Geburtsdatum | Dienstag, 20. Mai 1806 |
Geburtsort | Pentonville |
Todesdatum | Mittwoch, 07. Mai 1873 |
Todesort | Vaucluse |
Sternzeichen | |
Beschreibung | John Stuart Mill (* 20. Mai 1806 in Pentonville, Vereinigtes Königreich; † 8. Mai 1873 in Avignon, Frankreich) war ein britischer Philosoph, Politiker und Ökonom, einer der einflussreichsten liberalen Denker des 19. Jahrhunderts sowie ein früher Unterstützer malthusianischer Konzeption und in diesem Zusammenhang auch der Frauenemanzipation. Mill wird in der Sekundärliteratur teilweise auch als ein früher Feminist bezeichnet. Mill war Anhänger des Utilitarismus, der von Jeremy Bentham, dem Lehrer und Freund seines Vaters James Mill, als Nutz-Ethik entwickelt wurde. Seine wirtschaftlichen Werke zählen zu den Grundlagen der klassischen Nationalökonomie, und Mill selbst gilt als Vollender des klassischen Systems und zugleich als sozialer Reformer. Der von ihm als Gegenentwurf zu Thomas Morus’ Utopia geprägte Begriff Dystopia bezeichnet einen pessimistischen Zukunftsentwurf in Philosophie und Literatur. |
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.
Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.
Of two pleasures, if there be one which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.
There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.
The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.
I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.
The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.
Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.
Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.
Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.
