The philosophy of John Stuart Mill

John Skorupski

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, vol. 15, no. 1, 2007, pp. 181–197

Abstract

Nicholas Capelin, John Stuart Mill, A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 456 pp. £27.50, $40.00 (hb.). ISBN 10: 0521620244 Victor Sanchez-Valencia (ed.), The General Philosophy of John Stuart Mill. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002. 542 pp. £112.50, $225.00 (hb.) ISBN 07546 20689 Henry West, An Introduction to Mill’s Utilitarian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 228 pp. £14.90, $21.99 (hb.) £40.00, $65.00 (pb.) ISBN 0521828325 (hb.) ISBN 0521535417 (pb.)

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There can be an experience-oriented and a person-oriented version of hedonism. On the former view, it is the experience of happiness that is good, wherever it occurs; on the latter view what is good is that people are happy. On the former view people matter, so to speak, only as containers of happiness—it is the total quantity of happiness that really matters. On the latter view the starting point is impartial concern for the happiness of actual people. Real and important ethical differences can flow from this very deep contrast.

hedonism · utility fundamentalism
p. 189