JS Mill Research Articles

Source of Moral Knowledge

One cannot deny the fact that we all have some understanding of moral issues. Each one of us can be said to have some sense of what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad, what ought to be done, and what ought not to be done. This moral understanding can be in the form of some vague idea, notion, or simply a gut feeling. No matter who the person is, from which culture or community the person belongs to, everybody faces a moral quandary sometime or other in one’s life. All of this presupposes that there is some fundamental sense or understanding of what is right and what is wrong. We all seem to have some understanding about actions that are right and those that are wrong. Some actions, for instance, torturing babies just for fun, killing an innocent person, raping, etc. are exemplars of morally wrong actions. Assisting a person in need, giving to famine relief, etc. on the other hand are examples of morally right actions. The present essay is an attempt to delve into the question of the source of moral knowledge. Three sources, experience, reason, and intuition have been identified. Views of philosophers like G.E Moore, WD Ross, Immanuel Kant, JS Mill, Plato, Samuel Clarke, Aristotle Hume, and Anthony Ashley Cooper have been discussed to gain clarity about the issue.

A response to the roundtable: politics, history, and JS Mill in Parliament the Mirror of the Nation

A response to the roundtable: politics, history, and JS Mill in Parliament the Mirror of the Nation

On the Status of Rights

On the Status of Rights

Interrogating the Criminalisation of Same-Sex Sexual Activity: A Study of Commonwealth Africa

The Abrahamic faiths and received colonial law have been identified as the driving force behind the criminalisation of homosexual activity in most of the Commonwealth States of Africa. This article, therefore, seeks to question the role of criminal law in proscribing sexual activities amongst consenting adults of the same gender in Commonwealth African states. A recurring question in the paper is the propriety of criminalising a consensual conduct amongst consenting adults in private when no harm or injury is done to other citizens or the state in line with JS Mill’s principle of harm. The article finds that the misconception that the main aim of criminal law is to legislate the moral values of the majority, forms support for the view that homosexuality can be learned and unlearned and if this is the case, a paternalistic approach by the state would help mould citizens’ behaviour. A comparative and case study approach was adopted for the discussion in the article. Four Commonwealth African states, namely, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda were selected as case studies. The article recommends a much more robust approach for the support of sexual minorities in the Commonwealth.

Communication Jurisprudence; How Far Is It Linked to Freedom of Speech and Expression including Information Right?

Communication, a human instinct acquired naturally, is not only the reality of law of nature but also personal and social reality for their respective function to be performed in target area. This human civilization has become well organized and developed as with the presence of communication; otherwise there wouldn't be difference between human and animal domain. So any personal expression is allowed to the extent that other person does not feel harm or ashamed and so is applicable to organized institution as such it may not go wrong and misuse the terms of reference as deemed under law and moral standards. Public communication is a base of human rights and popular sovereignty as the functions of democracy is possible only through socially responsible communication. The responsibility of this communication goes not only to government and its organ but also to private sectors to the extent that they are existed in the market. Under the domain of law, large numbers of legal philosophers describe the role and requirements of communication i.e. inner morality of Fuller, command of Austin, penumbra situation of Hart, principle of hard case of Dworkin, freedom of speech and expression as a personal interest of Roscoe Pound, no harm principle of JS Mill, requirement of publication of law for formality, participatory approach of law making, interpreting and enforcement process etc. No society and its organizational integration are possible in the absence of communication. Communication is tools of progress and development of all language, culture, social system, rules and behavior control. Communication is the oxygen of state, human knowledge, its storage and transfer. It is a base of transparency, good governance and effective government system. Thus, freedom of speech and expression and right to information are respiratory organ of public communication. So, both face to face and public communications are required for discourse of social phenomenon for Habermas. Yet, public communication cannot be used for defamation; libel and slander, contempt of court, racial disharmony, vested interest, criminal instigation etc. It attracts the necessity of reasonable regulation to the public media for healthy discourse both legal and social.

