STILLBORN YET NOT WITHOUT INFLUENCE: WHAT MILL’S POLITICAL ECONOMY OWES TO HIS PROJECT OF ETHOLOGY

Abstract

This article questions the articulation between John Stuart Mill’s initial project of creating a new science dedicated to the means of improving individual character, a science named “ethology,” and the treatise of political economy that he published instead. My claim is that his defense of free competition as well as some of the arguments he opposes to it, and which have often puzzled his readers, actually reveal the moral agenda of his political economy and of some of his political principles, specifically his ambivalent position towards paternalism.