Berlin Mill On Liberty

Privacy is one of the most controversial, yet most essential topics in the discussion of civil liberties. Some treat it as a necessity along with life, liberty, and property, whereas other people see it as something that shouldn’t get in the way of things like security (Sadowski).

Privacy is what allows people to feel secure in their surroundings. With privacy, one is allowed to withhold or distribute the information they want by choice, but the ability to have that choice is being violated in today’s society. Benjamin Franklin once said, “He who sacrifices freedom or liberty will eventually have neither.” And that’s the unfortunate truth that is and has occurred in recent years. Privacy, especially in such a fast paced moving world, is extremely vital yet is extremely violated, as recently discovered the NSA has been spying on U.S. citizens for quite a while now; based on the Fourth Amendment, the risk of leaked and distorted individual information, as well as vulnerability to lack of anonymity.

As a growing topic of discussion, privacy in our society has stirred quite some concern. With the increase of technology and social networking our standards for privacy have been altered and the boundary between privacy and government has been blurred. In the article, Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets, Peter Singer addresses the different aspects of privacy that are being affected through the use of technology. The role of privacy in a democratic society is a tricky endeavor, however, each individual has a right to privacy. In our society, surveillance undermines privacy and without privacy there can be no democracy.

Surveillance and the right to privacy have far reaching consequences and implications. In fact, both involve even more topics such as encryption, hacking, and leaks of sensitive information. Sure it is easy to conclude from the sources included in this piece that surveillance does diminish personal privacy to a certain extent, but it’s better to deduce that more people should understand and be aware of how serious of an issue this really is. There are people who seek to promote and diminish surveillance and consumer’s control of their own information and that contributes to the complexity of this growing problem. The research done so far only touches the surface of why it is important for people to learn about protecting themselves from unwanted spying, yet it still needs to expand into explaining more in depth the goals of the government agencies that encourage surveillance programs. As of now, after reviewing all these sources, I think it is important to stress that this issue is not simple. Moreover, is it worth it for an individual to sacrifice personal liberties such as privacy for "safety" through increased surveillance? Consumer privacy should not be sacrificed to ensure public safety since this would undermine the personal liberties of millions of

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.

Proponents of this surveillance might ask, “If a person hasn’t done anything wrong, then why would they fear it?” However, one has to realize that, “this familiar claim ignores the fact that privacy is valuable not just to criminals, but to all of us” (Cole 2). When someone wishes to keep intimate information to him or herself, it is important for a civil society to respect those desires, regardless of any promise of nondisclosure. Doing this creates trust, further strengthening

In John Stuart Mills’ profound work, On Liberty he preaches against the conformity of the nations and outwardly encourages and restlessly defends voice of the individual. The philosopher expresses the importance of individuality by warning against forces such as the government and other citizens silencing their opinion. Though Mill’s gives due recognition to virtues such as free speech, liberty and individualism he also rightly places limitations on our freedoms to ensure our own freedoms do not infringe upon the ones of those around us. In essence, I believe that Mill’s insightfully provides a logical answer to society on how to live and how to allow others to live; freely unless harm will ensue. By Mills’ statement that, “[i]f all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind” one can gain insights into his justification for this argument, the limitations that should rightly be placed on free speech, the assumptions that are the basis for this argument.

In these two works, the authors have a convergence of ideas. On Liberty is a philosophical discourse by John Stuart Mill. In this book, he delineates the link between the society and an individual. He also explains the utilitarianism theory in terms of the state and the society. Mill underscores the significance of individuality in an attempt to show the relationship between liberty and authority (Mill 3). Of interest in this essay are his views on wisdom. From the excerpt, Mill seems to be of the school of thought that man gets wisdom from various sources. He describes an open mind approach to criticism. He says that, “We may, and must, assume our opinion to be true for the guidance of our own conduct: and it is assuming no more when we forbid

Security and privacy are not companions a society either has the ability to have complete privacy with no security or be protect completely with no privacy. When entering a social contract, an individual believes he or she will be protected from others harming them or their property. This leads to never being able to have complete privacy; however, privacy is a liberty that which individuals’ value and they would not agree to completely give up willingly. To help define the term privacy I will be using Joel Feinberg Offence to Others, section 5 The Relation Between Offense and Privacy. Within this passage he states: “Its [privacy] first appearance was in the law of torts, where it served to protect persons from misappropriation of their

measures are needed. To the extent acceptable, John Stuart Mill wrote in his book On Liberty that “ People should be free to do whatever they want, provided they do no harm to others.” (Sandel,49) and Mill stated that respecting individual liberty will gain the greatest happiness, so promote the welfare of society in the long run. It seems The First Amendment that allows people the freedom to do anything, and the culprit invoked it to justify himself. So do not take advantage of The First Amendment and protect the pivate rights as well as the prevention of illicit acts, the government should issue a strict and effective law to protect the privacy of individual

The purpose of Mill’s writing of On Liberty is to discuss his work in his Autobiography. Mill believed On Liberty to be about society and man, the characters people possess and the freedom of conflicting directions showed by human nature. In his writing, he rejects the attempts made by society that may be seen as legal coercion or the pressures of society formed by opinions and behavior. He states a person’s behavior is seen as harmful to one when coercion is accepted. Mill takes on the approach of a Utilitarian.

For the sake of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, American citizens crumple up their own desires and follow laws such as the speed limit and paying taxes. These laws are given by the government, created by citizens to protect all residences. After all, you would give up a few priorities for the name of common good too, right? But there is a borderline between what you should give up and shouldn’t give up. For example, privacy rights. In most cases, people would claim that they have nothing to hide, but the definition of privacy is not covering the atrocious. Privacy is a fundamental value of human right; it is our defense and space permitted to us of being ourselves. The right to privacy is to prevent the invasion

Privacy is central to our understanding of freedom of expression and thus on a larger scale democracy. Mass surveillance is an invasion of common man’s privacy. Recent development in the way in which technology can invade privacy has heightened the need for greater protection freedom of expression. However, a major problem in this area is that the public are not provided with adequate information to act against such invasion of their rights. To date, there has been little agreement to what extent mass surveillance should be allowed in the name of providing security to the citizen of the country and to what extent privacy of the citizens of other countries should be respected.

“Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing” (Mill page 81). On Liberty was written by John Stuart Mill and published in 1859. Mill was a huge believer in free thinking and individuality, and he despised conformity and ‘mass opinion’. Throughout the novel, Mill criticizes religion, mass education and the government, because he believes that these three institutions will prevent individuals from developing their own individuality. The purpose of this novel is that Mill wants to portray that liberty is beneficial to individuals and the society as a whole.

On his well-known work, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill starts by clarifying that the subject of his essay is Civil or Social liberty: “the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual,” (Mill, 5). Though some would see this as evidence for Mill’s grasp of liberty as something that is primarily concerned by the absence of constraints, that is negative liberty, Mill also engages in arguments and discussions that point towards an opposing view of liberty. Mill’s political theory as found in his work On Liberty marks the transition from a classical take of liberty as a negative concept to a modern liberalism understanding of liberty as a concept requiring underlying preconditions of empowerment for its full and complete actualization. This essay will demonstrate how Mill’s discussion of utility, social tyranny, and customs point to the distinctiveness of his work as a marker of a transition towards a modern liberalism understanding of liberty; these discussions delineate the required underlying preconditions of empowerment that will lead an individual to self-actualize and possess true liberty. It is important to note that Mill’s work marks a transition and not a complete shift from classical liberalism to modern liberalism. The shortcomings of his argument will be addressed.