'If all manlind minus one were of one opinion and onlv oneperson were of the contrarv opinion manlind would be no morejustined in silencing that one person than he if he had thepower would be justined in silencing manlind!ohn Stuart Mill On Liberty'Why Read Mill Today? is a philosophical gem !ohn Slorupslianswers the ouestion of his title brienv clearlv and persuasivelvMore remarlablv still he answers it in a wav that illuminates Millfor the reader who has never read him and vet should interestscholars who lnow Mill wellPeter Singer, Princeton University'!ohn Slorupsli brilliantlv describes Mills place in the great sweepof ideas from the nineteenth centurv until the present dav leavingthe reader in no doubt as to Mills continuing huge signincanceThis is an engaging accessible and exciting bool which anvoneseriouslv interested in ethics politics and the historv of ideasshould readRoger Crisp, St Anne's College, Oxford'!ohn Slorupsli is one of the leading scholars of Mill and nineteenthcenturv philosophv Why Read Mill Today? is a marvellouslv conciseaccessible and engaging discussion of the moral and politicalphilosophv of !ohn Stuart Mill one which both situates Millsviews in their historical context and probes their continuingsignincanceDavid Brink, University of California, San DiegoWhy Re ad Mi l l Today?------!ohn Stuart Mill is one of the greatest thinlers of the nineteenthcenturv lut does he have anvthing to teach us todav lis deepconcern for freedom of the individual is thought bv some to beoutdated and inadeouate to the cultural and religious complexities oflife in the twentvnrst centurvIn this succinct and shrewd bool !ohn Slorupsli argues that Millis a profound and inspiring social and political thinler from whomwe still have much to learn le renects on Mills central arguments inhis most famous worls including Utilitarianism and On Liberty andtraces their implications for democratic politics With the use oftopical and controversial examples including privacv religiousintolerance and freedom of speech he males Mills concerns ourown at a time when what liberalism means and whv it matters isonce again in disputele concludes that Mills place in the pantheon of 'great thinlersrests not onlv on his specinc political and social doctrines but aboveall on his steadfastlv generous and liberal vision of human beingstheir relations to one another and what males life worth livingJohn Skorupski is lrofessor of Moral lhilosophv at the Universitv ofSt Andrews le is the author of Symbol and Theory (CambridgeUniversitv lress 197o John Stuart Mill (koutledge 1989 EnglishLanguage Philosophy 17501945 (Cxford Universitv lress 199 EthicalExplorations (Cxford Universitv lress 1999 and editor of The CambridgeCompanion to John Stuart Mill (Cambridge Universitv lress 1998Why Re ad Mi l l Today?------!ohn Slorupslilirst published 200obv koutledge2 larl Souare Milton larl Abingdon Cxon CX14 4kNSimultaneouslv published in the USA and Canadabv koutledge270 Madison Ave New Yorl NY 1001oRoutledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business# 200o !ohn SlorupsliAll rights reserved No part of this bool mav be reprinted or reproduced or utilised inanv form or bv anv electronic mechanical or other means now lnown or hereafterinvented including photocopving and recording or in anv information storage orretrieval svstem without permission in writing from the publishersBritish Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this bool is available from the lritish librarvLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataSlorupsli !ohn 194oWhv read Mill todav / !ohn Slorupslip cm1 Mill !ohn Stuart 180o187 2 liberalism UtilitarianismI Titlel1o08l3S3o 200o192-dc22200300190ISlN10 041377447 (hblISlN1 978041377447 (hblThis edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledgescollection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.CCNTlNTSClkCNClCCY Cl MIllS lIll ixlkllACl xiNCTlS CN Tll TlXT xiii1 Free Thought 111 Mills life and worl 212 liberalism as free thought 31 Thinling from within 814 keligion 112 The Good for Human Beings 1321 lappiness and selfdevelopment 1322 The Createst lappiness lrinciple 182 The liberal ideal 2424 Cualities of happiness 123 Moralitv and justice 43 Liberty 91 libertv and popular sovereigntv 92 The libertv lrinciple 41 Spontaneitv connict progress 324 libertv of thought and discussion 3o3 lersonal independence o1vii4 Modernity o341 Interpreting the modern world o342 listorv and character 744 Marx and Mill on the good for human beings 7944 lemocracv 8o5 Reection 9231 Mill as a latemodern thinler 932 Culture and democracv 9o3 loualitv 9934 Mill and liberalism todav 1033 What worls What inspires 10olUkTllk klAlINC 108INllX 111 Contents viiiClkCNClCCY Cl MI ll S lI ll180o lirth of !ohn Stuart Mill to !ames and larriet Mill(ne e lurrow on 20 Mav at 1 kodnev Street london1813-18 Mill familv spends summers in lord Abbev levon acountrv house leased bv lentham1820-21 !ohn visits lrance staving with the familv of SirSamuel lentham (!eremv lenthams brother182 lnters as a clerl at India louse (headouarters of thelast India Companv1824 Arrest and detention for distributing birth control literature182o-27 'Mental crisis1829 !ames Mill Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind(edited bv !ohn with the addition of substantial notesin 18o7-o9180 Coes to laris after the 180 kevolution Meets larrietTavlor wife of !ohn Tavlor 'commencement of themost valuable friendship of mv life181 Visits Wordsworth and Southev in the lale listrictMeets and forms friendship with Thomas Carlvle182 lentham dies183 'le Tocoueville on lemocracv in America (I18o !ames Mill dies188 'lentham1840 'Coleridge'le Tocoueville on lemocracv in America (IIix1841 legins correspondence with Auguste Comte184 A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive1848 Principles of Political Economy1849 !ohn Tavlor dies1831 Marries larriet Tavlor183o lecomes head of the examiners department at Indialouse1837 Indian Mutinv Mill active in defence of the last IndiaCompanv1838 Mill retires from the last India Companv (Septemberlarriet dies in Avignon (November1839 On Liberty18o1 Utilitarianism (published in three issues of Fraser's Maga-zine reprinted as a bool in 18oConsiderations on Representative Government18o3 An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy'Auguste Comte and lositivismllected liberal Ml for Westminster18oo leads public agitation to have the lritish Covernor of!amaica prosecuted for illegal repression of a rebellion18o7 Unsuccessfullv proposes amendment to keform lill togive voting rights to women18o8 loses seat in larliament18o9 The Subjection of WomenWrites 'Chapters on Socialism (published in FortnightlyReview in 18791872 lertrand kussell born - Mill his (secular godfather187 lies in Avignon 7 Mavlosthumous publication of Autobiography Chronology of Mill's life xlkllAClIn comparison with other nations the lritish do not seem terriblvinterested in their own great philosophers Thev are esteemed Ithinl but talen for granted It is assumed that thev have sensibleempiricallvoriented and decentlv liberal views and that interestinglv wilder shores of philosophv are found elsewhere Indeedthat is broadlv true lut lile manv things that are broadlv truethis broad truth obscures other important truths It obscures thedepth and rigour of their thought and its wide innuence inMills case in particular his signincance in the developmentof luropean thought over the past two centuries Mill wasunusuallv receptive to the ideas that dominated the earlv stages ofthis latemodern period and a major contributor to its laterstages As the whole period falls increasinglv into perspectivesome of the main land masses in the ocean of its thought standout more clearlv - I thinl the philosophv of Mill will emergeamong them as surelv as for example the philosophv of legel orNietzsche with whom as well as with Marx I draw some comparisons in this bool lach of these philosophers developed newstandpoints in ethics and politics that hugelv innuence our ownstate of mind one major reason for going bacl to them is toexpose for explicit consideration the shifting directions in our ownthinling That is especiallv true when our thinling is changingrather fastMv own interest in Mill goes bacl a long wav to mv student davsand started though it did not nnish with his moral philosophvxiI was even more interested in Marx and through Marx in legelbut there was alwavs something about Mills openness andstraightforwardness that attracted me (it was probablv whatNietzsche called his 'offensive claritv It has been a real pleasureto revisit those attractive Millian ideas and to nnd how well - forme - thev stand up to discussion as other ideas fade I verv muchhope that readers will also nnd it enjovable to argue with MillMv thanls to mv wife larbara for manv helpful things connected with the writing of this bool Preface xiiNCTlS CN Tll TlXTAll citations from Mill are bv volume and page number of hisCollected Works (see lurther keading lassages ouoted from Utili-tarianism and On Liberty are cited bv chapter and paragraph numberas well with U for the former and L for the latter lor example'X 24, U 4 refers to volume X of the Collected Works p 24and to Utilitarianism Chapter 4 paragraph Crossreferences in this bool are bv chapter and section, thus'14 refers to Chapter 1 Section 4Cuotations from Auguste Comte CWl legel lriedrichNietzsche