Freedom and Virtue in Politics: Some Aspects of Character, Circumstances and Utility from Helvétius to J. S. Mill*

G. W. Smith

Utilitas, 1989, vol. 1, issue 1, 112-134

Abstract: Writing in the foreword to Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind and speaking of his upbringing in Chicago between the wars Saul Bellow attests that…as a Midwesterner, the son of immigrant parents, I recognized at an early stage that I was called upon to decide for myself to what extent my Jewish origins, my surroundings [‘the accidental circumstances of Chicago’], my schooling, were to be allowed to determine the course of my life. I did not intend to be wholly dependent upon history and culture. Full dependency must mean that I was done for. The commonest teaching of the civilized world in our time can be stated simply: ‘Tell me where you come from and I'll tell you what you are’.

Date: 1989
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