I think Mill had a great point in his letter, that the voice of the South was championed by very few, and very wealthy aristocrats. Mill goes on to say that even if slaves in the South were not to be counted as full humans, their suffering should still be taken into account. With that being said, Mill clearly recognizes the slaves in the South as fully functioning and unequivocally equal to all other human beings.
What strikes me is this; that even if Mill were to hold the opinion that many people had at the time, that the slaves were not equal to free men, his philosophy still lead him to believe that the South was not justified in seceding or simply in speaking for them. Thoughts?
It seems that this is an illustrative example of what I see as one of the key differences between Kant's view and Mill's. Reasoning capability is not at play in Mill's world-view. The central piece of information used to determine moral worth is ability to suffer. If we assume, wrongly of course, that slaves were in fact not human beings, it made no difference to Mill by virtue of their clear ability to suffer. This has implications for Mill's thoughts on the treatment of non-human animals.
ReplyDeleteYes, and that's a virtue of utilitarianism, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteBut we should be cautious of Mill's impression of the South's base of support. Certainly the wealthy, slave-owning aristocrats had the most to lose in the conflict from a purely economic standpoint, but the overwhelming majority of rebel soldiers were not slaveowners, and had little hope of ever becoming such. Lincoln himself was surprised by the depth of support the confederacy had in the South, and slow to give up his misperception that it was just a few radical demagogues. Apparently the sense of identity -- honor, shame, family loyalty, blood vengeance, etc. -- pervasive in the south was deeply bound up with slavery and racism in the Southern operating system. Mill and Lincoln, as Enlightentment political figures, may not have understood this adequately.