Mill on Deference and Democratic Character

Introduction

The citizenry of many liberal democracies today increasingly exhibit a distrust of perceived elites. This is especially true with respect to experts and those of advanced educational attainment more generally. People’s unwillingness to defer to the consensus of putative experts can be seen in a variety of policy areas, from vaccines and climate change to COVID-19 safety measures. Moreover, a recent Gallup poll found that Americans’ confidence in higher education dropped from 57 percent in 2015 to 48 percent in 2019 (Jones 2018). Some treatments of this phenomenon regard it as one of recent genesis. In Twilight of the Elites, Hayes (2012) draws on sociology and social theory to argue that America’s meritocratic system has produced a self-perpetuating elite class disconnected from the rest of society, emphasizing in particular how this manifests in an unwillingness to defer to claims of specialized knowledge. In The Death of Expertise, Nichols (2017) bemoans what he sees as the infantilizing effects of the modern university, as well as the Internet’s tendency to assail us with an overwhelming mix of serious analysis and crackpot speculation. By contrast, Hofstadter (2012) argues in that distrust of intellectuals has been a part of the United States since its inception.

Potential responses to this phenomenon, as well as an account of its origins, can be found in the work of John Stuart Mill, a theorist who reflected on the nature of mass democracy as it was first emerging. Mill regards deference to superior expertise and wisdom as an essential part of a well-developed character while also esteeming independent thought. While the latter may be a more familiar aspect of Mill’s philosophy, the former is noteworthy as well. Specifically, it is an important component of his focus on character formation. ¹ Although scholars have noted Mill’s concern with deference, ² his strategies for cultivating a salutary form of it, as well as his sense of democracy’s Janus-faced potential with respect to this disposition’s development, ³ have been underexplored. Analyzing this component of how Mill tries to combine a defense of representative government, individual freedom, and equality under the law with the development of character yields resources for contemporary theorists occupied with this task. ⁴ I show how Mill’s approaches to cultivating deference among citizens include redesigning the political process to amplify the voice of the highly educated, promoting more widespread opportunities for learning, and consistently emphasizing the partiality of human understanding. ⁵ Mill’s reflections on this theme, even when they miss the mark, hold lessons for us today.

Mill’s Account of the Origins of the Decline of Deference in Modern Societies

Mill first considers why people in modern societies exhibit an unwillingness to defer to claims of intellectual superiority in his early essay “Spirit of the Age.” Published in installments in 1831, it displays a mix of optimism and trepidation concerning people’s emerging habits of mind. ⁶ His time is “pregnant for change,” but it is also an age of “intellectual anarchy” in which the multitude are left “without a guide” (CW 22:233). ⁷ Mill thinks that the growth in the practice of discussion and questioning, combined with the elevation of private judgment, make a return to previous doctrines and hierarchies impossible (CW 22:233).

But though Mill affirms that those old modes and orders deserved to be discarded, he nonetheless thinks that the growing disposition of distrust of intellectual authority has its pitfalls (CW 22:231). He worries that the elevation of private judgment, while in many ways a positive development, risks being pursued to excess and leading people to eschew deference even to legitimate intellectual authority. He illustrates this with a parable of a caravan of travelers who have been journeying in an unknown country under the direction of a guide who, unbeknown to them, is blind. Upon discovering that the guide is blind, the wisest among the travelers exhorts his fellows to use their own eyes. Soon anyone insisting on the necessity of procuring a new guide is met with disfavor (CW 22: 239). The lesson of this parable is that the casting off of a sclerotic old authority and the shift to a greater reliance on individual judgment risks engendering the dangerous belief that no authority at all is necessary, and that no one else’s judgment merits any deference. This parable foreshadows the problem of democratic majority tyranny that preoccupies both Mill and Tocqueville. As the authority embodied in the blind guide disappears, it is reclaimed, paradoxically, by the majority of travelers who insist on the undesirability of submitting to any guide at all, thereby stifling constructive dissent.

Mill’s contentions in this essay regarding the continued importance of deference to intellectual superiority demonstrate that he thinks that receptivity to guidance by the wise is a permanent necessity. As evidence, Mill identifies what he takes to be the limitations of the reasoning power of ordinary people. He prefaces this argument by insisting that he expects “vast improvements” in the social condition of human beings “from the growth of intelligence among the body of the people” (CW 22:241). Nonetheless, Mill indicates that he does not think that most people will ever have “sufficient opportunities of study and experience” to become “familiarly conversant with all the inquiries” according to which they ought to live their lives. This is because, for the foreseeable future, most people will need to work to earn a living, which inevitably limits the knowledge they can attain (CW 22:241).

Mill concedes that proofs of most important moral and social truths are “few, brief, and easily intelligible.” Yet this concession ends up being smaller than it first appears, for he adds that he means those principles are really only “easily intelligible” for those with sufficient experience to judge the force of arguments. He acknowledges that there are many other important truths that may be brought down “even to the level of the uninformed multitude.” But the difficulty remains: “they must inevitably take on trust . . . that the arguments really are as conclusive as they appear” (CW 22:242–43).

