James Mill

James Mill, portrait by an unknown artist

James Mill (born April 6, 1773 in Northwaterbridge , Parish Logie Pert , Forfarshire / Angus , Scotland , southern Aberdeen ; † June 23, 1836 in Kensington ) was a Scottish-British theologian , historian , philosopher , educationalist , criminal law reformer and economist . Along with Jeremy Bentham , he was an advocate of utilitarianism , a v. a. The conceptual direction represented in England, which placed the benefit for the individual and society at the center of its philosophical, political and economic considerations. His eldest son is the famous utilitarian economist and thinker John Stuart Mill .

Life

Elements of political economy , 1826

Origin, education

As the eldest son of a shoemaker and small farmer, Mill, encouraged by his ambitious mother, devoted himself entirely to learning; she changed his actual Scottish name "Milne" into "Mill", which sounds better in English ears. With a grant from the Presbyterian community, he accompanied a local noblewoman as tutor for her daughter to Edinburgh , where he enrolled at the local university in 1790; the Scottish universities - in addition to Edinburgh and Glasgow also Aberdeen and St. Andrews - were considered exemplary in the sense of the Enlightenment, Mill was, in the words of his son, "the last survivor of this great school". The love for his aristocratic pupil, which was vehemently reciprocated, failed because of his status: in 1797 the dearly beloved married a noblewoman and died shortly afterwards in childbed with Mill's name on her lips. Head of private tutoring with other noble families made him feel uncomfortable over and over again that he was born. After completing his theology studies (1798), he initially worked as a Presbyterian preacher, but then - disaffected and without real faith - became a teacher and devoted himself to historical and philosophical studies.

Writing and political activity

In 1802 he went to London and worked on several journals ( Anti-Jacobin Review , British Review , Eclectic Review , Edinburgh Review , Westminster Review , 1806-1818). In 1804 he wrote a pamphlet on the grain trade in which he advocated the abolition of export tariffs in the spirit of free traders, and in 1806 began work on his "History of British India" (3 vols., 1817/18). His articles on political, legal and educational topics (including the article "Government") in the 4th – 6th The editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica had a major impact on public opinion in the 1820s and their democratic approach led to the Reform Bill of 1832.

In 1807 or 1808 Mill met Jeremy Bentham , the founder of utilitarianism, whose doctrine he devoted himself to and for whom he spoke out against the incipient tendencies of the romantic school. Both worked for religious tolerance and reform of the law, freedom of speech and the press, and feared that the British parliamentary system would fail because of its own shortcomings. Unlike the wealthy bachelor Bentham, Mill and his steadily growing family had to work hard to achieve practical results: his writings were therefore characterized by their comprehensibility and immediate effect.

At the same time Mill worked for the establishment of Lancaster schools, which provided for mutual instruction of the students, and was one of the founders of the University of London (University College, 1825).

It is controversial what part Mill has in the development of Say's theorem in its form known today (“Every offer creates its own demand”).

Employment with the East India Company

His History of British India (1817-18) was received with general applause, and although they exposed the abuses of the Indian administration relentlessly, their author was still in 1819 by the East India Company a lucrative post in the East India Company , first as Assistant Examiner of Correspondence , finally as head of the examination committee at India House in London (1830), which relieved him of constant worries about his livelihood and the dependence on patrons (including Bentham). His 17 years on the committee completely changed the system by which India was governed; his utilitarian-rationalist view of this subcontinent, however, made the country appear in a less than favorable light.

Political and educational ideas

Mill was considered the mouthpiece of the English "radicals", a liberal political-philosophical group according to today's terms, which took up in the economic field the thoughts of David Ricardo , with whom he was friends, and his compatriot Adam Smith . In addition to the History of British India , Mill also wrote Elements of Political Economy (London, 1821, new edition 1846) and a number of philosophical works, including Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829; new edition, with notes by John Stuart Mill , 1869; 2nd ed. 1878, 2 vol.), In which he also applied utilitarianism to psychology. He took up ideas from the French Revolution and the Enlightenment - human rights, equality of people before the law, universal suffrage - but added elements of British political practice - control of government, protection of property - to them. His utilitarian belief that people were primarily guided by their own self-interest led him to conclude that good government depended largely on the congruence of interests between the governed and the governing ( Essay on Government , 1828).

