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Militant Mediator: Whitney M. Young, Jr.
Dennis C. Dickerson
Manufacturer: University Press of Kentucky
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Whitney M. Young, Jr., and the Struggle for Civil Rights
ASIN: 0813120586 |
Amazon.com
Although he has not been as well remembered as Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X, Whitney M. Young Jr. was one of the most effective leaders of the civil rights era. He spent years as an official in the National Urban League before being named its executive director in 1961; from that position, he was able to get the attention of the White House and some of the most powerful corporations in America.
Young's genius was to convince white America that its own best interests could be served by providing for the betterment of life of black Americans, particularly on the economic level. He was particularly adept at persuading the establishment that it would be much simpler to deal with the moderate, integrationist National Urban League than to face the increasingly vocal activist groups. Although some black leaders accused him of selling out, to the extent that one newspaper headline provocatively asked, "Whitney Young: Black Leader or 'Oreo Cookie'?," Dennis C. Dickerson's thoughtful portrait shows that Young did his best to always ensure that black interests were adequately dealt with.
Dickerson is particularly strong in his examination of the Urban League's programs for inner-city renewal and Young's outreach to corporate philanthropists. Readers who have been fascinated by the sweeping panorama of Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters and Pillar of Fire will find much to enjoy in this close-up look at one of MLK's most significant contemporaries.
Customer Reviews:
Worth Reading, but it Drags.......2000-07-21
Whitney Young was a very effective leader in the fight for equal rights for everyone. He was effective both in fund-raising and in resolving conflicts. He learned to speak the language of the whites he had to deal with, so that they preferred to deal with him rather than with more militant black leaders who were unable or unwilling to speak to whites in terms whites were used to. He had the knack of knowing how far he could push whites toward fairness to blacks without getting their backs up, but never taking a straight "no" for an answer. He would accept less than what he really wanted, but always more than the other side really wanted to give. He made good use of the fact that prejudiced whites would generally prefer to compromise with him rather than deal with the more confrontational black leaders.
Dickerson recounts Young's life from birth to death. It is a story well worth reading, of a brilliant and dedicated person who made a substantial contribution to the progress of racial relations, and whose methods future leaders could do well to study and emulate.
Unfortunately, the narrative drags at times. Young brought to each new challenge the same impressive list of strengths; enumerating them yet again eventually becomes tiresome
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Southern Historical Association on August 1, 2000. The length of the article is 787 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Militant Mediator: Whitney M. Young Jr.
Author: Gary Donaldson
Publication:
Journal of Southern History (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 2000
Publisher: Southern Historical Association
Volume: 66
Issue: 3
Page: 678
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
Published for the first time without alterations or omissions from the original transcript. Mill's autobiography shows the growth of a man in the midst of his age. It is the personal, though dispassionate, story of the conflict of an integrated spirit with the ideas and with the affairs of men. One sees an age, and one sees a man; both man and age are so much a part of our own day that by knowing them we learn to know ourselves.
Download Description
For some years after this I wrote very little, and nothing regularly, for publication: and great were the advantages which I derived from the intermission. It was of no common importance to me, at this period, to be able to digest and mature my thoughts for my own mind only, without any immediate call for giving them out in print. Had I gone on writing, it would have much disturbed the important transformation in my opinions and character, which took place during those years.
Customer Reviews:
A classic worthy of being called a classic.......2006-11-16
This book is so wonderful on so many different levels that to give it a review at all would be a disservice. My recommendation is not on whether or not to read it but instead on how to read it. I suggest a quiet room, comfortable chair or couch, cup of coffee and a few hours of uninterrupted reading time. After completing the book, rest and repeat as desired.
"The Econony of Melancholy".......2006-11-06
Mill's remarkable childhood education prepared him to be one of the leading intellectuals of his day (far surpassing his father, James Mill, who was no slouch, but not in his son's league) but while I admire his erudition and achievements, one has to wonder if the deep depression he fell into in his mid-20s had something to do with that.
Mill's contributions are better remembered than many of the other famous British intellectuals of the period--such as Herbert Spencer--whose particularly invidious version of the theory of Social Darwinism is best left languishing in obscurity. Who today remembers the prolific Spencer, whose collected works run to over 20 large volumes?
