PHIL2634 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: James Mill, John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Document Summary
(7) the bourgeois nineteenth century: utilitarianism and liberalism. For several decades between the upsurge of revolution in america and the defeat of the. Napeolonic empire that followed the collapse of the new revolutionary french republic, the. British governing class were terrified that a similar upheaval could happen at home, and they oscillated between accommodation and repression. During the napoleonic wars in particular (1799 1815) there was a generally harsh response for any broadening of political participation. But with the final defeat of france, there was more room for flexibility. Indeed, demands for reform had never entirely gone away. But his experience of trying to get his model prison built (the famous panopticon) convinced him that the political order was also corrupt and that england needed a new constitution. Mill was the son of bentham"s close collaborator, james mill, and in many ways continued to develop utilitarian thought. He too believed in democracy, and later in his career endorsed socialism.
