John Stuart Mill's Essay On Liberty

Mill claims that his purpose in writing on liberty is to assert what he describes one very simple principle. The principle that ought to govern society and that principle has come to be known as the harm principle. The individuals own good either physical or moral is not a sufficient warrant for societal intervention. The individual cannot rightfully be compelled to do or not to do because it will be better for him to do so because it is better for him to do so because it will make him happier.

'Mill's account of personal liberty ensures the development of the individual and society' Assess the validity in this claim.

When there are no laws, there are no freedoms, hence, the Patriots and the Loyalists have to join together in order for the colonies to be prosperous. I, Thomas Tredwell, live in Smithtown, Suffolk County, Long Island. I was raised on a farm, but attended Princeton to study law. As a farmer and a lawyer, I understand both the Patriots’ and the Loyalists’ opinions. My fellow farmers are in debt and are struggling to make an income. The courts are closed in Manhattan, which is creating disarray. For the sake of a better state, the courts and ports should be open. I am very passionate about John Locke’s laws stated in the Second Treatise of Government and I value others opinions greatly. I agree with the Patriots’ and Loyalists’ opinions and deem Locke’s principles about liberty and order important for a society.

power to alter the exchange as it sees fit. If this function of the state is

This paper will discuss John Stuart Mill’s argument about the freedom of expression of opinion, and how Mill justified that freedom. I will also discuss how strong his argument was and whether or not I agree with it. John Stuart Mill was a political economist, civil servant, and most importantly an English philosopher from the nineteenth century. Throughout his writing, John Stuart Mill touched on the issues of liberty, freedom and other human rights. In his philosophical work, On Liberty, he discussed the relationship between authority and liberty, as well as the importance of individuality in society. In chapter two of On Liberty, Mill examined the freedom of expression in more detail, examining arguments for and against his own.

The dictionary definition of liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views. Liberty, however, can mean different things to any individual, or at least that is what I first thought. I decided to do some research into the matter, and was surprised at what I found.

John Stuart Mill, an English philosopher and a political economist, had an important part in forming liberal thought in the 19th century. Mill published his best-known work, _On Liberty,_ in 1859. This foundational book discusses the concept of liberty. It talks about the nature and the limits of the power performed by society over an individual. The book also deals with the freedom of people to engage in whatever they wish as long as it does not harm other persons.

Mill concerns his principle of individuality with the idea that each person should be allowed to develop his own ideas and frameworks in which he lives, as long as he acts in a civilized manner, contends no harm to others, and is capable of creating such opinions. Mill describes this notion by stating that, “… the object “toward which every human being must ceaselessly direct his efforts… is the individuality of power and development”; that for and that from the union of these arise “individual rigor and manifold diversity” which combine themselves in “originality”” (Mill 55). Contradictory to the evolutionary ideals of Wilson, Mill stresses the notion

John Stuart Mill was a classical liberal thinker and believed, through the influence of his father, that man deserved to live a life that promoted the greatest amount of happiness with limited government intervention. Mill grew up with the belief that there was no God and therefore believed that man is born inherently good; government should be limited to allow individuals to make their own decisions from their inherently good instincts; economic freedom provided individuals with the protection of rights and promoted the ideology that Mill stood for most, Utilitarianism which highly influenced classical liberalism.

In regards to morality, Mill anchors its definition on the premises of the greatest happiness principle stated above. Unlike Aristotle who puts emphasis on the agent (the person themselves) in regards to acting morally, Mill is very indifferent and states that the character of the person and their motives do not matter only the consequence of those actions matter. For Mill, the morality of the action only depends on whether that action will produce pleasure for greatest number of people. As state before, he explains that pleasure leads to happiness, and happiness is the ultimate goal of each individual. However, morality is “the rules and precepts for human conduct,” and not simply the causes of human behavior. Desire may drive human actions, but that doesn’t mean that desire should propel human actions. Morality is the ideal, not the reality.

Mill is extremely clear as to why the individual should be sovereign over his or her body and mind—to counter the effects of a possible "tyranny of the majority." Mill states, "It (the majority) practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself" (63).

Many people have drastically different views on how the government and the authority of the group should direct the lives of individuals within a society. In countries such as the United States, the question of whether or not the government should be able to have direct control over different aspects of people's lives is one of the key components of the political system and the different ideologies of political parties within the nation. When looking at the works of John Stuart Mill's, the ideas of utilitarianism and of the tyranny of the majority tend to coincide with one another in a number of ways with regard to how the needs of the individual can be superseded by the needs of the group in order to benefit the entire Society.

The book starts off by discussing the fact that liberty is important to protect individuals against political tyranny of overzealous rulers. Citizens of the society were beginning to realize that in order for them to achieve liberty the government would have to step in, and act as a instrument of the peoples will. Whatever the majority chose in a society was what the government would have to go with as its main purpose should be to serve the best interest of the citizens. Mill recognizes this new so-called victory of the people is nothing they assume its like to be, its in fact just a way for a new type of tyranny; the type of prevailing opinion. This type of tyranny is far worse and more evil as it silences the voice of the minority, and lets the majority rule. The minority of a society should be able to state their opinion even if it may be wrong, right, or even part of the truth. According to Mill, everyone’s contribution is extremely important in a community. Mill states that society should not impose its values on anyone because even though the majority choses one path, it doesn’t mean that they are right because human opinion is error-prone and thus we should listen and not be so judgmental on the opinions of those who don’t agree with majority. The majority group if people who choose one path may not always realize that they might be making a error in judgment which those in minority can be able to see. Mills

John Locke (1632-1704) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) are two important thinkers of liberty in modern political thought. They have revolutionized the idea of human freedom at their time and have influenced many political thinkers afterwards. Although their important book on human freedom, John Locke’s The Second Treatise of Government (1689) and John Mill’s On Liberty (1859), are separated 170 years, some scholars thinks that they are belonging to the same conceptual tradition, English Liberalism. In this essay, I will elaborate John Locke and John Stuart Mill view on human freedom and try to find the difference between their concept of human freedom despite their similar liberal tradition background.

The argument Mill makes is characterized by a few premises. The first is that society is known to enforce opinions and beliefs upon the individual in hopes of maintaining a utilitarian good based upon a common set of truths that the society believes in. Due to this, individual liberty is often suppressed for the good of everyone else. When someone has dissenting views, they will be suppressed by the majority. Yet Mill’s believes that dissent is good because it helps to progress society by disconfirming our believes through listening and reasoning with those who are different. By addressing different views, people are able to develop their own ideas and as a society we are able to reach a better understanding of a utilitarian truth. For Mill, humans are not