Consequence in John Street Mill's Theory of a Public
Date of Award
2011
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Social Sciences
First Advisor
Mink, Joseph
Keywords
Liberty, Harm Principle, Consequence, Civilty
Area of Concentration
Political Science
Abstract
John Stuart Mill's On Liberty and his notable contributions to liberal thought: the tyranny of the majority and the harm principle, have often been over simplified as notions of leaving individuals to themselves. This thesis argues that Mill's work has a much more nuanced argument about the relationship between the individual and the public. I do so first by demonstrating the limits to individual freedoms as more than just liberty up until the point where one causes harm to another. Second, I show how Mill's confrontational civility, his argument of intellectual diversity and debate in a public sphere is about interaction, not isolation. In both of these ideas we find individual and social goods to the exercise of liberty. From this redemption of Mill, I show how John Dewey has taken up Mill's project of constructing the proper relationship between the individual and the public. I argue that Dewey and Mill share the same fear of a lack of interaction and communication, and that for both, harm decides the shape of a public. Where Dewey breaks from Mill is in his use of harm as a formative principle, consequence for Dewey actually shapes publics, instead of as a responsive principle as it is for Mill. Both Mill and Dewey rely on communication for their liberal publics to organize. The last chapter of this thesis demonstrates how this public discourse could be un-consequential. I introduce a structuralist argument through Thorstein Veblen and Pierre Bourdieu and argue that through distinction, and the naturalization of tastes, individuals will come to see their real differences as perceived differences. That consequential interaction will not occur, the debate over the proper organization or the good of society will not take place because we retreat into our own habitus.
Recommended Citation
Granaghan, Gregory, "Consequence in John Street Mill's Theory of a Public" (2011). Theses & ETDs. 4510.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/4510
Rights
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