The writings of John Stuart Mill have become the cornerstone of political liberalism. Collected for the first time in this volume are Mill’s three seminal and most widely read works: On Liberty, The Subjection of Women, and Utilitarianism. A brilliant defense of individual rights versus the power of the state, On Liberty is essential reading for anyone interested in political thought and theory. As Bertrand Russell reflected, “On Liberty remains a classic . . . the present world would be better than it is, if [Mill’s] principles were more respected.” This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes newly commissioned endnotes and commentary by Dale E. Miller, and an index.

Together these two essays mark the philosophic cornerstone of democratic morality and represent a thought-provoking search for the true balance between the rights of the individual and the power of the state. Thoroughly schooled in the principles of the utilitarian movement founded by Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill nevertheless brings his own unique intellectual energy to issues such as individual freedom, equality, authority, happiness, justice, and virtue. On Liberty is Mill’s famous examination of the nature of individuality and its crucial role in any social system that expects to remain creative and vital. Utilitarianism brilliantly expounds a pragmatic ethic based on one controversial proposition: actions are right only if they promote the common good and wrong if they do not. While much of Mill’s thinking was eventually adopted by socialists, it is in today’s democratic societies—with their troubling issues of crime, freedom of speech, and the boundaries of personal liberty—that his work resounds most powerfully.

Collects four of the philosopher's essays on issues central to liberal democratic regimes. --Publisher.

A prodigiously brilliant thinker who sharply challenged the beliefs of his age, the political and social radical John Stuart Mill was the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century. Regarded as one of the sacred texts of liberalism, his great work On Liberty argues lucidly that any democracy risks becoming a 'tyranny of opinion' in which minority views are suppressed if they do not conform with those of the majority. Written in the same period as On Liberty, shortly after the death of Mill's beloved wife and fellow-thinker Harriet, The Subjection of Women stresses the importance of equality for the sexes. Together, the works provide a fascinating testimony to the hopes and anxieties of mid-Victorian England, and offer a compelling consideration of what it truly means to be free.

This interdisciplinary study proposes a comprehensive reevaluation of the links between Mill's experience and his writings, and it does so by examining such larger issues as the relation between gender and profession in Victorian culture and the nature of autobiographical writing.

Can national growth be sustained indefinitely? How much should government intervene in a competitive market economy? The questions John Stuart Mill raised a century and a half ago, in 1848's Principles of Political Economy, and the answers he found, are just as critical-and just as contentiously debated-today. Through a lens of what the philosopher himself termed "philosophical radicalism"-and what some today call "democratic liberalism"-Mill takes a fresh look at Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and other influential works of political thought of his time, and recasts them from a more scientific viewpoint, suggesting that such realities as the unequal distribution of wealth were not "natural" but rather a matter of human choice... choices we continue to have to make in our ever more complicated economy. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Selected Writings of John Stuart Mill and On Liberty. English philosopher and politician JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873) was one of the foremost figure of Western intellectual thought in the late 19th century. He served as an administrator in the East Indian Company from 1823 to 1858, and as a member of parliament from 1865 to 1868. Among his essays on a wide range of political and social thought are On Liberty (1859), Considerations on Representative Government (1861), and The Subjection of Women (1869).

John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism is a philosophical defense of utilitarianism, a moral theory stating that right actions are those that tend to promote overall happiness. The essay first appeared as a series of articles published in Fraser’s Magazine in 1861; the articles were collected and reprinted as a single book in 1863. Mill discusses utilitarianism in some of his other works, including On Liberty and The Subjection of Women, but Utilitarianism contains his only sustained defence of the theory. In this Broadview Edition, Colin Heydt provides a substantial introduction that will enable readers to understand better the polemical context for Utilitarianism. Heydt shows, for example, how Mill’s moral philosophy grew out of political engagement, rather than exclusively out of a speculative interest in determining the nature of morality. Appendices include precedents to Mill’s work, reactions to Utilitarianism, and related writings by Mill.