John Stuart Mill’s Political Thought: On Prevention against Tyranny of the Majority

Authors

  • Saksit Karlers School of Political Science, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University
  • Pisan Mukdaratsami School of Political Science, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University
  • Wararak Chalermpuntusak School of Political Science, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61462/cujss.v52i1.675

Keywords:

John Stuart Mill, tyranny of the majority, liberty, democracy

Abstract

This paper aims to provide an understanding of John Stuart Mill’s Political Thought: On the Preventive Approach against Tyranny of The Majority. This research applied a political philosophy method, namely, a textual analysis. The findings are that Mill’s tyranny of the majority is a situation in which the majority oppresses or violates liberty of the minority, in two ways: (1) Tyranny of the majority that operates through laws (2) Social tyranny, tyranny of the majority that operates through prevailing opinions and feelings. Mill regarded with trepidation, tyranny of the majority as one of the evils in a democratic society. So to prevent tyranny of the majority, Mill argued that individuals, societies and states have to share and uphold in practice following principles. They are: principles of (1) utility (2) individual liberty (3) toleration (4) harm to others (5) participation (6) representative government and (7) decentralization and local government.

Downloads

References

Amnesty International. 2017. “Amnesty International Report 2016/17: The State of the World’s Human Rights.” London: Amnesty International Ltd. Accessed December 1, 2020. https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/POL1048002017ENGLISH.pdf.

Bartels, Paul S., and Gregory E. Hamot. 2016. “Majority Tyranny.” In American Governance, Volume3, edited by Stephen Schechter, Thomas S. Vontz, Thomas A. Birkland, Mark A. Graber and John J. Patrick, 235-237. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA. Accessed January 17, 2020. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3629100406/GVRL?u =threru&sid=GVRL&xid=47268622.

Batten, Donna. 2010. “Utilitarianism.” In Gale Encyclopedia of American Law, Volume 10, edited by Donna Batten, 200-201. Detroit, MI: Gale. Accessed March 16, 2020. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX1337704503/GVRL?u=thstou&sid=GVRL&xid=1e1a4 6fa.

Bentham, Jeremy. 2000. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Kitchener: Batoche Books.

Bobbio, Norberto. 2005. Liberalism and Democracy. Translated by Martin Ryle, and Kate Soper. London: Verso.

Capaldi, Nicholas. 2006. “Mill, John Stuart.” In Europe 1789-1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire, Volume 3, edited by John Merriman and Jay Winter, 1512-1515. Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner's Sons. Accessed February 2, 2020. https://link.gale.com/ apps/doc/CX3446900544/GVRL?u=threru&sid=GVRL&xid=d53870eb.

Cowling, Maurice. 1963. Mill and Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Darity, William A., Jr. 2008. “Tyranny of the Majority.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Volume 8, edited by William A. Darity, Jr., 478-479. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA. Accessed January 10, 2020. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/ CX3045302828/GVRL?u=threru&sid=GVRL&xid=566f03d8.

Demetriou, Kyriakos N., and Antis Loizeides. 2013. John Stuart Mill: A British Socrates. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ellery, John B. 1964. John Stuart Mill. New York: Twayne.

Frey, Raymond G. 2005. “Utilitarianism.” In New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Volume 6, edited by Maryanne Cline Horowitz, 2401-2403. Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner's Sons. Accessed March 9, 2020. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3424300798/GVRL?u=thsto u&sid=GVRL&xid=8f1f1fd5.

Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: The Free Press.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1976. Philosophical Hermeneutics. Translated and edited by David E. Linge. Berkeley: University of California Press.

-----. 1988. Truth and Method. Translated and edited by Joel Weinsheimer, and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Continuum.

Jones, H. S. 2008. “Philosophic Radicals.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accessed April 14, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1093/ ref:odnb/95503.

