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Introduction
Image: “Philosopher in Meditation” by Rembrandt, 1632
For the purposes of this course, I have begun the modern era of philosophy with Rene Descartes. Most
scholars would agree with this distinction, but there is some debate. The modern era of philosophy
marks a noticeable change in the type of argumentation and ideas being put forth. For one thing
philosophy was becoming rather fashionable in Europe, which meant that people were, more than ever,
encouraged to debate ideas and concepts with each other. As a result of this, philosophers had to be
much more careful about the wording and coherence of their philosophies. Similarly, philosophers
endeavoured to cover many different aspects of philosophy rather than simply relying on their
understanding of one particular area. This expansion of ideas lead to greater depth of thought and
unification among theories. Furthermore, in the early modern era you had philosophers with more
religious freedom who could therefore question or challenge the doctrines of the church, if not God
himself.
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Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes was a famous French mathematician, scientist and
philosopher. In Descartes time, skepticism had become a widely accepted
and popular epistemological view. Reportedly, he had a series of dreams in
1608, which he interpreted as meaning he was to found a universal science
and thus defeat skepticism. To this end, he described philosophy as a tree
in which the roots were metaphysics, the trunk physics and the branches
were the various particular sciences, such as medicine, mechanics and
ethics. I have found the best way to understand Descartes theories is to
follow his unilateral expression of his ideas expressed in his book
“meditations on the first philosophy” published around 1641. I have
included a summary below.
Mediation 1: I can doubt almost anything
Principal of Doubt: Descartes needs only to find some reason to doubt his present opinions in order to
prompt him to seek sturdier foundations for his knowledge. Therefore the only thing we can know for sure is
that which we cannot doubt
Sensory Knowledge is Unfounded: Our senses can be deceived (realistic dreams or optical illusions or the sun
looking small) thus sensory knowledge does not necessitate existence.
Deceptive God Hypothesis: It is possible that there is an omnipotent being that is deceiving me as a kind of
joke, therefore anything I simply believe cannot be said to be true.
Meditation 2: Cognito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am)
Cognito Ergo Sum: The only thing I cannot doubt is my own existence because in order to doubt it I must
exist. Thus the act of doubting itself proves that I exist. However I know not in what form I exist.
I know my thoughts directly: It is not through sense perception that I know my thoughts and ideas. Thus, I
can be said to know my thoughts and ideas. Therefore I know that I am a being who thinks, wills, imagine
and senses.
The Wax: Consider what we can know about the piece of wax by means of the senses: its taste, smell, color,
shape, size, hardness, etc. The Meditator then asks what happens when the piece of wax is placed near the
fire and melted. All of these sensible qualities change, so that, for instance, it is now soft when before it was
hard. Nonetheless, the same piece of wax still remains. Our knowledge that the solid piece of wax and the
melted piece of wax are the same cannot come through the senses since all of its sensible properties have
changed.
The Mind and Body: The mind knows the wax, the body does not. Therefore the mind is a far better knower
than the body. They are separate entities and the mind is filled with innate ideas.
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Meditation 3: Ideas and God
Two Kinds of Thoughts: 1) Ideas: like thinking of things like God or table or unicorn. 2) Volitions: feelings,
emotions and judgments
Ideas Exist: We know that our ideas exist as ideas, but we do not know whether nor not they relate to reality
The Ontological Argument: God is, "a substance that is infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, supremely
intelligent, supremely powerful, and which created both myself and everything else,". 1) God is an infinite
substance, 2) I am a finite substance, 3) Since God is infinite in nature, God must possess an infinite amount
of existence 4) I cannot conceive God because God is more real than I am (infinite existence versus finite
existence). Therefore only God could create the idea of God. Thus I know god exists because I have an idea
of God.
The Argument of Cause: If I caused my own existence then I would have to be infinite. Therefore, I cannot
create myself and something must have created me. Therefore, there must exist something that created
me. Note: If a finite being created me, some being with infinite power to create must have endowed them
with the power to create.
Meditation 4: Truth and Falsity
God Would Not Deceive Me: In order to deceive God would have to have some kind of vice or malice. Vice
or malice would be a limitation. Since God is infinite, God is unlimited and thus cannot possess either of
these limitations.
