John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill ( 1806-1873) was a British philosopher, economist and political theorist. He was educated by his father James, who was a Scottish philosopher, historian and economist in terms of the philosophical theory of Jeremy Bentham, the Utilitarianism. This means, that Mill has this idea that all his actions should be valued by the principle of the greatest happiness for the biggest amount of people. His father planned to save this theory in the person of his son, so that it can not be forgotten after his and Bentham’s death. Therefore he didn’t allow any external influence on John Stuart, not even a religious. He started to teach him Greek an Latin when he was only four years old as well as differential calculus in the age of ten. Being twelve years old, John Stuart wrote his first book, with fifteen he even wrote a few newspaper articles, studied roman law and got involved with politics. In 1823 he founded the “Utilitarian society”. But all these intensive and early studies caused a nervous breakdown in the age of twenty. Mill himself explained that this suppressed any feelings that he might have developed normally in childhood. His depression became even worst when his father died in 1836 which caused severe criticism of the utilitarian theory. Mill refused to study a the University of Oxford, because he didn’t want to submit to the Church of England, so he preferred to work for the East India Company until 1858. In 1851 he married Harried Taylor after her first husband has died. She has had a great influence on him, concerning women’s rights for example. She died 1858 because of a lung congestion. Mill worked as a Lord Rector of the University of St. Andrews from 1865 to 1868 and was at the same time a Member of the Parliament. There he stood for several social reforms, such as labour unions or farm cooperatives as well as women’s rights, for example the right to vote. Important works of John Stuart Mill are “A System of Logic” (1843) in which he claims that a theory of economy has to be bound to empiricism and positivism, “Principles of Political Economy - with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy” (1848) which was said to be the economic standard work of the second half of the 19.th century and at last his work “Utilitarianism” (1863) which was an extension and diversification of the utilitarian theory of Bentham.

Sources

Gaulke, Jürgen. John Stuard Mill. Reibeck bei Hamburg, Rowolth, 1996.

Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism, Der Utilitarismus. Trans. Dieter Birnbacher. Stuttgart, Phillipp Reclam, jun., 2008

http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Mill,+John+Stuart/Biographie