Danny Randell: Against John Stuart Mill
We can cause damage to ourselves and our own families just by doing what we want, despite Mill's 'harm principle' claims.
John Stuart Mill was an exceptionally gifted child. According to his own autobiography, he started learning Greek at the age of three and Latin at the age of eight. By the time he turned twelve, he was steeped in the classics and had grasped both arithmetic and algebra.
There is no doubting it, Mill was a brilliant student who grew into an intelligent man. Yet even the brightest minds are apt to get some things wrong.
Later in life, John became famous as a prolific writer and pamphleteer, as well as a Member of Parliament. His work had an enormous impact on Victorian Britain, and his ideas have echoed down the decades to influence our own day. He is best known for the short tract On Liberty, published in 1859, yet On Liberty hardly encompasses the breadth of Mill’s views. Over a long career, he tackled nearly every subject and firmly established his reputation as a philosopher.
Interestingly, despite being radically anti-establishment, Mill gets a warm reception in conservative circles today. Yet there is little of the Burkean conservative in John Stuart Mill. Conservatism, to Mill, appeared irrational because it preferred tradition over experimentation. He didn’t buy the idea that governments grew ‘organically’ into functional systems, but believed that the best way to get good government was by applying human will and ingenuity to ‘creating’ it.