Zitate von John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
Geburtstag: 20. Mai 1806
Todesdatum: 8. Mai 1873
Andere Namen: J.S Mill, John S. Mill
John Stuart Mill war ein britischer Philosoph und Ökonom und einer der einflussreichsten liberalen Denker des 19. Jahrhunderts, der seine intellektuelle Schärfe und Unabhängigkeit nicht zuletzt durch sein außergewöhnlich frühes Eintreten für die Frauenemanzipation bewies. Mill war Anhänger des Utilitarismus, der von Jeremy Bentham, dem Lehrer und Freund seines Vaters James Mill, entwickelt wurde. Seine wirtschaftlichen Werke zählen zu den Grundlagen der klassischen Nationalökonomie, und Mill selbst gilt als Vollender des klassischen Systems und zugleich als sozialer Reformer.
Der von ihm als Gegenentwurf zu Thomas Morus’ Utopia geprägte Begriff Dystopia bezeichnet einen pessimistischen Zukunftsentwurf in Philosophie und Literatur.
Werk
Zitate John Stuart Mill
„Es ist zu bezweifeln, ob alle bisherigen technischen Erfindungen die Tageslast auch nur eines menschlichen Wesens erleichtert hat.“
Grundsätze der politischen Oekonomie
„Wenn dasselbe zufällige Zusammentreffen sich nie zum zweitenmale ereignen würde, so hätten wir damit eine leichte Probe, um es von einem jeden Zusammentreffen, das ein Resultat von Gesetzen ist, zu unterscheiden.“
System der deduktiven und induktiven Logik, Siebenzehntes Capitel. Vom Zufall und seiner Elimination, zeno.org http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009227016
"If the same casual coincidence never occurred a second time, we should have an easy test for distinguishing such from the coincidences which are results of a law." - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume VII - A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation (Books I-III), ed. John M. Robson, Introduction by R.F. McRae (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974). 18.2.2017. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/246#lf0223-07_footnote_nt_2719_ref
„Es ist besser, ein unzufriedener Mensch zu sein als ein zufriedenes Schwein; besser ein unzufriedener Sokrates als ein zufriedener Narr. Und wenn der Narr oder das Schwein anderer Ansicht sind, dann deshalb, weil sie nur die eine Seite der Angelegenheit kennen. Die andere Partei hingegen kennt beide Seiten.“
Utilitarismus
(Original engl.: "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.) - Utilitarianism, 1863, Chapter 2. gutenberg.org http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11224
„Ich wollte nicht sagen, dass Konservative generell dumm sind. Ich wollte sagen, dass dumme Menschen im Allgemeinen konservativ sind. Ich halte das für eine so offensichtliche und unleugbare Tatsache, dass ich kaum glaube, daß ein ehrenwerter Mann sie in Frage stellen wird.“
In einer Parlamentsdebatte mit dem dem Konservativen John Pakington MP vom 31. Mai 1866
Hansard, vol 183 http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1866/may/31/committee-adjourned-debate#S3V0183P0_18660531_HOC_32, col 1592
Original engl.: I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it.
„Universitäten sind nicht da, um ein Wissen zu lehren, welches erforderlich ist, um zu einer bestimmten Art des Broderwerbs zu befähigen. Ihre Aufgabe ist es nicht, geschickte Rechtsgelehrte oder Aerzte oder Ingenieure zu bilden, sondern tüchtige und veredelte menschliche Wesen.“
Rektoratsrede an der Universität St. Andrews 1867. Deutsch von :w:Adolf Wahrmund. In: Gesammelte Werke Erster Band. Leipzig 1869. S. 206 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=OShCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA206
Original engl: "Universities are not intended to teach the knowledge required to fit men for some special mode of gaining their livelihood. Their object is not to make skilful lawyers, or physicians, or engineers, but capable and cultivated human beings." - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Inaugural_address_delivered_to_the_University_of_St._Andrews,_Feb._1st_1867
„A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.“
"The Contest in America," Fraser’s Magazine (February 1862); later published in Dissertations and Discussions (1868), vol.1 p. 26
Kontext: War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
„I thought the predominance of the aristocratic classes, the noble and the rich, in the English Constitution, an evil worth any struggle to get rid of; not on account of taxes, or any such comparatively small inconvenience, but as the great demoralizing agency in the country.“
— John Stuart Mill, buch Autobiography
Autobiography (1873)
Kontext: I thought the predominance of the aristocratic classes, the noble and the rich, in the English Constitution, an evil worth any struggle to get rid of; not on account of taxes, or any such comparatively small inconvenience, but as the great demoralizing agency in the country. Demoralizing, first, because it made the conduct of the government an example of gross public immorality, through the predominance of private over public interests in the State, and the abuse of the powers of legislation for the advantage of classes. Secondly, and in a still greater degree, because the respect of the multitude always attaching itself principally to that which, in the existing state of society, is the chief passport to power; and under English institutions, riches, hereditary or acquired, being the almost exclusive source of political importance; riches, and the signs of riches, were almost the only things really respected, and the life of the people was mainly devoted to the pursuit of them. I thought, that while the higher and richer classes held the power of government, the instruction and improvement of the mass of the people were contrary to the self-interest of those classes, because tending to render the people more powerful for throwing off the yoke: but if the democracy obtained a large, and perhaps the principal, share in the governing power, it would become the interest of the opulent classes to promote their education, in order to ward off really mischievous errors, and especially those which would lead to unjust violations of property. On these grounds I was not only as ardent as ever for democratic institutions, but earnestly hoped that Owenite, St. Simonian, and all other anti-property doctrines might spread widely among the poorer classes; not that I thought those doctrines true, or desired that they should be acted on, but in order that the higher classes might be made to see that they had more to fear from the poor when uneducated, than when educated.
„Stupidity is much the same all the world over.“
— John Stuart Mill, Die Hörigkeit der Frau
Quelle: The Subjection of Women (1869), Ch. 1
Kontext: Stupidity is much the same all the world over. A stupid person's notions and feelings may confidently be inferred from those which prevail in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not so with those whose opinions and feelings are an emanation from their own nature and faculties.
„Moreover, if the character is formed, and the mind made up, on the few cardinal points of human opinion, agreement of conviction and feeling on these, has been felt in all times to be an essential requisite of anything worthy the name of friendship, in a really earnest mind.“
— John Stuart Mill, buch Autobiography
Autobiography (1873)
Kontext: Moreover, if the character is formed, and the mind made up, on the few cardinal points of human opinion, agreement of conviction and feeling on these, has been felt in all times to be an essential requisite of anything worthy the name of friendship, in a really earnest mind. All these circumstances united, made the number very small of those whose society, and still more whose intimacy, I now voluntarily sought.
„He was fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them“
— John Stuart Mill, buch Autobiography
Autobiography (1873)
Kontext: In these frequent talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality, mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to restate to him in my own words. He also made me read, and give him a verbal account of, many books which would not have interested me sufficiently to induce me to read them of myself: among others, Millar's Historical View of the English Government, a book of great merit for its time, and which he highly valued; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, McCrie's Life of John Knox, and even Sewel's and Rutty's Histories of the Quakers. He was fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them: of such works I remember Beaver's African Memoranda, and Collins's account of the first settlement of New South Wales.