Mill concludes this essay by observing that it is a necessary condition of humanity that the majority of people “either have wrong opinions, or no fixed opinions, or must place the degree of reliance warranted by reason, in the authority of those who have made moral and social philosophy their peculiar study.” But he then acknowledges that, in his day, the authority that commands this confidence exists “nowhere” (CW 22:244). This is because his age is one of transition, “in which the mind . . . has recently found itself out in grievous error and has not yet satisfied itself of the truth” (CW 22:233). This unsettled state of authority, he insists, should not remain permanent. “Learn, and think for yourself, is reasonable advice for the day,” he writes, “but let not the business of the day be done as to prejudice the work of the morrow” (CW 22:245, emphasis added). ⁸ Mill’s point is that one ought to think for oneself without ready deference to the judgments of those of superior intellectual attainment only when the principles and ideas that govern society are in a state of conflict. Moreover, independent-mindedness must not be pursued so zealously that it impedes the deference that Mill regards as a permanent necessity. ⁹

When he wrote “Spirit of the Age,” Mill envisioned a more formal intellectual stratification in which an educated elite formed everyday people’s views. He was also drawn to Coleridge’s idea of a “clerisy” or national clergy that would fulfill this role (CW 7:75). Although Mill eventually abandoned the idea of an organized intellectual elite that would lead society (CW 17:1581), his later works retain the conviction that ordinary people must be receptive to the guidance of their putative superiors.

Another related shift in Mill’s writing is in his account of the reasons for the decline of deference. In “Spirit of the Age,” Mill regards the growing unwillingness to defer to intellectual authority as arising primarily from historical transformations, rather than permanent features of the modern way of life. In a review of the second volume of Democracy in America, Mill rejects Tocqueville’s insistence that democracy itself is the source of modern people’s growing tendency to rely on their own reason rather than trusting their putative superiors. While he acknowledges that the two phenomena may be connected, he denies that it is an exclusive connection, drawing attention to other, more temporally contingent factors, such as the great advances of human knowledge and the rapid diffusion of basic education without any provision for higher studies (CW 18:179, 196). Mill’s emphasis on these factors in this essay indicates that he regards them as more determinative.

However, in later works, such as Considerations on Representative Government and an essay on Plato, Mill changes this assessment and contends that the unwillingness to recognize any intellectual authority does derive in a more significant way from democracy itself. This is noteworthy because the other causes arose from time-bound circumstances, which suggested that the unwillingness to defer to intellectual superiority might abate as those changes played out. Mill’s eventual contention that the tendency is endogenous to democracy, though, implies that it will not admit of so easy of a resolution.

However, while this change in Mill’s thinking marks an area of overlap with Tocqueville, they differ concerning how they think that democracy engenders a decline of deference. Tocqueville’s account focuses on democracy’s social aspects and specifically the equality of conditions. In his later works, Mill emphasizes democratic political institutions when explaining why people in democratic regimes are unwilling to defer to others. He expresses this in Considerations amid a discussion of the difficulty of obtaining representatives “more highly instructed” than their constituents are while still holding those legislators accountable to those who elected them. In this passage, Mill notes that an important requisite of a well-constituted electoral body is “deference to mental superiority.” He insists that those who are “sensible of the value of superior wisdom, are likely to recognize it . . . by other signs than thinking exactly as they do, and even in spite of considerable differences in opinion.” Mill observes, though, that there is “a character of mind that does not look up to anyone; which thinks no other person’s opinion much better than his own, or nearly so good as a hundred or a thousand persons like himself” (CW 19:508).

Mill argues that this unwillingness to look up to anyone can arise from the regime itself as well as from the exogenous factors highlighted in earlier essays, averring that democracy “is not favorable to the reverential spirit.” Yet Mill does not reproach democracy on these grounds, insisting that the fact that democracy destroys reverence “for mere social position” must be counted among the “good . . . [parts] of its influence.” That is, democracy renders people less deferential to those with conventional claims to superiority, and so makes it easier for those possessing natural superiority to be recognized. Nonetheless, Mill concedes that by doing this, democracy “closes the principal school of reverence . . . which exists in society” (CW 19:508, emphasis in original). This indicates that capacity for deference, which Mill elsewhere suggests has a natural basis, nonetheless requires habituation to manifest itself dependably. Mill’s remark also indicates that social life is an important vector for this habituation.

Mill makes his claim about democracy being unfavorable to the reverential spirit without qualification. Considering his criticisms of American democracy earlier in Considerations clarifies why this is noteworthy. In chapter VIII, he contends that America’s wide extension of suffrage has “imprinted strongly on the American mind, that any one man (with a white skin) is as good as any other” (CW 19:478). He makes this point more directly when he asserts that he does not regard equal voting

. . . as among the things which are good in themselves, provided they can be guarded against inconveniences. I look upon it as only relatively good; less objectionable than inequality grounded on irrelevant or adventitious circumstances, but in principle wrong, because recognizing a wrong standard, and exercising a bad influence on the voter’s mind. (CW 19:478, emphasis added)

Thus, Mill thinks that one way American democracy makes people less inclined to deference is by granting citizens decision-making power without attempting to judge their fitness for exercising it, inculcating a false conception of equality. However, in the later passage from Considerations, Mill attributes a hostility to “the reverential spirit” to democracy simply. Likewise, Mill indicates in an 1866 essay on Plato that there is a tendency to “indifference to special qualifications, and to the superiority of one mind over another” present to varying degrees “in all popular governments”—Athens as well as Great Britain and the United States (CW 11:436, emphasis added). He adds, though, that it would be a mistake to see this tendency as either present among every citizen in such regimes or as incurable.

