John Stuart Mill | |
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Member of Parliament for City of Westminster | |
In office 25 July 1865 – 17 November 1868 Serving with Robert Grosvenor | |
Preceded by | De Lacy Evans |
Succeeded by | William Henry Smith |
Personal details | |
Born | Pentonville, Middlesex, England | 20 May 1806
Died | 7 May 1873 Avignon, Vaucluse, France | (aged 66)
Political party | Liberal |
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Alma mater | University College London |
Philosophy career | |
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Region | Western philosophy |
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Utilitarianism |
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John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873)[1] was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century" by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,[2] he conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.[3]
Mill was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor Jeremy Bentham. He contributed to the investigation of scientific methodology, though his knowledge of the topic was based on the writings of others, notably William Whewell, John Herschel, and Auguste Comte, and research carried out for Mill by Alexander Bain. He engaged in written debate with Whewell.[4]
A member of the Liberal Party and author of the early feminist work The Subjection of Women, Mill was also the second member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832.[5][6]
On Liberty is a rational justification of the freedom of the individual in opposition to the claims of the state to impose unlimited control and is thus a defence of the rights of the individual against the state.