Illusions: So if all my thoughts come from God and he would not deceive me, why am I deceived? God
created me with a role of being finite and part of being finite is making mistakes. All that God has created is
perfect, but thoughts that I create may not be.
Errors and Evils: Errors and evils are all the result of Volitions, which come from me and not from God. As
opposed to intellect which comes from God.
Meditation 5: Matter
Stuff That We Percieve: I can distinctly imagine extension, size, shape, position, and local motion, which is
associated with duration. This is what I know of material things according to my intellect.
Stuff That Exists as Ideas: There are abstract geometrical objects which do not exist in the material world, do
not depend on my mind, yet are not nothing. For instance, there are no triangles in the world, yet they have
some kind of being.
Clear and Distinct Perceptions: Things we just know or conceive of are ideas that come from God and are
thus true and real.
Aesthetics:
- Descartes started with the principal that art is beautiful and beauty is simply anything that pleases.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (it is subjective because pleasure is subjective), therefore art is
remarkably subjective.
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Benedict de Spinoza
Benedict de Spinoza is a Dutch philosopher of Jewish origin who was very
much a rationalist and believed we could come to understand the world and
the way it operates through reflection and logical analysis. As a result of this
approach to reasoning, Spinoza’s arguments tend to be quite challenging to
follow because of the logical precision with which he proves his points. In
spite of the fact that Spinoza claims to prove the existence of God and the
underlying spiritual nature of his writings, in 1656 Spinoza was expelled from
the Jewish community, which also forbade people from reading his works
for the “abominable heresies that he practiced and taught,” (official record
of the cherem for Benedict de Spinoza as translated by Stephen Nadler).
Epistemology
- Spinoza was a rationalist in that he believed that the only source for certain knowledge was logic
and reasoning. That is to say that knowledge gained through senses and other sources is
valuable, but not certain.
- According to Spinoza sense perception, though practical and useful for rhetoric, is inadequate
for discovering universal truth sense perception, though practical and useful for rhetoric, is
inadequate for discovering universal truth.
- Spinoza believed there were three types of knowledge – opinion, reason, intuition – and he
asserted that intuitive knowledge provides the greatest satisfaction of mind.
Metaphysics
- Central to Spinoza’s philosophy was the concept of oneness. That is to say that all things in the
world are one substance.
- He believed that God, the universe, nature and substance were all different terms that applied
to the same thing.
- Contrary to Descartes dualism, Spinoza believed that the mind and body were essentially
different ways of conceiving of the same reality.
- This reality (call it nature or God) is wholly self-contained, self-causing, and self-sufficient.
- Everything in the universe is part of God and everything that happens is a necessary expression
of the divine nature.
- Spinoza did not believe in free will, but rather determinism. This is because if human beings are
a part of the divine reality, there is no room for independent causal actions.
- He states that people believed their actions to be free because we are conscious of our actions,
but not conscious of the causes by which these actions are determined.
- He believed that each individual is a localized concentration of the attributes of reality and
because we are ruled by our emotions and at the mercy of finite understating.
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The only way to achieve any freedom is for a person to, by means of rational reflection,
understand the extended causal chain that links all things as one and thus be free not from
causal determinism, but freed from an ignorance of our true nature.
Ethics
- If there is no free will, how can there be wickedness, sin or evil? This question was of great
concern for Spinoza. He believed that since everything is part of one reality there is no such
thing as evil from the viewpoint of the whole. That which appears evil, appears as such because
we lack the understanding to see the purpose of it.
- For Spinoza, emotions are the result of inadequate understanding.
- For Spinoza, the highest virtue is the intellectually love or knowledge of God, the universe,
nature or substance.
- According to Spinoza, in order to achieve what he calls, "true blessedness", emotions must be
detached from external cause and in doing so, we can master them.
- As Spinoza saw it, the more we are conscious of ourselves and God, the universe, nature or
substance, the more perfect and blessed we are and that only intuitive knowledge is eternal.
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Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
Leibniz is a German philosopher who based much of his work on the Aristotelian
notion of substance. In some respects Leibniz holds the opposite view of Spinoza in
that he believes in an infinite number of individual substances rather than one unified
substance. As well as being a philosopher, Leibniz was also a mathematician and he
developed infinitesimal calculus independently of, but at the same time as Isaac
Newton.