Thus, an immoderate attachment to the principle of equality underlying democratic political institutions risks producing two pathological outcomes: an epistemic arrogance manifested in an unwillingness to look up to anyone and an excessive epistemic humility manifested in slavish conformity to majority opinion. ¹⁰ In Mill’s analysis, these two dispositions often exist simultaneously: democratic people are unwilling to defer to particular individuals while deferring unthinkingly to public opinion. Mill’s concern with the latter is widely known; his concern with the former, though less widely known, is important too. ¹¹

Before considering how Mill seeks to cultivate a salutary form of deference, it is important to clarify that he is not advocating for outright paternalism. He indicates this in Principles of Political Economy, in a section titled “On the Probable Futurity of the Laboring Class.” ¹² Here, Mill considers two different accounts of the proper state of working people: dependence and protection on one hand, and self-dependence on the other. Mill rejects the first as untenable given the widespread growth of popular enlightenment and contends that the ideal it expresses never historically existed. Nonetheless, he does not affirm the second unqualifiedly either, instead advancing a dialectical synthesis of the two. Mill grants that the awakening of everyday people’s intelligence will make them unwilling to be “directed . . . by the mere authority and prestige of superiors.” But he also avers that it is “consistent with this, that they should feel respect for superiority of intellect and knowledge, and defer much to the opinions, on any subject of those whom they think well acquainted with it.” Mill makes clear that everyday people will judge for themselves who is entitled to this deference. (CW 3.760–64). Thus, for Mill, ordinary people’s mental emancipation is consistent with the willingness to accept the guidance of those possessing intellectual authority. Moreover, he intimates that cultivation is necessary to achieve this future state, writing that as the working classes are becoming less and less dependent, “the virtues of independence are what they stand most in need of” (CW 3:373). An examination of how he seeks to promote a salutary form of deference as part of this constellation of virtues is the object of the following section.

Mill’s Strategies for Mediating the Decline of Deference

A brief summary of Mill’s view of well-developed character provides context for the examination of how he seeks promote a salutary form of deference. For Mill, well-developed character consists of individuality, moral virtue, and intellectual virtue. ¹³ Individuality, in Mill’s view, consists of orienting oneself toward one’s beliefs and actions in a certain way: namely, as entities that one has reflectively endorsed and chosen as one’s own. Regarding one’s beliefs, one must not “assent . . . undoubtingly” but rather, one must know both sides of the issue and be able to argue against the other side to justifiably hold to one’s own view (CW 18:244). With regard to one’s actions, one should choose one’s way of life, rather than passively reproducing the norms of one’s cultural milieu (CW 18:220, 262). Moral virtue, as Mill understands it, consists of a disposition to regard the good of others as inextricably bound up with one’s own attainment of happiness (CW 10:235–39). Intellectual virtue consists of mental cultivation, which is not specific to particular domains of knowledge but rather describes the exercise of, and disposition to exercise, the mental faculties in a wide variety of areas. Indeed, the cultivated mind “finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it.” While Mill indicates elsewhere that there are differences in people’s intellectual abilities, he makes clear that intellectual virtue understood in this way is within the reach of all (CW 10:215–16).

Deference is a component of both individuality and of intellectual virtue so understood. Although the acquisition of individuality may be primarily a matter of individual proclivities, Mill also makes clear in chapter III of On Liberty that he wants people seeking out their own mode of living to learn from—and defer to—a class of elite eccentrics and their experiments in living (CW 18:266–67). Moreover, while he condemns passive reproduction of custom, he does not want people to unthinkingly reject custom either. Instead, custom should be treated as a valuable source of information that has a “claim to [one’s] deference” but that one nonetheless ought to “use and interpret in his own way” (CW 18:262). Moreover, deference is an implicit part of intellectual virtue as Mill understands it. Ikuta (2014, 703) helpfully characterizes this desire to learn about the world one inhabits as a “disposition to that which is outside oneself”—a formulation that implies not just a desire to learn but also a willingness to recognize that there are others who can serve as guides. ¹⁴

Mill sometimes downplays the extent to which deference requires deliberate cultivation. ¹⁵ Nonetheless, his claim that democracy, by destroying reverence for “mere social position . . . closes the principal school of reverence that exists in society” indicates that deference requires the right conditions to manifest itself reliably. Mill’s main strategies for inculcating a salutary form of deference include institutional reform, formal education, and an emphasis in his writings on the partiality of human perspectives.

One aspect of Mill’s approach to moderating the decline of deference involves designing electoral institutions in such a way as to ensure that those of intellectual distinction are represented in the political process. The first institutional reform Mill endorses is for the details of policy making to be removed from the purview of elected representatives and entrusted to expert bureaucrats whom those representatives direct and supervise. After directing a “committee of codification” to draft legislation to achieve particular goals, Parliament could approve or reject the resulting bills. According to Mill, such an arrangement would rightfully make legislation “the work of skilled labor and study and experience” while also preserving the principle of government by consent (CW 19:432). In this way, he seeks to navigate the tension between the competing desiderata of expert knowledge and popular sovereignty.

