What happiness science can learn from John Stuart Mill

What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?

HAPPINESS IS generally considered an ultimate goal of life; virtually everybody wants to be happy. The United States Declaration of Independence of 1776 takes it as a self-evident truth that the "pursuit of happiness" is an "unalienable right," comparable to life and liberty. It follows that economics is-or should be-about individual happiness; in particular, how do economic growth, unemploymen...

John Stuart Mill, the Subjection of Women

Utilitarianism without Consequentialism: The Case of John Stuart Mill

In this essay I will argue, flouting paradox, that Mill was a utilitarian but not a consequentialist. According to the textbook definition, of course, utilitarianism just is the combination of a certain sort of theory of the good (as pleasure, happiness, or flourishing) and a consequentialist theory of the right. My conclusion thus seems necessarily false. Nevertheless, the argument will procee...

Barbarian thoughts: imperialism in the philosophy of John Stuart Mill

Mill’s political and his international theory rest on a philosophy of history drawn in turn from the experience of nineteenth century imperialism. And yet, this philosophy of history remains unexamined in Political Theory and International Relations (IR) alike, largely because of the peculiar division of labour between the two disciplines. In this article I will argue that this omission results...

John Stuart Mill, innate differences, and the regulation of reproduction.

In this paper, we show that the question of the relative importance of innate characteristics and institutional arrangements in explaining human difference was vehemently contested in Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century. Thus Sir Francis Galton's work of the 1860s should be seen as an intervention in a pre-existing controversy. The central figure in these earlier debates-as ...