John Gray and John Stuart Mill · studies. Gray’s work Mill on Liberty: A Defense is a contribution among these books. According to traditional reading to which, say, James Fitzjames

33社学研論集　Vol. 16　2010年９月

Ⅰ．Philosophical inquiry

John Gray launched on a study of John Stuart Mill at first and published the results in a book titled Mill on

Liberty: A Defense. He came out with Hayek on Liberty next year. Among other books about Hayek at that time,

his work is comparatively characterized by its contribution to make known Hayek’s systematic and philosophical,

particularly Kantian, aspects. It seems that Gray had gained the recognition of a full-fledged thinker of

liberalism up to this point. Gray brought out Liberalism soon. However Gray has, it is supposed, moved away

from Hayek’s thought since the middle eighties and gradually shifted his position to Isaiah Berlin. This reading

is not necessarily incorrect. However the substantial arguments of Gray easily incline to be overgeneralised,

even distorted. Gray never disavows Hayek’s contribution to liberal theory through an epistemological claim

against socialist central planning, and nor has regrets for his own attitude of the day, even today. Instead we can

discover liberal heritages （including Hayek’s） in his thinking. For example, Gray notes in Hayek on liberty that

Mill and Hayek had had the same experience of headwork about the theory of knowledge before they made a

contribution to economics. I think that this insight is applicable to his own thought. Though I will discuss this

point on another occasion, the thing to be said here is that the apostasy of Gray as they say ― ironically as with J.

S. Mill ― is, I think, attributed to his （or their） approach, philosophical inquiry.（1）

Gray has often said that an appropriate criticism of our inheritance of moral traditions is ‘immanent

criticism’, invoking a part of the stock of our practices to illuminate and correct the rest. This kind of criticism

is a common thread which runs through his arguments in Liberalisms, Post-liberalism, Beyond the New Right, and

so on. In this regard we should especially focus attention to his claims about ‘the arguments from ignorance’

in Liberalisms. The exemplary case for this type of argument is Mill’s fallibilistic argument, which states that

the growth of （moral） knowledge attains through contestations among opinions and successive experiments in

living. Gray claims that this type of argument seems to presuppose that, because any of the things we think we

know is not dependable, we must seek it through trial and error and further that the whole moral knowledge

＊早稲田大学大学院社会科学研究科　博士後期課程４年（指導教員　古賀勝次郎）

論　文

John Gray and John Stuart Mill

Shota Mitsushima＊

34

we have inherited must be open to question. Though Skorupski addresses the importance of difference between

Mill and Nietzsche in these days, Gray quotes the metaphor of Neurath’s ship and suggests that our practical

and moral knowledge we have inherited can be amended and refashioned only by piecemeal and that we can

not do anything but sink the ship if we try to built it anew.（2） In addition, Gray suggests that Mill’s theory

of experiments of living is too rationalistic and, as Hayek also points out, neglects the artifactual character of

human identity and the dependency of personal individuality and human flourishing on a cultural tradition.（3）

But Gray still shares with Mill the same view that “the things we think we know…could turn out to be wrong

in the course of our continuing inquiry” ［Skorupski 2007: 8］

In spite of affinities between Gray and Mill, it can not be denied that there are major differences. Crucial

one of these is an attitude toward the idea of ‘progress’. His skeptical stance of progress is nothing new. He had

already said in the basic issue Mill on liberty that “［i］n part Mill’s difference from Hume is just his belief in the

possibility of moral progress, grounded in his almost unlimited confidence in the efficacy of social education

and self-cultivation. But Mill’s adherence to a doctrine of progress does not by itself---indicate---why progress

should consist in the promotion of human freedom.” ［Gray 1983: 111］ In another paper concerning Mill

collected in Plato to Nato: studies in political thought, he says that “［i］t cannot be said that Mill predicted many of

the cataclysmic developments of the twentieth century. He tended to extrapolate from the trends observable in

his own time, and there is no doubt that Mill expected the dominant institutions of liberal England---to spread

across the world. It could not have occurred to him that the great bourgeois civilization---would turn out to be

a century of peace sandwiched between eras of war and tyranny. With the exception of Nietzsche, all of Mill’s

