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Self–Development and the Liberal State: The Cases of John Stuart Mill and Wilhelm von Humboldt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

Andrew Valls
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Abstract

For both John Stuart Mill and Wilhelm von Humboldt, self–development is a central value that shapes much of their respective political philosophies. Despite this shared value, however, Mill and Humboldt came to quite different political conclusions. Mill defends an activist state that helps establish the material and institutional prerequisites for self–development, while Humboldt argues for a highly restricted state that provides only security. This divergence is explained by a number of factors: variations in their conceptions of self–development itself; their different views of the empirical prerequisites of self–development; their different views of the state and its relation to society; and their views of the relation between “positive” and “negative” goods.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 61 , Issue 2 , Spring 1999 , pp. 251 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1999

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References

I wish to thank Dale Miller and five anonymous reviewers for The Review of Politics for their very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I also wish to acknowledge my deep debt to Frederick G. Whelan for his assistance on this paper and for all the support he has given me over the last ten years.

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