Mill's pedagogical ideas were shaped by the belief that people could be improved through education; Similar in optimism to the early socialists Robert Owen and Saint-Simon , he considered humanity to be a long way from being at the height of its possibilities, including in terms of practical living conditions. His hostile rationalism made him the avowed opponent of the Romantics and prevented him from seeing the other facets of human character.

Family relationships

Mill married Harriet Mill in 1805, with whom he had nine children, including John Stuart Mill as the eldest. The marriage later turned out to be increasingly difficult.

Quotes

• "Mr. Mill was eloquent and impressed in conversation. He had a language at his disposal that bore the stamp of his serious, powerful nature. Young men in particular sought his company ... Nobody could escape his company without having taken part of his aristocratic enthusiasm with him ... The conversation with him was so definite and thoughtful, so complete, so brief and precise ... that his conversational thoughts and observations, had they been recorded, would have been masterpieces ”; John Black, ed. Of the Morning Chronicle, 1836, cited above. after Bain, p. 457.

criticism

Alexander Bain , James Mill , 1882

• John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), the eldest son, was brought up by the father with extraordinary severity and care; he had to teach his siblings the material he had learned in the same way - this was the method of the Lancaster school ; In his autobiography he draws a sobering characteristic of the father: "I grew up without love, instead of it in constant fear".
• As engaging and sociable as Mill could be in conversation, his writings seemed dry and didactic; his Scottish contemporary, the politician and social reformer Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) accused him and his utilitarian colleagues in his famous criticism - "a famous attack" (according to John Stuart Mill) - "a Quaker-like platitude, or rather: one cynical disregard and impurity of style ”. Their apparent intelligibility is based primarily on tautologies (“people only act out of self-interest”), syllogisms and metaphors. Practice and perception taught more than the entire theory, no matter how compelling, logical and convincing it is presented. Mill's deductive logic fails, and with it all of his ideas.
• Schumpeter called Mill's history of British India "monumental and indeed groundbreaking", while the Essay on Government could only be described as "unreserved nonsense".
• Unlike his adversary Macaulay , who worked for the company in Calcutta , Mill never got to know the Indian subcontinent, whose history he described in three volumes , nor did he speak or write any of the national languages. In the foreword to his work, however, he not only considered his ignorance excusable (“Tacitus was never in Germania”, vol. 1, p. Xxi), but even described it in a bold counterattack as proof of his objectivity: “It is not so that a judge who has never personally seen the details of an act receives a more balanced picture in the course of his investigation than every single one of those to whom he owes his information? ”(ibid, p. xxvi).

literature

• Alexander Bain: John Stuart Mill. A Criticism with Personal Recollections . London: Longmans, Green 1882. - The standard work on Mills life, numerous to this day. New editions, most recently in 1993.
• Terence Ball: James Mill . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), Vol. 38 (2004), pp. 148-153; http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james-mill/ (as of June 14, 2010)

Web links

• Literature by and about James Mill in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about James Mill  in the German Digital Library
• Entry in Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John Stuart Mill: Collected Works . Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press 1963-89, p. 566.
2. ↑ With a majority of only one vote.
3. ↑ Bentham's stuffed body is still there today, in a glass case.
4. ↑ His son John Stuart was also in the service of the East India Company from 1823-58 until it was dissolved.
5. ↑ Jeremy Bentham called pain ( pain ) and pleasure ( pleasure ) as the two guiding principles of human action, by the principle of utility ( utility would be controlled): it Tends to produce pleasure, good or happiness, or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain , evil or unhappiness ; Bentham, Introd. To the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
6. ↑ John Stuart Mill: Autobiography . Oxford: OUP 1969 [EA 1873]
7. ^ Macaulay, Mill on Government . In: Edinburgh Review, March 1829.
8. ↑ Quoted from Terence Ball: James Mill . In: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james-mill/ (as of June 14, 2010)