contemporaries shared Mill’s lack of prophetic insight: none of them glimpsed the apocalyptic twentieth century

realities of the Holocaust and the Gulag, of the inexorable proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the

rise of totalitarian political movements. In Mill’s case, part of the fault lies in his conception of human nature. In

spite of his efforts to free his view of man from the crude errors of classical Utilitarianism, his account still seems

to us at once narrowly rationalistic and unrealistically optimistic. Modern depth psychology has uncovered

dark forces in the human mind which are deaf to the voice of liberal reason. Much of the history of our century

has been dominated by movements which Mill’s theory of human nature not only failed to predict but cannot

explain. The steady trajectory of progress which he expected depended in the end on the realism of his account

of human nature. Now that we know man to be more fixed and intractable than Mill’s theory allowed, we have

less reason to expect the human future to be an improvement on the past. History has not been kind to Mill’s

attempt to forge a new liberalism in response to the dilemmas of his age.”（4） ［Ibid., 1984: 155-56］ It is at this

point that his original approach takes on a major significance. In the postscript to Liberalisms, Gray presents his

comparatively original approach: ‘post-Pyrrhonian method of philosophical inquiry’. This method is “a mode

of theorizing in which to the skeptical Pyrrhonism of Hume is added the insight that our forms of the self-

understanding are narrative historical creations.”（5） ［Ibid., 1989: 263］ In a way, it is not necessarily wrong that

35John Gray and John Stuart Mill

Gray’s intellectual works so far are efforts to be free from Humean skepticism. However, it does not mean that

Gray is not a successor of Mill’s liberal heritage. Because Mill had also shared ‘Humean predicament’.

Ⅱ．Mill on Liberty: A Defence

― His analysis of Mill’s ‘Doctrine of Liberty’―

From around sixties, it seems that some thinkers such as Alan Ryan, J.C. Rees broke a new path of interpretation

of J. S. Mill against the traditional readings and many books gradually made an appearance in the field of Mill

studies. Gray’s work Mill on Liberty: A Defense is a contribution among these books. According to traditional

reading to which, say, James Fitzjames Stephen, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and Isaiah Berlin belong, John Stuart

Mill is a transitional and eclectic thinker and his attempt to combine utilitarianism to liberalism is, or is doomed

to, failure. Against this interpretation, Alan Ryan presented his claims that Mill is “the author of philosophical

system, a system which I ［Ryan］ shall call ‘inductivism’—the philosophy of what Mill himself termed ‘the

inductive school’” ［Ryan 1987: xxv］ and the key element to which utilitarianism and liberalism could be

connected is ‘the Art of Life’. In A system of Logic, particularly chapter ⅩⅡ: ‘Of the Logic of Practice, of Art:

Including Morality and Policy’, Mill distinguishes art and science and says that the imperative mode is the

characteristic of art, as distinguished from science. Science is expressed in indicative mode. As often pointed

out, what is behind his demarcation means that Mill had been aware of distinction between is （or will be） and

ought （or should be）. In this regard, Ross Harrison, who provides a useful outline of recent interpretations

of Mill’s philosophy, says that “［t］he part of Logic that is most relevant for the understanding of Mill’s

ethical and political though is the last chapter, which is about ‘morality and policy’. In it, Mill says that ‘a

proposition of which the predicate is expressed by the words ought or should be, is generally different from one

which is expressed by is or will be.’ In other words, Mill here very clearly distinguishes between is and ought.

Furthermore, he says that every art has its leading principle. The leading principle of architecture, for example,

is that it is desirable to have buildings. Standing above all these particular arts is the Art of Life itself. Its

leading principle is that what is ‘conducive to happiness’ is desirable.” ［Harrison 1996 :764］ The Art of Life

is constructed by Morality, Prudence （or Policy）, and Aesthetics: the Right, the Expedient, and the Beautiful

or Noble. According to Ryan, “the principles of each are to be derived from the principle of maximizing utility.