Mill is frank about his depression and how debilitating it was, and what a struggle it was to pull through it. But with the help of his best friend, he pulled out of it and went on to write many important works in philosophy, logic, political science, and economics.
Mill's I.Q. was certainly very high (estimated by psychologist Katherine Cox using a modified ratio I.Q. method to be at least 200), but very likely his father's misguided efforts to produce a prodigy and homegrown, British Wunderkind (to compete with the legendary "Infant of Lubeck," no doubt :-)) were the cause of his long, serious depression.
Mill's text on econonics, which was called Political Economy back in those days (also the title of his book, if I remember right), was the longest running and most successful college text of all time, being used for the next 50 years until the 1920s when the "New Economics" of the day, championed by the field of microeconomics and the theory of the firm, made a more modern, updated text necessary.
For me the most interesting part of the book was Mill's theory of history, with positive periods of creative cultural development being followed by periods of negation and dissolution. Mill summarizes it as follows (I think I'm remembering the quote more or less accurately): "During the positive periods mankind adopts with conviction some positive creed, claiming jurisdiction for all their actions proceeding from it, and possessing more or less of the truth and adaptation to the needs of humanity; when a period follows of negation and dissolution, during which mankind loses its old beliefs, of a general and authoritative character, except the belief that the old are false." Mills theory has parallels to the earlier Hegel's historical dialectic and later to Oswald Spengler's theory, and to later 20th century historian Arnold Toynbee's idea of "challenge and response."
For another more literary (and probably more interesting) take on depression by another British intellectual, you might try Richard Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy (not to be confused with the African explorer by the same name). After all, anyone who says that "Giraffes live for love," not to mention palm trees, can't be all bad. :-)
Bah, humbug! Caramba! Mein Gott! Baka da na! Sacre bleu!.......2005-09-18
Ever wonder for which bipolar monomaniac the Sorcerer's Apprentice worked? Now you know. Drier than Dryden, boot-licking admirer of the thief of his childhood, humorless bookworm of a dusty aristocrat, protonerd ex machina in extremis. When Continent-lazing navel-gazers concern themselves with improving society, oil your firearms. I'd rather a deep belly laugh than Mill's musings, any day.
Mind is not enough .......2004-10-31
John Stuart Mill was raised by his father to be his intellectual heir, and a great genius. There is something moving about the care taken by the father to teach his wunderkind son all that he knew. The father was with Jeremy Bentham the guiding spirit of the philosophical movement Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism was a mechanical kind of philosophy which thought it possible to measure the goodness of action by measuring the amount of pleasure against the amount of pain. Mill followed the path his father set out from him, adopted his father's values and social conscience and was already by the tender age of twenty a distinguished intellectual figure. But then he asked himself the question if the realization of all his social schemes and all the grand social ideals would bring him happiness. And he understood that it would not. He understood in other words that all this focus on outward good and action, on mechanical measures for human life was missing some vital component in life and in himself. Mill went into a great depression. What brought him out was the reading of the poetry of Wordsworth and the understanding that there is a dimension of feeling, a dimension of the inner life which is somehow more important than all the social thought. This did not mean that Mill abandoned the path of social reform but rather that he changed its direction. Part of this change had to do with his meeting his relationship with Harriet Taylor, his embracing in a certain sense of liberal ideas on the role of women in society. Mill found himself and continued on his intellectual path, a path which would lead him to produce one of the masterpieces of modern political thought, "On Liberty ".
The book explains him better than anyone else is likely to.......2004-10-22
This AUTOBIOGRAPHY makes more sense than trying to learn anything. John Stuart Mill was born on 29 May 1806 and died 8 May 1873, already old and famous in England and Ireland about when the young Nietzsche became a professor and started publishing his early works. James Mill must have learned Greek so he could read the original version of the Bible when he was studying to be a Scotch Presbyterian minister, but he didn't become a minister. He started to teach is eldest son, John Stuart Mill, Greek at the age of three. The AUTOBIOGRAPHY pictures the father and son working side by side until the father was appointed to a post as Assistant Examiner of India Correspondence in 1819, often attempting to follow suggestions of David Ricardo (1772-1823). John Stuart Mill learned to compare the ideas of Ricardo and Adam Smith at such a young age that his ideals easily rose above levels of thought that would be considered common. "Believers shrink from every train of ideas which would lead the mind to a clear conception and an elevated standard of excellence, because they feel (even when they do not distinctly see) that such a standard would conflict with many of the dispensations of nature, and with much of what they are accustomed to consider as the Christian creed. And thus morality continues a matter of blind tradition, with no consistent principle, nor even any consistent feeling, to guide it." (Chapter II. 1813-21 Moral Influences in Early Years. My Father's Character and Opinions).
