John Stuart Mill

was the most influential English language philosopher of the nineteenth century. He was a
naturalist, a utilitarian, and a liberal, whose work explores the consequences of a
thoroughgoing empiricist outlook. In doing so, he sought to combine the best of eighteenth-
century Enlightenment thinking with newly emerging currents of nineteenth-century
Romantic and historical philosophy.

His most important works include System of Logic (1843), On

Liberty (1859), Utilitarianism (1861) and An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s
Philosophy (1865).

JOHN STUART MILL on Utilitarianism

In his Autobiography he claims to have introduced the word “utilitarian” into the English
language when he was sixteen. Mill remained a utilitarian throughout his life. Beginning in the
1830s he became increasingly critical of what he calls Bentham’s “theory of human nature”. The
two articles “Remarks on Bentham’s Philosophy” (1833) and “Bentham” (1838) are his first
important contributions to the development of utilitarian thought. Mill rejects Bentham’s view
that humans are unrelentingly driven by narrow self-interest. He believed that a “desire of
perfection” and sympathy for fellow human beings belong to human nature. One of the central
tenets of Mill’s political outlook is that, not only the rules of society, but also people themselves
are capable of improvement.