Prudential rules are hypothetical commands…. Moral rules are categorical commands, and are backed by

sanctions, both those of general opinion and those of the agent’s own conscience. They differ from prudential

commands in that they apply only to other-regarding actions or to the other-regarding aspects of actions, where

prudential rules apply only to the self-regarding aspects or to self-regarding actions.”［Ryan 1987: 215-6］ The

important thing is that Prudence （the concern for one’s own interests） and Excellence （the pursuit of beauty

and nobility in character） are outside of the sphere of imposition of Morality. So “there can be no such a things

as duties to oneself” ［Ryan 1991: 164］ And it is there that, because only morality generates obligations and the

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subject matter of morality is that of the right and wrong about interpersonal ‘harm prevention’, Mill’s ‘one very

simple principle’ （‘the harm principle’） in On Liberty is linked with ‘the principle of utility’.

Now we found that the arguments of On Liberty and of Utilitarianism presuppose an understanding of the

Art of Life. However to give a detailed explanation of its relations is a very controversial point indeed. According

to Gray, Mill’s ‘Doctrine of liberty’, in which a defense is given in utilitarian terms of the institution of a system

of moral rights within the right to liberty is accorded priority, is multi-stratified system and comprises some

principles: ‘the Principle of Utility’ together with its corollary ‘Expediency’, ‘the Principle of Liberty’, and

supplementing these principles, ‘the Principle of Equity’, which （like the Principle of Liberty） is derivable

from utility. To begin with, the Principle of Utility figures as a moral axiological principle specifying that only

happiness has supreme value. And Gray further suggests that the Principle of Utility is a version of not ‘act-‘

nor ‘rule-’ but ‘indirect-utilitarianism’. That is to say, utility is a principle of general evaluation and not a

principle which directly yields the judgments about what out to be done, and this principle applies, not directly

to conduct, but to the whole considerations which govern conduct ― motives, sentiments, dispositions, rules,

and entire codes of conduct. By doing this, this principle avoids the self-defeating effect of direct appeals to

utility. The Principle of Expediency goes along with the Principle of Utility and, in contrast, functions as the

consequentialist principle that, for instance, an act is expedient if it conduces to a net utility benefit. Though

Utility and Expediency cannot generate judgments about right and wrong and about justice and injustice in

itself, these principles may yield what ought to be done in practical life and issue in the guiding maxims of the

various departments of the Art of Life. On the other hand, the Principle of Liberty is a principle of critical

morality, which has an implication for rightness and justice of conduct. And the act protected by the Principle

of Liberty is protected as a moral right, whose content is given by referring to the harm to others’ interests ―

according to Gray, human vital interests are especially autonomy and security and by in part referring to the

theory of justice. The Principle of Equity is related to the question about how much liberty may be forsaken for

how much harm-prevention, and supplements the Principle of Liberty and completes the Doctrine of Liberty.

Mill’s ‘Doctrine of Liberty’ relies on a view of human happiness which in turn depends on his conception

of human nature. The form of happiness in which human are flourished postulates autonomy and security. Here

Mill’s position on human happiness is notably difference from that of classic utilitarianism. In Mill’s case, he

adhered to the uniformity of human nature, but he put an Enlightenment belief in its constancy behind. Mill

recognized that human nature has a potentiality for unpredictable mutation and self-transformation. That is

to say, Mill has in common with Aristotle the views that the content of the good can be deprived from the

demands of human nature and that goodness consists in the self-realization of its nature. At the same time, Mill

also shares the view of the peculiarity of human ‘individuality’ with von Humboldt. For Mill, according to

Gray, happiness is between self-creation and self-discover and has features of the exercise of autonomous choice

and the express of individuality. And a person may achieve it when he realizes the requirements of his nature and

37John Gray and John Stuart Mill

when the higher pleasure is concomitant with his own autonomous choice activity.

Ⅲ．Gray and Mill on Liberty: A Defense

Gray appended a postscript to the second edition Mill on Liberty. Though there is no retouch in the body of

the basic edition, he reconsiders the viability of Mill’s Doctrine of Liberty and of its system. I must begin by

saying here that Gray consistently has sought the way of coping with the problems of conflict of values in moral

and political life and of the limited role that principle or theory can have in resolving some dilemmas at the

comparatively critical level through his academic career. Indeed, Gray had already acknowledged the importance

of ‘value-pluralism’, which exposes the troublesome of Mill’s system, at the close of the basic issue. In this