Mill, John Stuart. 1977a. “Centralisation.” In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIX: Essays on Politics and Society Part II, edited by John M. Robson, 579-616. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1977b. “Civilization.” In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII: Essays on Politics and Society Part I, edited by John M. Robson, 117-148. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1977c. “Essay on Government.” In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII: Essays on Politics and Society Part I, edited by John M. Robson, 149-152. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1977d. “Rationale of Representation.” In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII: Essays on Politics and Society Part I, edited by John M. Robson, 15-46. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1977e. “Recent Writers on Reform.” In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIX: Essays on Politics and Society Part II, edited by John M. Robson, 341-370. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1977f. “Reform of the Civil Service.” In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII: Essays on Politics and Society Part I, edited by John M. Robson, 205-212. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1977g. “State of Society in America.” In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII: Essays on Politics and Society Part I, edited by John M. Robson, 91-116. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1977h. “Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform.” In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIX: Essays on Politics and Society Part II, edited by John M. Robson, 311-340. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1977i. “Tocqueville on Democracy in America, Vol. I.” In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII: Essays on Politics and Society Part I, edited by John M. Robson, 46-90. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1977j. “Tocqueville on Democracy in America, Vol. II.” In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII: Essays on Politics and Society Part I, edited by John M. Robson, 153-204. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1977k. “Use and Abuse of Political Terms.” In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII: Essays on Politics and Society Part I, edited by John M. Robson, 1-13. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1981. The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume I: Autobiography and Literary Essays, edited by John M. Robson, and Jack Stillinger. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

-----. 1991a. “Considerations on Representative Government.” In On Liberty and Other Essays, edited and introduction by John Gray, 203-467. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

-----. 1991b. “On Liberty.” In On Liberty and Other Essays, edited and introduction by John Gray, 1-128. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

-----. 1991c. “Utilitarianism.” In On Liberty and Other Essays, edited by John Gray, 129-201. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Miller, Dale E. 2010. J.S. Mill: Moral, Social and Political Thought. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.

Plamenatz, John. 1963. Man and Society: A Critical Examination of Some Important Social and Political Theories from Machiavelli to Marx. London: Longmans.

Rosen, Frederick. 2011. “From Jeremy Bentham's Radical Philosophy to J. S. Mill's Philosophic Radicalism.” In The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought, edited by Gareth Stedman Jones and Gregory Claeys, 257-294. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Accessed April 14, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL 9780521430562.010.

Ryan, Alan. 1974. J.S. Mill. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Sills, David L. 1968. “Utilitarianism.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Volume 16, edited by David L. Sills, 224-236. New York, NY: Macmillan. Accessed March 5, 2020. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3045001293/GVRL?u=thstou&sid=GV RL&xid=04feadda.

Skorupski, John. 1998. The Cambridge Companion to Mill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Smart, John Jamieson Carswell. 2006. “Utilitarianism.” In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume 9, edited by Donald M. Borchert, 603-611. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA. Accessed March 1, 2020. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3446802063/GVRL?u =thstou&sid=GVRL&xid=f1dbb96f.

Smith, George H. 2008. “Philosophic Radicals.” Washington, DC: Cato Institute. Accessed April 14, 2020. https://www.libertarianism.org/topics/philosophic-radicals.

Downloads

Published

06-09-2022

How to Cite

Karlers, Saksit, Pisan Mukdaratsami, and Wararak Chalermpuntusak. 2022. “John Stuart Mill’s Political Thought: On Prevention against Tyranny of the Majority”. Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Sciences 52 (1). Bangkok, Thailand:189-212. https://doi.org/10.61462/cujss.v52i1.675.

Issue

Vol. 52 No. 1 (2022): January - June

Section

Research Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Public Licensing Terms

Copyright and Licensing Policy

The Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science publishes all content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

Copyright

All published articles in the Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science are the copyright of the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. Authors transfer all rights to the journal upon acceptance of their manuscript for publication.

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License

Under this license:

  • Attribution (BY): Users must give appropriate credit to the authors, the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, and the Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses them or their use.

  • NonCommercial (NC): Users may not use the material for commercial purposes. Commercial use requires prior written permission from both the authors and the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.

  • NoDerivatives (ND): If users remix, transform, or build upon the material, they may not distribute the modified material. Adaptations of the work require prior written permission from both the authors and the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.

Open Access Statement

The Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, in accordance with the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

Self-Archiving Policy

Authors may archive the final published version, preprints, or postprints of their articles in institutional repositories or on their personal websites, provided that they acknowledge the original publication in the Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science with a complete citation and a link to the journal's website.

Permissions

For any use beyond those covered by the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, please contact:

Editorial Office
Chulalongkorn University Journal of Social Science
Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University
Email: cusocscij@gmail.com

For more information about the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, please visit: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/