However, while Mill wants to preserve a role for specialized knowledge in policy making, he also wants to amplify the voice of the intellectually distinguished as such, apart from any particular expertise they might have. Thus, the second institutional reform Mill advocates is the adoption of the Hare Plan, an early version of what is today called proportional representation combined with a single transferable vote. ¹⁶ In Mill’s time, candidates for office were chosen by a majority of voters in an electoral district, leaving the views of the minority of voters in each district unrepresented. Rather than requiring a simple majority of votes within a district, the Hare Plan altered the unit of representation to consist in a quota obtained by taking the number of eligible voters and dividing it by the number of seats in the legislature. Any candidate attaining the quota would secure a seat, and no more than the number of required votes for attaining the quota would be counted for the candidate. In addition, citizens could rank order their multiple candidates on the ballot, such that if a voter’s first choice candidate failed to secure the quota, or attained votes in excess of the quota, the citizen’s vote could be transferred to his or her second-choice candidate, and so on. From Mill’s perspective, the Hare Plan’s electoral mechanisms would make political office more attainable for “hundreds of men of independent thought,” who, although lacking in local political influence, “have . . . made themselves known and approved by a few persons in almost every district of the kingdom” (CW 19:456). The Hare Plan would thus remove local majorities’ dominance of the legislative process, which Mill thinks will improve the chances of selecting talented people who would have stood little chance of being chosen by their local districts. In Mill’s view, this is the electoral system that “affords the best security for intellectual qualifications desirable in representatives” (CW 19:455–56).

A third institutional reform Mill endorses to counter the decline of deference consists of giving multiple votes to intellectually superior citizens. He indicates that a person’s occupation can indicate whether he or she should be granted multiple votes, although educational attainment would be preferable, provided the national system of education was standardized. Plural voting should not be taken so far that those who are advantaged by it outweigh the electoral clout of everyone else, though (CW 19:473–76). While Mill wants to ensure a voice in government to the intellectually distinguished, he is nonetheless emphatic that, taken as a whole, representatives should be genuinely representative of their constituents. Proportional representation and plural voting are intended not to obviate the power of the majority but, to counterbalance it, to achieve the benefits of representative government while avoiding its excesses (CW 19:433). Moreover, though Mill wants to ensure that the educated elite have a special role in government, he repeatedly warns that a government controlled solely by such an elite will inevitably lead to intellectual stagnation (CW 10:301–303, 315, 13:502).

These institutional reforms may seem to be means of circumventing the decline of deference rather than addressing it directly. There are ways that these mechanisms can be understood as having an impact on citizens’ character too, however. Entrusting the details of policy making to a committee of experts would provide an institutionalized affirmation of the importance of expertise in collective life. Proportional representation, by drawing the representatives of the less instructed majority into debate with representatives of the more instructed minority, would not only improve the general discourse of parliament but would also cultivate the intellectual virtues of the majority representatives and the citizens who would watch their representatives deliberate with each other (Ikuta 2014, 712). Furthermore, Mill implies that the mere existence of plural voting will teach citizen about the importance of deference when he states that such a system will “stamp the opinions of persons of a more educated class as entitled to greater weight than those of the less educated.” So attached is Mill to the message conveyed by plural voting that he avers that he would endorse it “only to give the tone to public feeling, irrespective of any direct political consequences” (CW 19:508).

Mill’s institutional reforms would likely be of mixed utility in remedying the decline of deference. On the positive side, making civil servants in charge of drafting laws while giving elected representatives the responsibility to establish goals for and review the work of those civil servants could convey the merit of relying on experts while still exercising one’s own judgment. Proportional representation does have some potential to increase the range of perspectives represented in the legislature, as well as giving a voice to minorities that an electoral system that privileged local majorities might silence. It is possible, though not inevitable, that those empowered minorities might in some cases be an educated few. Furthermore, proportional representation’s promotion of viewpoint diversity could undermine the stifling power of common opinion that so concerns Mill and which contributes to an unwillingness to defer to legitimate forms of superiority.

Plural voting, however, does not offer a compelling approach to dealing with the decline of deference. For Mill, plural voting is intended not just to produce better political outcomes but also to teach citizens that the views of the educated deserve more consideration. For people to consent to such a system, though, the latter effect would have to have already been achieved to a large degree, and so the adoption of plural voting seems improbable in any country that is already democratic. Mill does concede that this system is “not likely to be soon or willingly adopted.” However, he is sometimes quite dismissive of the difficulties of convincing people of its merits. Thus, though Mill does not regard plural voting as immediately practical but rather an expression of “what is best in principle,” he does still want it to be implemented at some point in the future (CW 19: 474–76).