postscript Gray makes an effort to explain why some traditional criticisms have meanings as before, and why

he does not think that Mill’s project can be defended for now, in more detail. To begin with, Gray writes about

the plausible points of traditional criticism: “There are six defects of Mill’s argument in the Essay, noted by the

most perceptive among his traditional critics, which remain valid and disabling to Mill’s project. These are, first

that the Principle of Liberty Mill defends cannot give to individual liberty the priority and the equal distribution

that any liberal morality requires, and that Mill himself plainly desired; second, the prohibition on paternalist

restraints of liberty entailed by the Principle of Liberty cannot be given any compelling utilitarian justification;

third, no evaluatively uncontroversial or morally neutral conception of harm can be formulated of the sort needed

by the Principle of Liberty; fourth, the account of human well-being required by the view of harm specified in

the Principle of Liberty is not an application of any utilitarian theory but the expression of an ideal of the good

life whose underlying ethical theory is perfectionist; fifth, the account of human flourishing contained in this

perfectionist theory is unrealistic and implausible in privileging the human interest in autonomy; and sixth, that

Mill’s inability to provide any decision-producer for resolving conflict among vital human interests, such as

autonomy and security, renders his theory practically indistinguishable from value-pluralism of the sort we find

later in Berlin an Raz.” ［Gray 1996: 135］ Gray thinks that these traditional criticisms of Mill’s project are valid

even today.

The project undertaken in On Liberty was that of grounding ‘one very simple principle’ for the protection

of liberty on a utilitarian foundation. In that sense, the viability of Mill’s Doctrine of Liberty ultimately depends

on his utilitarianism. Indeed, Gray claims that the Principle of Liberty specifies only the necessary, and not

the sufficient condition of justified restrain. And so it tells us that, only if harm to others is prevented, his or

her liberty may be restricted. Conversely it tells us that it may not justify in restricting liberty except the case

of harm to others. And relevant questions arise here: When do we do harm to others in fact ? And, even if we

can judge about this, when is restraint of liberty justified in practice ? For solving these kinds of questions, we

need another principle （that is, the Principle of Utility） in the end. As already described, The Principle of

Utility is an axiological principle in which happiness has a supreme value. To this a judgment as to when liberty

38

should be restrained must hinge on its effect of the promotion of general welfare. However, as is well known,

making judgments about ‘aggregate social welfare’ triggers intractable problems for utilitarianism.（6） Because,

though utility attributes to happiness, happiness itself tends to decompose into a myriad of intrinsic goods. If so,

collective and overall judgments about aggregate happiness are, it seems, unviable.（7） From this, Gray thinks that

the problems which Mill’s Doctrine of Liberty faces are rather that of indeterminacies, incommensurabilities,

and ‘value-pluralism’, in practical reasoning in all of its modes than, say, established ones of making comparisons

of interpersonal utilities.

Besides, Gray thinks that the Doctrine of Liberty breathes the character of perfectionist, not utilitarianist,

in some respects. As previously mentioned, judgments about when restraint of liberty is justified depend on

assessment of the ‘harm’, which means injury to interests ― particularly, autonomy and security. Even if we

accept these interests which is deprived from Mill’s utilitarianism, how do we do trade off each other when

they compete ? How should we weigh to one against another ? These problems are ones of value-pluralism

as well and lead to the collapse of his utilitarianism.（8） Here if it is true that Mill values autonomy regardless

of contributions to human well-being, he is a perfectionist. Because this means that he has an ‘ideal’ of a

particular way of life ― ‘the way of life of a liberal culture’, in which autonomy （related to self-realization and

individuality etc.） is valued as inherently important good and human nature is totally expressed in the society.

Conversely “that men accustomed to making their own choices will prefer to go on making themselves can only

be for Mill an inductive wager, grounded in social-psychological conjecture. Accordingly, it was proposed that

Mill’s doctrine of liberty be detached or severed from his liberalism”. ［ibid.: 144-5］ Thus insuperable problems

of value-pluralism come into within the Principle of Liberty and within the Principle of Utility, and are likely to

destabilize the whole ‘Doctrine of Liberty’.

