On Liberty:John Stuart Mill

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On LibertyJohn Stuart Mill

• Principle of Liberty
• The sole end for which mankind are warranted,
  individually or collectively in interfering with
  the liberty of action of any of their number, is
  self-protection.(110)

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Principle of Liberty

• 1. Interference for an individuals own good is
  not a justification for violating the principle.
• 2. Principle assumes individuals have reached a
  certain level of maturity.
• 3. Liberty principle is not one based on
  abstract right, but is based on the utility of
  the principle.

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Compelling Actions that Benefit Others

• Principle allows certain types of coercion
• To give evidence in a court of justice to bear
  his fair share in the common defense, or in any
  other joint work, necessary to the interest of
  the society of which he enjoys the protection
  and to perform certain acts of individual
  beneficence, such as saving a fellow creatures
  life, or interposing to protect the defenseless
  against ill-usage, things which whenever it is
  obviously a mans duty to do, he may rightfully
  be made responsible.(111)

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Justification for Compelling Beneficence

• Compelling one to act is justified on utility
  grounds.
• Relationship between Mills principle and the
  fair-play principle.

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Areas Encompassed by the Principle of Utility

• Liberty of Conscience thought, feeling, opinion,
  sentiment on all subjects practical, religious,
  scientific, moral or theological.
• Liberty of Tastes and Pursuitsthe framing of
  the plan of our life to suit our own character
  of doing what we likeeven though they should
  think our conduct foolish, perverse, or
  wrong.(111-112)
• Freedom to Unite to join together for any
  purpose not involving harm to others.(112)

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Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion

• If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion,
  and only one person were of the contrary opinion,
  mankind would be no more justified in silencing
  that one person, the he, if he had the power,
  would be justified in silencing mankind.(112)

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Hypotheses Re Suppressing Opinions

• If opinion is true ? then suppression robs
  society of the truth.
• If opinion is false ? then suppression robs
  society perception of the truth when the false
  opinion collides with the truth.

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Benefits of False Opinions

• Ones opinion is strengthened when faced with an
  adversarys false opinion.
• Knowing both sides does not make the truth
  susceptible to specious arguments.
• Partially correct truth may benefit by exposure
  to false opinion - leads to more complete truth.

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Individuality and Well-Being

• Liberty?Individuality?Individual
  Well-Being?Social Well-Being
• Where, not the persons own character, but the
  traditions or customs of other people are the
  rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the
  principle ingrediants of human happiness, and
  quite the chief ingredient of individual and
  social progress(120)

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jValue of Experiments in Living

• Each person must apply a way of life to their own
  circumstances and arrive at a choice on their
  own.
• Certain ways of life may be unsuitable to the
  particular character of certain individuals.
• To conform to custom, merely as custom, does not
  develop one in any of the distinctive qualities
  of a human being.

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Social Well-Being

• Individual ways of life provide an example for
  ways others may improve their way of life.
• Allows for the flourishing of genius which
  benefits all of society.
• The wide-spread conformity to custom and opinion
  make eccentricity a good in itself.

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• It does seem, however, that when the opinions of
  masses of merely average men are everywhere
  become or becoming the dominant power, the
  counterpoise and corrective to the tendency would
  be, the more pronounced individuality of those
  who stand on the higher eminences of thoughtIn
  other times there was no advantage in their doing
  so, unless they acted not only differently, but
  better. In this age, the mere example of
  non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee
  to custom, is itself a service.(124)