The most honest portion of the book is Chapter V. 1826-32 A Crisis in my Mental History. One Stage Onward. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) had provided Mill with the desire "to be a reformer of the world." "But the time came when I awakened from this as from a dream. It was in the autumn of 1826." I consider this a modern intellectual reaction, and was most interested in his early attention to "The results of association." . . . "the strongest possible associations of the salutary class ; associations of pleasure . . . intense associations of pain and pleasure, . . . But there must always be something artificial and casual in associations thus produced." His activities continued, but "this is the only year of which I remember next to nothing." Modern mass communication has surrounded us with so much stimulus that it is difficult to picture many people getting through their lives without having every year end up like that. Nietzsche had an early friendship with Wagner and numerous books to keep reminding him who he was or what he thought that he ought to become, but the biographies of those who have lived since then lack the basic significance that we ought to expect of anyone capable of changing the minds in the world since Albert Einstein became the great thinker.
Chapter VII. 1840-70 General Review of the Remainder of my Life, provides many political points which are still worth pondering. Current politics in America strongly in favor of a rich aristocracy, mightily in favor of winning a war on terrorism in battles far from home, I consider possibly as short-sighted as the interest of England in supporting the Confederacy in Civil War in America. Here I should let John Stuart Mill explain:
"But the generation which had extorted Negro emancipation from the West India planters had passed away ; another had succeeded which had not learnt by many years of discussion and exposure to feel strongly the enormities of slavery ; and the inattention habitual with Englishmen to whatever is going on in the world outside their own island, made them profoundly ignorant of all the antecedents of the struggle, insomuch that it was not generally believed in England, for the first year or two of the war, that the quarrel was one of slavery. There were men of high principle and unquestionable liberality of opinion, who thought it a dispute about tariffs, or assimilated it to the cases in which they were accustomed to sympathize, of a people struggling for independence."
" . . . when there occurred, towards the end of 1861, the seizure of the Southern envoys on board a British vessel, by an officer of the United States. Even English forgetfulness has not yet had time to lose all remembrance of the explosion of feeling in England which then burst forth, the expectation, which prevailed for some weeks, of war with the United States, and the warlike preparations actually commenced on this side."
John Stuart Mill did what he could to keep daily events from turning into a war which would have split the United States permanently. He was later lucky to be elected to Parliament even though "it was, and is, my fixed conviction, that a candidate ought not to incur one farthing of expense for undertaking a public duty." "I said further, that if elected, I could not undertake to give any of my time and labour to their local interests. . . . I made known to them, among other things, my conviction (as I was bound to do, since I intended, if elected, to act on it), that women were entitled to representation in Parliament on the same terms with men." He often won by being right on the merits. "My position in the House was further improved by a speech in which I insisted on paying off the National Debt before our coal supplies are exhausted, and by an ironical reply to some Tory leaders who had quoted . . . my `Considerations on Representative Government,' which said that the Conservative party was, by the law of its composition, the stupidest party."
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The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill
Alan Ryan
Manufacturer: Humanity Books
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ASIN: 1573924040 |
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- A Great Read for Bad Times
- A triumph by this century's greatest rationalist
- An easy read of a complex topic, this is worth seeking.
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Four Reasonable Men: Marcus Aurelius, John Stuart Mill, Ernest Renan, Henry Sidgwick
Brand Blanshard
Manufacturer: Wesleyan
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ASIN: 0819551007 |
Customer Reviews:
A Great Read for Bad Times.......2006-08-01
This is a book to be read and reread every few years. With all the irrationality in the world today, this book gives one hope. It's hard to pick a favorate but I've reread the chapters on Marcus Aurelius and John Stuart Mill many times with great pleasure. Blanchard's ideas as well as his beautiful literary style and wonderful story telling are amazing. It's not often that a book about ideas is also a great read.
