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Freedom and Virtue in Politics: Some Aspects of Character, Circumstances and Utility from Helvétius to J. S. Mill*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

G. W. Smith
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Extract

Writing in the foreword to Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind and speaking of his upbringing in Chicago between the wars Saul Bellow attests that

…as a Midwesterner, the son of immigrant parents, I recognized at an early stage that I was called upon to decide for myself to what extent my Jewish origins, my surroundings [‘the accidental circumstances of Chicago’], my schooling, were to be allowed to determine the course of my life. I did not intend to be wholly dependent upon history and culture. Full dependency must mean that I was done for. The commonest teaching of the civilized world in our time can be stated simply: ‘Tell me where you come from and I'll tell you what you are’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , May 1989 , pp. 112 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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Footnotes

*

Versions of this paper were first presented at the Oxford Political Theory Conference (1988) and the Morrell Conference on Toleration, University of York (1988). I would like to thank the participants in both for their helpful and generous criticism.

References

1 Bloom, A., The Closing of the American Mind, New York, 1987, p. 13.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 13.

3 Ibid., p. 14.

4 Tanner, T., Saul Bellow, London, 1965, ch. 1.Google Scholar

5 Helvétius, C. A., De l'Homme (1772), 4 vols., Hildesheim, 1969 (Oeuvres Complètes, vols. vii–x), vii. 51–5Google Scholar; and Treatise on Man, trans. Hooper, W., 2 vols., London, 1810, i. 27–30.Google Scholar (Vaucanson was an ingenious artificer, celebrated for his model of a digesting rabbit.)

6 De l'Homme (CW), vii. 64Google Scholar (Treatise on Man, i. 35–6).Google Scholar

7 Cf., my ‘The Logic of J. S. Mill on Liberty’, Political Studies, xxviii (1980), 232–52Google Scholar; and ‘J. S. Mill on Freedom’, Conceptions of Liberty in Political Philosophy, eds. Pelczynski, Z. and Gray, J. N., London, 1984, pp. 182–216.Google Scholar

8 Helvétius, C. A., De l'Esprit (1758)Google Scholar (Oeuvres Complètes, vols. i–viGoogle Scholar). Helvétius had immense difficulties with the French censor.

9 For a convenient presentation of the relevant extracts see Helvétius, , De l'Esprit, ed. Besse, G., Paris, 1959.Google Scholar

10 The essay appeared in 1820 and is reprinted in Utilitarian Logic and Politics, eds. Lively, J. and Rees, J., Oxford, 1978, pp. 55–95.Google Scholar

11 C. B. Macaulay's attack appeared in 1829. See Lively, and Rees, , pp. 99–129.Google Scholar

12 Autobiography, eds. Robson, J. M. and Stillinger, J., Toronto, 1981Google Scholar (Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. i), i. 165–71.Google Scholar

13 Some aspects of this issue are touched upon in my ‘J. S. Mill on Edgar and Rèville: an Episode in the Development of Mill's Conception of Freedom’, Journal of the History of Ideas, xli (1980), 433–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 De l'Homme (CW), vii. 230Google Scholar (Treatise on Man, i. 288).Google Scholar

15 Ibid., vii. 231 (ibid., i. 289).

16 Ibid., vii. 232 (ibid., i. 290).

17 Ibid., vii. 232–3 (ibid., i. 290).

18 Ibid., vii. 232–3 (ibid., i. 290).

19 Marx, K., Theses on FeuerbachGoogle Scholar, in Marx, K. and Engels, F., Selected Works in One Volume, London, 1968, p. 28.Google Scholar

20 De l'Homme (CW), vii. 270–80Google Scholar (Treatise on Man, i. 312–17).Google Scholar

21 On Education, ed. Burston, W. H., Cambridge, 1969.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., p. 100.

23 Ibid., pp. 62–5.

24 Ibid., p. 118.

25 Ibid., p. 118.

28 Ibid., p. 119.

27 Lively, and Rees, , p. 58.Google Scholar

28 Burston, , p. 101.Google Scholar

29 Lively, and Rees, , p. 118.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., pp. 123–24.

31 Ibid., p. 94.

32 Autobiography (CW), i. 141.Google Scholar

33 Essays on Ethics, Religion and Society, ed. Robson, J. M., Toronto, 1969Google Scholar (Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. x), ‘Bentham’ and ‘Coleridge’, x. 75–164.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., x. 95.

35 Autobiography (CW), i. 141.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., i. 145–47.

37 Mill's inductivism leads him to be characteristically cautious here. It is not that we know that human nature is socially plastic; rather, we cannot (as the Helvétian project does) simply assume that egoistic hedonism is an invariable and pre-social fact about human motivation. Whereas Mill's determinism is genuinely social, the Helvétian variety is merely political.

38 Autobiography (CW), i. 141–49.Google Scholar

39 C. B. Macpherson's claim, that Mill adds to the traditional liberal conception of as a maximizer of utilities the notion of the maximization of powers in order to modify ‘the crass materialism of the market society’, is thus at best only a partial understanding of Mill's theoretical position. See Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval, Oxford, p. 6.Google Scholar

40 Though bold in conception, Mill remains vexingly indecisive in execution. See my ‘Mill on Edgar and Reville’, passim.

41 Ed. Robson, John M., 2 vols., Toronto, 1974 (CW, vols. vii and viii), viii. 836–43.Google Scholar

42 System of Logic (CW), viii. 839–40.Google Scholar And see my ‘The Logic of J. S. Mill on Liberty’, passim.

43 Ibid., viii. 841. Italics original.

44 Ibid., viii. 841.

45 Mill intends ‘feeling free' as knowing one is free’ and, by his inductivist principles, one cannot know one has power unless one has successfully exercised it. See my ‘The Logic of J. S. Mill on Liberty’, 246–47.Google Scholar

46 Autobiography (CW), i. 49.Google Scholar

47 System of Logic (CW), viii. 841.Google Scholar

48 An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, ed. Robson, J. M., Toronto, 1979 (CW, vol. ix), ix. 458.Google Scholar

49 ‘The Logic of J. S. Mill on Liberty’, passim.

50 System of Logic (CW), viii. 840.Google Scholar

51 Essays on Politics and Society, ed. Robson, J. M., Toronto, 1977 (CW, vol. xix), xix. 406–7.Google Scholar

52 Ibid., 410, 412.

53 Principles of Political Economy, ed. Robson, John M., Toronto, 1965 (CW, vols. ii–iii), ii. 280.Google Scholar

54 It was written largely as a pièce d'occasion, in the conviction that the balance between individuality and social and political conformity needed to be rectified in Britain in the 1850s in favour of the former; and, unlike any other of Mill's major works, was never revised, out of piety to his wife, whom he acknowledges as the moving spirit behind the essay—yet another complicating factor. But, pace Himmelfarb, Gertrude (On Liberty and Liberalism, New York, 1974)Google Scholar, the principles of On Liberty are by no means obviously anomalous with the rest of Mill's social theory.

55 It would be useful, perhaps, to consider The Subjection of Women in this context. Is the argument not predicated heavily upon a view of freedom as the ideal achievement of both socially responsible and individually liberating character/personality selfcommand?