Formal Transgression: John Stuart Mill's Philosophy of International Affairs

This book is an important contribution to the emerging field of ethics and international affairs. Eddy Souffrant delieneates John Stuart Mill's philosophy of international relations, showing how a particular philosopher engaged with his world through philosophical analysis. Souffrant offers a critique of that engagment, and he suggests a number of theoretical and practical implications of Mill's work for contemporary domestic and global issues. The book argues that Mill's support for colonization is consistent with his overall philosophy of international relations, but demonstrates that only an additional independent analysis of colonization could find fault with both Mill's argument for and his support of colonization. The book includes an analysis of utilitarian group responsibility. Although Mill's concept of group responsibility is narrowly construed, Souffrant concludes with the claims that Mill's philosophy of international relations extends his social and political philosophy and that an ethics of international affairs privileges fundamentally a concept of group responsibility.