Epistemology
- Leibniz believed that we could use the definitions of things to reason their properties and he
used some basic philosophical principals to establish his ideas. They are:
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Identity/contradiction. If a proposition is true, then its negation is false and vice
versa. (i.e. If A then not A cannot be the case)
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Identity of indiscernibles. Two things are identical if and only if they share the same
and only the same properties. (i.e. If A = B then A and be must share the exact same
properties)
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Sufficient reason. "There must be a sufficient reason [often known only to God] for
anything to exist, for any event to occur, for any truth to obtain." Or All things have
a purpose
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Pre-established harmony A dropped glass shatters because it "knows" it has hit the
ground, and not because the impact with the ground "compels" the glass to split.
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Optimism. "God assuredly always chooses the best."
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Plenitude. Leibniz believed that the best of all possible worlds would actualize every
genuine possibility, and that this best of all possible worlds will contain all
possibilities, with our finite experience of eternity giving no reason to dispute
nature's perfection.
- Leibniz believed that truths cannot contradict each other and since both faith and reason are
gifts from God, they cannot act in contradiction either. Thus Leibniz was greatly concerned with
reconciling his beliefs with the bible.
Metaphysics
- Leibniz metaphysics focused on the concept of “Monads”, which are said to have the following
properties:
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Monads are the ultimate elements of the universe
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Monads are "substantial forms of being" with the following properties:
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they are eternal,
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indecomposable,
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individual,
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subject to their own laws,
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un-interacting,
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each reflecting the entire universe in a pre-established harmony
Monads are centers of force; substance is force, while space, matter, and motion
are merely phenomenal.
Unlike atoms, monads possess no material or spatial character.
They also differ from atoms by their complete mutual independence, so that
interactions among monads are only apparent. Instead, by virtue of the principle of
pre-established harmony, each monad follows a preprogrammed set of
"instructions" peculiar to itself, so that a monad "knows" what to do at each
moment.
By virtue of these intrinsic instructions, each monad is like a little mirror of the
universe.
There is no room for free will as each monad is pre-programmed with instructions.
Monads need not be "small"; e.g., each human being constitutes a monad, in which
case free will is problematic.
God, too, is a monad, and the existence of God can be inferred from the harmony
prevailing among all other monads; God wills the pre-established harmony.
Ethics
- Leibniz was greatly concerned with the idea that if God is both all good and all powerful, how
can there be evil in the world?
- Leibniz states that God is, in fact, unlimited in wisdom and power, but his human creations are
limited both in their wisdom and in their power.
- As a result of these limitations, humans are prone to false beliefs, wrong decisions and
ineffective actions in the exercise of their free will.
- Leibniz states that God does not arbitrarily inflict pain and suffering on humans; rather he
permits both moral evil (sin) and physical evil (pain and suffering) as the necessary
consequences of metaphysical evil (imperfection), as a means by which humans can identify and
correct their erroneous decisions, and as a contrast to true good.
- The concept of free will here seems to be in contradiction to Leibniz’s ideas of monads, but he
reconciles these notions by saying that although human actions flow from other causes, the
ultimate arise in God and thus to God they are a metaphysical certainty.
- An individual’s free will is exercised in accordance with natural laws.
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John Locke
John Locke was an important British political theorist who was exiled to Holland for his political
views. He returned to England after the revolution in 1688. Locke was mostly known for his
epistemological views.
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Epistemology
Locke rejected the concept of rationalism, believing instead that there can be no innate
human understanding independent of experience.
Instead, Locke believed that the human mind at birth was “tabula rasa” (a blank slate) waiting to be written on
by the world of human experience.
Locke asserted a causal view of perception that objects in the external world have a causal effect on our senses
and in so doing produce ideas in the mind.
Everything we know of the world, according to Locke, is learned through our experiences, which we perceive
through our senses. This is called empiricism.
As Locke saw it, each of our five senses gives input, and then something integrates the sense-data into a single
impression. Locke called this common sense.
He believed that all human knowledge is derived from ideas presented to the mind. They are classified as
simple ideas (the immediate products of the senses such as colour or shape or sound) and complex ideas (the
ideas constructed out of simple ideas and the product of internal mental operations such as chair, dog and cat).
