Harriet Taylor Mill

Helen McCabe

doi:10.1017/9781009156844

Series: Elements on Women in the History of Philosophy

Harriet Taylor Mill

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 February 2023

Helen McCabe

Show author details

Helen McCabe: Affiliation:
University of Nottingham

Summary

Harriet Taylor Mill is an overlooked figure in the history of political philosophy, ethics, economics and politics, over-shadowed by the fame of her writing partner, and eventual husband, John Stuart Mill. Given that they met at a very early age (when Taylor Mill was twenty-two), and wrote together for over a quarter of a century, it can be hard to distinguish what is 'hers' and what is 'his'. Indeed, maybe we should consider much of Mill's canon as being 'theirs'. Taylor Mill inputted into some extremely famous works, including On Liberty, and her thought, impact and legacy are well worth charting. This Element explores her contribution to political theory; ethics; political economy; and political reform. It draws on close textual analysis of 'her' works and those of Mill (including manuscripts unpublished in her lifetime, and correspondence), as well as interrogating his description of their co-authoring relationship.

Element contents

Summary
References

Get access

Keywords

feminism Harriet Taylor Mill John Stuart Mill liberalism utilitarianism

Type: Element
Information: Series: Elements on Women in the History of Philosophy

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009156844 [Opens in a new window]

Online ISBN: 9781009156844

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication: 23 February 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Bibliography

Berlin, Isaiah, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 118–72.Google Scholar

Chambers, Clare, Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).Google Scholar

Cohen, G. A., Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978).Google Scholar

Collini, Stefan, ‘Introduction’ in Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, XXI edited by John Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), vii–lvi.Google Scholar

Crisp, Roger, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Mill on Utilitarianism (London: Routledge, 1998).Google Scholar

Deutscher, Penelope, ‘When Feminism Is “High” and Ignorance Is “Low”: Harriet Taylor Mill on the Progress of the Species’, Hypatia 21/3 (2006), 136–50.Google Scholar

Hayek, Friedrich August, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor: Their Friendship and Subsequent Marriage (London: Routledge, 1951).Google Scholar

Jacobs, Jo Ellen, ‘“The Lot of Gifted Ladies Is Hard”: A Study of Harriet Taylor Mill Criticism’, Hypatia 9/3 (1994), 132–62.Google Scholar

Jacobs, Jo Ellen ‘Chronology’ in The Complete Works of Harriet Taylor Mill edited by Jacobs, Jo Ellen (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), xli–xliv.Google Scholar

Levine, Philippa, ‘Taylor, Helen’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/36431.CrossRef Google Scholar

MacAskill, William, Meissner, Darius and Chappell, Richard Yetter, ‘The Rights Objection’ in An Introduction to Utilitarianism edited by R. Y. Chappell, D. Meissner and W. MacAskill (2022). www.utilitarianism.net/objections-to-utilitarianism/rights.Google Scholar

MacGilvray, Eric, Liberal Freedom: Pluralism, Polarization, and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).Google Scholar

McCabe, Helen, ‘“Good Housekeeping?”: Re-assessing John Stuart Mill’s Position on the Gendered Division of Labour’, History of Political Thought 38/1 (2018), 135–55.Google Scholar

McCabe, Helen ‘John Stuart Mill and Fourierism: “Association,” “Friendly Rivalry” and Distributive Justice’, Global Intellectual History 4/1 (2018), 35–61.Google Scholar

McCabe, Helen ‘Harriet Taylor’ in The Wollstonecraftian Mind edited by Bergès, Sandrine, Botting, Eileen Hunt and Coffee, Alan (London: Routledge, 2019), 248–60.Google Scholar

McCabe, Helen ‘Harriet Taylor’ in The Philosopher Queens edited by Buxton, Rebecca and Whiting, Lisa (London: Unbound, 2020), 57–62.Google Scholar

McCabe, Helen ‘John Stuart Mill, Market Socialist?’, Review of Social Economy 79/3 (2021), 506–27.Google Scholar

