How Did Mill Act Ethically Wrong

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher well known as a proponent for utilitarianism and as a student of Jeremy Bentham, the founder of modern utilitarianism. Mill believed in personal liberty and that individual liberty was the best way to run society. He was a staunch believer in freedom of speech. Mill believed that it was important to hear everybody’s opinion, especially irreligious speech, no matter how much one might disagree with them, as it could turn out that someone else’s opinion may be correct. One of Mill’s premises is that everybody is that anybody is capable of being wrong. For one to deny this, one would have to admit that somebody knows the truth to everything in the world, which unless that person is a god, is impossible. Since anybody is capable of being wrong, it follows that anybody’s opinion could be wrong and anybody’s opinion, no matter how crazy it might sound, could be right. Therefore, to shut out someone else’s opinion

Socrates, though now thought of as a great philosopher, teacher, ethical thinker, and virtuous man, he was executed for impiety and immorality. Socrates did not accept the gods of the state and was seen as a “corruptor of the youth” (Mill). However, it is very likely that those who convicted Socrates were truly horrified by Socrates’ ideas and truly believed he should be put to death, as Socrates went against everything that was commonly believed at his time. However, we know now that Socrates was not a blasphemer and was merely way ahead of his time. The people that convicted Socrates were simply not open to his radical opinions. Since they decided to condemn Socrates and his opinions, the people of his time were shut off from a way of thinking that is generally accepted in modern times. Had they listened to him then, perhaps Socrates’ school of thought would have been accepted much earlier. Therefore, by condemning his irreligious speech, society was done a