As described earlier, Mill’s project attempting to ground ‘one very simple principle’ for protection of

liberty on a utilitarian foundation is distinctive in that the principle of utility functions not as an action-guiding

but as ‘an axiological principle’, specifying that only happiness has intrinsic value. By doing this, this project

can be made a defence against the traditional criticism that, for instance, utility maximization is paradoxically

overridden by the demands of general utility maximization. However, if the principle of utility functions as an

axiological or evaluative principle, the problem raised by value-pluralist like Isaiah Berlin is and remains the

destabilizing factor to Mill’s Doctrine of Liberty. But Gray further indicates that, because we can not necessarily

make an end of ‘conflict of values’ itself, the difficulties of Mill’s Doctrine of Liberty arise not （only） from

value-pluralism, but, more importantly, from its dependency on a ‘philosophy of history’.

39John Gray and John Stuart Mill

Ⅳ．Gray and Mill’s heritage

Gray says in ‘introduction’ to On Liberty and other essays that “liberalism will emerge as a theoretical distillation

of one form of the good life, having no priviledged status in its conflicts with others. It is at this point that value-

pluralism and liberalism diverge in their implications, with value-incommensurability subverting the claims of

any sort of doctrinal liberalism. Contrary to the intentions of its practitioners, liberal theory then comes to be

seen as an exploration of the structure and postulates of a specific historic achievement, a body of practices which

we receive as an historical inheritance. But then moral and political philosophy lose much of their prescriptive

authority, and become essentially elucidatory or explanatory. If we follow this turn of thought, we shall not hope

to find in philosophical enquiry any point of Archimedean leverage on practice---be it Mill’s Principle of Utility,

or, Rawls’s original position. Instead, we shall occur with Oakeshott, when he says of Mill that he

abandoned reference to a general principle either as a reliable guide in political activity or as a satisfactory explanatory device ［and］ put in its place a ‘theory of progress’ and what he called a ‘philosophy of history’. The view I have expressed…may be taken to represent an earlier stage in the intellectual pilgrimage, a stage reached when neither ‘principle’ （on account of what it turns out to be: a mere index of concrete behaviour） nor any general theory of the character and direction of social change seem to supply an adequate reference for explanation or for practical conduct.”（9） ［Gray 2008: xxxix-xxx］

Meanwhile there are readings that Rawls is closer to Mill, Gray offers some observations about the related

issue. Gray puts them that “though Mill’s liberalism claims universal authority for its central principles, there are

not principles which specify any set of fundamental rights, or structure of basic liberties, as being authoritative

for all human societies, Mill’s Principle of Liberty is meant by him as a maxim for the guidance of an ideal

legislator, not as an exercise in constitution-framing, and it is clear from everything Mill wrote on political

questions that he expected it to protect different liberties in different historical and cultural circumstances. This

is only a consequence of the logic of Mill’s doctrine of liberty itself, in which the freedom of self-regarding

action is absolutely protected, but restrain of liberty in other-regarding conduct is governed by utilitarian

assessments which will, in their very nature, have different outcomes as circumstances and the balance of

utilitarian advantage change … ［And］ Mill’s Principle of Liberty comes into play only when a certain level of

cultural and economic development has been met, and this is specified with explicit reference to his conception

of progress. … By contrast with later liberalisms, Mill makes entirely manifest the dependency of his thought

on a conception of progress in which it consists in the universalisation of European institutions. Whatever

the weaknesses of Mill’s liberalism ―― and they are weaknesses of all forms of political thought, liberal or

otherwise, which adopt the philosophy of history embodied in the Enlightenment project ―― it has at least the

virtue of seeking to justify itself by reference to an account of human historical development which, because it is

set out explicitly, can be the subject of critical evaluation. This degree of historical and self-critical consciousness

cannot be claimed for any of the liberalisms to be found within the dominant strand of Mill’s posterity in our

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own time.” ［Gray 1983: 148-9］

According to John Gibbins, Mill’s philosophy consists in historicism, utilitarianism, and an optimistic and

developmental theory of human nature, and all of these embody a ‘teleology of progress’.（10） ［Gibbins 1990:

92］ But Gray claims that progress is, at least, modern myth. This is not to say that progress is simply false, but

that myths are, at least, not true or false in the same way scientific theories are. The important thing here is

that ‘progress’ is easily retrogressed and declined. If so, belief in progress is illusory. Besides, as Robert Nisbet

claims, “［i］n its most common form the idea of progress has referred, ever since the Greeks, to the advance of

knowledge, more particularly the kind of practical knowledge contained in the arts and sciences.” ［Nisbet 1979:

7］ In this regard, Gray claims that in science, the growth of knowledge may be cumulative, but human activity

may be not. Because, for example, the knowledge one generation gained may be vanished in the next generation.