Among simple ideas, Locke saw a distinction between qualities that are essential to objects (such as solidity,
extension, shape, motion or rest) and secondary qualities that are effects on our senses and therefore
subjective (such as colour or sound). If a sound is made, the vibrations would be primary quality and the sound
would be secondary.
Metaphysics
Locke’s view is often called “scientific essentialism” which is to say that without a perceiver there is no such
thing as sounds or colours or tastes, but there is such thing as shape, extension and solidity independent of
perception.
Locke defines the self as "that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or
material, simple, or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable
of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends" (An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke)
He also believed that the body is important to the notion of self as well.
Socio-Political Philosophy
Locke ascribed to the social contract theory ascribed by Hobbes, but he believed that the natural state of
human beings is characterized by tolerance and reason.
He believes that humans do have a natural inclination towards selfishness, but this follows from the
introduction of currency, which he saw as important for limiting ones accumulation.
He believed that in his natural state all men were independent, equal and free to defend his right to life, liberty,
health and possessions.
Locke believed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people needed to
establish a civil society in order to resolve conflicts in a way that is civil. Assisting with this is the role of
government in a state of society.
Locke believed that revolution was not only a right, but a necessity in some circumstances.
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David Hume
David Hume, a Scottish Philosopher, is perhaps the best known example of skeptical
philosophy, but he was also to s certain extent an empiricist. David Hume was actually born
David Home, but changed his name because the English had difficulty pronouncing the
Scottish Home.
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Epistemology
Hume insisted that all human knowledge is based on sense impressions and
anything not given in experience is mere invention and must be discarded.
As a result of this, Hume denies the existence of God, the self, logical necessity, causation and induction
itself.
Hume is noted for his “problem of induction” although he never actually used the term himself. He noted
that induction relies on the concept of causation, which is assumed. That is to say for any cause, any
number of effects are conceivable so it is difficult to connect any given cause to any given effect.
Furthermore, Hume notes that the justification for inductive reasoning is in and of itself inductive. This
means that the justification is circular.
Thus sensory perception is our only basis for experience.
Metaphysics
Hume denied the existence of personal identity saying that it is an illusion and is in act nothing more than
a continuous succession of perceptive experiences.
The force that compels one event to follow another (causation) is never experienced and is merely human
expectations imposed on reality and thus there is no reason to believe there is any causal necessity to the
ordering of events. That is not to say that things are not caused, simply that the relationship is not
necessary.
Hume believed that determinism and free will were in fact compatible and were only seen as
incompatible because of flawed terminology. Instead Hume uses the following definitions: Necessity:
"the uniformity, observable in the operations of nature; where similar objects are constantly conjoined
together.." (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume, p 149). Liberty: "a power of
acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will.." (An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding, David Hume, p 159)
Using these definitions, Hume believes that Liberty requires causal necessity.
Ethics
Hume believed that a person cannot be motivated by reason alone but rather that passion must also be a
motivation and therefore reason cannot be behind morality.
Hume believed that emotions and sentiments are the root of morality (sentimentalism).
Hume saw moral distinctions as being derived from the moral sentiments of feelings of approval (esteem,
praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators or ourselves. These often arise out of sympathy.
Aesthetics
Hume stated that, “Though the principles of taste be universal, and nearly, if not entirely the same in all
men; yet few are qualified to give judgement on any work of art or establish their own sentiment as the
standard of beauty.”
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva, the son of a watchmaker. He
became the leading French philosopher of the enlightenment. He fell out of
favour with almost everyone who knew him because of his controversial views
and he died alone in poverty and despair having fled from country to country.
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Socio-Political Philosophy
- Rousseau believed that injustice was the result of intuitions which
suppress the natural will and ability of man.
He espoused the idea of the “noble savage” stating that man, when in his natural state does not
know good or evil, but only his independence.
This “noble savage” because of the peacefulness o his passions and ignorance of vice is
incapable of doing ill.
He famously stated that, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think
themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.” (Discourse on Political
Economy, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, p 1)
He believed that in an ideal society the ruler is the agent of the people and not the master.
He believed greatly in the democratic process, but her combined it with the duty of all those in
society to obey that which is for the greater good of the state, thus allowing what he calls the
general will to override individual rights.
The general will is the will of all of those directed to their own common interests, but more than
simply the sum of each person’s individual wills.