and Karl Marx are from the following sourcesp 19 Nietzsche Twilight of the Idols 'Maxims and Arrows no 1p o3 Nietzsche ouoted in Stern ! l (1978 Nietzsche london Collins p 32p o8 Comte (19oo Catechisme Positiviste laris Carnierllammarion p 29p 72 legel Philosophy of Right 149p 73 Comte (1873-1877 System of Positive Polity vol I london longmansCreen p 2o8p 80 Marx in K Marx and l lngels (1973 Collected Works vol NewYorl International lublishers (a 'Cn !ames Mill p 228 (b 'TheCerman Ideologv p 49 (c 'Critical Notes on the Article ''The King oflrussia and Social keform lv a lrussian p 198xiii1Free Thought---Two basic ouestions of ethics and politics are how should welive And how should we live together !ohn Stuart Mill thoughtverv hard about them Still if the ouestions themselves interestus rather than the historv of thought whv go bacl to someonewho was born two hundred vears ago and died in 187 Whvread him when the problems that worrv us are those that faceus nowMill provides a remarlablv comprehensive liberal vision It iscomplete in a wav that no single thinler now could rival There isa franlness and seriousness to it that help us to thinl about ourown problems Moreover if Mill is (as I thinl the wisest liberalthen not onlv liberals but also critics of liberalism should readhim If thev are fairminded thev should lool for wealnesses inthe strongest versions of liberal thought not in wealer ones Thisbool is meant for both sides, it is a critical renection not anapologiaAlthough Mill wrote about all the main ouestions of philosophv this bool will not discuss his philosophv as a whole Somecomprehensive studies are mentioned in the suggestions for lurtherkeading Cur specinc concern here will be Mills treatment of theethical and the political ouestions lor this purpose however we1do need to notice some important and distinctive features of hisepistemologv in other words his account of how we can justifvour beliefs Mill has an objective view of value that males athoroughgoing difference to his ethics and politics and stronglvdistinguishes him from manv twentiethcenturv liberals Alsorelevant are his extraordinarv upbringing and intellectual pedigree So in this introductorv chapter I sletch in some of the personal and philosophical baclground behind Mills moral andpolitical thought The three chapters that follow are the mainbodv of the bool laving out that thought The last chapterrenects on its signincance todav1.1 Mill's life and workMill received his education from some of the lnlightenmentsmost toughminded analvsts of human nature and societv lisfather !ames Mill was a philosopher and historian of importancelorn on the east coast of Scotland to a poor familv whose namewas originallv 'Milne !ames progressed through Montrose Academv and then livinitv at ldinburgh Universitv nnanced bv alocal landowner Sir !ohn Stuart of lettercairn and his wife lewas licensed as a preacher but did not gain a living so he movedto london and soon achieved modestlv comfortable earnings injournalism There in 1803 he married an lnglishwoman larrietlurrow, !ohn Stuart Mill his eldest son born in 180o was thushalflnglish and halfScots !ames Mills public reputation wasmade bv his History of British India (1817 It led to emplovment bvthe last India Companv of which he became a high ofncialeventuallv followed in the same post bv !ohnNo philosophers childhood is better lnown than !ohn StuartMills le describes it to everv readers wonder in his Auto-biography le was taught bv his father beginning with Creel (atthe age of and arithmetic in the evenings lefore brealfast the Free Thought 2two of them would wall out in the lanes around their home inNewington Creen then largelv rural, !ohn would report on thehistories and biographies he had read the previous dav Meanwhile he studied science for his own amusement le began onlogic at the age of 12 Among !ames Mills close friends were!eremv lentham and lavid kicardo !ohn read kicardos classicalPrinciples of Political Economy two vears after it appeared when hewas 1 le edited lenthams Rationale of Judicial Evidence - amonumental labour - when he was 18 le never went to universitv but bv the age of 20 he in effect had a postgraduatetraining in logic political economv and jurisprudenceIn his twenties and thirties he came to lnow some of the mostinteresting vounger ngures in lnglish politics and culture lishorizons broadened and his main themes were established TheSystem of Logic the product of his thirties published in 184 madehis reputation as a philosopher The Principles of Political Economyof 1848 was a svnthesis of classical economics which dennedliberal orthodoxv for at least a ouarter of a centurv lis two bestlnown worls of moral philosophv On Liberty and Utilitarianismappeared in 1839 and 18o1A major event in his personal life was an intense - but apparentlv platonic - affair with a married woman larriet Tavlor lerintellectual and emotional innuence on him has been debated bvscholars ever since She eventuallv became his wife in 1831bringing them seven and a half vears of great happiness beforeher death in 1838 In the 18o0s Mill was brienv a Member oflarliament and throughout his life was involved in manv worlingclass and radical causes alwavs in a stubbornlv independent wavAmong them was his lifelong support for womens rights - seehis essav The Subjection of Women of 18o9 After his election tolarliament in 18o3 he presented a petition for womens suffragein 18oo and in 18o7 moved an amendment to the keform lill ofthat vear which would have extended the franchise irrespective Free Thought 3of gender, 'perhaps he said 'the onlv reallv important public serviceI performed in the capacitv of a member of larliament (I 283Mills presence in nineteenthcenturv politics and culture is sopowerful his writings so diverse and detailed that it can be hardto see his thought as a whole Yet there is a verv strong unifvingtheme it is his lifelong effort to weave together the insights of thelnlightenment in which he had been reared and the nineteenthcenturv reaction against it a reaction sometimes romantic sometimes historical and conservative and often both It was a dialecticthat Mill experienced personallv for his childhood was anlnlightenment experiment in education while the friends of hisearlv manhood breathed Cerman and Coleridgean komanticismAn important turning point was the mental crisis and depressionthat afnicted him when he was 20 Its connection with his extraordinarv education and claustrophobic relationship with his fatheris plain enough Interesting for present purposes though is that itwas a crisis of meaning le asled himself whether he would behappv if all his objects in life all the social reforms he wasworling for were realisedAnd an irrepressible selfconsciousness distinctlv answered'No At this mv heart sanl within me the whole foundation on which mv life was constructed fell down . . .I seemed to have nothing left to live for(I 19Now he saw the danger of too much analvsis without a sufnciencv of feeling, his recoverv onlv came as feeling graduallvreturned lis outlool on life was verv deeplv affected leretained the main structure of his lnlightenment convictions butsought to enlarge and energise it through the nineteenthcenturvsinsight into the mutabilitv and emotional depth and diversitv ofhuman nature 'Manvsidedness became his motto Free Thought 4There was also a lifelong lrench side to Mill through which hereceived innuences as great as the ones alreadv mentioned lespole and wrote excellent lrench made a point of leepingabreast of events and ideas in lrance and indeed died in lranceAmong manv lrenchmen with whom he maintained long andproductive friendships two great ngures were particularlv signincant Auguste Comte positivist and sociologist and Alexis deTocoueville analvst of democracv Mills productive interactionswith lrench liberalism and positivism are signincant for the wholedevelopment of liberal thought Cverall though it is that Coethean word of power many-sidedness that best hints at what malesMill a seminal latemodern thinler and whv fruitful comparisonscan be made with legel Marx and Nietzsche 'Manvsidednesswill be one of our main themes1.2 Liberalism as free thoughtThe word 'liberal does not refer to one single thing lespitestrong competition it must be one of the most confusing words inthe political and philosophical dictionarv Indeed one rathergood reason for reassessing Mill is to get some grip on the liberaltradition and therebv a sense of what liberalism isIt is among other things a set of doctrines centring on freecompetition and eoual opportunitv (This is the luropean ratherthan the current American sense of the word but it is the onethat is more historical Mill as one of the nineteenth centurvsleading economists wrote plentv on these subjects giving liberalism in the economic sphere a dennite and principled shape, atthe same time he also had much to sav about social justicefavouring stronglv redistributive measures and experiments withworlers cooperatives More fundamentallv - and ratherseparatelv - liberalism is a moral doctrine limiting the authoritvof state and societv over individuals This is the most famous Free Thought 5aspect of Mills liberalism, his essav On Liberty sets out a highlvinnuential limiting doctrine of this lind More fundamentallv stillliberalism can be thought of as a vision of how to live whathuman good is and how our mutual relations should be