Situating human generations in Big History

Big History provides the cosmology for the present work in which the disproportionate impact of inequality on today’s young generation is contextualised by examination of three types of societies, past empires, present capitalism and one pre-colonisation indigenous society, over time periods of more than centuries. Generations are seen as demographically referenced social locations like gender and race and at any one time several interdependent generations exist. Other referents include the work of JS Mill, his controversial ethology project, the history of ideas, the non-identity problem and social anthropology. The article concludes by anticipating a tentative reconstruction of Mill’s ethology based on advances in social science in the century and a half since his time.

The “Beloved and Deplored” Memory of Harriet Taylor Mill: Rethinking Gender and Intellectual Labor in the Canon

In his Autobiography, John Stuart Mill tells us that though his conviction regarding the equality of the sexes was a result of his earliest engagements with political subjects, it remained an abstract idea before his relationship with Harriet Taylor (later Taylor Mill) began. Crediting her as the author of “all that was best” in his writings, Mill's praise of his wife has not been well received by many of his readers, and scholars have long questioned her capacities as an intellectual and as a political thinker. I argue that such doubts reflect a narrow standard for adjudicating Taylor Mill's intellectual worth, and what counts as intellectual labor more broadly. Examining Taylor Mill's own writings in fact illuminates and challenges the gendering practices that have sustained scholarly interrogations of Taylor Mill and of her relationship to JS Mill. I make this case first by drawing attention to her “experiential politics” as a credible source of intellectual scholarship, and second by raising questions about the gendered aspects of how intellectual labor has been defined and evaluated in studies of the canon.

On the philosophical foundations of medical ethics: Aristotle, Kant, JS Mill and Rawls

Summary This article aims to trace back some of the theoretical foundations of medical ethics that stem from the philosophies of Aristotle , Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill and John Rawls. The four philosophers had in mind rational and autonomous human beings who are able to decide their destiny, who pave for themselves the path for their own happiness. It is argued that their philosophies have influenced the field of medical ethics as they crafted some very important principles of the field. I discuss the concept of autonomy according to Kant and JS Mill, Kant's concepts of dignity, benevolence and beneficence , Mill's Harm Principle (nonmaleficence), the concept of justice according to Aristotle, Mill and Rawls, and Aristotle's concept of responsibility.

Ideology, utopia and Islam on campus: How to free speech a little from its own terrors

A dominant narrative on many British campuses is ‘Prevent’, which is part of the government’s counter-terror policy, an ideology based on fear. Muslims, in particular, are considered to be at risk of radicalisation on campus, and being under suspicion makes them self-censor. Additionally, the no-platforming student lobby creates a utopian, idealised atmosphere that seeks to reduce dissent. Self-censorship and no-platforming are reducing the diversity of opinions expressed at universities, yet there is no evidence of illegality on campus. Spinoza, JS Mill and Hannah Arendt demanded various forms of free speech for a healthy society, and the free speech issue is the key to ‘Prevent’ which suppresses opinions that are different from the dominant government narratives. The challenge now, in the tide of BREXIT and Trump, is how to free speech, even a little, from the pincer grip of establishment ideology and student utopia. Between the extremes of ideology and utopia is a vacuum that must be filled; if we do not fill it with free speech and discussion, others can colonise it with stories that inspire fear and suspicion. Similarly, a vacuum exists naturally between laws (that set norms) and state guidance on laws (application). If we do not use debate to negotiate the contents of this vacuum, it will be filled with the bureaucracy of fear and even a state of exception. A vacuum demands to be filled. In both cases, we need to actively reclaim each ‘vacuum’ for discussion, debate and questioning in order to try and understand our current cultural imagination and develop a better one.

