Conditioned Individuality - Some Thoughts on Mill's View of Individuality

The value of Individuality in society and government’s role in regulating it has been a prominent issue of modernity. A thinker who thought that individuality played a central role in the well-being of society was John Stuart Mill (Macleod 2016). Mill thought that society should foster an environment where Individuality could flourish as he believed that the primary engine of progress in society was individual ingenuity. This coheres with his Utilitarianism as he believes that individuality will bring about the greatest good for the greatest number of people through the innovations that individuals produce. Central to his conception of Individuality is that the mark of individuality is when a member of society can be noticed standing out from the customs and habits of society (Macleod 2016).  I think that Mill’s advocacy of Individuality is misplaced as his account of Individuality does not understand the extent to which Individuality is conditioned; this fact will be supported by explicating the contingent nature of individuals and explaining how this contingency entails that individuality is formed by conditions, not in spite of them.

Mill believed that Individuality is the engine for ingenuity and progress in society. He thought that “where, not the person’s own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress” (Mill and Gray 63). This ingredient, Mill believed, was “the liberty of the individual” (Mill and Gray 62). He thought that an individual free of the constraints of custom was the key to societal progress: “it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings” (Mill and Gray 71). This links his emphasis on Individuality to his Utilitarianism as he believes Individuality will bring progress and flourishing in society. Since Mill believed that the individual had the potential to push society forward, he thought that the ideal political system would be one that encouraged Individuality: “genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom” (Mill and Gray 72). 

Beings can be divided into two fundamental categories, contingent and necessary things, where contingent things depend on other things for the way they are whereas necessary things do not. Contingent beings are simply beings which are contingent upon other things for their existence and the way they are. This means that in order to have a full understanding of contingent things one must also have an understanding of the things upon which they depend. Contrastively, necessary beings exist in themselves and through themselves and so can be understood without reference to other beings. Individuals are contingent as human beings depend upon a whole host of things for their existence such as their parents, food, water, air and so on. It goes beyond this as human beings are also shaped by their social, cultural, ethnic backgrounds and so are contingent upon these factors as well. Given this, individuality is really conditioned individuality and so cannot be understood without understanding these conditions.

Mill’s conception of Individuality fails to fully account for the contingent nature of individuals and this undermines his advocacy for it. Mill’s conceives of Individuality as a stepping out of custom and habit and is defined in opposition to these customs and habits rather than flowing from them; “here, not the person’s own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting … of … the liberty of the individual” (Mill and Gray 62-63). Metaphysically speaking, Mill’s conception can be understood as this: individuality is when an individual steps forth and becomes separated from their contingent conditions. However, this shows a misunderstanding of contingency as contingent things cannot be separated from their conditions. Furthermore, even if contingent things could be separated from their conditions, this would change the nature of these things as the conditions which shape contingent things form them into the things they are; if these contingent things are separated from the things that shape them, it is hard to see how they can be the most flourishing versions of themselves as the are separated from what makes them into what they are. Given this, it is best to conceive of Individuality as following from the conditions in which individuals reside, rather than being defined in opposition to them. An example to illustrate this metaphysical structure would be Shakespeare, who was, no doubt, a genius and brilliant writer. It is difficult, though, to imagine Shakespeare without understanding his time and place, relationships, knowledge of history, writing training and so on. Mill would say that the “genius” of Shakespeare exists only insofar as he comes forth, as it were, these conditions rather than flowing from them (Mill and Gray 72). This seems off. It seems that the uniqueness of Shakespeare flows from all these factors because all that is unique to him and brings out his individuality cannot be fully understood without also conceiving of the conditions in which these things were formed; it is hard to imagine the brilliance of Macbeth without also understanding the English used to write, its historical background, and so on. All of his mastery, therefore, is conditioned and so cannot be separated from these conditions, as Mill would do. Given this, it seems odd to still advocate for Mill’s view of Individuality given that such advocacy is dependent upon the truth of his conception of Individuality, which is undermined by basic metaphysics. So, this metaphysical structure undermines Mill’s advocacy of Individuality as this advocacy relies on a notion of Individuality which lacks metaphysical support.

A possible objection to this critique is that conditioned individuality focuses so much on the contingency of the individual that it strips the individual of agency. One may think that if Individuality is always conditioned individuality, then there is no room for true agency since agency flows from the individual. Furthermore, conditioned individuality entails that all agency is conditioned agency and cannot be understood apart from the conditions which shape it. This has the further entailment of every action being a conditioned action which means that the agent is always performing an action with external factors constraining the agent. If every action is contingent upon a set of conditions, then it seems hard to understand how the agent is actually the source of his actions. Indeed, it seems that such conditions would entail that the agent is not the source of his actions and so this conditioned individuality may be in tension with common notions of agency.

This objection, however, is mistaken as all that is required for agency is that the agent is in control of his actions, and conditioned individuality allows for this. Conditioned individuality does entail that agency is conditioned, but it does not eliminate agency. In order for agency to be eliminated, the agent must not, in any sense, be the source of his action; he must not have real causal power. But this does not occur on conditioned individuality. All this view entails is that in order to understand agency, one must take into account all upon which the agent is contingent. This does not mean that the agent has no causal power when he acts. On the contrary, an integral part of conditioned agency is agency. All the conditions do is provide an explanation of this agency and it seems ridiculous to say that explaining a certain entity eliminates it; after all, if there is nothing to explain, then there would be no conditions to point out in explaining the entity. Furthermore, what would eliminate agency is if the conditions of the agent’s action were sufficient conditions for the action to obtain. This, however, is not the case as conditions need not determine their effects in order to explain them. To summarize, in order for this objection to have any weight, it must find a way in which conditioned agency strips the agent of his, but there is no reason to think this and so the objection fails.

A strong emphasis on Individuality is one the characteristics of the modern and postmodern eras. John Stuart Mill was a philosopher who believed that Individuality was critical in order to achieve a proper functioning society. As a result, he thought that society should orient itself around the generation of Individuality since, according to him, it is a main contributor to progress (Macleod 2016). This is in line with his Utilitarianism as he believes that individuality will benefit the most number of people possible in society. His conception of Individuality involves defining it in opposition to the conditions in which this Individuality arises. This is a mistake. Mill’s advocacy of Individuality is mistaken as his account of Individuality fails to understand that Individuality is, always, conditioned individuality. This reality is supported by explicating the nature of contingency and showing how this entails that individuals cannot be fully known without understanding the conditions upon which they depend. What results from this metaphysics is a conditioned individuality which follows from the conditions in which the individual is placed. An objection to this view is that it eliminates agency, but this is without force as conditions merely provide an explanation of agency, which is far from nullifying it. I have provided some reason for rejecting Mill’s conception of Individuality and, thus, his support for its centrality in society.

Works Cited

Macleod, Christopher. “John Stuart Mill.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 25 Aug. 2016, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill/.

Mill, John Stuart, and John Gray. On Liberty and Other Essays. Oxford University Press, 2008.