing human progress itself within the scope of science.

• Thus there are two branches of social science, one which supposes that conditions remain the same but that new or different factors or agencies are introduced (e.g., political economy; “concrete deductive”) and one which attempts to determine how it is that conditions themselves change (i.e., philosophy of history; “inverse deduction”).

• No state of society is satisfactory unless those who are best fitted to rule exercise the major authority in society.

Philosophy of History: Man as a “progressive being”

• He believed in the possibility and desirability of social progress, but not in its inevitability.• The gap in the philosophy of history is filled by the ideal derived in a deductive fashion

from a theory of human nature and a theory of ethics.• → Comte!• Progress depends on the emergence of new ideas; new ideas emerge only as challenges to

old and accepted ideas, and then only if there is freedom to challenge the existing beliefs and to suggest alternatives.

• Western Europe is the most developed and civilized• Criteria of development: state of the intellect. Future progress of mankind is tied to the

continued development of scientific knowledge especially in the area of social science (since he believed that the physical sciences were on the verge of becoming complete).

• PROGRESS as “the foundation stone of his whole system of political thinking” (Comte and the French Socialists)

• Tocqueville → democracy as tendency to more equality → not progress per se, but a challenge for progress (liberty)

Moral Considerations

• Utilitarians → hedonism → the maximum of pleasure attainable with the minimum of pain• Thus government was looked upon as an agency for increasing pleasure and decreasing pain• Epicureanism → He adds to the quantitative Utilitarianism a qualitative distinction: superior

and inferior pleasures• Criteria of progress: A society in which people pursue the superior pleasures is more

advanced in civilization than one in which they do not.• Freedom: In the second place, the cultivation of the higher pleasures requires social

freedom, so that only a free society can be truly civilized in Mill's sense.• Science, the highest achievement of the intellectual life, requires just that objectivity and

disinterestedness that man requires to be a truly moral being, and hence to be a citizen in the best type of state.

• Government does not exist merely to produce the maximum of that kind of pleasure which the citizens happen to prefer. Rather some types of pleasure are better than others, and the government has the responsibility for having its citizens educated to pursue the higher pleasures in place of the lower pleasures.

The End of the State

• Purpose of government: Order and Progress • Thus, the end of government is to make the people better, and the means are to educate the

people and to put to use the highest qualities which they have achieved.• Thus Mill's moral theory provides the basis for his political theory, and both these are

supported by his account of the stages of social progress.• While Mill recognizes that the government must take care of the affairs of the community,

its responsibility for developing the people is more important.• There is a natural order in the education of a people.• State = Professor → Apart from the business side of government, the criterion of the best

form of government for any particular people is that it provide what is necessary to teach them the lesson they must learn in order to move to the next more advanced state of society.

Representative Government

• Population is not qualified to select the best individuals for representative democracy. Therefore: Technocracy.

• People merely as “an ultimate controlling power”• Thus, for Mill, the representatives are not the government, but act for the people to control

the government.• Order is guaranteed by the representatives; progress is organized by the government

Theory of Liberty

• Believing in the progress of society from lower to higher stages of civilization, Mill saw the political culmination of this development as the emergence of a system of representative democracy.

• Thus he judged representative democracy to be the ideally best polity, i.e., that form of government toward which mankind was progressing.

• Progress toward civilization requires curbs on individual liberty; progress in civilization requires the emancipation of the individual from those restrictions.

• LIBERTY AS A CONDITION TO PROGRESS• Mill grounds this principle in his moral theory: The only thing of ultimate value is the

happiness of individuals, and individuals can best achieve their happiness in a civilized society when they are left free to pursue their own interests with their own talents as these have come to be understood and developed by them under an adequate system of education.

• Politics as a scientific community, as a community of scientific debate• Freedom of expression: no restriction (considering the context)• Action must be restricted. Actions must be limited to the extent that they result in harm to

others, unless men consent to the action by which they are harmed.• The ultimate aim of social action should be “to secure to all persons complete independence

and freedom of action”.

On Liberty – Chapters I, II, IV

Chapter I

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