John Stuart Mill

About this figure

John Stuart Mill was born in London in 1806, the eldest son of the philosopher and historian James Mill, a close associate of Jeremy Bentham. His father subjected him to an extraordinarily intensive education, having him read Greek by age three and study logic, political economy, and classical literature through childhood, a regimen Mill later described in detail, along with the severe mental crisis it helped bring on in his early twenties, in his posthumously published Autobiography. He worked for most of his career as an administrator for the British East India Company, writing his major philosophical works alongside his official duties.

Mill's On Liberty, published in 1859, is among the most influential arguments for individual freedom of thought and action, holding that society may rightfully restrict a person's conduct only to prevent harm to others, and defending free expression even of false or unpopular opinions on the grounds that unchallenged truths lose their vitality. His Utilitarianism, published in 1861 as a series of essays and later as a book, defended and refined Bentham's principle that actions are right insofar as they promote happiness, while distinguishing between higher and lower pleasures and arguing that Bentham's calculus needed qualitative as well as quantitative dimensions.

Mill credited much of his intellectual and emotional development to Harriet Taylor, whom he met in 1830 while she was married to another man; they married in 1851 after her husband's death, and Mill described her as a full collaborator on his work, including The Subjection of Women, published in 1869, which argued for legal and social equality between the sexes. He served one term as a Member of Parliament for Westminster from 1865 to 1868, during which he unsuccessfully proposed an amendment to extend the vote to women. He died in Avignon, France, in 1873.

Written by Epoch Voices. Not the figure’s own words.