Troubling appropriations: JS Mill, liberalism, and the virtues of uncertainty

Described as the ‘exemplary liberal’, John Stuart Mill is employed to support a dizzying array of different, even competing visions of liberalism. That he has been so widely appropriated is certainly a result of the plural perspectives and tensions embedded in Mill’s political writings. Yet, while Mill scholars have generally been attuned to these tensions, contemporary critics of liberalism have been less careful in their uses of his work. Mill is used as an archetype of liberalism, and is often depicted as a less complex thinker than is justified. He is now a popular target in debates concerning the dilemmas of liberal individualism, and the inadequacies of liberal approaches to culture, harm, and to progress in the context of empire. Such studies present Mill as a thinker driven by ideological certainty, whereas he is more appropriately regarded as someone moved by political uncertainty. Drawing on his Autobiography, I recover Mill’s appreciation for the uncertainties of political thought and action to provide a more complex, and capacious view of Mill’s work than is allowed in contemporary studies of liberalism. My examination thus troubles those contemporary appropriations, and suggests that scholarly focus on liberalism can unduly restrict interpretive work in political theory.

Mass and elite politics in Mill's considerations on representative Government

SUMMARYThis paper examines the formal filters of the public's political will defended by JS Mill as consistent with the best form of representative government. Holding that institutions must adjust to democratic society, and that democratic society must be improved to achieve wise rule, Mill rejects secret ballots and electoral pledges, and advocates a constitutional council and graduated enfranchisement. He also recommends but does not require the indirect election of the President and a unicameral legislature. Mill's historically sensitive approach puts pressure on interpreters to be sensitive to their own political and social context when applying Mill's ideas. In particular, obviously undemocratic measures such as plural voting should be adjusted to reflect Mill's view that the ratio between legitimacy and competence is constantly changing. The continual readjustment between the powers of masses and elites is the way that Mill's Considerations on Representative Government manage to avoid the now-traditional charge of expertocracy.

JS Mill on Nineteenth Century Marriage and the Common Law

This article seeks to clarify the meaning of marriage for Millian liberals by examining marriage in the context of the nineteenth century common law. JS Mill argues that the family can become a school for free institutions. He identifies a ‘‘morality of justice’’ that must replace chivalry or submission as the normal mode of gendered relations. By using pamphlets, speeches, and legal commentaries, it is possible to explain the meaning of Mill’s ‘‘morality of justice,’’ and also to distinguish his liberal conception of marriage from its common law foundations and from sacramental approaches that define marital dissolubility and flexibility differently.

What would J S Mill do?

What would J S Mill do?

Compassionate use of cell products

Compassionate use of cell products

A normative approach to the criminalisation of cartel activity

Although cartel behaviour is almost universally (and rightly) condemned, it is not clear why cartel participants deserve the full wrath of the criminal law and its associated punishment. To fill this void, I develop a normative (or principled) justification for the criminalisation of conduct characteristic of ‘hard core’ cartels. The paper opens with a brief consideration of the rhetoric commonly used to denounce cartel activity, eg that it ‘steals from’ or ‘robs’ consumers. To put the discussion in context, a brief definition of ‘hard core’ cartel behaviour is provided and the harms associated with this activity are identified. These are: welfare losses in the form of appropriation (from consumer to producer) of consumer surplus, the creation of deadweight loss to the economy, the creation of productive inefficiency (hindering innovation of both products and processes), and the creation of so-called X-inefficiency. As not all activities which cause harm ought to be criminalised, a theory as to why certain harms in a liberal society can be criminalised is developed. It is based on JS Mill's harm to others principle (as refined by Feinberg) and on a choice of social institutions using Rawls's ‘veil of ignorance.’ The theory is centred on the value of individual choice in securing one's own well-being, with the market as an indispensable instrument for this. But as applied to the harm associated with cartel conduct, this theory shows that none of the earlier mentioned problems associated with this activity provide sufficient justification for criminalisation. However, as the harm from hard core cartel activity strikes at an important institution which permits an individual's ability to secure their own well-being in a liberal society, criminalisation of hard core cartel behaviour can have its normative justification on this basis.

