Foundations of Mill's Philosophy

Mill's philosophical system is founded upon naturalism, empiricism, inductivism, and eudaimonism. Of these, naturalism is the single keystone of his system. Naturalism is the view that everything that exists--including human beings and their minds--is entirely a part of the natural order, which is observable and measurable by the natural sciences. This natural order is ruled by the causal order of the universe. Mill thought that naturalism implies empiricism, the view that all real propositions are justified by experience: we can only be justified in believing something if we have a relevant experience which justifies that belief. No propositions are justified a priori: as necessary truths justified independent of experience. Naturalism also, he thought, implies inductivism, the view that the only way we come to know new truths is by enumerative induction: by generalizing from experience. Hypotheses and tests of them cannot justify us in believing a proposition, though they are useful means of discovery. Finally, Mill thought that naturalism implies eudaimonism, the view that the sole good for human beings is happiness, and that all good things are good to the extent that they promote happiness.*

So much for Mill's foundations. What view did he derive from them, and justify by them? What is astonishing about Mill is the variety of seemingly opposing views that he endorses in his many works. Beyond his commitment to the four views named above, he also endorses versions of: utilitarianism, the priority of rights to utility, liberalism, feminism, moral individualism, self-realization, republicanism, historicism about human nature, associationism about the mind, classical economics, the Malthusian theory of population growth, laissez-faire economic policy, welfare-statism, nationalism, non-intervention, and positivism (of which he was a co-founder, along with Auguste Comte)

Many interpreters of Mill--from Bertrand Russell to Isaiah Berlin--think it impossible to coherently reconcile all these doctrines. For many of the doctrines seem fundamentally at odds. Mill is thus often seen as a well-meaning, vigorous, incredibly learned, but ultimately muddled thinker. "Brilliant in piece-meal inquiry, but confused as to systematic argument." He is thus often labeled as an eclectic philosopher: somebody who attempted a systematic philosophy along the lines of Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, or Dewey, but who conspicuously failed to work out a coherent system.

This interpretation, however, is wrong. Mill does have a coherent system of ideas. It is true that it is quite complex, but complexity is compatible with coherence. From the fundamental commitment of naturalism, it is clear how Mill derives from it his empiricism, inductivism, and eudaimonism; how from those he derives his (rule-)utilitarianism, positivism, and associativism,; and how from those he derives the rests of his views. The seeming incoherence arises from Mill's lack of interest in performing long chains of deductions from one fundamental principle. He organized his system so that that could be done, but he was not terribly interested in demonstrating how to do it, as were Hobbes, Spinoza, Hegel, or Schopenhauer. He cared much more about the harmony of all his doctrines: what mattered to him was that his views would present a complex but ultimately coherent and accurate theory of humanity's place in the world. For who ever said that the relation between the world and humankind was a simple matter?

To illustrate Mill's naturalism and eudaimonism, look at the paintings of Gustave Courbet, who was the great advocate of naturalist realism in painting, as well as a partisan of human freedom and happiness:

http://digitalcollections.library.yale.edu/GroupsView.aspx?qid=5063

Note the portraits of the mutualist-socialist and sometime anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, as well as the liberal-Romantic composer Hector Berlioz, with both of whose philosophies Mill would have found much to sympathize with.

To get a handle on Mill's intellectual system as a whole, it helps to have a sense of the main currents of thought of the nineteenth century. For a good overview of these, listen to this audio of Bertrand Russell's "Currents of Thought in the Nineteenth Century," in his great History of Western Philosophy (1945).

It is not much of a stretch to say that Mill's philosophy tries to combine the best of the philosophy of the Enlightenment; with the Hegelian and Burkeian view that society is fundamentally historical; and with the value of national self-government, of individuality, of acknowledging the power our emotions have over us, and of throwing off the chains of unthinking convention, as stressed by Romanticism. On the Romantic Movement and its thought, see this video of Geoffrey Sherman reading "The Romantic Movement" chapter of Bertrand Russell's great History of Western Philosophy (1945).

John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873 (Wikimedia Commons)

Moral and political philosopher; philosopher of the social and natural sciences; philosopher of mind, language, knowledge and reality

Some works

"The Spirit of the Age" (1831)

"De Tocqueville on Democracy in America" (1835; on the 1st volume)

"Bentham" (1838)

"Coleridge" (1840)

"De Tocqueville on Democracy in America" (1840; on the 2nd volume)

A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation (1843)

Principles of Political Economy with Some of their Applications to Social Philosophy (1848)

On Liberty (1859)

Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform (1859)

Utilitarianism (1861)

Considerations on Representative Government (1861)

An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (1865)

Auguste Comte and Positivism (1865)

The Subjection of Women (1869)

An Autobiography (1873)

* Source: John Skorupski, John Stuart Mill (London: Routledge, 1989), Chapter 1.