The general will is given power by the members of society, but it has its own will over and above
the will of the individuals.
Rousseau believed that democracy worked best when applied to small city-states much like the
democracies of ancient Greece.
He believed that ideally each city-state is sovereign and can impose legislation upon its
members by the power of the general will
He did not believe there cannot be any disharmony between the interests of the city-state and
the interests of the people.
He acknowledges that there could be times where an individual’s will runs contrary to the
general will and in such cases the individual must comply with the general will.
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George Berkeley
George Berkeley was an Irish philosopher and the Bishop of Cloyne. He
endeavoured to show that using his own propositions, the materialism espoused
by John Locke is ultimately flawed and unworkable.
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Epistemology
- Berkeley used John Locke’s causal theory of perception but noted that
there is a logical gap between perception and reality, which he called the veil of perception.
Berkley noted that if we use Locke’s theory of causal perception, then if we see a vase, this is a
series of causal interactions.
The actual seeing of the vase, according to Berkeley is a construct inside one’s mind (Locke’s
common sense) but given the existence of hallucinations, illusions or dreams, we know that
these constructs can happen without the cause.
If the perception is a construct or idea, then it follows that what we actually see is not
necessarily the cause of the idea, but only the idea itself.
It would be a logical leap of conjecture to suppose that the cause of the idea actually resembles
the ideas itself. i.e. we do not know that what we are perceiving has any relationship to reality.
Since we never perceive any actual objects, merely ideas, it is not logical to assume that there is
any objects of substance outside of ourselves causing our perceptions.
According to Berkeley, there is not valid distinction between primary qualities and secondary
qualities.
If something fails to be an idea in the mind (be perceived), then there is no logical reason to
assume that it exists.
As a result the existence of objects becomes dependant on perception or, “esse est percipi” (To
be is to be perceived).
Metaphysics
- Berkeley follows his concept of perception to its logical conclusion that if an object is not
perceived (including perception of the self), then that object does not exist.
- The natural objection is that things seem to exist in spite of the fact that no one or nothing is
perceiving them, but this fails to account of a universal observer of all things at all times (namely
God)
- Berkeley espoused that an immaterial explanation for the existence of material objects can
avoid skepticism about their existence. That is to say they exist, but they exist as ideas, not
objects (idealism).
- Humans (he refers to them as spirits so this may also include animals, it is unclear) are a special
kind of ideas because they are active perceivers rather than passive objects of perception.
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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a Konigsberg professor and a life-long bachelor. According to popular myth,
he was so regular in his daily routines that the housewives of the neighbourhood would set their
clocks by the time that he passed their windows.
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Epistemology
In Kant’s view the study of epistemology and metaphysics were plagued by the debate
between the rationalists and the empiricists. In response to this, Kant strove to synthesize the
two views.
Kant wondered what the necessary preconditions were for having any experiences at all and decided that
in order for human beings to interpret their world, they must impose certain structures upon incoming
sensory data.
Kant decided there were essentially 12 structures or judgements, namely: substance, cause and effect,
reciprocity, necessity, possibility, unity, plurality, limitation, existence, totality, reality and negation.
He believed that these judgements could only be applied in a special and temporal framework.
He believed that space and time were a form of intuition that the human mind imposed on phenomenal
experience in order to make sense of it.
He believed that the mind imposed principles upon experience in order to generate knowledge.
Kant noted two distinct kinds of logical propositions, namely;
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Analytic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is contained in its subject
concept (i.e. "All bachelors are unmarried,")
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Synthetic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is not contained in its subject
concept ; (i.e. "All bachelors are happy,")
Metaphysics
According to Kant, since the mind imposes certain categories on experience, all humans can ever really
know is systemic knowledge of the phenomena presented to the mind.
This means that the reality behind those phenomena, or the nominal world, is utterly beyond any human
conception.
Ethics
Kant’s ethics are known as “Deontology”. They are also rights-based in that he believed that people have
certain rights, specifically that people are an ends to themselves and thus cannot be treated as a means.
He asserted that there was a universal moral law known as the categorical imperative.
The categorical imperative states that one ought to act by that maxim which you can at the same time will
as a universal law. In other words, an action is morally permissible if and only if the maxim (intent behind
the action) can be universally applied.
