ABSTRACT
John Stuart Mill's godfather was the founder of British utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, of whom his father, the political economist and historian of India, James Mill, was a close friend and virtual disciple. Most of Mill's professional life was spent in the London office of the East India Company. The general tenor of Mill's thinking was that of robust empiricism. Mill's empiricism was as decisive for his moral philosophy as for his logic and theory of knowledge. The principle of utility provided Mill with the main stated reason for his famous 'principle of liberty': 'the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. Mill's most important and radical proposal was for compulsory universal education. Mill's wider philosophical reflections on education flow, predictably, from his empiricism. John Stuart Mill remains one of the most widely read and frequently invoked of English philosophers.
