Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century" by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,[2] he conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.

He contributed to the investigation of scientific methodology, though his knowledge of the topic was based on the writings of others, notably William Whewell, John Herschel, and Auguste Comte, and research carried out for Mill by Alexander Bain.

In the following year he was introduced to political economy and studied Adam Smith and David Ricardo with his father, ultimately completing their classical economic view of factors of production.

[16] Instead he followed his father to work for the East India Company, and attended University College, London, to hear the lectures of John Austin, the first Professor of Jurisprudence.

In On Liberty, A Few Words on Non-Intervention, and other works, he opined that "To characterize any conduct whatever towards a barbarous people as a violation of the law of nations, only shows that he who so speaks has never considered the subject.

")[21] Mill viewed places such as India as having once been progressive in their outlook, but had now become stagnant in their development; he opined that this meant these regions had to be ruled via a form of "benevolent despotism...provided the end is improvement.

In April 1868, he favoured in a Commons debate the retention of capital punishment for such crimes as aggravated murder; he termed its abolition "an effeminacy in the general mind of the country".

Mill's idea is that only if a democratic society follows the Principle of Liberty can its political and social institutions fulfill their role of shaping national character so that its citizens can realise the permanent interests of people as progressive beings.

By contrast, it does not count as harming someone if—without force or fraud—the affected individual consents to assume the risk: thus one may permissibly offer unsafe employment to others, provided there is no deception involved.

And so far from the assumption being less objectionable or less dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or impious, this is the case of all others in which it is most fatal.Mill outlines the benefits of "searching for and discovering the truth" as a way to further knowledge.

[49] Worried about minority views being suppressed, he argued in support of freedom of speech on political grounds, stating that it is a critical component for a representative government to have to empower debate over public policy.

"[50] At the beginning of the 20th century, Associate justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. made the standard of "clear and present danger" based on Mill's idea.

In the majority opinion, Holmes writes: The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

If this be done, the gentle & docile character which seems to distinguish the negroes will prevent any mischief on their side, while the proofs they are giving of fighting powers will do more in a year than all other things in a century to make the whites respect them & consent to their being politically & socially equals.Unlike many of his peers, Mill supported the Union in the American Civil War, seeing it as a necessary evil that would deliver a vital "salutary shock" to the national conscience and help preserve liberal ideals while eradicating the "stain" of slavery in the United States.

[71][72] Mill expressed his views in an article for Fraser's Magazine, arguing against the defenders of the Confederate States of America.There are people who tell us that, on the side of the North, the question is not one of slavery at all.

With this, Mill can be considered among the earliest male proponents of gender equality, having been recruited by American feminist John Neal during his stay in London circa 1825–1827.

For Mill, a universal education held the potential to create new abilities and novel types of behaviour of which the current receiving generation and their descendants could both benefit from.

Aiming such help at marginalized groups, such as the poor and working class, would only serve to reward them with the opportunity to move to a higher status, thus encouraging greater fertility which at its extreme could lead to overproduction.

To that extent, the utilitarianism that Mill is describing is a default lifestyle that he believes is what people who have not studied a specific opposing field of ethics would naturally and unconsciously use when faced with a decision.

Utilitarianism is thought of by some of its activists to be a more developed and overarching ethical theory of Immanuel Kant's belief in goodwill, and not just some default cognitive process of humans.

Mill redefines the definition of happiness as "the ultimate end, for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people) is an existence as free as possible from pain and as rich as possible in enjoyments.

[102] In his autobiography, Mill stated that in relation to his later views on political economy, his "ideal of ultimate improvement... would class [him] decidedly under the general designation of Socialists."

He wrote, "[W]hile I agree and sympathize with socialists in this practical portion of their aims, I utterly dissent from the most conspicuous and vehement part of their teaching—their declamations against competition."

He further argued that a socialist society would only be attainable through the provision of basic education for all, promoting economic democracy instead of capitalism, in the manner of substituting capitalist businesses with worker cooperatives.

[107][108]Mill's major work on political democracy, Considerations on Representative Government, defends two fundamental principles: extensive participation by citizens and enlightened competence of rulers.

He saw the value of the individual person, and believed that "man had the inherent capability of guiding his own destiny-but only if his faculties were developed and fulfilled", which could be achieved through education.

[113] He regarded education as a pathway to improve human nature which to him meant "to encourage, among other characteristics, diversity and originality, the energy of character, initiative, autonomy, intellectual cultivation, aesthetic sensibility, non-self-regarding interests, prudence, responsibility, and self-control.

Mill recognised the paramount importance of public education in avoiding the tyranny of the majority by ensuring that all the voters and political participants were fully developed individuals.

[118] In Book IV, chapter VI of Principles of Political Economy: "Of the Stationary State",[119][120] Mill recognised wealth beyond the material and argued that the logical conclusion of unlimited growth was destruction of the environment and a reduced quality of life.

He concluded that a stationary state could be preferable to unending economic growth: I cannot, therefore, regard the stationary states of capital and wealth with the unaffected aversion so generally manifested towards it by political economists of the old school.If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a better or a happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compel them to it.According to Mill, the ultimate tendency in an economy is for the rate of profit to decline due to diminishing returns in agriculture and increase in population at a Malthusian rate.