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John Stuart Mill on Liberty

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John Stuart Mill on Liberty John Stuart Mill On Liberty ... Squashed down to read in about 35 minutes "The sole end for which mankind are warranted in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant." INTRODUCTION TO On Liberty Rigorously educated by his father James Mill (the co-founder (with Jeremy Bentham) of Utilitarianism) John Stuart grew to suffer horrid depression over an upbringing which had forced classical literature, logic, political economy, history and mathematics down him before he was fourteen. He lived modestly as a clerk to the East India Company, but wrote profusely on political and philosophical matters. In Utilitarianism he states that actions are right if they bring about happiness and wrong if they bring the reverse. In On Liberty, written with his beloved wife, who died before its completion, he moved away from the Utilitarian notion that individual liberty was necessary for economic and governmental efficiency and advanced the classical defense of individual freedom as a value in itself. The basic argument is simple: that liberty is good. Good because it allows new and improved ideas to appear. Good because it forever puts the old ideas to the test and good because it just, well, is. We Europeans, thinks Mill, are so wonderful because we allow diversity of ideas, unlike the silly Chinese. Mill isn't impressed with the Chinese, or with Christians. The philosopher Fung-Yu-Lan agreed with him about China, but Mill continues to irritate religious types to this day. It is easy to pick holes in Mill's thesis. He gives lots of reasons as to how Liberty should be defended and preserved, but never actually explains why. He thinks everyone should be free, but holds that savages and children should be controlled without ever explaining what 'savages' are. He despises state control, but insists on it for certain, unspecified, 'moral' concerns. But then, there is little value in looking for a mathematics of conduct. Political philosophy is very far from a precise science, and Mr. Mill's version is about as precise as it gets. No wonder then that it continues to be the model and the measure of governments the world over. ABOUT THIS SQUASHED EDITION On Liberty has a reputation for being a difficult text to read. Mill is not a clear writer: he tends to expound arguments in sentences that sometimes run to a page or more before realizing that he could have said it all in a couple of dozen words. It has been no easy task to pick out those prize dozens. We have been able to ditch eight words out of every nine, but retain sufficient verbiage to give a true feel of the original. No Time? Read THE VERY, VERY SQUASHED VERSION... John Stuart Mill, 1843 On Liberty "The sole end for which mankind are warranted in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant." Freedom from the tyranny of oppressive rulers is not enough. Freedom is needed from the tyranny of prevailing opinion and the ideas of the ascendent class. The object of this essay is to assert the simple principle that the liberty of any man should be restricted only to prevent harm to others. His own good is his own concern. Restrictions on liberty of thought and expression rob humanity of the chance to find truth, to either prove existing ideas wrong or to throw them into sharper focus by revealing their contraries. Christians tend to forget that their faith was founded by dissenters. Individual liberty of action, as long as it harms no-one else, allows different modes of life to be practiced so that we may all learn from them. Genius must be allowed to flower, unlike, for example, in China where the control of custom is complete. Foolish people may be warned or ignored, but it is not the business of society to put them right, we have no right to force others to be civilized. Unless, of course, they are children or savages. Some Applications: In honest trade or competitive exams society admits no right to those who are disappointed other than to protect them from fraud, force or treachery. Poisons should be freely sold, but properly labeled: just as it is right to warn someone of a dangerous bridge, but not to physically stop them from crossing it. Idleness is no crime, but if it affects a man's family he may be forced to work. Gambling and drink might be restricted, but never prevented. Government should restrict itself to supervising local administrations. A state which treats its people as fools will be a foolish state. The Squashed Philosophers Edition of... On Liberty John Stuart Mill 1843 Squashed version edited by Glyn Hughes © 2011 To the beloved memory of her that was the inspirer, and in part the author - the friend and wife whose approbation was my strongest reward, and whose great thoughts and noble feelings are buried in her grave - I dedicate this volume. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTORY THE subject of this Essay is not the so-called 'Liberty of the Will', but Civil, or Social Liberty. A subject hardly ever discussed in general terms, but of profound importance. The struggle between liberty and authority is the most conspicuous feature of the history of Greece, Rome and England. But in old times liberty meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers. They consisted of a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste, who derived their authority from inheritance or conquest. To prevent the weaker members of society from being preyed upon by innumerable vultures it was thought that there should be an animal of prey stronger than the rest. The aim of patriots was to set limits to the power of the ruler. As human affairs progressed, there came a time when what was wanted was that rulers should be identified with the people, that their interests should be the interests of the whole nation. But, like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was, at first (and still commonly is) held in dread. Society as a whole can issue wrong mandates and practice a tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there also needs to be protection against the tyranny of prevailing opinion. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence, and to find that limit is indispensable to a good condition of human affairs. The question of where to place that limit is a subject on which almost everything remains to be done. Some rules of conduct must be imposed - by either law or public opinion. No two ages, and scarcely any two countries, have decided it alike. Yet the people of any given country rarely see any difficulty, tending to assume that it is a subject on which mankind is agreed, such is the illusion of the magical power of custom. People are accustomed to believe (encouraged by some philosophers) their feelings on such subjects are better than reasons, and render reasons unnecessary. Whenever there is an ascendent class, the morality of the country emanates from its class interests - consider the Spartans and the Helots, the Negroes and the planters, men and women. Another grand principle has been the servility of mankind towards their gods. It has made men burn witches and magicians, yet remember that those who first broke away from the yoke of the so-called Universal Church were usually as unwilling to permit difference of religious opinion as that church itself. The majority have not yet learned to feel the power of the government to be their power, or its opinions their opinions. The object of this essay is to assert one simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual. That principle is that the sole end for which mankind are warranted in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. (Despotism, however, is the legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.) In the first instance we will confine ourselves to the Liberty of Thought. CHAPTER 2: OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION Let us suppose that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting coercion unless in agreement with their voice. I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion. Such power is illegitimate, the best government has no more title to it than the worst. The particular evil of silencing the expression of opinion is that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation - those who dissent as well as hold the opinion. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity to exchange error for truth, if wrong they lose what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error. It is necessary to consider two hypotheses. First, that we can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion: second, if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. First, the opinion which it is attempted to suppress may possibly be true.
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