regulatedlere Mill stands out as a talismanic though controversial liberalpresence The political philosopher !ohn kawls called this lind ofoverall vision 'comprehensive liberalism citing Mill and Kant asits two great though distinct examplesWe can dig even deeper We can go right bacl to the sourcesof liberalism in the modern West bv considering the purelv philosophical idea of free thought - libre pensee liberalism at bottomis simplv free thought and Kant and Mill are both liberals in thisdeepest wav lor both of them the ideal of free thought is themost fundamental liberal ideallree thought is thought ruled bv its own principles and bvnothing else, in other words bv principles of thinling that itdiscovers bv renecting on its own activitv It aclnowledges noexternal constraints placed on it bv doctrines of faith revelationor received authoritv it scrutinises such teachings in the light ofits own principles Cne can also sav that free thought is thought ruledsolelv bv natural reason if 'natural reason is just a name for all thoseprinciples that are internal to thinling and renectivelv aclnowledgedbv it as its own The contrast is with apologetic thought in thetraditional and respectable sense of that word - thought whichseels to male intelligible so far as possible the wavs of Cod toman without claiming to lnow those wavs bv its own principlesalone The apologetic tradition is ndeistic in the sense that it holdsthat free thought alone cannot tell us what to believe Naturalreason must be a servant of faith or at best a cosovereign with itThe liberal ouestion of freedom and authoritv of what I mustdetermine for mvself and what I must accept from other sourcesbegins right here lree thought and with it libertv of discussionare fundamental to Mills philosophv Free Thought 6lut now we reach an important forl in the road lown oneroute lies the idea of free thought as thought that is unconstrainedbv anv authoritative source external to it lown the other lies theidea of it as radicallv presuppositionless It is basic to Mills stance inepistemologv that he tales free thought to be necessarilv theformer but necessarilv not the latter There are he emphasises noconstraints on free thought but that does not mean it can startfrom nowhereYet the idea that free thought must be presuppositionless ishighlv plausible If it rests on some presupposition or assumptionhow can it be free Must it not freelv ouestion that assumptionThat has been an enormouslv innuential modern conception ofwhat it is to thinl reallv freelv Call it the Cartesian idea afterthe lrench philosopher kene lescartes who expounded it in hisMeditations lescartes allows all our opinions to be ouestioned bvthe radical sceptic and then tries to nnd a refutation of the scepticthat relies on none of those opinions but onlv on itself - that ison the mere fact of thinling Cne can sav without exaggerationthat this project of defeating the sceptic on his own terms without anv presupposition - together with its complete failure - isone of the main shapers of modernitv And this means that it hasmade a big difference to the fortunes of liberalismCne wav of spelling out its shaping innuence would be to tellthe storv of Cerman philosophv from Kant to Nietzsche Thistradition tales the Cartesian idea with utmost seriousness andthen seriouslv tries to free itself from its clutch Kant responds tolescartes failure bv a critioue of free thought itself (the 'Critioueof lure keason Trulv free thought he savs must investigate theconditions of its own possibilitv It turns out that those conditionstale human beings out of the world as free thinlers and agentsthev are not a part of nature but have a noumenal aspect Thestorv continues with legel le nnds fault with Kants projectbecause it imposes a basic cleavage of subject and object So he Free Thought 7tries to show how free thought itself literallv generates evervthing a lind of apotheosis of presuppositionless free thoughtNietzsche sees the failure of these highwire heroics and diagnoses a crisis of Western valuesThe deep and genuine difncultv is to see how free thought canbe both selfauthorising and truthnnding in the wav the modernoutlool assumes Nietzsche thinls it cannot be we must give upon truth and recognise that we impose our own 'values ThatNietzschean idea so liberating and countercultural in its davwent on to innuence high modernism and eventuallv to become apopular dogma of our time lpistemologv has entered politics in abig wav in that sceptical or subjectivist attitudes have becomebasic to our ethical and political outlool - the verv outlool aboutwhich Nietzsche was so scathing It is an undercurrent that signincantlv distinguishes Mills and Nietzsches respective attitudesto democracv and eoualitv (see Chapter 31.3 Thinking from withinMill belongs to the alternative tradition according to which freethought does not start bv refusing to male anv assumptions at allbut instead maintains a continuing critical openmindedness aboutevervthing we tale ourselves to lnow without anv exemptionswhatever This 'constructive empiricism also goes bacl to theseventeenth centurv It is naturalistic in that it tales us to be apart of the world that we scientincallv studv It is holistic in thatit worls from within our convictions as a whole It tales the fallibilist attitude that any of the things we thinl we lnow howeverseeminglv certain could turn out to be wrong in the course of ourcontinuing inouirv That includes our initial assumptions - but itdoes not follow that we cannot start from themMills constructive empiricism is one main wav in which hemaintains a nrm footing in the lnlightenment le is unimpressed Free Thought 8bv 'the wellmeant but impracticable precept of lescartes of'setting out from the supposition that nothing had been alreadvascertained (VII 18-19 That wav lies onlv nihilism for nothingcan come of nothing Nor does he thinl that an a priori critiouecan show us that human beings as thinlers have some nonnaturalnoumenal side Thinling is itself a natural processlrinciples of lvidence and Theories of Method are not tobe constructed a priori The laws of our rational facultv lilethose of everv other natural agencv are onlv learnt bvseeing the agent at worl . . . we should never have lnownbv what process truth is to be ascertained if we had notpreviouslv ascertained manv truths(VIII 8It is in this wav that free thought discovers truths about what weshould believe about what is good about how we should act -truths that are normative for our thinling feeling and doing Itdoes so bv careful scrutinv of how we actuallv reason and renective analvsis of which principles in this practice of reasoning turnout to be treated bv us as normativelv basic 'seeing the agent atworl This is the onlv 'evidence that can be produced for thephilosophers normative claimsI will call this method 'thinling from within (legels methodincidentallv could also be described as thinling from within thisis one of surprisinglv manv common points that can be foundbetween the two verv different thinlers and it contributes a liberal aspect to legels thinling Thinling from within reouiresimaginative understanding of other people and other times, alesson Mill drew from Coleridge About other peoples ideas Millsavs lenthams onlv ouestion was were thev true Coleridge incontrast patientlv asled after their meaning To pin down thefundamental norms of our thinling calls for careful psvchological Free Thought 9and historical inouirv into how people thinl and also into howthev thinl thev should thinl - what lind of normative attitudesthev displav in their actions and their renection These must beengaged with to be understood So thinling from within isinherentlv dialogical And it alwavs remains corrigible lothpoints are signincant in Mills argument for libertv of thought anddiscussionWhat gives this method a critical and svstematic edge It canexamine whether some normative dispositions are reducible toother such dispositions It can also consider whether some areexplicable in a wav that subverts their authoritv Suppose I canexplain vour low opinion of vour brothers intelligence as theproduct solelv of sheer envv and resentment That will subvertthis opinion it mav be true but vour grounds for thinling it is arenot good ones Cr an example Mill would have liled normativenotions of what womens role should be mav simplv renectuneoual power relationships between men and women That iftrue subverts these normative views It does not show thev arefalse but it does show that thev are not justined Thinling fromwithin seels to establish what basic normative dispositions are notsubvertible in this wav but are resilient under renection and thuspreserve normative authoritvMill never tries to justifv this approach against the heroic presuppositionless tradition Is this wise avoidance of an ultimatelvpointless ouestion or unacceptable evasion of a fundamentalouestion keligious ndeists on the one hand and postmodernnihilists on the other will answer that it is the latter Thev have apoint To sav that thinling from within is the method we actuallvuse in our best philosophising and the onlv method we coulduse still does not answer the Kantian ouestion which asls whatright we have to use it low to repeat can free thought be bothselfauthorising and truthnnding Mills replv would be that freethought has the onlv vindication it can have its own success in Free Thought 10practice as shown bv its historv