McCabe, Helen John Stuart Mill, Socialist (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2021).Google Scholar

McCabe, Helen ‘“Political … Civil and Domestic Slavery”: Harriet Taylor Mill and Anna Doyle Wheeler on Marriage, Servitude, and Socialism’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy 29/2 (2021), 226–43.Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill edited by Robson, J. M. and others, 33 volumes (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962–91).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Earlier Letters, XII and XIII (1963).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Principles of Political Economy, II and III (1965).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Auguste Comte and Positivism, X (1969).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Bentham, X (1969).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Theism, X (1969).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Utilitarianism, X (1969).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Whewell on Moral Philosophy, X (1969).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Later Letters, XIV and XVII (1972).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart On Liberty, XVIII (1977).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Grote’s Plato, XI (1978).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Two Publications on Plato, XI (1978).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, IX (1979).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Autobiography, I (1981).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Introduction to Enfranchisement of Women, 393–94 (1984).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart On Marriage, XXI (1984).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Papers on Women’s Rights, 378–92 (1984).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Statement on Marriage, XXI (1984).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Subjection of Women, XXI (1984).Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart Guizot’s Lectures on European Civilisation, XX (1985).Google Scholar

Miller, Dale E., ‘Harriet Taylor’, Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Spring 2018 ed.), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/harriet-mill/.Google Scholar

Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Basic Books, 1974).Google Scholar

Persky, Joseph, The Political Economy of Progress: John Stuart Mill and Modern Radicalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).CrossRef Google Scholar

Phillips, Menaka, ‘The “Beloved and Deplored” Memory of Harriet Taylor Mill: Rethinking Gender and Intellectual Labour in the Canon’, Hypatia 33/4 (2018), 626–42.Google Scholar

Piovarchy, Adam, ‘Philosophy’s Undergraduate Gender Gaps and Early Interventions’, Ergo 6/26 (2020), 707–41.Google Scholar

Robson, John, “Textual Introduction”, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, XXI edited by John Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), lvii–lxxxiii.Google Scholar

Rossi, Alice, Essays on Sex Equality: John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).Google Scholar

Schmidt-Petri, Christoph, Michael Schefczyk and Lilly Osburg, ‘Who Authored On Liberty? Stylometric Evidence on Harriet Taylor Mill’s Contribution’, Utilitas 34/2 (2022), 120–38.Google Scholar

Smith, Janet, ‘The Feminism and Political Radicalism of Helen Taylor in Victorian Britain and Ireland’, unpublished PhD thesis, London Metropolitan University (2014). https://repository.londonmet.ac.uk.Google Scholar

Stafford, William, ‘How Can a Paradigmatic Liberal Call Himself a Socialist? The Case of John Stuart Mill’, Journal of Political Ideologies 3/3 (1998), 325–45.CrossRef Google Scholar

Stevenson, Ana, The Woman as Slave in Nineteenth Century American Social Movements (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).Google Scholar

Mill, Taylor, Harriet, ‘Women (Rights of)’, XXI (1984).Google Scholar

Mill, Taylor The Complete Works of Harriet Taylor Mill edited by Jacobs, Jo Ellen (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

Mill, Taylor, Harriet and John Stuart Mill, ‘The Acquittal of Captain Johnstone’, XXIV (1986), 865–6.Google Scholar

Mill, Taylor ‘The Case of Anne Bird’, XXV (1986), 1164–7.Google Scholar

Mill, Taylor ‘The Suicide of Sarah Brown’, XXIV (1986), 916–19.Google Scholar

Mill, Taylor ‘The Case of Mary Ann Parsons’ 1 and 2, XXV (1986), 1151–3, 1164–7.Google Scholar

Winch, Donald, Wealth and Life: Essays on the Intellectual History of Political Economy in Britain, 1848–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).Google Scholar

Element contents

Harriet Taylor Mill

Summary

Keywords

Access options

Bibliography

Save element to Kindle

Save element to Dropbox

Save element to Google Drive