John Stuart Mills

Mill's greatest impact was his views on utilitarianism. Mill strongly believed in the practice and respect of law, and that minorities of any sort should be protected and only suppressed if the greatest good for the greatest number was being harmed in a judicially illegal way as to harm the general populace, although he never set an objective standard as to what was or was not harmful to the majority. It is of no surprise that he also supported individual freedom of thought and expression on the grounds of individual autonomy and minority protection. In his essay Utilitarianism in 1863, Mill undertook the first real critical analysis of utilitarianism. Mill asserted that life could not be judged on the simple hedonic principle of pleasure and pain, which Bentham had used because life was just more complicated. The only thing individuals could do justifiably to violate other individuals' autonomies was in pursuit of self-protection, where the other individuals had broken into theirs first. Unlike Bentham, who did not believe the prospect of man being able to pursue spiritual perfection, Mill placed equal importance on the cultivation of feeling and the building of character. Mill showed the fact that a wide range of character was to be found in society, and that some of it certainly was not exactly ethically fit, fearing that public opinion could become a sort of tyrannical mob majority suppressing all else if society's moral character was not improved. He attempted to combine rationalism and romanticism to create both an objective political philosophy and a morally satisfying one. However, on the other end of the spectrum, Mill also opposed the tyranny the majority could impose on any minority, particularly the individual, by way of legislative control. He stated that such freedom would encourage and not interfere with individual development, both social and intellectual, and would help in the emergence of truth. Millsian philosophy was completely against negative liberty, or the absence of restraint, chaos. his own mind and body, a belief known as individual autonomy. He also held a belief that classic liberalism and utilitarianism did not cover enough, advocating radical progressive reforms in such areas as state action, suffrage, compulsory education, and social control.