In addition, in science, knowledge may be good, but in ethics and politics, it may be bad as well as good. In these

circumstances, “［a］t its best, politics is not a vehicle for universal projects but the art of responding to the flux of

circumstances. This requires no grand vision of human advance, only the courage to cope with recurring evils.”

［Gray 2007: 210］ Here it is perhaps not insignificant that Gray does not necessarily reject ‘progress’ itself. The

things Gray rejects are, not ‘progress’ itself, but a ‘teleology of history’ and the ‘end of history’.

〔投稿受理日2010. 5. 22／掲載決定日2010. 6. 10〕

ReferencesAlan Ryan, 1987, The philosophy of John Stuart Mill （second edition）, Macmillan press.1991, ‘John Stuart Mill’s Art of Living’ in J.S. Mill On Liberty in focus, （John Gray and G. W. Smith eds.） Routledge.1998, ‘Mill in a liberal landscape’ in The Cambridge companion to Mill, Cambridge University PressClark W. Bouton 1998, ‘John Stuart Mill, on Liberty and History’ in Mill and the moral character of Liberalism, （Eldon j. Eisenach, ed.）Geoffrey Scarre 2007, Reader’s Guides Mill’s On Liberty Continuum.John Gibbins1990, ‘J. S. Mill, liberalism, and Progress’ in Victorian liberalism nineteenth-century political thought and practice （Richard

Bellamy, ed.）John Gray1976, ‘John Stuart Mill and the idea of progress’, Contemporary Review September.1979, ‘John Stuart Mill on the theory of property’ in Theories of Property―Aristotle to the present （Anthony Parel and Thomas

Flanagan eds.） Wilfrid Laurier University Press 1979b, ‘John Stuart Mill: Traditional and Revisionist Interpretations’, the Institute for Humane Studies.1981, ‘John Stuart Mill on Liberty, Utility, and Right’ in NOMOS XXⅢ Human Rights （J. Roland Pennock and John W.

Chapman eds.）1983, John Stuart Mill: A defence, Routledge 1984, ‘John Stuart Mill: the crisis of liberalism’ in Plato to NATO BBC 1989, Liberalisms―essays in political philosophy Routledge.

41John Gray and John Stuart Mill

1993, Post-Liberalism―studies in political thought, Routledge.1993b, Beyond the New Right―market, government and the common environment, Routledge.1997, Endgames―questions in late modern political thought, Routledge.1998, Hayek on Liberty, （third edition） Routledge.2007, Black Mass―apocalyptic religion and the death of Utopia, Allen Lane2008, ‘Introduction’（1991） to John Stuart Mill: On Liberty and other essaysJohn Skorupski,1994, ‘J. S. Mill―logic and metaphysics’ in Routledge history of philosophy Ⅶ nineteenth century, （C. L. Ten, ed.）1998. ‘Introduction: the fortune of liberal naturalism’ in The Cambridge companion to Mill （Skorupski ed.） Cambridge

University Press. 2007, Why read Mill today ? Routledge.2010, John Stuart Mill―thought and influence editied by Georgios Varouxakis and Paul Kelly Routledge,Jonathan Riely1991, ‘Individuality, Custom and Progress’ in Utilitas vol. 3 No 2 , November. 1998, Routledge philosophy guidebook to Milll on Liberty, Routledge 2007, ‘Utilitarian Liberalism: Between Gray and Mill’ in The political theory of John Gray Routledge.関口正司　1989, 『自由と陶冶 ―― J. S.ミルとマス・デモクラシー』みすず書房

（Masashi Sekiguchi, Liberty and cultivation―J.S. Mill and mass democracy）［Japanese only］Michael Levin2004, J. S. Mill on Civilization and Barbarism. Routledge Robert Amdur 2008, ‘Rawls’s critique of On liberty’ in Mill’s On Liberty―A Critical Guide （C. L. Ten ed.） Cambridge University Press Robert Nisbet1979, ‘The idea of progess’ in Literature of Liberty vol.Ⅱ No. 1 , January-March 2008, History of the idea of progress Transaction publishers Ross Harrison,

‘Bentham, Mill and Sidgwick’ in The Blackwell Companion to philosophy, （Nicholas Bunnin and E. P. Tsuijames eds.） pp. 627-42. Blackwell.

