John Stuart Mill

"How do we decide what is "good" and what is "bad"? According to the ethical theory of Utilitarianism, to do good is to "always perform that act, of those available, that will bring the most happiness or the least unhappiness." By far the most widely read introduction to this theory, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism is one of the most important and controversial works of moral philosophy ever written. In this major contribution to ethical history,...

In Mill's autobiography, the reader not only gets the real story behind the mind of a prodigy, but also an understanding of his emotions. After a strict upbringing, the insurmountable pressures Mill faces leads to a mental breakdown. However, the author then goes on not only to understand his own beliefs and feelings, but also to develop new radical ideas.

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) is the most important of Britain's nineteenth-century philosophers. His writings and activities were many and varied. The works reprinted in this volume were first published during a particularly prolific ten-year span, from 1859 to 1869. On Liberty (1859), Considerations on Representative Government (1861), Utilitarianism (1863), and The Subjection of Women (1869) are four of his most famous works; they are central...