Philosophical Radicals

Philosophical radicals is a loose term for the group of reformers in the early 19th cent. who based their approach to government and society largely on the utilitarian theories of Jeremy Bentham, though they were also influenced by Malthus, Ricardo, and Hartley. The leading proponents were James and John Stuart Mill, George Grote, and John Roebuck, supported by the Morning Chronicle, Westminster Review, and London Review. Their efforts to construct a radical party in Parliament after 1832 did not succeed: ‘they did very little to promote any opinions, ’ wrote J. S. Mill, ‘they had little enterprise, little activity.’ But the general influence of utilitarian ideas permeated politics and, particularly in the period 1820 to 1850, produced an ‘age of reform’.

The liberal group who, following Bentham, were influential in the philosophical and political life of Britain in the first half of the 19th century. They included James Mill, the economist David Ricardo (1772-1823), and later J. S. Mill.

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