Introduction

Introduction Anne Brunon-Ernst (bio) Presenting the significance of Bentham's theory today in a single volume is a daunting task. The aim of this special issue is therefore far more modest. It traces some of the areas where Bentham's scholarship has made progress. The endeavour is two-fold. First it shows the extent to which Bentham scholars are rejuvenating a decrepit Bentham, so far portrayed as the outdated utilitarian of the pleasure calculus. Second it examines the impact of Bentham's utilitarianism on some contemporary debates. The timing of this publication needs to be underlined. The Tocqueville Review's interest in such an unappealing philosopher as Bentham undoubtedly lies with a renaissance in Bentham studies. This revival is due to the stimulating new edition in progress of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham.1 To understand the importance of this new edition, the context of Bentham's publications requires an introductory comment. At Bentham's death, John Bowring, his secretary, edited The Works of Jeremy Bentham.2 Unfortunately, on account of Bentham's lack of time for and interest in the publication of his writings, most texts had been compiled, edited, rewritten, and translated without the supervision of the author by disciples, secretaries, editors, or translators. Indeed many documents remained in manuscript or fragmentary form.3 This made the task harder for Bowring, who produced the only complete edition to date of Bentham's works. Moreover the bias on the part of the editors could be felt in the [End Page 11] choice of texts or excerpts published and in the way some sections were rewritten and annexed to others.4 In the light of what scholars could read of Bentham's manuscripts, which had fortunately remained in the trust of the University College London and of the British Library, the Bowring edition was a very unsatisfactory presentation of Bentham's thought. The Bentham Project, headed by Philip Schofield, is working on an ongoing scientific edition of the works of Bentham, which will allow scholars to reconsider Bentham's thought in a new light, beyond the patchwork of Bowring's edited texts in Works. The first volumes of the Collected Works were published in 1968. The importance the publication was immediately felt by the academic community, as Professor D.D. Raphael stated in the Times Literary Supplement on September 27th 1974: 'The more we come to know his writings (as contrasted with the presentation of his thought by his contemporary editors, Dumont and Bowring), the more clearly we see that Bentham was a powerful and subtle thinker'. However the effect of the publication of the Collected Works on Bentham historiography has yet to be assessed, as only 27 (to date) of the anticipated 70 volumes have been published.5 Little by little, scholars are investigating the new routes opened by this unprecedented access to the 'real' Bentham, otherwise referred to as the 'authenticity' Bentham.6 Although the Bentham Project has been at work transcribing manuscripts for half a century, interest for Bentham has been gaining momentum over a decade. As the increasing number of publications and conferences focusing on Bentham amply demonstrates, this growing interest justifies the use of the term renaissance to speak of this renewed enthusiasm.7 This special issue highlights some disciplines that display a keen interest in Bentham. Firstly, The Tocqueville Review gives readers a glimpse into new readings flowing from the scholarly editions of Bentham's works. Emmanuelle de Champs, Stephen G. Engelmann and Jennifer Pitts underline the gaps between the historical Bentham and the authenticity Bentham, the first being derived from the circulation of Bentham's writings in 19th and 20th century editions.8 The Bentham who emerges from this analysis is far more insightful than the [End Page 12] traditional picture drawn by critics, starting with JS Mill and Marx, and ending with Halévy and Foucault.9 Versed in the latest editions of the Collected Works and in manuscript sources, Emmanuelle de Champs highlights the synergies between morals — i.e., rules of private conduct — and legislation — i.e., commands controlling public action —. She shows how these two questions remained linked in Bentham's writings on constitutional issues. Stephen G. Engelmann...

