Ethical Communication: Moral Stances in Human Dialogue

3. John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism

25 John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism Raphael Cohen-Almagor John Stuart Mill was born in London on May 20, 1806. He was the eldest son of James and Harriet Mill, with eight brothers and sisters. James, one of the forefathers of utilitarian theory (together with Jeremy Bentham), invested himself in the education of young John Stuart and taught him at home. When John Stuart was three, he started to study Greek. When he was seven, he studied Latin. John Stuart acquired knowledge in chemistry and logic before he was twelve. In the words of his father to his friend Bentham, he was brought up to be “a successor worthy of both of us” (Mill 1971, xi). At the age of fifteen, John Stuart read Bentham for the first time and was enchanted by his utilitarian teachings. Benthamism was for Mill not only a philosophy but a creed, a religion, with his father a type of priest figure. From then on he had the objective in life to be a reformer of the world (Mill 1971, 5–13, 40–50, 80). At age seventeen, he founded the Utilitarian Society and began to work for the East India Company as a clerk. In 1826, when he was twenty, John Stuart experienced a mental crisis (in his words, “a dull state of nerves”) (1971, 81), which prompted him to change his worldview. He remained a utilitarian but introduced new content to it: “The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (1948, 6). Happiness (pleasure and absence of pain) was still the test of all rules of conduct, but this end was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. 3 3 26 . Raphael Cohen-Almagor Within this same time period, he became acquainted with the poet William Wordsworth. John Stuart began to value spiritualism no less than intellectualism. He recognized the importance of poetry and art as instruments of human culture. He became aware that the excellent education he received from his father lacked any component of compassion. His ambivalence toward his father grew. John Stuart was unable to conclude whether he lost more or gained more from his father’s severe method of teaching (1971, 32). In 1830, he met Harriet Taylor, who was married at that time to John Taylor. Harriet soon became a close companion and an influential figure in his life. John Stuart had found a person with whom he could exchange ideas and disclose his inner feelings. In 1835, he established the London and Westminster Review, a journal which aimed to further our understanding of human nature, to comprehend that feelings are at least as valuable as thought, and that poetry is not only on a par with, but the necessary condition of, any true and comprehensive philosophy (1971, xv, 128). In 1843, John Stuart published his second major book, Principles of Political Economy, a sensitive study which details his social and economic worldview. In 1849, John Taylor passed away, and in 1851 the longawaited marriage to Harriet Taylor took place. In 1856, John Stuart was appointed as examiner of India correspondence for the East India Company. In this role, he was in charge of almost all correspondence with the Indian government, excluding finance, military, and naval issues (1971, 140). In 1858 he retired from his position; Harriet died in the same year. The products of years of thinking together were soon to be published. Indeed, Mill attributed much of the work to her, saying that the writings were“the fusion of two, one of them as preeminently practical in its judgments and perceptions of things present, as it was high and bold in its anticipations for a remote futurity” (1971, 114). According to Mill, Harriet was the only person in the world who was equal to his father “in her strenuous efforts to promote freedom and progress” (1971, 123). In 1859, John Stuart published his best-known work, On Liberty. The same year he also published Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform and two volumes of Dissertations and Discussions. In 1861, Considerations on Representative Government was published, and in 1863 Utilitarianism. Between 1865 and 1870, he published seven other writings. .   27 John Stuart Mill In 1865, John Stuart, who was always involved in politics as...