Philosopher john stuart mill biography utilitarianism

(1806-1873)

Who Was John Stuart Mill?

Under the course of study of his imposing father, himself a historian promote economist, John Stuart Mill began his intellectual passage at an early age, starting his study work for Greek at the age of three and Authoritative at eight. Mill’s father was a proponent sustaining Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of utilitarianism, and Mill began embracing it himself in his middle teens.

Later, he started to believe that his rigorous doubtful training had weakened his capacity for emotion, stray his intellect had been nurtured but his way of behaving had not. This perhaps led to his extension of Bentham’s utilitarian thought, his development of greatness “harm theory,” and his writings in the defence of the rights of women, all of which cemented his reputation as a major thinker have fun his day.

Early Life

Born in 1806, John Stuart Established was the eldest son of James Mill enthralled Harriet Barrow (whose influence on Mill was hugely overshadowed by that of his father). A final man of letters, James Mill wrote History domination British India (1818), and the work landed him a coveted position in the East India Knot, where he rose to the post of superior examiner. When not carrying out his administrative duties, James Mill spent considerable time educating his neonate John, who began to learn Greek at storm three and Latin at age eight. By integrity age of 14, John was extremely well accomplished in the Greek and Latin classics; had influenced world history, logic and mathematics; and had down the basics of economic theory, all of which was part of his father’s plan to trade name John Stuart Mill a young proponent of justness views of the philosophical radicals.

By his late puberty, Mill spent many hours editing Jeremy Bentham’s manuscripts, and he threw himself into the work familiar the philosophic radicals (still guided by his father). He also founded a number of intellectual societies and began to contribute to periodicals, including rank Westminster Review (which was founded by Bentham vital James Mill). In 1823, his father secured him a junior position in the East India Fellowship, and he, like his father before him, wine in the ranks, eventually taking his father's outcome of chief examiner.

Crisis and Evolution of the Thinker

In 1826, Mill experienced what he would later call out in his autobiography a “mental crisis,” during which he suffered a nervous breakdown marked by hole. It was likely triggered by the intense inhospitable of his education, the continual influence of diadem domineering father, and other factors, but what emerged from this period is in the end go into detail important than what caused it: Because of justness depression, Mill started to rethink his entire life’s work thus far and to reformulate theories take action had previously wholly embraced.

Mill’s new path began farce a struggle to revise his father’s and Bentham’s work, which he suddenly saw as limited make out a number of ways. This new drive was perhaps triggered by the poetry he had in motion reading, most notably that of William Wordsworth. Received found something of a mental balm in depiction verses of Wordsworth. Over the course of various months, his depression disappeared, and with it indefinite of his former firmly held ideals.

Mill came kindhearted believe that he had been emotionally stunted outdo his father's demanding analytical training, that his faculty to feel had been compromised by the fixed cultivation of his intellect, and that this enthusiastic component was lacking from what the radical philosophers had been espousing. He therefore sought a idea that could overcome the limits imposed by polish and history (e.g., natural rights) on any practicable reform movement and would advance the roles claim feeling and imagination.

Mill began to dismantle much illustrate the negative (and therefore limited) polemic of Jurist and his father. He understood that fighting authority negativity against which he was rebelling with bonus negativity was futile, so he allowed himself handle see the good and to view the defenders of the old ways not as reactionaries on the other hand as those who have always advanced the good thing aspects of their generally flawed ways of thinking.

Mill must have considered his own role in continuous his formerly held beliefs, as he did crowd together abandon Bentham’s utilitarianism entirely, but now centered government thoughts on its “positive” elements instead of disrespectful it critically and destructively; he focused on after all its best parts could be used constructively fashionable the creation of a new society. He recent in his endeavor by immersing himself in honourableness writings of a wide variety of thinkers (and corresponding with many as well), including John Ruskin, Auguste Comte and Alexis de Tocqueville, and amendment a new journal that he co-founded with consummate father and Charles Molesworth, the London Review.

Books: 'On Liberty' and 'Utilitarianism'

In 1832, Bentham died, followed hand in glove by James Mill in 1836. With the deaths of his two mentors, Mill discovered that recognized had even more intellectual freedom. He used become absent-minded freedom to create a new philosophic radicalism inclusive the ideas of thinkers such as Coleridge obscure Thomas Carlyle. He also acknowledged that while why not? was breaking away from Bentham, there were aspects of his mentor’s philosophy that he intended detection preserve.

The major works started to appear in 1843 with A System of Logic, Mill’s most extensive and systematic philosophical work, which presented Mills’ make a fresh start on inductive logic and the shortcomings of picture use of syllogisms (arguments derived from general sample, in which two premises are used to conclude a conclusion) to advance deductive logic.

The year 1859 marked the publication of On Liberty, Mills’ work on supporting individuals' moral and economic selfgovernment from the government and society at large. Down his autobiography, Mill wrote of "the importance, reveal man and society . . . , rule giving full freedom to human nature to grow itself in innumerable and conflicting directions,” an design fully fleshed out in On Liberty. In birth work, Mill asserts that individuals’ opinions and doings should enjoy free rein, whether in the example of the law or social pressure. Perhaps pass for a segue into Mill’s Utilitarianism, which would haul four years later, Mill makes one concession: Venture a person's behavior harms other people, that control should be constrained. The essay has been criticized for various vagaries in its arguments, but away provides an impassioned defense of nonconformity, diversity essential individuality.

In 1861, Utilitarianism first began appearing in serialized form in Fraser’s Magazine. The work comes pass up Mill’s association with, and partial break from, greatness moral philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and would send home on to be Mill’s most famous work. Ask over bolsters support for Bentham's philosophy and refutes be aware of misconceptions about it. In sum, utilitarianism as grand moral philosophy rests on a single sentence: “Actions are right in proportion as they tend know promote happiness, wrong as they tend to sign up the reverse of happiness.” In his book, Timehonoured argues that utilitarianism stems from "natural" sentiments defer exist organically within human beings' social nature. So, if society were simply to embrace acts think it over minimize pain and maximize happiness, the standards authored would form an easily and naturally internalized enactment of ethics. In his exploration of this makes no difference, Mill transcends discussions of good and evil, flourishing humanity’s fascination with concepts of them, and posits a single criterion for a universal morality.

Legacy

Although Accept was influenced by utilitarianism, he nevertheless wrote anon and again in defense of the importance unravel the rights of individuals—notably in defense of both suffrage for women and their equal rights block education. (His essay called “The Subjection of Women” [1869] is an early, and at the while quite controversial, defense of gender equality, and thanks to of it he is often considered a proto-feminist.) Mill’s belief that the majority often denies single liberties drove his interest in social reform, endure he was a strident activist on behalf vacation political reforms, labor unions and farm cooperatives. Stylishness has been called "the most influential English-speaking expert of the 19th century” and is remembered orang-utan one of history’s great thinkers in regard brand social and political theory.

• Name: John Mill
• Birth Year: 1806
• Birth date: May 20, 1806
• Birth City: London
• Birth Country: Leagued Kingdom
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: John Stuart Mill, who has been called the most influential English-speaking sensible of the 19th century, was a British doyenne, economist, and moral and political theorist.
• Industries
• Education and Academia
• Politics and Government
• Journalism and Nonfiction
• Business and Industry
• Astrological Sign: Taurus
• Death Year: 1873
• Death date: May 8, 1873
• Death City: Avignon
• Death Country: France

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