Utilitarianism

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, political economist and civil servant. He was an influential contributor to social theory, political theory and political economy. He has been called 'the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century'. Mill's conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham. Hoping to remedy the problems found in an inductive approach to science, such as confirmation bias, he clearly set forth the premises of falsifiability as the key component in the scientific method. Mill was also a Member of Parliament and an important figure in liberal political philosophy.