philosophy Mill

Is the quest for liberty an incontestable political good?


John Stuart Mill was born in London in 1806, the son of James Mill. He was a philosopher, economist and senior official in the East India Company. Mill gave a vivid and moving account of his life, and especially of his extraordinary education in his autobiography of 1873. He was also a Liberal MP for Westminster from1865 to 1868, and as a young man in the 1830s he edited the London and Westminster Review, a radical quarterly journal. He died at Aix-en-Provence in 1873.
Mill was educated by his father, with the advice and assistance of Jeremy Bentham and Francis Place. He learned Greek at three, Latin a little later and by the age of 12, he was a competent logician and by 16 a well-trained economist. At 20 he suffered a nervous breakdown that persuaded him that more was needed in life than devotion to the public good and an analytically sharp intellect. From 1830 to his death, he tried to persuade the British public of the...