What John Stuart Mill Actually Said About Action
All 5 John Stuart Mill passages on action, in full — what each one claims, what holds them together, and who argues the other way.
John Stuart Mill returns to action five times in thinkr's library — more often than to almost anything else. English philosopher and economist. His On Liberty defends individual sovereignty; Utilitarianism develops the greatest-happiness principle.
What follows is every one of those passages, in full, with what each is actually claiming. The language is of its period, but the question underneath is not: what is action for, and what does it ask of you?
Every John Stuart Mill passage on action
“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction.”
“It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.”
“France has done more for even English history than England has.”
“The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end.”
“Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.”
What holds these together
Read in sequence rather than one at a time, the passages stop being separate aphorisms. John Stuart Mill is not offering five opinions about action; the lines are facets of one position, and the repetition is the argument. The shortest of them — “France has done more for even English history than England has” — is the version you can carry, and the longer ones are what it unpacks into.
John Stuart Mill applied to a real decision
Quotation is the easy part. The harder test is what the position actually does when it meets a situation where every option costs something. thinkr puts two such cases to John Stuart Mill.
You can choose the easier year or the harder, better one.
Argued as utilitarian accounting: You are widening the frame beyond self-image. The danger is flattening a human life into a tidy calculation.
A convenient tool wants more of your attention and data.
Argued as pragmatic utility: You are judging the tool by what it lets you do. The risk is ignoring the habits and dependencies it quietly trains.
Work through these yourself
- You can choose the easier year or the harder, better one. — argued from utilitarian accounting and several competing positions
- A convenient tool wants more of your attention and data. — argued from pragmatic utility and several competing positions
Who disagrees
Plato, Seneca, Mahatma Gandhi and Lao Tzu all address action too, and they do not converge. Reading John Stuart Mill alone gives you a coherent position; reading John Stuart Mill against Plato shows you what the position is actually choosing against.