William Stafford’s recent book is the best short introduction to the thought of John Stuart Mill I have come across. The first chapter is devoted to a brief discussion of Mill’s life and his ...

In his influential 1859 essay “On Liberty,” philosopher John Stuart Mill articulated one of the most compelling defenses of freedom of speech ever written. The book became so popular after its ...

One of the great voices for personal liberty was that of the British economist and political philosopher, John Stuart Mill. His essay, “On Liberty,” though penned well over 150 years ago, is a classic ...

John Stuart Mill’s (1806-1873) father, James Mill, was an outspoken advocate of utilitarianism and a friend of Jeremy Bentham, its founder. John Mill was born into a household steeped in utilitarian ...

John Stuart Mill is a key figure in Nineteenth Century British liberalism. Mill is a giant of liberalism per se, such that subsequent exegesis has been overwhelmingly praiseworthy, indeed idolatrous.

IN the summer of 1834, the party of political reformers in England ” who thought themselves, and were called by their friends, the philosophic Radicals ” came to the conclusion that the importance of ...

Since the 1990s, in the wake of humanitarian emergencies, violent civil wars, and terrorist attacks, the tension between the norm of state sovereignty and the need to prevent atrocities has become ...

I’ve expended a fair amount of ink criticizing John Stuart Mill’s ideas about liberty in his (in)famous 1859 pamphlet “On Liberty.” I think that Mill’s greatest critic, James Fitzjames Stephen, was ...

This article is brought to you by our exclusive subscriber partnership with our sister title USA Today, and has been written by our American colleagues. It does not necessarily reflect the view of The ...

This book review appeared in the Fall 2025 issue of The Independent Review. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021. Pp. viii, 359, $45.95 paperback. This book raises three questions: (1) Was J. S. Mill ...