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Cultivating Character: John Stuart Mill and the Subject of Rights

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  • Karen Zivi

Abstract

The antidemocratic tendencies of rights appear to be numerous. As trumps, rights are denounced for shutting down political debate and undermining the common good. As disciplinary, rights are attacked for reinforcing a politics of exclusion. I argue that an appreciation of the democratic potential of rights requires conceiving of them as political claims, as claims that represent a perspective that we seek to persuade others to adopt and through which we can create and contest community and identity. I cull a political conception of rights from the work of John Stuart Mill by rethinking the meaning of and connection between his ontological commitments and his politics. Paying careful attention to his notion of “character” and its cultivation, I argue that Mill embraces a conception of the socially constituted subject who is both disciplined and enabled by rights.

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  • Karen Zivi, 2006. "Cultivating Character: John Stuart Mill and the Subject of Rights," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(1), pages 49-61, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:50:y:2006:i:1:p:49-61
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00169.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Nick Cowen, 2018. "Mill’s radical end of laissez-faire: A review essay of the political economy of progress: John Stuart Mill and modern radicalism," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 373-386, September.

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