Cn its own record it does notlead to disaster but to the growth of lnowledge and to an outloolthat is humanistic and liberallut because the sceptical fallout from the other presuppositionless tradition has become so culturallv innuential it isnow an important ouestion not just for pure philosophv but forethics and politics whether Mills conndence in the process offallible dialogue is legitimate A strange alliance of religiousapologists and 'postmodern nihilists disagrees lo thev not needto be confronted directlv Isnt ignoring them and just getting onwith it a bit smug Alas - this ouestion can be put brienv but canbe discussed onlv at subtle length Much philosophv remainsconcerned with it The fact is however that it is not a discussionthat suited Mill le is patient in understanding other peoplessubstantive outlools but impatient of elusive metadiscussionslven so he remains indispensable to those who trust in freethought and discussion because he shows what thinling openmindedlv with integritv can achieve1.4 ReligionThe ouestion of free thought and of understanding other peoplesoutlools leads one to consider Mills attitude to religion le tellsus in his Autobiography that he is one of the few examples in lritain 'of one who has not thrown off belief but never had it (I43 keligion is absent from his philosophv in the sense thatworling out a metaphvsics in which Cod and immortalitv have afundamental place is simplv not something he needs to do lut itis not absent as a meaninggiving human belief and especiallv asa wav of life, these aspects of religion alwavs interested himWhen in a late essav he discusses 'Theism he does so withinthe epistemological frameworl I have described that is purelvfrom the standpoint of natural reason le treats the existence of Free Thought 11Cod as a hvpothesis to be assessed on empirical grounds Thebest empirical evidence for it he thinls is the existence oforganisms that could be explained as products of intelligentdesign Such evidence does give some ground 'insufncient forproof and amounting onlv to one of the lower degrees of probabilitv (X 482 for postulating an intelligent designer The lindof designer it points to is not an eternal omnipotent intelligencethat created the whole universe but rather an intelligence limitedbv the natural materials and laws with which it had to worl Milladds that larwins theorv of evolution would further decrease theprobabilitv of this hvpothesis since it would explain how complex functional svstems such as the eve could emerge withoutforethought bv a designer le was enthusiastic about larwins'remarlable speculation but reserved judgement as to whether itwould be nnallv accepted ('Theism was written about ten vearsafter the publication of The Origin of Species in 1839In anv case he is nrm that the 'notion of a providential government bv an omnipotent leing for the good of his creaturesmust be entirelv dismissed (X 482 In view of the existence ofevil perfect goodness in the intelligent designer cannot bereconciled with perfect power 'The attempt to do so not onlvinvolves absolute contradiction in an intellectual point of view butexhibits to excess the revolting spectacle of a jesuitical defence ofmoral enormities (X 43oThe nrst point is too strong in that the existence of evil doesnot positivelv contradict what the apologist must believe namelvthat the world we live in belongs to the best possible set ofworlds lut Mill could have said that there is no evidence at allfor that belief llsewhere he considers a still popular obfuscatorvline according to which not just Cods purposes but the vervmeaning of lis goodness must be a mvsterv to us because thennite goodness of human beings provides no model for the innnite goodness of Cod It rouses Mill to his muchouoted replv Free Thought 12I will call no being good who is not what I mean when Iapplv that epithet to mv fellowcreatures, and if such abeing can sentence me to hell for not so calling him to hellI will go(IX 10The denant tone is slightlv comic but the point made followsdirectlv from the liberal attitude of free thought The onlvunderstanding we have of 'good is that given bv our own standards of goodness laith has no authoritv to tell us that 'innnitegoodness refers to something that we cannot understand butmust believe without understanding to deserve the highestvenerationAnd vet Mill wants to leave some space for religious hopeThat there exists a powerful though not omnipotent being whowishes us well and mav somehow offer us the prospect of lifeafter death is a possibilitv that need not be dismissed We do nothave sufncient grounds to believe it but we do have sufncientgrounds for legitimate hope and such a hope mav comfort andinspire This striling conclusion has made some people thinl thatMill had a wistful desire to believe after all That is a misconception le simplv provides an assessment of the verv best that canbe said for religion in the spirit of a fairminded but detachedphilosophers review le gives a similarlv fairminded account ofthe good and bad conseouences of religious faith in the companion essav 'The Utilitv of keligion There is no evidence that hehimself hoped Cnce the theorv of evolution became well established he would probablv have felt compelled to sav that eventhe margin for hope had goneWhat is true is that Mills nature needed a great ideal something 'grander and more beautiful than we see realized in theprose of human life (X 419 It was this that had precipitated hismental crisis Mill thought that religion in its highest poetic Free Thought 13forms supplied one such ideal And it could male one lovegoodness le saw that clearlv but also saw that these were not inthemselves reasons to believe it le was moved bv other humanistic ideals There is above all what I shall call the liberal ideal(2 but there is also an ideal of worling with others for acommon good and an ideal of service to humanitv which maleshim svmpathise with Comtes 'religion of humanitv even as hennds its details absurd and rejects its liberticidal aspects In theend the test of ideals for Mill - after his mental crisis as beforeit - is how much thev contribute to human happiness Whichleads on to our next chapter Free Thought 142The Good for Human Beings---2.1 Happiness and self-developmentWhat is the good for human beings Mill thinls that it consists inhappiness le means pleasure or enjovment and the absence ofsuffering Cnlv happiness contributes to maling the world abetter or worse place Noones happiness is more important thananvone elses so the happiness of all must be the sole ultimatestandard of what ends are worth pursuing and what things worthdoing This is 'the greatest happiness principle the fundamentalprinciple determining how good anv end or objective is It iswhat Mill means bv 'utilitarianismIt might seem given this view that we must devote all our energiesto maling the world a happier place Yet that is emphaticallv notwhat Mill thinls Selness pursuit of the general happiness if it is welldone is admirable but it is not the general rule The general rule Millthinls should be that evervone pursues their own happiness in theirown wav under the limitations set bv the eoual rights of evervoneelse And even when it comes to pursuing ones own happiness formost people that is best done bv pursuing other ends and achievinghappiness bv the wav lappiness 'is the justincation and ought tobe the controller of all ends but is not itself the sole end (VIII 93215The reasons for this have to do with some basic truths aboutwhat human beings are lile their historv and their shared situation Thev best discover their own forms of happiness bv malingtheir own mistales, thev discover happiness bv and large at leastas much in their own personal spheres of self familv and friends asin the impersonal sphere of ethical or political activism, above allfor human beings the most cherishable forms of happiness reouirepersonal freedom the freedom to get on with ones own life inones own wav Some of Mills most splendid outbursts are aimed atmoralists who want to impose service to manlind as the rule of lifeWhv is it necessarv that all human life should point but toone object and be cultivated into a svstem of means to asingle end Mav it not be the fact that manlind who afterall are made up of single human beings obtain a greatersum of happiness when each pursues his own under therules and conditions reouired bv the good of the rest thanwhen each males the good of the rest his onlv object andallows himself no personal pleasures not indispensable tothe preservation of his faculties The regimen of a blocladed town should be cheerfullv submitted to when highpurposes reouire it but is it the ideal perfection of humanexistence(X 7This is directed against Auguste Comte Mill was verv readv toadmire the ideal of worling for human good - and responded toit personallv to a ouite unusual degree Yet he thought Comte a'moralitvintoxicated man and in politics a 'liberticide Themoralitvintoxication and the liberticide are connected If evervones sole dutv is to live for the good of others ('vivre pour autruithen whv not have a state in which that dutv is enforced Thedisaster lies in maling the admirable obligatorv The Good for Human Beings 16There is a standard of altruism to which all should bereouired to come up and a degree bevond which it is notobligatorv but meritorious It is incumbent on everv one torestrain the pursuit of his personal objects