Expanding the Justificatory Framework of Mill's Experiments in Living

Ryan Muldoon

Utilitas, 2015, vol. 27, issue 2, 179-194

Abstract: In On Liberty, Mill introduced the concept of ‘experiments in living’. I will provide an account of what Mill saw to be the basic problem he was addressing – the extensive pressure to fit in with the crowd, and how this bred mediocrity. I connect this to worries about public reason models of justification. I argue that a generalized version of Mill's argument offers us a better path to political justification stemming from experimentation. Rather than grounding political justification on shared political reasons, we justify our political culture on our ability to reject consensus views and try alternatives.

Date: 2015
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