John Stuart Mill
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
“Either it is right that we should kill because nature kills; torture because nature tortures; ruin and devastate because nature does the like; or we ought not to consider at all what nature does, but do what it is good to do.” "On Nature" (1874) by John Stuart Mill, featured in Three Essays on Religion "Nevertheless, as Mill noted in his Autobiography, the soubriquet "the stupid party" henceforth stuck to the Conservatives." "My position in the House was further improved by a speech in which I insisted on the duty of paying off the National Debt before our coal supplies are exhausted, and by an ironical reply to some of the Tory leaders who had quoted against me certain passages of my writings, and called me to account for others, especially for one in my _Considerations on Representative Government_, which said that the Conservative party was, by the law of its composition, the stupidest party. They gained nothing by drawing attention to the passage, which up to that time had not excited any notice, but the _sobriquet_ of "the stupid party" stuck to them for a considerable time afterwards." |
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John Stuart Mill (20th May 1806 – 8th May 1873), was a British philosopher, political economist and Member of Parliament, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He was an advocate of utilitarianism, the ethical theory that was systemized by his godfather, Jeremy Bentham, but adapted to German romanticism. It is usually suggested that Mill is an advocate of negative liberty.
Harriet Taylor
In 1851, Mill married Harriet Taylor after 21 years of an intimate friendship. Taylor was married when they met, and their relationship was close but chaste during the years before her first husband died. Brilliant in her own right, Taylor was a significant influence on Mill's work and ideas during both friendship and marriage. His relationship with Harriet Taylor reinforced Mill's advocacy of women's rights. He cites her influence in his final revision of On Liberty, which was published shortly after her death, and she appears to be obliquely referenced in The Subjection of Women. Taylor died in 1858 after developing severe lung congestion, only seven years into her marriage to Mill.
On the modern world
- For, what is the peculiar character of the modern world--the difference which chiefly distinguishes modern institutions, modern social ideas, modern life itself, from those of times long past? It is that human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favorable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable. Human society of old was constituted on a very different principle. All were born to a fixed social position and were mostly kept in it by law. -- John Stuart Mill in The Subjection of Women (1869)
Major publications
Title | Date | Source |
---|---|---|
"Two Letters on the Measure of Value" | 1822 | "The Traveller" |
"Questions of Population" | 1823 | "Black Dwarf" |
"War Expenditure" | 1824 | Westminster Review |
"Quarterly Review – Political Economy" | 1825 | Westminster Review |
"Review of Miss Martineau's Tales" | 1830 | Examiner |
"The Spirit of the Age" | 1831 | Examiner |
"Use and Abuse of Political Terms" | 1832 | |
"What is Poetry" | 1833, 1859 | |
"Rationale of Representation" | 1835 | |
"De Tocqueville on Democracy in America [i]" | 1835 | |
"State of Society In America" | 1836 | |
"Civilization" | 1836 | |
"Essay on Bentham" | 1838 | |
"Essay on Coleridge" | 1840 | |
"Essays On Government" | 1840 | |
"De Tocqueville on Democracy in America [ii]" | 1840 | |
A System of Logic | 1843 | |
Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy | 1844 | |
"Claims of Labour" | 1845 | Edinburgh Review |
The Principles of Political Economy: with some of their applications to social philosophy | 1848 | |
"The Negro Question" | 1850 | Fraser's Magazine |
"Reform of the Civil Service" | 1854 | |
Dissertations and Discussions | 1859 | |
A Few Words on Non-intervention | 1859 | |
On Liberty | 1859 | |
'Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform | 1859 | |
Considerations on Representative Government | 1861 | |
"Centralisation" | 1862 | Edinburgh Review |
"The Contest in America" | 1862 | Harper's Magazine |
Utilitarianism | 1863 | |
An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy | 1865 | |
Auguste Comte and Positivism | 1865 | |
Inaugural Address at St. Andrews – Concerning the value of culture | 1867 | |
"Speech In Favor of Capital Punishment"<ref>Hansard report of Commons Sitting: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT WITHIN PRISONS BILL— [BILL 36.] COMMITTEE stage: HC Deb 21 April 1868 vol 191 cc1033-63 including Mill's speech Col. 1047–1055</ref><ref>His speech against the abolition of capital punishment was commented upon in an editorial in The Times, Wednesday, 22 April 1868; pg. 8; Issue 26105; col E:</ref> | 1868 | |
England and Ireland | 1868 | |
"Thornton on Labor and its Claims" | 1869 | Fortnightly Review |
The Subjection of Women | 1869 | |
Chapters and Speeches on the Irish Land Question | 1870 | |
On Nature | 1874 | |
Autobiography of John Stuart Mill | 1873 | |
[Three Essays on Religion] | 1874 | |
"Notes on N.W. Senior's Political Economy" | 1945 | Economica |