For those who are interested...(J.S. Mill)

azzuri · For those who are interested...(J.S. Mill)

For those who are interested...

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Stuart Mill, the great Scottish liberal philosopher and politician.

I could go on and on about Mill's 'On Liberty' that I was subjected to at university, but I'd rather tell you about something more interesting:

Monty Python sang about J.S.Mill, "John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, on half a pint of shandy was particularly ill" Laughing

And yes, I know I'm 5 mins late before some smart arse gets on my back. Very Happy

azzuri

He was strongly in favour of allowing women to vote, he proposed an amendment to one of the reform bills to that effect which wasn't passed.

He also believed in extra votes for people with further education and those with professional jobs (on a scale of one vote for unskilled workers to eight votes for university professors, doctors and other such well-educated people). The idea was also partly to encourage education.

Anyway, his thing was civil liberty. He was moderate on elements of political liberty, but that souldn't take away from the profound influence he had in inspiring certain areas of liberal thought.

For anyone who'd like to skim over some of the works, 'On Liberty' is Here and 'Considerations' is Here.

Aventinian

Interesting chap. Had to read On Liberty in secondary school - some gems in it, although also a lot to dispute.