Stefan Collini 1983, That noble science of politics―a study in nineteenth-century intellectual history, Cambridge University Press.

⑴　I had better add here that Gray’s philosophical stance is very radical. Even if Gray jettisons the search for a foundation of political philosophy, he never stops ‘the practice of philosophy’. Gray regretfully says in Endgames that “neither Oakeshott nor Berlin extends the critique of ‘rational’ to encompass a critique of philosophy itself.”（p96） This insight, it seems, draws a line between Gray and Richard Rorty as well. The important thing here is that Gray became conscious of some particularities of the conception ‘philosophy’.

⑵　See, John Skorupski, ‘Introduction’ to the Cambridge companion to Mill, ‘Liberalism as free thought’ in John Stuart Mill―thought and influence, and Why read Mill today ? Skorupski claims in Why read Mill today ? that “Mill belongs to the…tradition, according to which free thoughts does not start by refusing to make any assumptions at all, but instead maintains a continuing critical open-mindedness about everything we take ourselves to know, without any exemptions whatever…It takes the fallibilist attitude that any of the things we think we know, however seemingly certain, could turn out to be wrong in the course of our continuing inquiry”（p8）. He calls it ‘constructive empiricism’ and its method ‘thinking from within’.

⑶　In this regard, Jonathan Riely holds fast to his defense of Mill’s arguments in ‘Individuality, Custom, and Progress’.

42

⑷　See, John Gray, ‘John Stuart Mill: the crisis of liberalism’ in Plato to Nato BBC. This quotation is parallel to the writings in ‘Mill’s and other liberalisms’ in Liberalisms—essay in political philosophy （p229）.

⑸　Gray owes the term ‘post-pyrrhonian philosophy’ to D. W. Livingston, Hume’s philosophy of Common Life. particularly see, chapter ‘Post-Pyrrhonian Philosophy’.

⑹　In this regard, for example, Amartya Sen has elaborated a theory in which rights and welfare could be connected and recently attempted to seek for a less unjust world.

⑺　Jonathan Riely points out in this respect that “it is crucial to see that the principle of self-regarding liberty is already the product of utilitarian calculation that, in Mill’s view, applies to every civil society.…The liberty principle can be understood and applied without examining its utilitarian foundations, even though Mill himself argues that all justified rights, including the right to complete self-regarding liberty, are ultimately grounded in general utility.…The principle might be grounded in natural law and natural right, for example, even though Mill ’forgo［es］ any advantage which could be derived to ［his］ argument from the idea of abstract right, as a thing independent of utility’…. Kateb…has also argued that a self-regarding liberty principle can be grounded in considerations of human dignity which transcend utilitarian calculations.” See,

‘Utilitarian Liberalism: Between Gray and Mill’ in The political theory of John Gray （p9）.⑻　Riley says that “Mill’s concern is not to prevent harm to others but rather to prevent harm inflicted on them without

their consent.”（Ibid., p11）.⑼　The view of the same sort is deployed in his article ’Oakeshott and law’ in liberalisms. Gray says in conclusion that “the

result of my explanation is that we need to take yet a further step in the intellectual pilgrimage begun by Mill---from a position in which the claims of a theory of history are disavowed in favor of the intimation of a tradition to one in which, without even the guidance of a single tradition of moral or political behavior, we seek for co-existence in the fragile peace of civil association.”（p251） In this regard, a further exploration had done in post-liberalism---studies in political thought.

⑽　In contrast, Michael Levin says that “he ［Mill］ had no teleological notion of final destination or inevitable historical course, for ‘human affairs are not entirely governed by mechanical laws.’” in Mill on Civilization and Barbarism （p68）.