Reforming Reformed Religion: J. S. Mill's Critique of the Enlightenment's Natural Religion

Robert Devigne

American Political Science Review, 2006, vol. 100, issue 1, 15-27

Abstract: John Stuart Mill's writings on religion, a neglected topic in the secondary literature, deserve careful examination because they challenge the long-standing view that liberalism opposes conceptions of the best life. Mill himself considers religion responsible for perfecting the individual and a crucial dimension of his moral theory. In his view, developing a conception of the best life will be difficult in England because it requires broaching a sensitive issue that the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment did not comprehend: namely, that the Enlightenment's reformed Christianity is too great a compromise with traditional or revealed Christianity. If English liberalism is to generate a comprehensive morality for the future, argues Mill, reformed Christianity must be further reformed to create a culture that fosters human flourishing. A comparison of Mill's views of Christianity with those of Kant and Hegel provides a window for viewing their different visions of the morality of the future. The contrast provides further evidence that liberalism, in Mill's view, is not nearly as narrow a moral outlook as many commentators on liberalism, whether admirers or critics, believe.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:100:y:2006:i:01:p:15-27_06

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Political Science Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().