Patterson A Harsh Reality: Understanding Mill’s Message from ‘On Liberty’ When people consider John Stuart Mill‚ they usually quote his views on the importance of the individual without looking deeper into his true message. Many believe him to be the poster child of individualism. They praise him for standing behind the ideal society in which the individual conducts a life doing what they are passionate about. However‚ what most they don’t tend to grasp is that Mill believed people should
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John Stuart Mills promotes a moral theory in his essay titled‚ ‘Utilitarianism‚’ by stating the best choice of action to take‚ when there are multiple options to choose from‚ is the action that produces the highest overall sum of happiness within a society. By applying this theory to the domain of war‚ one might instantly believe war is always the morally wrong choice. Utilitarianism focuses on the actual consequences of an action‚ and war brings about death‚ suffering‚ and multiple other negative
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The essay titled “The Subjection of Women” is co-authored by John Stuart Mill and his wife Harriet Taylor Mill in 1869. The main argument in the essay is advocating for equality between the male and female genders. During the publication of this essay‚ it was regarded as an affront to the traditional European traditional values and norms that dictated the status of both men and women in the society (Mill 30). In the first chapter‚ Mill starts by enumerating the challenges he faced in pursuing
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Utilitarianism is a moral theory that is considered to be influential in a society. A moral theory is an explanation of how the paradigms of right or wrong associated with actions‚ simultaneously explaining how one’s character can be considered good or bad. Through this moral theory known as utilitarianism‚ one’s actions play a key role. An individual who practices the utilitarian moral theory has right actions as long as it promotes happiness for the maximum number of people possible leading to
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individuals freely enter into a social contract based on the general will‚ this establishes authority in the political sovereign as long as it reflects such a will. This "general will" is contrasted with Mill ’s notion of the liberty principle. The work of Mill "On Liberty" is fundamental to understanding the ways in which to liberate oneself from an oppressive society by way of promoting his harm principle‚ freedom of opinion and speech‚ and protection from the majority if one is indeed able to step
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property. In the work “The Second Treatise of Civil Government” written by John Locke‚ mankind’s natural rights are critically examined one by one. This essay aims to discuss whether John Stuart Mill’s harm principle that he mentions in “On Liberty” can be exercised while not violating the natural rights of mankind or not. First of all‚ in order to find out the consistency of Mill’s harm principle with Locke’s natural rights‚ briefly one should examine
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throughout his life to make a difference in the world even though his ideas were often ignored or rejected. In addition to Robert Owen‚ I am interested in finding out more about John Stuart Mill. I liked how Mill fought for women’s’ rights and argued that wealth distribution should vary between regions. I think that it is amazing how Mill was different from other economists in terms of his views and what he supported. His supported more rights for women‚ for instance‚ and also brought attention to the idea
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essay The Subjection Of Women‚ John Stuart Mill‚ a nineteenth century English philosopher and women’s rights advocate‚ explains how women are equal to men in character and ability‚ but are not viewed this way in society. Though this article was written almost two hundred ago‚ the issues that Mill discussed are still relevant in the modern world. Mills argues ideas such as society’s view of women holding less importance in areas regarding work ethic and skill. Mill defends the argument that women
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I.233) or‚ as he also calls it‚ “intuitionism‚” which was espoused in different ways by Kant‚ Reid‚ and their followers in Britain (e.g. Whewell and Hamilton). Though there are many differences among intuitionist thinkers‚ one “grand doctrine” that Mill suggests they all affirm is the view that “the constitution of the mind is the key to the constitution of external nature—that the laws of the human intellect have a necessary correspondence with the objective laws of the universe‚ such that these
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philosopher‚ John Stuart Mill’s‚ introduced the ethical views of Utilitarianism‚ stating that whatever maximizes happiness for the greatest number of people is consider to be the greatest good. According to Utilitarianism‚ an action is morally right if it promotes happiness and morally wrong if it promotes pain. Utilitarianism is an attempt to answer the question “What should we do?” and its answer is that we ought to act in a way that the consequence produce happiness. What I think Utilitarianism has that
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