James Mill (1773–1836) was a British Utilitarian philosopher, historian, and economist. He is known as the father of the philosopher John Stuart Mill, and for his long and fruitful association with the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Together the three developed and popularized the doctrine of utilitarianism. James Mill indirectly influenced the development of one of the main streams of 19th-century philosophy.
Born James Milne in the parish of Logie Pert, Angus, Scotland, Mill was the son of a shoemaker. After getting his education in Greek and philosophy from the Edinburgh University during the Scottish Enlightenment, Mill became an itinerant Presbyterian preacher but lost faith soon. He came to London in 1802 to work as a freelance journalist with The Edinburgh Review and St James’s Chronicle. He later found permanent employment with the East India Company, rising to become head of the Examiner’s Office in 1830, and writing the ambitious History of British India (10 vol., 1806–17.)
Mill fell under the influence of Bentham, and they developed the doctrine of utilitarianism by substituting stringent puritanical morality for Bentham’s conception of hedonism. Mill became a prominent member of the circle of ‘Philosophical Radicals,’ which later included John Stuart Mill.
As a utilitarian, Mill believed in pursuing “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.” Fundamental to his philosophy was the postulation that human beings are motivated by self-interest alone and that they will always pursue pleasure and evade pain. The utilitarian philosophers strived to educate people to understand what was indeed in their self-interest and choose behaviors that will result in the greatest happiness for the whole society.
Mill contributed ideas on education, political economy, psychology, penology, law, history, and political theory, which he detailed in 5 books and over 1,000 essays. His best-known political work, The Essay on Government (1820,) argued for representative democracy in opposition to monarchy and aristocracy and declared that the purpose of all government was to achieve the happiness of the whole community.
Mill also produced An Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829,) an expansion of the associationist psychology of David Hume and David Hartley. Considered Mill’s foremost philosophical work, it provided a psychological basis for utilitarianism.
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No good government can ever want more than two things for its support: 1st, Its own excellence; and, 2dly, a people sufficiently instructed, to be aware of that excellence. Every other pretended support, must ultimately tend to its subversion, by lessening its dependence upon these.
—James Mill
In the employment of labour and machinery, it is often found that the effects can be increased by skilful distribution, by separating all those operations which have any tendency to impede one another, and by bringing together all those operations which can be made in any way to aid one another.
—James Mill
This habit of forming opinions, and acting upon them without evidence, is one of the most immoral habits of the mind. … As our opinions are the fathers of our actions, to be indifferent about the evidence of our opinions is to be indifferent about the consequences of our actions. But the consequences of our actions are the good and evil of our fellow-creatures. The habit of the neglect of evidence, therefore, is the habit of disregarding the good and evil of our fellow-creatures.
—James Mill
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