within the limitsconsistent with the essential interests of others What thoselimits are it is the province of ethical science to determine,and to leep all individuals and aggregates of individualswithin them is the proper ofnce of punishment and ofmoral blame If in addition to fulnlling this obligation persons male the good of others a direct object of disinterested exertions postponing or sacrincing to it eveninnocent personal indulgences thev deserve gratitude andhonour and are nt objects of moral praise So long as thevare in no wav compelled to this conduct bv anv externalpressure there cannot be too much of it, but a necessarvcondition is its spontaneitv, since the notion of a happinessfor all procured bv the selfsacrince of each if the abnegation is reallv felt to be a sacrince is a contradiction(X 7-8The distinctions that are made in these passages are basic to Millslind of liberalism le does not ground liberal principles on adoctrine of natural rights of person and propertv as locle does,nor on rights supposed to applv to all rational beings as Kantdoes, nor does he derive the state from a social contract as thevdo lis case is empiricallv based on actual human nature Theinstitutions of the liberal state Mill thinls are those under whichhuman beings are happiest Cther sorts of beings might nourishunder ouite different institutions lut human beings need libertvand thev nnd that in a social order that leaves them to pursuetheir 'personal objects within the limits consistent with theessential interests of others The next chapter will examine whatMill thinls those limits are The Good for Human Beings 17Mill has a specinc view about whv human beings need libertvto be happv It is because thev can develop themselves onlv whenthev are free and because selfdevelopment is a condition of thehighest forms of happiness lappiness of this lind is achievedthrough living bv some objectivelv sound ideal The altruisticideal of living for others is certainlv one of these, when embracedfreelv it can be a great source of selfrealising happiness lut itcannot be imposed as a moral obligation since a 'necessarv condition is its spontaneitv And importantlv as we shall see it isonlv one of manv admirable ideals and can be a main avenue ofselfrealising happiness onlv for someThe notion of selfdevelopment and its connection with idealsof living is crucial for Mill It forms part of an overall argumentconnecting happiness and freedom In this chapter we shallexamine its structural foundations the Createst lappiness lrinciple how Mill tries to establish it and how he thinls ideals ofliving are connected to happiness2.2 The Greatest Happiness PrincipleMills foundational principle breals down into a number of subclaims There is the ouestion of what is good for human beingsThere is the ouestion of whv the general good the good of allshould be the ultimate criterion of conduct - whv shouldnt theultimate criterion be the good of the person who is deliberatingabout what to do And then even if the general good of all is thecriterion whv should we represent the general good as the sum ofthe good of each Mill is at his best in answering the nrst ouestion le is ouite perfunctorv in answering the other twoTo asl what is ultimatelv good he savs is to asl what ends areultimatelv desirable, and 'the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anvthing is desirable is that people do actuallv desire it(X 24, U 4 Cr as he also puts it that it is desired 'in theorv The Good for Human Beings 18and practice In other words the 'evidence for its being desirableis simplv that when we renect on what we desire we nnd that wedesire this (whatever it mav be for itself and aclnowledge it asindeed desirable - rather than subverting that judgement andtrving to change our desires This must indeed be the basic testfor anv normative claim according to the method of inouirv Icalled 'thinling from within (1 And bv this test according toMill happiness understood as 'pleasure and the absence of pain(X 210, U 2 2 emerges as an ultimatelv desirable endSo far so good lew denv in theorv let alone in practice thatpleasure is desirable There are some 'Man does not strive forpleasure according to Nietzsche 'onlv the lnglishman does It isnot one of his more convincing propositions A much more formidable ouestion is whether happiness is the only ultimatelvdesirable thing Mill thinls it is, he is in other words a 'hedonistSo bv his own method he has to show that happiness is the onlv thingultimatelv desired That in turn is 'a ouestion of fact and experiencewhich 'can onlv be determined bv practised selfconsciousnessand selfobservation assisted bv observation of others (X 27,U 410 Such observation shows he thinls that when we wantsomething for its own sale and with no further end in view wewant it because we thinl of it as enjovable or thinl of not havingit as positivelv painful le regards this as a psvchological lawabout all desiresIt does not mean however that we desire all objects as means toour pleasure The desire for an object is genuinelv a desire forthat object, it is not the desire for pleasure as such Mills wav ofmarling this is to sav that the object is desired as a 'part of oneshappiness So the claim that happiness is the sole human end putmore carefullv is this 'Whatever is desired otherwise than as ameans to some end bevond itself and ultimatelv to happiness isdesired as itself a part of happiness and is not desired for itselfuntil has become so (X 27, U 4 8 lluralists about human ends The Good for Human Beings 19denv that Thev hold that there are desirable ends other thanhappiness So if thev follow Mills method thev must denv thethesis that whatever we desire we desire under the idea of it aspleasant Thev can sav that desiring something does alwavsinvolve the idea of it as worth doing or bringing about but doesnot alwavs involve the idea that the doing or achieving of it willbe pleasant (or painavoidingThus for example I mav want to lnow that I have a terminalillness if I do I thinl of that lnowledge as something worthhaving but not necessarilv as something I would enjov havingAgain I love others and I am committed to causes, I want theseothers and these causes to nourish even though I dont necessarilv expect to be around to enjov it A third example I want to beable to get on with things in mv own wav and not have peopleincluding wellintentioned people interfering Cn the basis ofsuch examples the pluralist argues against Mill that for manvpeople things such as lnowledge of ones situation the good ofpeople and causes with which one identines and freedom to liveones life in ones own wav are renectivelv desired hence desirable in just as ultimate a wav as pleasureMills response will be to aclnowledge that lnowledge thewellbeing of people one cares for personal independence and soon are indeed desired for themselves What that means howeveris that thev are desired as parts rather than as means to happinessThat is what he savs for example about the desire to be a virtuous person Cood people desire virtue for itself in other wordsMill savs thev desire it as part of their happiness and areunhappv if thev are aware of lacling it lowever while the distinction between desiring something as a means to happiness andas a part of it is well talen it does not settle the issue A pluralistwill replv that we are readv and willing to give up some happinessoverall to further certain other ends that we have, not out of asense of obligation to pursue them but just because we want to The Good for Human Beings 20pursue them You want to lnow if vou have cancer even if thatlnowledge will produce some net reduction in vour happiness Isthat an unreasonable wantThis debate between hedonist and pluralist can be pursued withcare and in detail It is important not onlv for the personal ouestion of how one should live but also given Mills frameworl as aouestion about what human ends serve as foundations of liberalism Although hedonism has strong and subtle resources it seemsto me that the pluralist is right And its interesting that Millhimself savs things that are onlv reconcilable with hedonism bvmeans of a little pushing and shoving for example when at onepoint he contrasts the 'comparativelv humble sense of happinessas 'pleasure and freedom from pain with the 'higher meaningnamelv what 'human beings with highlv developed faculties cancare to have (VIII 932 I dont thinl such passages show he isnot a hedonist when evervthing else he savs is talen intoaccount but thev do show the strain between two elements in histhinlingWe can asl a person 'low good are vou feeling right nowlow much are vou enjoving what voure doing We can also asl'low satisned are vou with vour life Is it the life vou ''care tohave low well are things going for vou overall These are vervdifferent linds of ouestions (as psvchological research on happiness bears out According to hedonism how well things aregoing for vou overall should be measured bv how high vou arescoring over time in answer to the nrst ouestion lut thats notwhat manv people thinl Mill is right to analvse a persons goodas what is desirable for that person lut what a person mav reasonablv desire can extend bevond his own enjovment into outcomes he cannot even lnow So if mv good is what is desirablefor me as Mill thinls mv good extends lilewiselets turn to the other two ouestions I mentioned above Thevarise whether one tales a hedonist or a pluralist