In addition to institutional reform, formal education is another way that Mill seeks to inculcate deference. In his 1867 inaugural address at the University of St. Andrews, which contains Mill’s most sustained reflections on formal education, he indicates that an important goal of formal education is the preservation of valuable achievements of previous generations of humanity (CW 21:218). This stance dovetails with his nuanced treatment of the role of custom in character formation in chapter III of On Liberty. Moreover, in this speech, he acknowledges that “the amount of knowledge is not to be lightly estimated, which qualifies us for judging to whom we may have recourse for more.” Based on this observation, Mill argues that providing a rigorous and thorough education to all citizens will enable them to make well-informed judgments about who merits their deference. As he puts it, “the elements of more important studies being widely diffused, those who have reached the higher summit find a public capable of appreciating their superiority and following their lead” (CW 21:224). Later he expands on this idea, writing that “[t]he most incessant obligation of the human intellect throughout life is the ascertainment of truth.” While he concedes that it is “not given to us all to discover great general truths that are a light to all men and to future generations,” he nonetheless argues that “we all require the ability to judge between conflicting opinions that are offered to us as vital truths” (CW 21:234, emphasis added).

These passages illustrate how Mill’s concern for the cultivation of deference is consistent with his emphasis on independent thought. Mill does not want to restore the unthinking deference characteristic of hierarchical societies. Rather, he wants to advance the realization of a society in which people defer to others based on a reasoned assessment of their superiority (CW 10:314). Mill’s attempt to inculcate deference through improving everyone’s intellectual cultivation appears more viable than his endeavors to do so through manipulating the electoral system. This is because it provides people with the means to recognize and understand why someone else’s opinion might merit special consideration.

A limitation of Mill’s discussion of the positive role of education in this regard is that his account of to whom deference is due is left undeveloped. He indicates that unanimity among the knowledgeable few provides a mark by which people recognize those worthy of deference (CW 22:238, 10:79, 19:392). But while this might have merit as a descriptive account of how deference is accorded, as a normative account it is deficient. Consensus is a flawed standard for determining where deference is owed, because the mere fact of its existence tells us nothing about how it was reached. Consensus may be the result of exacting deliberation or of groupthink (Moore 2014, 192).

A final way in which Mill seeks to mediate the hostility to claims of intellectual superiority among democratic people is through his emphasis on the partiality of individual human understanding. The attitude that this emphasis promotes is not exactly deference, for it consists not so much in a trust that someone else’s opinion is right as it does in a willingness to question whether one’s own view of the truth is correct in every respect, and a consequent willingness to listen to others. Nonetheless, this idea tempers the “epistemic arrogance” that makes people in democratic societies inclined to believe that they can make well-formed judgments solely through reliance on their own reason. If the too-ready deference to common opinion that Mill diagnoses in On Liberty constitutes excessive epistemic humility, then this attitude represents a healthy, moderate form of such humility. ¹⁷

There are remarks throughout Mill’s corpus that underscore the importance of this attitude. In his 1838 essay on Bentham, Mill critiques Bentham for having “failed in deriving light from other minds.” He goes on to assert that it is precisely the strongest assertor of the freedom of private judgment who most needs to fortify “the weak side of his own intellect” by studying the opinions of those who think differently (CW 10:90–91). In an 1865 essay on Auguste Comte, Mill makes a similar point. He notes that Comte, after having completed an arduous study of centuries of prior philosophy, refrained from any additional reading to facilitate the unimpeded development of his own thoughts. Mill concedes that this practice “may be legitimate” when one has done as much work in advance as Comte has. However, he then states that by undertaking it, one gives up “the possibility of arriving at the whole truth on any subject,” for hoping to do so by the “mere force of [one’s] own mind . . . without aid and correction from one’s contemporaries” is “impossible” (CW 10:331). It is also worth recalling Mill’s remarks in On Liberty that “correcting and complementing” one’s opinion by comparing it with others is “the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it” (CW 18:231–32; see also CW 1:339).

These passages from On Liberty, as well as Mill’s criticisms of Bentham and Comte, imply that Mill thinks that there is no one so superior that he or she does not need to draw light from “other minds.” Indeed, Mill’s autobiography contains an extended treatment of his own experience of rethinking his commitments. By describing how he rejected the dogmatic utilitarianism of his father and Bentham in favor of a revised form of utilitarianism supplemented by romanticism and theories of historical development, he models the behavior that he encourages others to practice. Mill’s chronicle of his intellectual development provides a counter to the problem of epistemic arrogance.

Nonetheless, at various places in On Liberty, Mill expresses skepticism of how widely this disposition to broad-mindedness can be attained. In chapter II, Mill asserts that “every truth which men of narrow capacity are in earnest about, is sure to be asserted, inculcated, and in many ways even acted on, as if no other truth existed in the world” (CW 18: 257; see also CW 22:234). He also acknowledges that freedom of discussion often heightens sectarianism rather than tempering it. Mill avers that it is on the “more disinterested bystander” rather than the “impassioned partisan” that the “collision of opinions works its salutary effect.” His subsequent remark that there are “few mental attributes more rare” than the ability to “sit in intelligent judgment on two sides of a question” indicates that he expects those of “narrow capacity” to constitute the majority for the foreseeable future (CW 18:257). Thus, Mill’s objective in promoting broad-mindedness as an ethical ideal is primarily to shape the intellectual habits of the select few with the latent potential to “see the futurity of the species” (CW 21:294). ¹⁸ He harbors no expectation that a climate of intellectual openness will necessarily lead the majority of people to become more moderate in their views.