Philosophy, ethics, medicine and health care: the urgent need for critical practice

Philosophy, ethics, medicine and health care: the urgent need for critical practice

The limitations of randomized controlled trials in predicting effectiveness

What kinds of evidence reliably support predictions of effectiveness for health and social care interventions? There is increasing reliance, not only for health care policy and practice but also for more general social and economic policy deliberation, on evidence that comes from studies whose basic logic is that of JS Mill's method of difference. These include randomized controlled trials, case-control studies, cohort studies, and some uses of causal Bayes nets and counterfactual-licensing models like ones commonly developed in econometrics. The topic of this paper is the 'external validity' of causal conclusions from these kinds of studies. We shall argue two claims. Claim, negative: external validity is the wrong idea; claim, positive: 'capacities' are almost always the right idea, if there is a right idea to be had. If we are right about these claims, it makes big problems for policy decisions. Many advice guides for grading policy predictions give top grades to a proposed policy if it has two good Mill's-method-of difference studies that support it. But if capacities are to serve as the conduit for support from a method-of-difference study to an effectiveness prediction, much more evidence, and much different in kind, is required. We will illustrate the complexities involved with the case of multisystemic therapy, an internationally adopted intervention to try to diminish antisocial behaviour in young people.

In our Own Image: Eugenics and the Genetic Modification of People

Science needs to be defended. With the Enlightenment we saw the beginnings of the widespread use of reason to manipulate nature for the benefit of mankind. As reason gave us more freedom from the darker side of nature it also questioned the authority of the ruling elites, eventually resulting in political emancipation. The position of science and reason has changed in contemporary discourse. There is now a wide feeling that interference with nature has led to many problems. Environmentalism is one expression of this; and another is the suspicion of genetic technology, with calls for more state regulation and restriction. In our Own Image stands in defence of science by arguing for individual freedom. In the subtitle of his book David Galton, who is Professor of Human Metabolism and Genetics at St Bartholomew's Hospital, declares the history of genetic science so that these issues can be dealt with in a reasoned way. ‘Eugenics’ is derived from the Greek for ‘good birth’, and Galton makes clear that manoeuvres such as preimplantation embryo selection and gene enhancement are eugenic. He also shows how the idea as well as the word goes back at least as far as Ancient Greece. Citing Plato's Republic and Plutarch's historical account of the city state of Sparta he gives a fascinating account of how eugenics was originally perceived by the ruling classes as a tool to improve the population. We then move to more recent history and the birth of modern evolutionary theory with Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species was received into a society that understood itself through the concept of race, with its justification of the class structure at home and the imperialist project abroad. The book describes how Francis Galton (cousin of Darwin and no relation to the author) used Darwin's ideas of natural selection to develop a theory of eugenics that received broad support until it was discredited by the Nazis. Galton offers disturbing examples of how eugenic ideas have since been twisted by coercive state machinery. Clearly the worst atrocities occurred under the Nazis, under whose auspices ‘euthanasia’ clinics sat on children's wards to eradicate the ‘pathological phenotype’, with the ‘Final Solution’ marking the ultimate perversion of eugenics. However, 10 000 ‘socially inadequate’ people had been sterilized in California by 1935 and compulsory sterilization of people with ‘inferior qualities’ was still occurring in Sweden until 1976, by which time some 60 000 young women had been sterilized. Eugenic Acts were narrowly defeated in Parliament here in 1913 and 1934. Galton carefully considers public concerns about the new gene and reproductive technologies. For example, does the technology defy nature? As well as pointing out that pacemakers and corneal implants are likewise unnatural he shows how attitudes towards previous breakthroughs in reproductive science have softened from initial revulsion to acceptance. (He cites letters to the BMJ in 1945 suggesting that the newly introduced artificial insemination was wrong because it ‘encourages masturbation’ and ‘would assuredly cause a break-up of Western civilisation’.) He goes on to suggest that if parents are prepared to go to enormous expense to improve their child's environment through private education why should they not be free to enhance the child's genetic inheritance. Parallels are drawn between such freedoms and freedom for abortion. He also discusses at length the concerns surrounding how the technology could be used by insurance companies, employers and the state to discriminate against the individual. He seems to suggest that the best way to negotiate these difficulties is to support the rights of the individual. The question becomes not whether to allow the use of the new technologies (inevitable in a society organized around the market) but how we view the relation between the individual and society. The author cites JS Mill in On Liberty where he suggests that ‘the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will is to prevent harm to others’—indeed, Galton's worries about cloning derive from potential risks to the child. However, if we believe we have a right to genetic privacy it will then be inconsistent to deny an individual the right to use safe technology in starting a family. Galton marshals convincing arguments for scientific and individual freedom in gene and reproductive technology. In my opinion society is too quick to assume that our genes define who we are. It is this erroneous notion that underlies suspicion of the technology.