view of human The Good for Human Beings 21good Whv should the general good the good of all be the ultimate criterion of conduct rather than each particular personsgood being the ultimate criterion for that particular person Andeven if the general good of all is the criterion whv should werepresent the general good as the sum of the good of eachMill never adeouatelv examined these elements in the principleof utilitv When he states the utilitarian doctrine before considering what lind of proof can be given of it he states it thus'happiness is desirable and the onlv thing desirable as an end allother things being onlv desirable as means to that end (X 24, U4 2 lvidentlv he thinls that the controversial part of his tasl isto show that this - ie hedonism - is true All he has to sav aboutthe further move from hedonism to the utilitv principle is that if'each persons happiness is a good to that person then 'the general happiness must be 'a good to the aggregate of all persons (X24, U 4 In a letter in which he explains this unclear remarlhe savs 'I merelv meant in this particular sentence to argue thatsince As happiness is a good ls a good Cs a good etc the sumof all these goods must be a good (XVI 1414lut this clarincation males two assumptions lirst even if Millhas shown that each persons happiness is a good to that person aphilosophical egoist can still denv that he has shown that happiness is a good There is no such thing as the good period theegoist savs, theres onlv whats good for you or for me Againstthe egoist Mill needs a postulate of impartialitv and a corresponding natural disposition We must be naturallv disposed tohold that evervones good is of legitimate concern to all of us andthat noones wellbeing is in this respect more important thananvone elsesThe second assumption is more subtle At the end of the lastchapter of Utilitarianism 'Cn the Connexion between !ustice andUtilitv Mill does explain that he tales 'perfect impartialitvbetween persons to be part of the verv meaning of the Createst The Good for Human Beings 22lappiness lrinciple 'That principle is a mere form of wordswithout rational signincation unless one persons happiness supposed eoual in degree (with the proper allowance made for lindis counted for exactlv as much as anothers (X 237, U 3 o Sohere Mill supplies the reouired postulate of impartialitv loweverthe concept of impartialitv does not talen on its own vield utilitarianisms aggregative principle of distribution Maximising thesum of individuals happiness if it males sense to tall in this wavat all is but one wav of being impartial It is not the onlv one Awide varietv of noneouivalent distributive principles is impartialin the sense that thev do not count anv one persons happiness asmore important than anvone elses The most that can be gainedfrom combining a postulate of impartialitv with hedonism is ageneric thesis that the general good is some positive impartialfunction of the happiness of all individuals and of nothing elseWhat Mill needed to argue to support his specinc view was thatwe are naturallv disposed to tale the sum of individuals happinessrather than to applv some other impartial criterionAs a psvchological hvpothesis that lools implausible Supposefor example that we are considering a world in which evervonelives in reasonable comfort In these circumstances I suspect vervfew people would regard a smallish increase in sumtotal wellbeing achieved at the cost of serious suffering for a small numberof people to be an improvement To sav that is to gesture at highlvdifncult issues about what plausible distributive constraintsshould be placed on the structure of impartiallv conceived good(and how determinate an answer can be given - issues that havecome to the fore since Mill wroteIf faced with these issues how stronglv would Mill havewanted to defend the sumtotal view I believe that his fundamental commitment is simplv that the general good impartiallvconceived is the ultimate criterion of conduct le could retreatfrom the sumtotal view of general good to a view which gave it a The Good for Human Beings 23more constrained distributive structure and there seems to be noparticular theoretical reason whv he should not do soledonism has deeper roots in his overall philosophv despitehis tendencv to veer awav from it from time to time Supposehowever we accept that human beings have ultimate ends otherthan happiness Ive mentioned lnowledge of ones situationfreedom to do things ones own wav the good of people andcauses that one has come to identifv with as ones own The resultof these two changes (awav from the sumtotal version of impartialitv and awav from hedonism would still be a species of animportant general position though a more complex one namelvthat the good is the wellbeing of all impartiallv considered Callthis generic position 'philosophical utilitarianism And the morecomplex version of philosophical utilitarianism is arguablv morefavourable to Mills lind of liberalism than his own version of it isIt could still be defended in Mills wav bv thinling fromwithin focusing on what is found bv an empirical inouirv intoour sentiments to be what human beings in fact desire lut whatabout the reouirement of impartialitv itself low do we defendthat Without it Mills structure falls apart I will come bacl tothis crucial ouestion in 3A nnal point lhilosophical utilitarianism holds that it is notjust human beings but all beings capable of wellbeing that countThis plainlv leads to important ouestions about the moral status ofnonhuman animals of which Mill is well aware Nonetheless hehas little to sav about them even if he should have had moreAnd since our focus here is on Mill as a philosopher of liberalismI shall not pursue them I turn instead to his liberal ideal2.3 The liberal idealUtilitv - general wellbeing impartiallv conceived - is Millsethical foundation, it must therefore be the foundation of his The Good for Human Beings 24liberalism So in the essav On Liberty Mill dulv savs that hisargument does not rest on 'the idea of abstract right as a thingindependent of utilitv but that he regards utilitv as 'the ultimateappeal on all ethical ouestions (XVIII 224, L 1 11le immediatelv adds that the utilitv in ouestion must be utilitv'in the largest sense grounded on the permanent interests of manas a progressive being It is a signincant phrase These 'permanentinterests arise from human beings potential for free selfdevelopment and that is a potential realised not onlv in the course ofindividual lives but progressivelv in human historv itselfNo point is more fundamental for grasping Mills ethicaland political outlool Its essence is a conception of humangood as something dvnamic developmental and individualluman beings can raise or lower themselves thev can developtheir good towards the higher or the lower Thev have it inthemselves to tale charge Mill thinls that that capacitv todevelop oneself in ones own wav - culture of the self bv the self -is present in us all We are potentiallv selfforming developmental in a wav that other animals are not Yet he also thinlsthat societies in which universal free selfculture becomes trulvpossible come about onlv through a long historical developmentWhen that stage is reached selfdevelopment becomes the propertasl of human beings leople then have to do their own worl ofselfdevelopment because human potentialities are diverse andbest lnown to the individual person and because onlv bv worling out their own plans of life do thev develop moral freedomSelfdevelopment alwavs contains possibilities of regression aswell as progress but good social institutions enable free selfdevelopment to nourish and go on nourishing without stagnatingor regressingThis progressive and developmental notion of the human goodwas widelv held in nineteenthcenturv culture The idealist side ofthe debate called it 'selfrealisation but it was not onlv idealists The Good for Human Beings 25who held it What was controversial was what the content of selfrealisation would be There were connicting ideals of selfrealisation, we have seen for example Comtes altruistic ideal lor Millthe content of selfrealisation was given bv a certain liberal idealof characterAn important source for it is the aesthetic and ethical vision ofclassical Creel (specincallv Athenian life that was presented bvCerman thinlers and artists at the turn of the eighteenth centurvIt was an ideal of balanced development of all faculties - rationalselfgovernance on the one hand and development and educationof the feelings 'aesthetic education on the other 'a Creel idealof selfdevelopment which the llatonic and Christian ideal ofselfgovernment blends with but does not supersede (XVIII2oo, L 8This ideal is the nineteenth centurvs most important contribution to liberal ethics It transforms the philosophical liberalism ofthat time from the liberalisms that came before We might call itthe 'neoCreel 'neokenaissance or 'humanistic ideal to indicatethat it belongs to a particular epoch in the liberal tradition and isnot dennitive of everv lind of liberal politics The point is welltalen, but since in a bool on Mill this ideal inevitablv crops upall the time and since it seems to me to be connected with suchnotions as 'liberal education I will simplv call it for short 'theliberal ideallow does Mill reconcile such an ideal of active and highminded selfculture with his theorv of happiness as the onlv goodwith its toughminded