A triumph by this century's greatest rationalist.......1999-01-21
Brand Blanshard, twentieth-century philosophy's greatest exponent of rationalism, here turns his pen to an examination of reasonableness in action, as exemplified in the lives of Marcus Aurelius, John Stuart Mill, Ernest Renan, and (Blanshard's own favorite exemplar of the "rational temper") Henry Sidgwick. Though himself a rationalist, Blanshard was not under the illusion that only avowed rationalists could be reasonable, as his selection of examples clearly shows. In each essay, he presents a lucid and sympathetic account of his subject's life and thought in a seamless combination that deserves to be called "philosophical biography."
While this volume is of course highly informative about each of its four subjects, it also of interest as regards Blanshard's own thought. He was ninety-two years old when he wrote this delightful and highly readable work, and his examinations of these four men distill a lifetime of his own reflections on the role of reason in the ordering of human affairs. A final chapter -- "The enemy: Prejudice" -- summarizes his mature views on the nature and importance of the rational temper.
The entry under Blanshard's name in the _Oxford Companion to Philosophy_ closes on an uncharacteristically personal note: "Blanshard's personal demeanour," writes the entry's author Prof. Peter H. Hare, "was one of extraordinary graciousness." That graciousness, evident throughout his work, is especially so here, where Blanshard deals less directly with philosophical questions and more directly with reasonableness as instantiated in actual human lives; his generosity and sympathy (much neglected rational virtues!) are almost palpable. If the rest of us could absorb something of his rational temper and spirit, our lives and the life of the world would undoubtedly be transformed for the better. And there is no better place to begin than this volume by a great man whose religion was the service of reason.
An easy read of a complex topic, this is worth seeking........1997-12-17
Wow! Who'd have thought that an author could approach such a topic as "reasonableness" and render it so well-defined, so palatable and so attractive. By using four historical examples, with focus not primarily upon their philosophies, but more upon their lives, Blanshard is masterful. As a noted philosophical and social commentator in his own right, the author does an excellent job of inserting his own interpretation on the four subject persons, and upon their historical & intellectual significance. Last, and maybe most important, is Mr. Blanshard's ability to communicate clearly. As far-fetched as it may sound, this book is truly a page-turner! I'd recommend this to anyone who feels the need for a book that makes you go, "Hmmmm." At the very least, it will leave any reader with an increased appetite for more reasonableness in his/her own life.
Book Description
Nicholas Capaldi's biography of John Stuart Mill traces the ways in which Mill's many endeavors are related and explores the significance of his contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, social and political philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of education. Capaldi shows how Mill was groomed for his life by both his father James Mill and Jeremy Bentham, the two most prominent philosophical radicals of the early 19th century. Mill, however, revolted against this education and developed friendships with both Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Taylor Coleridge who introduced him to Romanticism and political conservatism. A special feature of this biography is the attention devoted to Mill's relationship with Harriet Taylor. No one exerted a greater influence than the woman he was eventually to marry. Capaldi reveals just how deep her impact was on Mill's thinking about the emancipation of women. Nicholas Capaldi was until recently the McFarlin Endowed Professor of Philosophy and Research Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa. He is the founder and former Director of Legal Studies. His principal research and teaching interest is in public policy and its intersection with political science, philosophy, law, religion, and economics. He is the author of six books, including The Art of Description (Prometheus, 1987) and How to Win Every Argument (MJF Books, 1999), over fifty articles, and editor of six anthologies. He is a recent recipient of the Templeton Foundation Freedom Project Award.
Customer Reviews:
Easily the Best Book on Mill.......2005-06-08
Contemporary analytic philosophers tend to present a rather skewed view of Mill, ignoring the larger textual and personal context of his work. Capaldi's book goes a long way to correcting these errors.
