His Doctrine as a Whole

siderations, such as the historical and social conditions of the modern world and its tendencies for change, those principles identify the four permanent interests of human beings.

This leaves us with the problem of explaining how Mill’s frequent references to perfectionist values are to be understood. This question I leave to the end, when his whole view is before us.

§3. The First Two Permanent Interests of Humankind

1. So we now ask: how are we to understand the sense in which these interests are permanent? In what way are they tied to the idea that a human being is a progressive being? Mill does not discuss these questions so we must figure them out.

I assume that the idea of humankind as a progressive being implies the possibility of a more or less continual improvement in human civilization, arriving finally at the normal and natural state of society as one of full equality described in Utilitarianism, III: ¶¶10–11. In this state, society fully answers to Mill’s principles of equal basic justice and liberty. So for Mill progress is an advance over time to, or in the direction of, the practically best, though normal and natural, state of society.

Now, for progress to be possible, certain necessary conditions must obtain. So following Utilitarianism, Chapter V, let’s say that one of the permanent interests is the interest in being guaranteed the basic moral rights of equal justice. This means that the interest we have in society, through its laws and institutions, and its common moral opinion, is an interest in its securing for us “the essentials of our well-being” and “making safe for us the very groundwork of our existence” (V: ¶32, ¶25).

Next consider the permanent interests that arise from the idea of man as a progressive being. There seem to be two conditions any such interest must meet:

(i)An interest in the social conditions that are necessary for the continual progress or advance of civilization until the practically best state of society (morally speaking) is reached.

(ii)An interest in social conditions that themselves are conditions of the best state itself and required for its operation. These conditions are necessary if it is to remain the best state.

The permanent interests are, then, permanent in two ways. They are

[ 301 ]

Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College

m i l l

permanent as interests in the necessary conditions of continual progress to the best and also natural state of society; they are also permanent as interests in the conditions required to remain in that best state, once it is reached. Implicit in Mill’s idea of the best state of society is the idea that such a society best realizes our nature as social beings. It most fully calls forth and exercises our higher faculties and satisfies our most important wants and aspirations, all this in ways consistent with the basic rights of equal justice and the legitimate interests of others. On this last, see On Liberty, III: ¶9.

To sum up: the first permanent interest is that in the basic rights of equal justice: it is an interest in conditions necessary for continual progress to the best state of society as a state of equality, as well as necessary to remain that state once reached.

2. From On Liberty, II we can, I think, identify a second permanent interest. Recall that this chapter discusses the liberties protecting the inward domain of consciousness, as Mill calls it. These liberties are liberty of conscience, freedom of thought and feeling, and absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical and speculative, scientific, moral, and theological.

Mill is concerned here with belief and discussion concerning general doctrines in religion and philosophy, morals and science, and all general political and social questions and matters of policy. He is not talking about speech as incitement likely to disrupt the peace or to arouse a crowd to violence; or about speech revealing troop movements in time of war, and many other such cases. He mentions this kind of case in On Liberty, III: ¶1, and grants that such speech can be restricted (footnote to II: ¶1).

Thus the second permanent interest is one in the social conditions relating to law, institutions, and the public attitudes that guarantee freedom of thought and liberty of conscience. Mill’s argument in On Liberty, II is that these conditions are necessary for the discovery of truth on all subjects. Moreover, he also supposes that we have a permanent interest in knowing the truth. He doesn’t entertain the dark thought that one finds in Russian novelists such as Dostoyevsky: witness Ivan’s tale of the Grand Inquisitor in the Brothers Karamazov, that knowing the truth would be horrible, making us disconsolate and ready to support a dictatorial regime to preserve our comforting and necessary illusions. St. Augustine and Dostoyevsky are the two dark minds in Western thought, and the former has shaped it profoundly.

[ 302 ]

Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College

His Doctrine as a Whole

3. Mill’s much-criticized argument from infallibility in II: ¶¶3–11 makes these points, and it can be set out roughly as follows: When society, through its laws and institutions, forbids the discussion of certain general doctrines, it implicitly assumes that the truth about those matters is already known with certainty. Put another way: it supposes that there is no possibility that accepted doctrines are not true and fully correct, that is, infallible. Why does Mill say this?

I surmise his argument rests on these premises:

(a)Knowing the truth about general doctrines is always beneficial: it is a great good, at least when the general doctrines are significant.

(b)Free discussion of these doctrines is a necessary condition for the correction of errors.

(c)Free discussion is also a necessary condition for our having any rational assurance that the general doctrines we believe are correct. Beyond this,

(d)Free discussion is a necessary condition for a full and proper understanding and appreciation of our own beliefs, and in that way making them our own. See On Liberty, III: ¶¶2–8.

(e)Existing society is in a state that allows it to learn from and to advance by free discussion of general doctrines.

With all these assumptions, Mill holds that for society to silence general discussion is irrational, unless it views itself as infallible: that is, unless society sees itself as already possessing the truth and supposes there is no possibility that it is mistaken. His argument assumes this conclusion to be a reductio: all reject it. For if society thinks it may not already possess the truth, or that there is indeed some real possibility that it is mistaken, or may fail to appreciate some aspect of the truth, then it jeopardizes without reason one of the permanent interests of human beings as progressive. This is our interest in knowing the truth and also in maintaining the necessary conditions of discovering and appreciating it on all significant matters.

§4. Two Other Permanent Interests

1. We now take up two further permanent interests. The first of these we can connect with the liberties Mill discusses in On Liberty, Chapter III, which are:

Liberty of tastes and pursuits; and the liberty of framing our mode of

[ 303 ]

Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College

m i l l

life to suit our character without restraint, so long as we do not injure the legitimate interests of others protected by the equal rights of justice and the precepts of right and wrong. In those ways we are at liberty even though others may find our mode of life foolish and imprudent, in no way admirable and even contemptible. Along with these liberties goes that of freedom of association to make them effective.

Let’s call the interest in a firm guarantee of these liberties the permanent interest in the conditions of individuality, understanding that this includes individuality in association with other like-minded people. Now in III: ¶¶10–19 Mill argues that these liberties are an essential condition for the progress of civilization. In III: ¶17 he says that “the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty itself.” So this permanent interest, along with the permanent interest in freedom of thought and liberty of conscience, is an interest we have as progressive beings.

Of course these liberties are essential not only now, but also in the best state of society once reached. They are fundamental for Mill in a less obvious way, which can be put thus: only where these liberties are fully respected can the decided preference criterion be properly applied. The significance of this is hard to exaggerate: it amounts to saying that only under conditions of free institutions can people acquire sufficient self-understand- ing to know, or make reasonable decisions about, what mode of life offers them the best chance of happiness (in Mill’s sense). I shall come back to this basic point in a moment.

2. Finally, we come to a fourth and last permanent interest. This permanent interest I connect with Mill’s belief (stated in Utilitarianism, III: ¶¶8– 11) that the normal state of society, the state fully adapted to our deepest nature, is a society in which the equal rights of justice and liberty (surveyed above) are firmly guaranteed.

In this normal (and natural) state of society it is impossible to associate with others except on the condition that the interests of all are to be considered equally. This state in turn gives rise to the desire, which Mill views as natural to us, to live in unity with others. This offhand unclear phrase he explains as meaning the desire not to benefit from any social condition unless others are also included in its benefits. We have a principle of reciprocity. Utilitarianism, III: ¶10: “In an improving state of the human mind, the influences are constantly on the increase, which tend to generate in each individual a feeling of unity with all the rest; which feeling, if perfect, would

[ 304 ]

Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College