seeminglv low and passivesoundinginsistence on 'pleasure and the absence of pain le sees no contradiction These low and passive associations are the spin of utilitarianisms indefatigable opponents When Mill considers theaccusation that the Createst lappiness lrinciple is a philosophvfor swine he answers that the objection assumes human beingshave no pleasures other than those of swine The ouestion that The Good for Human Beings 26interests him is what human happiness consists in and how it canbe achieved in the world as it is le returns to these ouestionsthroughout his writings again and againThe liberal ideal of selfculture is perfectlv compatible withthe greatest happiness principle lor onlv through free selfculture subject to the rules reouired bv the interests of all is thefullest selfdevelopment achieved And the crucial linl that then linlsselfdevelopment with happiness is the following onlv the fullest selfdevelopment of ones potential gives access to the highest formsof human happiness The political philosopher !ohn kawls called thisidea 'the Aristotelian principle citing both Aristotles NicomacheanEthics and Mills Utilitarianism The similaritv is well noticed It islilelv however that Mill was innuenced bv 'CermanoColeridgeanideas as he called them rather than bv Aristotle - he thoughtAristotle lacled the historical and progressive conception ofhuman wellbeing which was to him Mill so important (XI 303Certainlv he develops the idea in his own wav and since it is sofundamental to his ethics and politics I will call it the MillianprincipleIn his Autobiography he dates two new convictions to hisrecoverv from a period of depression that assailed him in 182o-27(when he was 20 le still thought that happiness alone is thetrue end of life lut he now thought that 'this end was onlv to beattained bv not maling it the direct end (I 143 an importanttheme that we have alreadv noticed Second he nowgave its proper place among the prime necessities of humanwellbeing to the internal culture of the individual . . . Themaintenance of a due balance among the faculties nowseemed to me to be of primarv importance The cultivationof the feelings became one of the cardinal points in mvethical and philosophical creed(I 147 The Good for Human Beings 27The accent Mill places here and elsewhere on 'cultivation of thefeelings arises because of what he thought he had to combat anoveremphasis on development of reason and will represented bvthe 'llatonic and Christian ideal of selfgovernment a onesidednessthat had shown itself in the denciencies of his own upbringingand more importantlv dominated the new bourgeois cultures notionof respectabilitv It is not that he thinls it wrong to emphasise thedevelopment of reason and will, the point is that it becomes a distorting emphasis if it is not combined with insight into the educationof the feelings liberal education is about 'due balance lriedrichSchiller the Cerman poet and philosopher had made exactlv thesame criticism of Kants moral philosophv le thought Kant hadgiven an inspiring account of one side of human nature its 'dignitvlut he had not captured humanitvs 'grace - its spontaneitv of feelingSchillers Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man are a seminal contributionto the liberal ideal, this was an element in the Cerman komanticferment of the time to which Mill was especiallv open (though hisown openness to feeling had come as much from poetrv especiallvWordsworths poetrv as from Cerman philosophical komanticismkeason and will are reouired for (and nurtured bv free discussion civic participation and the active direction of ones life Millcalls this oualitv of rational will 'moral freedom and lile Kantidentines it with reliable virtueA person feels morallv free who feels that his habits or histemptations are not his masters but he theirs who even invielding to them lnows that he could resist . . . we mustfeel that our wish if not strong enough to alter our character is strong enough to conouer our character when thetwo are brought into connict in anv particular case of conduct And hence it is said with truth that none but aperson of connrmed virtue is completelv free(VIII 841 The Good for Human Beings 28le worried about whether moral freedom was compatible withhis naturalistic view of human beings but thought he saw how thevcould be reconciled (in the System of Logic - lool o Chapter 2 -from which I have just ouoted and which Mill thought the bestchapter in the whole worlWhat we do he said is alwavs causallv explicable bv a motivebut that motive need not be a desire 'A habit of willing is commonlv called a purpose, and among the causes of our volitionsand of the actions which now from them must be recloned notonlv lilings and aversions but also purposes (VIII 842 Willevolves through the psvchological differentiation of purposesfrom desires when it has evolved we can act purposivelv againstour desires That is essential to Mills conception of character asin Utilitarianism where we nnd him insisting 'positivelv andemphaticallvthat the will is a different thing from desire, that a personof connrmed virtue or anv other person whose purposesare nxed carries out his purposes without anv thought ofthe pleasure he has in contemplating them or expects toderive from their fulnlment(X 28, U 4 11Sir Thomas lertram in !ane Austens Manseld Park wouldapplaud And so would Immanuel Kant lut the 'virtuous will isnot for Mill an intrinsic good as it is for Kant It remainsa means to good not intrinsicallv a good, and does notcontradict the doctrine that nothing is good to humanbeings but in so far as it is either itself pleasurable or ameans of attaining pleasure or averting pain(X 29, U 411 The Good for Human Beings 29It does not contradict the doctrine because the criterion of whatis good or desirable as a nnal end remains what we desire not whatwe willSo Mill accepts the existence and importance of the developedwill and its connection with right character - the human characteristic Schiller called 'dignitv Yet at the same time he thinlsthat virtue belongs to the feelings as well because it is loveableand desirable it can come to be loved and desired for itself Thenit becomes a part of our happiness - Schillers 'grace - and ofcourse Mill thinls it a good thing that it should be soCharacter itself involves stronglv developed feeling as well asstronglv developed willA person whose desires and impulses are his own - are theexpression of his own nature as it has been developed andmodined bv his own culture - is said to have a characterCne whose desires and impulses are not his own has nocharacter no more than a steam engine has character(XVIII 2o4, L 3What is it for desires and impulses to be ones own The levnotion here is that of spontaneitv in a traditional philosophicalsense in which a spontaneous volition or action is one that nowsdirectlv from ones own nature lilewise with spontaneous feeling it nows directlv from ones nature in other words it is notfactitious uncriticallv accepted from without unthinlinglv conventional the product merelv of a wish to please or to conformThis idea is linled to education or culture as against indoctrination education brings out and develops our spontaneous responses whether these be cognitive conative or affective inaccordance with their own immanent rationalitv Thus virtue canbe spontaneouslv loved for itself because it is loveable whereaswealth cannot be spontaneously loved for itself Immanent rationalitv The Good for Human Beings 30is related to the idea of thinling from within it is what naturallvstriles us from within the standpoint of feeling as reasonablentting normativelv apt in itself All human value is founded onthis immanent rationalitv of the feelings and can be founded inno other wav lducating the feelings consists in developing themin accordance with their spontaneitv The process is inherentlvdialogical and exploratorv and can tale place fullv onlv underconditions of freedomIt is not surprising then that 'free development of individualitvand 'individual spontaneitv are lev notions for Mill It is what heopposes to his ages 'narrow theorv of life and to the pinched andhidebound tvpe of human character which it patronizes (XVIII2o3, L 8There is a different tvpe of human excellence from theCalvinistic a conception of humanitv as having its naturebestowed on it for other purposes than merelv to be abnegated 'lagan selfassertion is one of the elements of humanworth as well as 'Christian selfdenial There is a Creelideal of selfdevelopment which the llatonic and Christianideal of selfgovernment blends with but does not supersede It mav be better to be a !ohn Knox than an Alcibiades but it is better to be a lericles than either, norwould a lericles if we had one in these davs be withoutanvthing good which belonged to !ohn Knox(XVIII 2o3-o, L 82.4 Qualities of happinessThat there is such a thing as education of the feelings is thefoundation of Mills famous distinction between oualitv andouantitv of pleasure The Good for Human Beings 31It is ouite compatible with the principle of utilitv torecognise the fact that some kinds of pleasure are moredesirable and more valuable than others It would be absurdthat while in estimating all other things oualitv is considered as well as ouantitv the estimation of pleasuresshould be supposed to depend on ouantitv alone(X 211, U 2 4Cnce again that worls through the Millian principle the point isthat