Mill ohn Stewart Mill was raised as part of an educational experiment to see how much intelligence could be imparted to a child completely shut off from outside influences. As a result of a strict, and lonely, upbringing, young Mill was reading Greek at three years old and studying the classics, arithmetic and history before seven. He was also inundated with the philosophy of utilitarianism, which he eventually came to view as too objective and cold to be used successfully on human beings. Not surprisingly, by the age of 19, Mill was suffering from massive depression. Fortunately, he discovered poetry and later largely credited the works of William Wordsworth with having cured him of his illness.
Good consequences give pleasure while bad consequences result in pain.
In 1859, John Stewart Mill wrote On Liberty . In it, he laid out the ethical foundation of democratic individualism. At the same time, Mill considered the circumstances under which individual liberty might be justifiably restricted. Under what has come to be known as the harm principle, Mill stated that a person's liberty may justifiably be restricted only in order to prevent harm that the person's actions would cause to others. Acts of whatever kind, which, without justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavorable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind.