Moral Causation; Or, Notes on Mr. Mill's Notes to the Chapter on 'Freedom' in the Third Ed. of His Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy

Moral Causation; Or, Notes On Mr. Mill's Notes by Patrick Proctor Alexander. This work is a polemical defence and analysis of Sir William Hamilton's doctrine of the conciliation between freedom and causation, as opposed to John Stuart Mill's interpretation. Alexander offers a series of critical notes on Mill's readings and revisions, arguing that Mill's claim of necessity is insufficient to ground moral accountability. The text surveys Mill's Notes on the chapter 'Freedom', and arranges them into sections such as The Man Himself as Cause, Consciousness of Freedom, and Freedom tested by Experience, exposing what the author sees as evasions and logical confusions in Mill's reasoning. Running through the book are devices and examples—such as the 'Mr. Mill's Nose'—intended to illustrate Mill's argumentative method and to defend Hamilton's approach as a coherent, conciliatory position that acknowledges both determinism and moral responsibility. The work situates Mill and Hamilton within Victorian debates on freedom, causation, and ethics, recounting the history of moral psychology and theory of punishment.