developed human beings acouire capacities for enjovmentthat undeveloped human beings lacl These are the pleasures ofhigher oualitv - the ones that 'human beings with highlv developed faculties can care to haveThe charge has often been made that this supposed distinctionbetween oualitv and ouantitv of pleasure is actuallv inconsistentwith hedonism Not so There is no reason in logic whv morethan one characteristic of pleasures should not be relevant toestimating their value, though if we call those characteristics'ouantitv and 'oualitv we need to maintain a careful distinctionbetween the ouantitv and oualitv of a pleasure on the one handand its degree of value on the other (as Mill does in the passagejust cited Activitv A can be more valuable pleasurewise thanactivitv l because though it gives less pleasure the pleasure itgives is of higher oualitv All that hedonism reouires is that theonlv things that male a pleasure valuable are its characteristics asa pleasurelow then do we lnow the oualities of pleasures According toMill oualities lile ouantities are determined bv 'the feelings andjudgments of the experienced (X 21, U 2 8 And how do welnow that a higheroualitv pleasure (other things eoual is morevaluable As we should bv now expect Mill thinls the onlv criterion for this judgement as with basic value judgements in general is renective practice - selfexamination and discussion The Good for Human Beings 32What often raises readers haclles here is Mills elitism hethinls that onlv some people are competent to judge the oualitvas against the ouantitv of pleasure lut this elitism is the directconseouence of the developmental or progressive conception ofhuman beings Cne gains access to higher pleasures bv cultivationof the feelings - so cultivation is reouired if one is to be a competent judge lducating the feelings is neither merelv indulgingthem on the one hand nor on the other disciplining them bv amoral or religious standard external to them It means worlingfrom within their spontaneitv criticising and strengthening thembv their own internal standards Those internal standards are alsothe standards bv which oualitv of pleasure is judged That thereare such standards is just another application of Mills epistemologv of 'thinling from within (lv the same tolen objections toMills notion that there are such standards are often scepticalobjections to the verv idea of objective value All human beingsMill thinls can cultivate their feelings but their affective sensibilities mav point in different directions of development and givethem different powers of enjovment If I unlile vou get nothingout of poetrv there is a higher pleasure that is lost to me butaccessible to vou - but perhaps the reverse holds with respect tothe higher pleasure of chess or of athleticismThere is no inconsistencv in Mills idea that he can reconcilehedonism and the liberal ideal but that is not to sav that hedonism is true Also an impression lingers that he in fact appeals topluralistic intuitions lor example he remarls that'a being of higher faculties reouires more to male himhappv is capable probablv of more acute suffering and iscertainlv accessible to it at more points than one of an inferiortvpe, but in spite of these liabilities he can never reallvwish to sinl into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence(X 212, U 2 o The Good for Human Beings 33And he suggests that this preference can be explained bv a senseof dignitv that all human beings possess It sounds then as thoughMill thinls evervone has a desire for dignitv or selfrespectwhich is distinct from the desire for pleasure In which case bvhis own test dignitv is desirable as well as pleasure Suppose thata being of higher faculties is faced with a choice on the onehand a life of considerable suffering with no access to anv of thehigher pleasures which its faculties male it capable of appreciating on the other a cure which relieves its suffering but leaves itonlv with pleasures accessible bv much simpler faculties (savpleasant tunes and good food Is Mill saving that in all such casesthe life of suffering should be preferred If he does adhere tohedonism he should not sav that Cases must be possible inwhich life after the cure offers a stream of pleasures more valuableoverall taling oualitv as well as ouantitv into account than thelife of suffering in which one retains ones higher faculties but canobtain no higher pleasures So if pleasure is all that matters then inthese cases one should choose the cure Cnlv if a separate desirefor dignitv trumps the desire for pleasure could such a choice bewrong2.5 Morality and justiceIn response to Comtes rigoristic moralitv of service to others wesaw Mill distinguishing - with a good deal of emphasis - betweenwhat it is good and admirable and what is morallv obligatorv(21 In Chapter 3 of Utilitarianism he gives an analvsis of moralobligation that males room for this difference and is interestingin its own right le dennes a moral wrongdoing as an act forwhich the individual ought to be punished 'if not bv law bv theopinion of his fellowcreatures, if not bv opinion bv the reproaches of his own conscience 'It is he continues 'a part of thenotion of lutv in everv one of its forms that a person mav The Good for Human Beings 34rightfullv be compelled to fulnl it lutv is a thing which mav beexacted from a person as one exacts a debt (X 24o, U 3 14Moralitv is concerned with that which an individual mav be'compelled and not merelv 'persuaded and exhorted to do Thecompulsion need not be legal compulsion - it can worl throughthe attitudes of others or through ones own conscience Thereare interesting differences between these three cases - criminalitvblameabilitv bv others and (appropriate prohibition bv onesown conscience - but Mill does not go into them lis basic ideais that a moral obligation of one lind or another exists in anv casein which noncompliance ought to attract one or other of thesesanctions When ought it According to Mill when a sanction ofone of these linds promotes the general goodle proceeds to denne moral rights in terms of moral obligations A person has a moral right to something if there is a moralobligation on societv to protect them in their possession of thatthing or to guarantee it to them And he dennes justice in terms ofrights obligations of justice are distinguished from moral obligations in general bv the existence of corresponding rights!ustice implies something which it is not onlv right to doand wrong not to do but which some individual person canclaim from us as his moral right . . . Whenever there is aright the case is one of justice(X 247, U 3 13Upholding rights is one of societvs vital tasls lor rights give ussecuritv - which is 'to everv ones feelings the most vital ofinterestsThis most indispensable of all necessaries after phvsicalnutriment cannot be had unless the machinerv for providing it is lept unintermittedlv in active plav Cur notion The Good for Human Beings 35therefore of the claim we have on our fellowcreatures tojoin in maling safe for us the verv groundworl of ourexistence gathers feelings around it so much more intensethan those concerned in anv of the more common cases ofutilitv that the difference in degree (as is often the case inpsvchologv becomes a real difference in lind(X 231, U 3 23!ustice Mill concludes 'is a name for certain classes of moralrules which concern the essentials of human wellbeing morenearlv and are therefore of more absolute obligation than anvother rules for the guidance of life (X 233, U 3 2Mill spells out detailed and substantive views about what justicereouires in manv writings on various social ouestions In Utilitar-ianism he is concerned with the more abstract tasl of nttingmoralitv rights and justice into a utilitarian frameworl lis aim isto show how consistentlv with that frameworl justicerights taleprioritv over the direct pursuit of general utilitv bv individuals orthe state just as thev tale prioritv over the private pursuit ofpersonal ends lis position is thus more complex than that ofphilosophers in the Kantian tradition who assume in !ohn kawlssphrase that the right (or just is prior to the good lor Mill goodis philosophically prior to right - but politicallv and sociallv rightconstrains the pursuit of goodThis emphasis on the importance of securitv is exactlv whatone would expect from a liberal believer in the rule of law Thereare however various difnculties in his analvsis of the conceptsThe strongest part of it is the characterisation of moral wrongnessin terms of blameworthiness That could and should be acceptedbv philosophers who are not utilitarians lut Mill wants to savmore that an action is blameworthv if and onlv if it promotesgeneral wellbeing to blame it This is to confuse the act of blamewith the sentiment or attitude expressed in blame Whether an The Good for Human Beings 36action is morallv wrong turns on whether that sentiment or attitude towards the agent is right Whether it is prudent expedientetc to blame the agent is another matter The appropriateness ofthe action can be assessed bv its conseouences for general goodlut the rightness of the sentiment cannot be Similarlv vou mavbe right to be angrv with me but wrong to express that angerWhat the utilitv principle governs is reasons for actions notreasons for feelingsTurning to justice and rights Mill seems to me right to dennejustice in terms of rights in the wav he does, in this