In our Own Image: Eugenics and the Genetic Modification of People

Science needs to be defended. With the Enlightenment we saw the beginnings of the widespread use of reason to manipulate nature for the benefit of mankind. As reason gave us more freedom from the darker side of nature it also questioned the authority of the ruling elites, eventually resulting in political emancipation. The position of science and reason has changed in contemporary discourse. There is now a wide feeling that interference with nature has led to many problems. Environmentalism is one expression of this; and another is the suspicion of genetic technology, with calls for more state regulation and restriction. In our Own Image stands in defence of science by arguing for individual freedom. In the subtitle of his book David Galton, who is Professor of Human Metabolism and Genetics at St Bartholomew's Hospital, declares the history of genetic science so that these issues can be dealt with in a reasoned way. ‘Eugenics’ is derived from the Greek for ‘good birth’, and Galton makes clear that manoeuvres such as preimplantation embryo selection and gene enhancement are eugenic. He also shows how the idea as well as the word goes back at least as far as Ancient Greece. Citing Plato's Republic and Plutarch's historical account of the city state of Sparta he gives a fascinating account of how eugenics was originally perceived by the ruling classes as a tool to improve the population. We then move to more recent history and the birth of modern evolutionary theory with Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species was received into a society that understood itself through the concept of race, with its justification of the class structure at home and the imperialist project abroad. The book describes how Francis Galton (cousin of Darwin and no relation to the author) used Darwin's ideas of natural selection to develop a theory of eugenics that received broad support until it was discredited by the Nazis. Galton offers disturbing examples of how eugenic ideas have since been twisted by coercive state machinery. Clearly the worst atrocities occurred under the Nazis, under whose auspices ‘euthanasia’ clinics sat on children's wards to eradicate the ‘pathological phenotype’, with the ‘Final Solution’ marking the ultimate perversion of eugenics. However, 10 000 ‘socially inadequate’ people had been sterilized in California by 1935 and compulsory sterilization of people with ‘inferior qualities’ was still occurring in Sweden until 1976, by which time some 60 000 young women had been sterilized. Eugenic Acts were narrowly defeated in Parliament here in 1913 and 1934. Galton carefully considers public concerns about the new gene and reproductive technologies. For example, does the technology defy nature? As well as pointing out that pacemakers and corneal implants are likewise unnatural he shows how attitudes towards previous breakthroughs in reproductive science have softened from initial revulsion to acceptance. (He cites letters to the BMJ in 1945 suggesting that the newly introduced artificial insemination was wrong because it ‘encourages masturbation’ and ‘would assuredly cause a break-up of Western civilisation’.) He goes on to suggest that if parents are prepared to go to enormous expense to improve their child's environment through private education why should they not be free to enhance the child's genetic inheritance. Parallels are drawn between such freedoms and freedom for abortion. He also discusses at length the concerns surrounding how the technology could be used by insurance companies, employers and the state to discriminate against the individual. He seems to suggest that the best way to negotiate these difficulties is to support the rights of the individual. The question becomes not whether to allow the use of the new technologies (inevitable in a society organized around the market) but how we view the relation between the individual and society. The author cites JS Mill in On Liberty where he suggests that ‘the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will is to prevent harm to others’—indeed, Galton's worries about cloning derive from potential risks to the child. However, if we believe we have a right to genetic privacy it will then be inconsistent to deny an individual the right to use safe technology in starting a family. Galton marshals convincing arguments for scientific and individual freedom in gene and reproductive technology. In my opinion society is too quick to assume that our genes define who we are. It is this erroneous notion that underlies suspicion of the technology.