Another qualification to Mill’s endorsement of broad-mindedness is that, as part of his progressive theory of history, he expects intellectuals to eventually develop a unified outlook once the right set of political and moral principles is articulated (CW 18:250–51; see also CW 12:77, 1:173). Moreover, he indicates at one point in chapter II of On Liberty that “truth, in the great practical concerns of life” involves the “reconciling and combining of opposites,” which few minds have the capacity to do (CW 18:244–45, 253–54 emphases added). ¹⁹ In other words, the role of intellectuals in Mill’s view is to create synthetic truths from partial ones. ²⁰ Based on these points, one might think that the need for them to be broad-minded would diminish as this work of synthesis progressed. ²¹

Nevertheless, while the anxiety Mill expresses about the unsettled state of authority in his own time in early texts like “Spirit of the Age” suggests that he regards it as desirable (and possible) to bring this process of synthesis to its culmination quickly, subsequent works show changes in his outlook. In the 1838 essay on Bentham, Mill indicates that synthesis of the perspectives of “one-eyed men” must not come too soon, or it will leave out materials necessary for completeness (CW 10:94). In addition, in the 1865 essay on Comte, he indicates that though a future consensus on moral and political questions is “sure to come,” the realization of that consensus remains, contrary to Comte’s expectations, very far distant (CW 10:235–36; see also CW 18:252). ²² Thus, though Mill hopes for and expects a future unity of intellectuals on moral and political questions throughout his life, he comes to see it as a far off ideal rather than an imminent reality whose realization must be hastened. Consequently, it is clear that a receptivity to the wisdom contained in the perspectives of others will continue to be an important character trait in Mill’s ethical framework—albeit not one that will be attained by all people—for the foreseeable future.

A Tocquevillian Perspective on Mill’s Strategies for Mediating the Decline of Deference

We can further develop our assessment of the strengths and limitations of Mill’s strategies for mediating the decline of deference by considering Tocqueville’s thoughts on this theme. Like Mill, Tocqueville attributes to people in democratic societies an unwillingness to defer to others and regards this phenomenon with a mix of trepidation and cautious optimism. Nonetheless, Tocqueville’s understanding of the origins of this situation and how best to deal with it diverges from Mill’s in several salient ways. ²³

Tocqueville’s account of democratic psychology warrants particular attention. ²⁴ He introduces this theme in a discussion of why men of talent are rare in American politics, asserting that “what democracy lacks . . . is not always the capacity to choose men of merit, but the desire and taste to do so.” This unwillingness to recognize and defer to superiority, he says, derives from the fact that “[d]emocratic institutions develop the sentiment of envy in the human heart to a very high degree.” In Tocqueville’s (2004, 226) analysis, this is

. . . not so much because such institutions give everyone the means to equal everyone else as because those means continually prove unavailing to those who employ them. Democratic institutions awaken and flatter the passion for equality without ever being able to satisfy it to the full. No sooner does full equality seem within the people’s reach than it flies from their grasp, and its flight, as Pascal said, is eternal. The people passionately seek a good that is all the more precious because it is close enough to be familiar yet far enough away that it cannot be savored. The chance of success spurs them on; the uncertainty of success vexes them. They struggle, they tire, they grow bitter . . . no form of superiority is so legitimate that the sight of it is not wearisome to their eyes. (emphasis added)

Tocqueville (2004, 627) repeats this in Volume II of Democracy in America, stating that “the constant tension that exists between the instincts to which equality gives rise and the means it provides for their satisfaction torments and tires the soul.” That this claim appears in both volumes attests to its importance. Tocqueville (2004, 243–44) sometimes speaks about envy as arising from inequalities of wealth. As the italicized section of the quoted passage demonstrates, though, democratic envy extends to all claims of superiority. Tocqueville (2004, 253) elaborates a political consequence of this when he observes that people can become so attached to equality that they will more readily explain others’ ascent to higher status in terms of criminality than in terms of excellence. The envy of superior status that democracy’s impossible-to-satisfy promise of complete equality engenders is thus an important cause of the decline of deference.

Tocqueville’s description of the connection between democracy and envy provides a more nuanced account of why people in democracies are unwilling to defer to authority than what Mill offers. Tocqueville emphasizes more than Mill does that the phenomenon arises in part from a sentiment about justice rather than just an indifference to special qualifications. This helps account for its deep-rootedness and intensity. In his review of volume I of Democracy in America, Mill does cite the passage about envy. However, he downplays the force of its claims and points to Tocqueville’s observations about factors that mitigate this tendency (CW 18:75–76). These include temporary crises, indirect elections, enlightenment, and mores.

Tocqueville notes that temporary crises may act “as midwife to extraordinary virtues.” There is little that a wise statesman can do to take advantage of this, though. That may be Tocqueville’s (2004, 228) point: during periods of normalcy, people of great merit will be uncommon in democratic politics. He also notes how the indirect election of senators improves the quality of people serving in that body, and indicates the desirability of introducing this mechanism elsewhere. Unlike Mill, however, he displays less faith in the extent to which institutional redesign can moderate the decline of deference.

