Don't really know what I want to say about him. Just that he was a fantastically influential individual in the formation of many of todays prevailing attitudes that we take for granted and that it would be good to have a thread dedicated to him in the philosophy section. Anyone care to start ? If not ill post some info on what he was about later .
He represents an interesting combination or recognising the freedoms of the individual but also the needs of the many.

John Stuart Mill - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



i have started a thread on the philosopher John Stuart Mill in the philosophy section. I think he had some very interesting ideas when it came to resolving the needs of the poor with freedoms of the individual. In some respects he managed to unite some Libertarian ideas with their antithesis - socialism

http://www.politicalhotwire.com/6420...uart-mill.html

[quote]Theory of liberty

Mill's On Liberty is one of the founding texts of liberalism and one of the most important treatises ever written on the concept of liberty. The book explores the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. One argument that Mill develops further than any previous philosopher is the harm principle. The harm principle holds that each individual has the right to act as he/she wants, so long as these actions do not harm others. If the action is self-regarding, that is, if it only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming him/herself. Mill excuses those who are "incapable of self-government" from this principle, such as young children or those living in "backward states of society". It is important to emphasise that Mill did not consider giving offence to constitute "harm"; an action could not be restricted because it violated the conventions or morals of a given society.
On Liberty involves an impassioned defence of free speech. Mill argues that free discourse is a necessary condition for intellectual and social progress. We can never be sure, he contends, that a silenced opinion does not contain some element of the truth. He also argues that allowing people to air false opinions is productive for two reasons. First, individuals are more likely to abandon erroneous beliefs if they are engaged in an open exchange of ideas. Second, by forcing other individuals to re-examine and re-affirm their beliefs in the process of debate, these beliefs are kept from declining into mere dogma. It is not enough for Mill that one simply has an unexamined belief that happens to be true; one must understand why the belief in question is the true one.



Mill opposed state education[citation needed], holding instead that schools should be private, and the parents, not the state, should have the choice. However, the state could pay the expenses of schooling for poor children

Economic philosophy

Mill's early economic philosophy was one of free markets. However, he accepted interventions in the economy, such as a tax on alcohol, if there were sufficient utilitarian grounds. He also accepted the principle of legislative intervention for the purpose of animal welfare. [2] Mill believed that "equality of taxation" meant "equality of sacrifice" and that progressive taxation penalised those who worked harder and saved more and was therefore "a mild form of robbery".[3]
Mill's Principles of Political Economy, first published in 1848, was one of the most widely read of all books on economics in the period.[4] As Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations had during an earlier period, Mill's Principles dominated economics teaching. (In the case of Oxford University it was the standard text until 1919, probably because the text that replaced it was written by Cambridge's Alfred Marshall). Mill was the last great political economist who championed the market system.[citation needed]
Later in life, Mill moved to favor more socialist-oriented politics.[4]