Many discussions of J. S. Mill's concept of liberty focus too narrowly on On Liberty and fail to acknowledge that his treatment of related issues elsewhere may modify its leading doctrines. Mill and Paternalism demonstrates how a contextual reading suggests that in Principles of Political Economy, and also his writings on Ireland, India and on domestic issues like land reform, Mill proposed a substantially more interventionist account of the state than On Liberty seems to imply. This helps to explain Mill's sympathies for socialism after 1848, as well as his Malthusianism and feminism, which, in conjunction with Harriet Taylor's views, are central to his later discussions of the family and marriage. Feminism, indeed, is shown to provide the answer to the problem which most agitated Mill, overpopulation. Thus Gregory Claeys sheds new lights on many of Mill's overarching preoccupations, including the theory of liberty at the heart of On Liberty.
• Offers a new interpretation of many aspects of Mill's theory of liberty • Provides a close historical and contextual reading of several of Mill's most important works • Looks anew at Mill's engagement with socialism, his Malthusianism and important aspects of his feminism
Contents
Introduction: Mill, liberty, and paternalism: context, intention and interpretation; 1. Intervention, progress and the state – domestic and foreign; 2. Mill, socialism and collective autonomy; 3. Rethinking On Liberty: superstition, expediency, and family values; Conclusion: the aims of liberty and paternalism: equal association and radical meritocracy.
Review
'Mill's On Liberty has been all-too successful with philosophers and political theorists in achieving his goal of writing a 'philosophic textbook of a single truth'. In this comprehensive reassessment of Mill's career as social and political commentator, Gregory Claeys shows how Mill's single truth on the limits of interference in individual lives needs to be modified when the equally urgent concerns of his political economy, feminism, and interest in socialism are brought into the reckoning.' Donald Winch, University of Sussex
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