Tocqueville’s identification of “enlightenment” as an attribute of American life that helps mitigate envy suggests some overlap with Mill’s endorsement of universal formal education. Tocqueville (2004, 228) notes how in New England, where education is widespread, people “have become accustomed to respecting intellectual and moral superiority, and to submitting to it without discomfort” even though they have done away with conventional forms of superiority. Elsewhere, he observes that the widespread level of basic education in America has made people “aware of the usefulness of enlightenment and placed them in a position to pass it on to their descendants” (Tocqueville 2004, 350). His point seems to be that when everyone has access to basic schooling, people regard intellectual distinction as something to be pursued rather than something of which to be jealous.

Tocqueville (2004, 350–51) downplays the importance of education in the sense of formal schooling, though. “True enlightenment,” he says, “is primarily the fruit of experience, and if Americans had not gradually become used to governing themselves, their book-learning would not be of much use to them today.” By “experience,” Tocqueville means experience with collective life, including civil society and local politics. When people deal with common affairs, “each man sees that he is not as independent of his fellow men as he initially imagined and that, in order to obtain their support, he must often lend them his cooperation.” He also notes that when the public governs, “several of the passions that chill and divide hearts are obliged to withdraw into the recess of the soul and hide there” (Tocqueville 2004, 590–91). The positive effects of participation in public life that Tocqueville identifies, such as an awareness that one is not as self-sufficient as one may think, and that one must restrain one’s pride and contempt to secure the cooperation of others, may help temper democratic people’s envy-fueled resistance to deference.

Intimations of a similar view can be found in Mill’s discussion of workplace relations. Mill sees economic liberty as in part a means to the cultivation of character. ²⁵ To this end, he argues for organizing workplaces along cooperative lines rather than hierarchically. He contends that workers’ feelings that they are working with others, not under them, promise “the elevation of the dignity of labour; a new sense of security and independence in the labouring class; and the conversion of each human being’s daily occupation into a school of the social sympathies and practical intelligence” (CW 3:792). Working as part of a shared enterprise could give people an awareness of the value of superior knowledge and the merit of deferring to it.

Another aspect of American society that Tocqueville includes in his discussion of mores, and which he contends is important for mitigating envy, is religion. Although Tocqueville (2004, 396, 627) attributes the genesis of the idea of human equality to Jesus’ teachings, he also states that intellectual inequalities stem “directly from God.” Thus, Tocqueville might contend that the right beliefs can inculcate an understanding of equality that emphasizes equal human dignity while also disposing people to accept inequalities of talent. As is widely known, Tocqueville (2004, 489) emphasizes how shared dogmatic beliefs help bind a group of people together into a cohesive society. Based on this, perhaps common ideas with respect to religion furnish a framework in which inequalities of talent can be understood both by the public and by those who possess them as in service of the common good rather than individual advantage. Of course, Mill also acknowledges the importance of shared principles and a common culture (CW 10:133–35), and endorses a “religion of humanity” that consists of a faith in human purposes ungrounded in anything transcendent (CW 10:403–29). Tocqueville (2004, 501) would likely counter that one cannot attain the social advantages of shared beliefs if one dispenses with revealed religion.

Behind these differing approaches to how best to respond to the decline of deference in democratic societies lies a deeper disagreement about the goal. Mill wants to ensure the highly educated a prominent voice in public life, both to counteract other citizens’ unwillingness to defer to them and to impart the idea that some people’s views warrant greater consideration. Tocqueville, however, does not think that the highly educated as a class have some special claim to rule. He displays less faith than Mill does in the extent to which intellectuals’ views will differ from those of the rest of society. He argues that social conditions set boundaries to what sorts of ideas are accepted (Tocqueville 2004, 292–300). He also contends that people in democratic societies often pursue “labors of the mind” not for their intrinsic merit but as a means of gratifying the “restless ambition to which equality gives rise” (Tocqueville 2004, 521). This means that the success of aspiring intellectuals depends on how well they can sell their ideas. They are thus constrained in the extent to which they can challenge prevailing sentiments (Tocqueville 2004, 295).

In addition, Tocqueville notes that people in democratic societies are particularly disposed to formulate what he calls “general ideas.” While he acknowledges that general ideas are necessary and useful, it is nonetheless also the case that the notions they provide “are always incomplete, and what they gain in breadth they lose in exactitude” (Tocqueville 2004, 494–97). For Tocqueville (2004, 500), the proper response to the limitations of general ideas is not to reject them but to avoid overreliance on them and remain mindful of their imprecision, in part through involvement in the practical realities of governance. Tocqueville might therefore caution that engineering the electoral system to ensure a prominent place for the educated risks giving undue prominence to abstract theories that distort the sociopolitical life’s complex realities. ²⁶

Tocqueville might also allege that Mill’s decision to amplify the voice of the highly educated in politics assumes without evidence that a necessary relationship exists between moral virtue and intellectual virtue, or that those with knowledge will also be public-spirited. Tocqueville (2004, 58, 225), had he lived to read Considerations, might have objected to this conflation, especially given his observation that merit was common among the Americans he observed despite the rarity of advanced education. Mill himself even acknowledges a distinction between moral virtue and intellectual virtue when he concedes that the former is more important than the latter. He defends favoring the “instructed few,” though, by saying that moral virtue does not admit of being as easily measured as intellectual virtue (CW 19:323). This concession undermines the subsequent thrust of Mill’s argument.