For instance, Capaldi provides strong reasons to think that Utilitarianism should be read in light of On Liberty, not vice versa, as contemporary textbooks tend to present Mill. In addition, Capaldi provides an in-depth examination of Mill's intellectual growth. He starts with Mill's early education and exposure to the philosophical radicalism of his father and Jeremy Bentham, and describes how Mill spent a large part of his life struggling to keep what he believed was good about their hedonistic utilitarianism while rejecting its inadequacies. Capaldi shows us how the style of education Mill received permanently influences Mill's manner of thinking. Capaldi demonstrates how Mill is essentially a dialectical thinker attempting to synthesize Romantic deontology with its emphasis on autonomous self-development, with empiricist ethical methodology with its emphasis on pleasure and associationist human psychology. At the same time, Capaldi illuminates the precise ways that figures like Carlyle, Hegel, Comte, Coleridge, and of course Harriot Taylor influenced Mill. Capaldi helps us learn how to read Mill, based on who Mill's audience was and the purpose of his various texts. One's view of Utilitarianism, for instance, will be radically changed in light of Capaldi's biography. This text, taken as the definitive statement of Mill's theory by most contemporary philosophers, emerges as a rather restrained attempt to defend a general class of philosophies, will Mill's own beliefs quite hidden under the surface.
The picture of Mill that emerges is that of a powerful mind with continually evolving ideas. For the typical philosopher who has read at most a few of Mill's works, this book is very valuable indeed.
As an aside, by way of illustrating what the reputation of Capaldi's intellectual biography is, let me relate the following. I recently had a paper defending a thesis of Mill's accepted for publication in a major philosophy journal. The reviewer asked me to make some revisions in light of this work. This book is quickly becoming the authoritative source on John Stuart Mill. In comparing Capaldi's work with that of others who have written on Mill, one gets the feeling that Capaldi is the only one taking Mill--and intellectual history--seriously.
As such, I highly recommend that any philosopher interested in ethics or the history of philosophy read this.
Capaldi on Mill.......2004-02-21
From the view of philosophy departments, Mill is frequently read as as figure in the line of traditional empiricists stretching from Locke to Russell. In that context, some of his teachings, such as the quality of pleasure and the primacy of social good seem like, well, mistakes. In fact, that's how it was presented to me in school and I'm afraid I may have passed that view on. I always wondered how a guy so smart could be so dumb. By bringing in the French connection (and Mill's intellectual environment in general), Capaldi presents the complete thinker. That's a service. Of course, given their format, no title in this series from Cambridge can be either a full scale biography or a full scale commentary.
![Autobiography [EasyRead Edition]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/2128255hFOL.jpg)
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Autobiography [EasyRead Edition]
John Stuart Mill
Manufacturer: ReadHowYouWant.com
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ASIN: 1425064787
Release Date: 2007-01-03 |
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A book written by a genius to elucidate his ideas and temperament. This is an inspiring and stunning work by Mill where he gives a logical and dispassionate estimation of his life-long ideals. A man who was constantly learning and searching for truth is portrayed in these pages. Awe-inspiring!
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The great defender of individual liberty.......2006-12-24
John Stuart Mill, 1806-73, worked for the East India Co. helped run Colonial India from England. Minister of Parliament 1865-68 he served one term. Maiden speech was a disaster his second was great success. He was first MP to propose that women should be given the vote on equal footing with the men who could vote. He got 1/3 support, England gives franchise to women after U.S. He was a great Feminist, his essay "Subjection of Women" is written with great passion and prose. It was a brave position for him to take he was ridiculed for it. He favored democracy, and letting more men from lower classes the right to vote, but believed that people that are more educated should have more votes then less educated because they would make better decisions about what government should do. He would have wanted to extend education to the masses, so that all may have gotten 2-3 votes and so on. He didn't think it should be extended to where a small elite could carry the day on votes. The idea was that if the working class, and middle class, where divided on an issue, the people with more intelligence would have the power to tip the balance. Mill thought that people with more education would probably not only be better able to make political decisions, especially in terms of intellectually being able to see what would be best for the government to do, but that they would also be more concerned about the common good publicly then people in general. He was intensely educated by his father James. John could read Greek, and Latin at 6 yrs.; his Dad tutored him at home. Dad thought environment was everything. He was treated like an adult, never played games with kids; he had a very cerebral upbringing. He had a period of depression in his twenties, it changed his philosophy, and he recognized the importance of developing feelings along with the intellect, this is something that he stressed in his work. He read poetry to get out of depression; he became devoted to poetry and became a romantic. He fell in love with a married woman Harriet Taylor, was a platonic relationship, after her husband's death they married 3 years later and probably never consummated the marriage maybe due to his having syphilis. His dedication to "On Liberty" is to her, very devoted to each other. Both buried together in Avignon France where they used to vacation.