Based on this some moral rules cannot be rationally broken, such as breaking a promise (because it if no
one kept a promise, then the act of making a promise ceases to make any sense).
Aesthetics
Kant espoused the idea of “aesthetic experience” means that there is a certain pleasure felt when one
makes a judgement of taste.
He said that this feeling comes from recognizing that the form of an object lends itself to exciting the
imagination or understanding.
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Hegal was a German philosopher and a noted idealist in his metaphysical view of things.
Hegal strove to create a grand metaphysic that would bridge the gap between appearance
and reality.
Epistemology
According to Hegel, the ultimate truth of things is slowly uncovered by the
unfolding evolution and history of ideas.
The absolute truth of things is conceptual, not propositional and we get closer to
this truth according to the dialectic process identified in Hegel’s metaphysics.
Metaphysics
Hegel believed the world progressed repeatedly through three stages, which he called the dialectic
process: Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis.
Thesis is an idea that is dominant in society.
The Antithesis is the opposing idea that creates a conflict of ideas.
Synthesis resolves the conflict between the Thesis and Antithesis by reconciling the truth in both.
By this process, the Synthesis then becomes the new Thesis, which in turn gives rise to a new antithesis.
All of this process moves us closer to understating a universal truth, and in fact a universal mind or spirit.
In order to attain this truth, we must transcend all limitation such as our perceptions of the world or
reality.
According to Hegel, finite things do not determine themselves, because, since they are "finite" things,
their essential character is determined by their boundaries as compared to other finite things. So, in order
to become "real", they must go beyond their finitude and embrace infinity. (transcendence)
Thus finite and infinite are essentially the same thing that is essentially mental or spiritual in nature.
Ethics
According to Hegel, the most important thing to do is to ‘know thyself’, which is not merely selfknowledge, but an understanding of the spirit as the true and essential being.
Hegel also agreed with Kant’s concept of rights-based ethics
Socio-Political Philosophy
Hegel said that in civil society there is a distinction between the macro-community of the state and the
micro-community of the family, and these often worked in opposition to each other.
Hegel believed that inequality was a product of our evolution over time, this leads to a system of mutual
co-dependence.
Hegel noted that the economy, especially through the division of labor, produces fragmentation and
diminishment of human life.
According to Hegel the state must not only address this phenomenon but also provide the means for the
people’s political participation to further the development of social self-consciousness.
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John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was something of a childhood genius, learning Greek at the age of three
and working with his father in writing on politics and the economy in his early teens.
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Ethics
- Mill asserted an ethical view known as utilitarianism that was first espoused by
Jeremy Bentham and his father James Mill.
In utilitarianism, the right action is the action that generates the greatest pleasure for the
greatest number of people. In other words, actions are right if they tend to produce happiness
and wrong if they tend to produce unhappiness.
Unlike Bentham, though, Mill did not believed that all pleasure and pain can be measured
equally. Mill espoused that we must also account for a number of qualitative aspects as well.
For example losing one’s pet is not as bad as losing a relative.
He also stated that some pleasures were of greater value than others famously saying that, “it is
better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a
fool satisfied.” (Utilitarianism, by John Stuart Mill p 240)
Mill distinguished between higher pleasures (like intellectual thought) and lower pleasures (like
eating cake)
He asserted that he is only concerned with morality in such elements of life that require
sanctions to deter certain kinds of conduct. In other words, we do not need to be good at all
times in all ways, only where it matters to others or society as a whole.
The harm principle prevents people from doing serious and lasting harm to themselves because
no one exists in isolation and by doing so, you are harming your friends and family.
He also notes that it does not count as harm if the person being harmed consents and accepts
the risk.
Socio-Political Philosophy
- Mill believed that the state may only interfere with a human’s freedom if it is applying the harm
principal and preventing that person from doing harm.
- He noted that if an action is self-regarding (it only directly affects the person undertaking the
action) then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the person is harming themselves.
- Mill defined social liberty as protection from the tyranny of political rulers. This means putting
limits on the ruler’s power and holding said ruler accountable to the people.
- This is achieved through obtaining recognition of certain immunities for individuals (rights) and
through having a constitution which includes checks to limit power.
- Mill was a great advocate of freedom of speech as well as advocate for women’s rights and he
spoke out against slavery.