Overview

John Stuart Mill expressed many of the central tenets of liberalism with unsurpassed clarity and enduring influence. Yet Mill's apparent victory in the marketplace of ideas has numbed us to the power of his arguments. To many readers today, his views can seem utterly familiar, even banal. Sharing insights from teaching Mill for many years, the eminent philosopher Philip Kitcher makes a cogent case for why we should read this nineteenth-century thinker now. He portrays Mill as a conflicted humanist who wrestled with problems that are equally urgent in our own time. Kitcher reflects on Mill's ideas in the context of contemporary ethical, social, and political issues such as COVID mandates, gun control, income inequality, gay rights, and climate change. More broadly, he shows, Mill's writings help us cultivate our own capacities for critical thought and ethical decision making. Inviting readers into a conversation with Mill, this book shows that he supplies tools for thinking that are as valuable today as they were in the nineteenth century.

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9780231204156

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Kitcher eloquently presents a flexible, pragmatic Mill, a Mill whose main concerns are each person's self-cultivation, both intellectual and emotional, and the bonds of public deliberation that link people to one another. Using down-to-earth examples, he then shows how this Mill can confront many of the key problems of our era. A deeply impressive achievement and a marvelous addition to the Core Knowledge series. -- Martha C. Nussbaum, University of Chicago In this provocative book, Philip Kitcher challenges the conventional views of Mill as a straightforward utilitarian or libertarian. His Mill is a conflicted humanist and progressive. He thereby exposes the tensions in Mill's thought and turns him from someone whose lessons we have already learned into someone who speaks to our current problems. -- Elizabeth Anderson, author of <i>Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It)</i> Written in a topical and lively style, this book relates Mill to the present through four central questions in ethical and political theory. Kitcher's account gives Mill's thought a new sense of urgency and relevance to today's issues. -- Dean Moyar, author of <i>Hegel's Value: Justice as the Living Good</i> Kitcher is one of the most interesting philosophers writing today. This remarkable book shows why. In lucid, jargon-free prose, it makes the case for reading Mill as a progressive, a humanist, and a philosophical pragmatist. It promises to delight philosophers and non-philosophers alike -- Charles Barzun, University of Virginia

In this provocative book, Philip Kitcher challenges the conventional views of Mill as a straightforward utilitarian or libertarian. His Mill is a conflicted humanist and progressive. He thereby exposes the tensions in Mill's thought, and turns him from someone whose lessons we have already learned into someone who speaks to our current problems. -- Elizabeth Anderson, author, <i>Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It)</i> Written in a topical and lively style, this book relates Mill to the present through four central questions in ethical and political theory. Kitcher's account gives Mill's thought a new sense of urgency and relevance to today's issues. -- Dean Moyar, author, <i>Hegel's Value: Justice as the Living Good</i>

Author Information

Philip Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University. He is the author of numerous books and the recipient of awards including the Rescher Medal for systematic philosophy and the Hempel Award for lifetime achievement in the philosophy of science.

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