Mill, Moral Suasion, and Coercion

Abstract

John Stuart Mill left an extraordinarily rich, if ambiguous and much contested, legacy to later modern moral and political philosophy.¹ This inheritance is usually understood as offering a vigorous defence of negative liberty. But it is often recognized that Mill was also committed strongly to promoting social and political virtue.² This promotion can be construed in turn as a defence of a particularly robust ideal of active citizenship, where the exercise of both social and political duties is guided by stringent ethical standards that are distinctive from the idea of ethical citizenship defended by British Idealists that the other contributors to this book examine. In political life, the pole-star was of course to be utility, or the common good, not individual or class interest. Mill did not regard the franchise as a right, and late in life turned against the secret ballot as inimical to the exercise of political virtue.³ In society, Mill famously promoted a principle of liberty by which actions that were self-regarding and did not ‘harm’ others were broadly to be tolerated. The question of just how coherent this concept was has generated one of the most substantial — and in terms of its practical applications, important — debates in modern liberalism.⁴ What is clear, at least, at the outset, is that Mill regarded the problem of moral regulation within society of paramount importance. Carlyle and the Saint-Simonians helped him to appreciate the role of ‘spiritual’ elites, the clerisy, and ‘heroic’ figures in forming opinion.