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John Stuart Mill's On Liberty

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“On Liberty” by John Stuart Mill This reading has to do with political and social freedoms. In Chapter II, Mill reflects on whether people, either by themselves or through their tyrannical government, should be allowed to pressure anyone else’s point of view or opinion. He states that by doing so, it is basically unlawful. This is because if everyone were to agree on something but there just happens to be an odd man out, that one person would be silenced because the majority are agreeing so they’re the powerful group. But if that odd man out had the power, he would be justified in silencing mankind. Mill says that it’s evil to rob someone out of their own opinion. It’s evil because if that opinion is right, then people are missing out on
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In the video, Thomas Jefferson Philosopher of Freedom, the narrator, Monte Markham, portrays the life, and conceptions of one of our key founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Moreover, it touches on his life as a child and delves into the problems and prosperity of his adult life; yet at the same time analyzing the man as a philosopher, a backcountry farmer, a designer of buildings, a poet, a politician, and an analyst to understand his diverse perceptions. Throughout the entire documentary, the narrator speaks on the personal life of Thomas Jefferson and on his political life, by alternating from one to the other. Furthermore, throughout adulthood, Thomas Jefferson experienced several personal challenges and misfortunes,

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Whether it is at the dinner table or in my family’s group text message, the conversation about my brother’s custody battle with my mother’s side of the family seems to remain a bitter topic, especially when discussing my role in it. When my father physically harmed my brother to the extent to which he had to go to the emergency room, the custody trial over my brother and me began. After several sources provided the judge with accusations against my father, I was the final source that needed to assert or deny my father’s abuse; with heavy consideration, I decided to lie to the judge by denying my father’s abuse. Under the principle of utilitarianism, philosophers would infer that lying is permissible if the consequences of doing so are good.

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As such, each person has the “right” to follow their own agendas to fruition, regardless of the cost to others. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, authored by Mark Twain, the main character, Huck is caught in a crisis of deciphering between right and wrong, surrendering a runaway slave to the authorities, or hiding him until he can reach freedom. Ultimately, Huck states, “What’s the use of learning to do what ’s right, when it’s troublesome to do right, and it ain’t no trouble to do wrong?”(Twain & Reichardt, 2009, p. 106). Huck displays the difficulty between what is viewed as “right” and “wrong.”

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In addition to his argument on freedom of speech throughout the essay Mill argues about the importance of individuality and how citizens need to learn how to think for themselves and to not conform to the societal

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In terms of Mill’s philosophy, “even opinions lose their immunity when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard. Acts, of whatever kind, which without justifiable cause do harm to others may be, and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavorable sentiments, and, when needful, by

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Regis University Course: political thought Professor: Murugan Subban Student: Hissen Sadan Idris Mill and Liberalism” • What did Mill believe about the extent of personal freedom? Mill argued that it is best for the individual specifically persons to be given freedom and freedom to develop their own character. He went a had onto saying that, the world is made up of so many people and within these people they are made up of different natures, societies and communities so all of them should be given space and time so that they could discover and develop their own personalities in their own freedom. His strong claim was that human nature is not a machine that starts working immediately after its built and perform exact work it was design for

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In his book On Liberty, John Stuart Mill provides an ideology that justifies the interference of one’s civil liberties which then became known as the “Harm Principle.” In short, it implies that a person may do whatever he/she pleases as long as that action causes no harm to anyone else, and if it does, his/her civil liberties can be interfered with to prevent harm. One of the harm principle’s biggest appeals is that it ensures one’s individual choices that affect no one else, must be respected. One of the harm principle’s drawbacks is that it only interferes with civil liberties when you or other people are at risk of being harmed against their will. For example, smoking and the pleasure that person finds from smoking is usually a personal

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John Stuart Mill was an English philosopher and an influential political theorist. In his great work, On Liberty, demonstrated the harm principle. Along with the harm principle, there is a great question among the text. The question is, why should heresy be permitted? As a Christian, seeking the truth is hard due to many heresies that are in the world.

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On Liberty is an excellent work done by John Stuart Mill in which he clearly defined his political ideas. Mill has been a firm advocate of personal liberty and has clearly rejected the social contract ideas. Social contract theory states that every individual is obliged to live in accordance with an agreement with the society in which he lives. But Mill clearly rejects this idea because these social contract ideas are meant to justify the rule or authority of a sovereign instead of ensuring the fundamental rights of the individuals and if not maintained, would result in a complete “state of nature”. Mill believed that individual freedom is important for a perfect society as it lessens the submission of the people and eliminates the dictatorship

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If people have no place to voice their will or take part in deciding their own destiny, the community might grow disinterested and passive in their relationship with their government. Mill believes this is problematic for society because history, as he sees it, has shown that more democratic societies have more ‘energetic, and ‘developed’ societies as well as more ‘go ahead characters’ not seen in more totalitarian societies. Yet, this criticism might fail to cover a deeper problem of disinterest; it might lead to a level of moral deficiency as well. Mill fears that a loss of ability and activity, leads to a society losing its sense of communal responsibility and social justice. In their aloofness, people might be less inclined to believe that they have any responsibility to society since society has ceased to have any rights or purpose under absolute authority.

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In On Liberty, Mill portrays the concept of liberty as valuable as a vehicle towards the end goal of maximizing utility. For Mill, such examples are consistent with utilitarianism since happiness is the only concept seen as an end in and of itself. In Chapter 3 ‘On Individuality’, Mill argues that individuality is of worth since it promotes happiness for the individual which in turn means there is happiness for society as a whole (BASPT p.640). Since Mill consistently views liberty as an extrinsic value, which shows liberty is not part of the essential nature of his theory, he stays consistent with the principle of utility that promotes happiness as the only intrinsic value to aim for. For Mill, as long as liberty is valued as a means to the

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I chose to review the fifth chapter of “New Ideas From Dead Economists” titled The Stormy Mind of John Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill was born in 1806 in London to two strict parents who began to educate their son at a very young age. Mill’s father was James Mill, a famous historian and economist, who began to teach his son Greek at the age of three. The book reports that “by eight, the boy had read Plato, Xenophon, and Diogenes” and by twelve “Mill exhausted well-stocked libraries, reading Aristotle and Aristophanes and mastering calculus and geometry” (Buchholz 93). The vast amount of knowledge that Mill gained at a young age no doubt assisted him in becoming such a well-recognized philosopher and economist.

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Instead, in typically liberal fashion, Mill rejects the principle of one man knowing what is best for

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John Stuart Mill, at the very beginning of chapter 2 entitled “what is utilitarianism”. starts off by explaining to the readers what utility is, Utility is defined as pleasure itself, and the absence of pain. This leads us to another name for utility which is the greatest happiness principle. Mill claims that “actions are right in proportions as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” “By Happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain, by happiness, pain and the privation of pleasure”.

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Being Free 1st draft Freedom is word used in a lot of contexts, but the official meaning of the word is “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants” (Freedom). Meaning that you have the right to do something, with the focus being on you as an individual. This means no one can tell you what to do, like for example a state. This is an important aspect and part of political theory. Liberty is also used and viewed as the same category of theory, and has the definition “The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s behavior or political views” (Liberty).

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