Mill as a moral theorist subscribed to a theory we call Utilitarianism. It means---In some way morality is about the maximization of happiness. Whether actions are right or wrong depends on how happiness can be most effectively maximized. I say in some way, because there are allot of different kinds of Utilitarians. Allot of different ways of saying exactly how it is the maximization of happiness comes into morality. Therefore, happiness is clearly an important idea for Utilitarians. Mill has a hedonistic view of happiness, he thinks that happiness can be defined in terms of "pleasure in the absence of pain." What is distinctive about Mill in this area is that he believes that some kinds of pleasure are better than others are, and add more to a person's happiness than other kinds of pleasures. He believes in what he calls, "higher quality pleasures." These are pleasures, he says, that we get from the exercise of faculties that only human beings happen to have. So the intellect, imagination, the moral feelings, these are the sources of higher quality pleasures people use. His view seems to be that a certain quantity of intellectual pleasure just adds more to your happiness, and a given quantity of some lower pleasure like a kind we would share with the animals such as sensation, taste, sexual pleasure, etc. His "higher quality pleasures" in a way echo Aristotle's ethics. The idea of those things that make us distinctly human that are the real key to our happiness, that is in Mill also. It is not as limited to reason and intellect as Aristotle thinks. Mill recognizes the importance of the appreciation of beauty, aesthetic pleasure, and moral pleasure. He frankly owes a debt to Aristotle that he never properly acknowledges, never gives him proper credit.
"On Liberty" is Mill's is his most widely read and enduring work. It is an indispensable essay on political thought, which strenuously argues for individual liberty. He is defending what he calls the "liberty principle." It is a principle that guarantees individuals quite a bit of personal freedom. "That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant." These quoted sentences in John Stuart Mill's book, "On Liberty," embody the crux of his argument; that the power of the state must intrude as little as possible on the liberty of its citizenry. In essence, Mill was against using the power of the state through its lawmaking apparatus to compel citizens to conduct themselves in ways that society deems moral or appropriate. Mill thought that people had not only a right, but also a duty to develop their intellectual faculties, which is indispensable to maximize their happiness. He believed that society improved for all its citizens when they where left unfettered to the maximum extent possible, allowing them to use their imagination and intellect to improve themselves. Mill postulates a theory that societies usually institute laws based primarily on "personal preference" of its citizenry instead of established principles. This lack of clarity of opinion often leads to the government frequently interfering in the lives of its citizens unnecessarily. For Mill, there are very few times when the state can infringe on the personal liberty of others. Firstly, the state has the right to promulgate laws that prevent a person's actions from harming others. Secondly, the state must protect those citizens who are not mature enough to protect themselves, such as children. Thirdly, he exempts, "... backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage." In Mill's view, immature societies need a benevolent leader to rule them until they have developed to a point where they, "... have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion ..." Mill said this third exemption did not apply to any of the countries in Europe. Mill believed that forced morality by the state on its citizen's liberties was destructive to their inward development, and could even lead to a violent reaction by them against the government.
There are different parts of his defense of this, different arguments that he gives. He has a long chapter on freedom of speech and press. He has some very specific reasons why he thinks those freedoms are important. Always in the background for Mill is the idea of development, and making it possible for more people to enjoy these higher quality pleasures. How do we help people develop their distinctly human faculties, in ways that will help them enjoy their higher quality pleasures? Because for him that is the way, we maximize the total amount of happiness that is enjoyed in the world, and that is the object of morality as far as he is concerned. Utilitarianists believe that maximizing happiness is ultimately, what morality is all about. That does not mean maximizing your own happiness that means maximizing the total amount of happiness that is enjoyed, not only by yourself but also by everybody else as well.
Roger Kimball, in his book "Experiments Against Reality" wrote, "On Liberty" was published in 1859, coincidentally the same year as "On the Origin of Species." Darwin's book has been credited--and blamed--for all manner of moral and religious mischief. But in the long run "On Liberty" may have effected an even greater revolution in sentiment.
I read this book for a graduate class in Philosophy. Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, and history.
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James and John Stuart Mill: Father and Son in the 19th Century
Bruce Mazlish
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