Conclusion

Deference, with its connotations of respect paid to superiority, may seem ill-suited for societies founded on egalitarian principles. Indeed, Macedo (1990, 278) includes deference alongside “quiet obedience . . . unquestioned devotion, and humility” as qualities that cannot be counted among liberal virtues. This may be correct if deference is construed as habitual, unthinking submission to another that one regards as one’s superior. Indeed, Mill’s account of the shaping power of democratic politics provides a compelling account of why an unwillingness to defer unquestioningly to claims of superiority constitutes a permanent feature of democratic society. But Mill’s treatment of this development also highlights its positive potential, to the extent that it presents the possibility of increasing the recognition of natural claims of merit rather than purely conventional ones. The tendency of people in democratic societies to rely on private judgment does not mean that respect for intellectual superiority is a lost feature of bygone hierarchical societies. Mill’s suggestions for how to inculcate this disposition, even when they miss the mark, hold enduring lessons for democratic politics.

Redesigning political institutions along the lines that Mill recommends could have some efficacy for moderating the unwillingness of people in democratic societies to defer to the intellectually distinguished. Mill’s vision for how to mediate the tension between expertise and popular sovereignty by reconfiguring the role of elected representatives in the lawmaking process is interesting given that it shows him anticipating the challenges that the growth of bureaucratic governance would pose for democracy. The specifics of what Mill proposes, though, are of uncertain utility. His recommendations might affirm the importance of specialized knowledge in collective life. However, restricting legislators to only voting up or down on bills that civil servants draft rests on a questionable distinction between legislation’s broad goals and its particulars. A bill’s details might invite as much principled debate as its higher order purpose. Indeed, the space Mill leaves for democratic deliberation here seems quite restricted. While involving representatives in the details of legislation may sometimes entail losses in efficiency, it also ensures greater representativeness and accountability. Moreover, because it brings in a wider range of perspectives and bases of knowledge, having representatives discuss the details of legislation will produce substantively better policy outcomes in the long run than if these details were the sole purview of putative experts who had only one paradigm for viewing problems. ²⁷

Some form of proportional representation is worth considering, although not necessarily as a way to increase the electoral clout of the educated minority. ²⁸ Rather, it could broaden the range of views represented in the legislature, and thus advance the fructifying clash of opposed perspectives that Mill emphasizes. By doing so, proportional representation could also ameliorate some of the partisan gridlock that has characterized the U.S. Congress in recent years. ²⁹

By contrast, attempts to weight political power in favor of those deemed to be intellectually superior through plural voting are unlikely to impart the view that some people’s opinions warrant greater consideration. Such schemes would likely engender resentment, achieving their electoral goals at the expense of social solidarity. Moreover, though he himself fails to grasp the full significance of it, Mill’s recognition of a distinction between intellectual and moral excellence provides an important caution to those today who hold an untroubled faith in meritocratic systems of advancement.

Mill’s remarks in his St. Andrews Address underscore the importance of a rigorous and thorough education for equipping citizens to evaluate claims of knowledge and wisdom, and thus the potential for such an education to inculcate a form of deference based on reasoned understanding of someone else’s superiority rather than slavish submission. Mill’s affirmation of the importance of formal education remains on the level of generality, though, and so provides little concrete direction about how to achieve this goal. By contrast, Tocqueville and Mill’s consensus on the shaping power of practical experience, whether in public life or the workplace, provides more concrete guidance. This point illustrates the extent to which our ideas and attitudes can be shaped not just through the overt inculcation of ideas in a formal educational setting but also via our day-to-day experience in the world. Of course, the worker-run enterprises that Mill esteems constitute a small minority of businesses existing today. ³⁰ But while the specifics of Mill’s vision may be flawed, the focus on the formative power of one’s workplace experience is worth retaining. Promoting greater worker involvement in firm governance could offer one way to advance Mill’s goal of workplace cooperation while avoiding some of the practical difficulties that arise when firms are wholly worker run.

Mill’s endorsement of a form of broad-minded willingness to learn from others is valuable advice for citizens of democracies, especially given the hyperpolarized state of politics in twenty-first-century America. At the same time, though, his skepticism regarding how widely the partiality of most people’s perspectives can be overcome—a point which readers sometimes overlook—furnishes an important caution regarding the ease with which spirited public contestation over rival ways of life can be joined with general attitudes of tolerance, open-mindedness, and moderation. Mill’s vision of a cognitive elite as synthesizers of competing principles has not come to pass. In this regard, he would have benefited from more serious consideration of Tocqueville’s account of intellectuals in modern democracy.

Tocqueville’s suggestion that deference to intellectual superiority in democratic society is underwritten by consensus on religious beliefs does not translate into pluralistic milieu of contemporary democracies. What we can learn from this, though, is that the distrust of intellectual authority may be in part a consequence of a waning of shared culture and sense of common purposes. The decline of deference, then, might only be effectively moderated by addressing this deeper cause.