ipl-logo

Mill On Liberty

570 Words3 Pages
“On Liberty” by John Stuart Mill is one of the foundations for discussion over the direction of society and role of individualism; his essay still holding sufficient weight to be an important point of reference today. In fact, Mills ideas still exist in modern society. Today society is dealing with abortion, the legalization of cannabis, or gun control. Mill views advocates for an individualistic message against tyranny.
In Chapter Two; Of Liberty of Thoughts and Discussion, Mill expresses the freedom of opinion. He states that, “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation” (On Liberty 602). Mill argues against silencing the opinions of others.
Show More
Related
759 Words | 4 Pages

In the texts “Declaration of Independence”, “Civil Disobedience”, and “Self Reliance”, the authors show that individuals shape the society, just as the society shapes the individuals. Individuals often stray away from society’s norms. In “Self Reliance”, Emerson writes about the primacy of the individual, and the importance of the individual, disregarding the expectations of society. He states, “What I must do is all that concerns

Read More
1529 Words | 7 Pages

By the freedom of opinion, cannot be meant the right of thinking merely; for of this right the greatest Tyrant cannot deprive his meanest slave; but it is freedom in the communication of sentiments [by] speech or through the press” (Voices of Freedom, Chapter

Read More
953 Words | 4 Pages

However, the idea of individualism is that the individual’s life exists for him and that he has an unavoidable entitlement to live it as he wishes. A person’s independent life means to follow up on his own judgment, to keep and utilize the result of his exertion, and to chase after the estimations of his choosing. Individualism is the thought that the free spirit is sovereign, an end in himself, and the principal component of righteous concern. This is the ideal that our society upholds till today. Our society made a nation in which the individual’s rights to life, freedom, property, and the pursuit of happiness are perceived and

Read More
1040 Words | 5 Pages

Nevertheless, children or primitive societies do not get to exercise personal liberty because they are not capable of higher reasoning (Mill 1863). Hence, those of us capable of rationalization and learning have an obligation to care for them as long as we exercise utility in the process (Mill

Read More
516 Words | 3 Pages

As stated in the previous case, Mill defines every human as having liberty as long as that liberty does not get in the way of others. In Case B, there are two arguments, Professor Prestille and Professor Mannis. Prestille is mad at Mannis because Mannis told his students that Prestille’s class is not a good class. Mannis tells his students that “postmodernism”, Prestile’s class topic, is a bad thing. This short essay will explore how this conflict would be seen using John Stuart Mill’s philosophy.

Read More
1661 Words | 7 Pages

The ideologies displayed in John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government are in complete contrast to the experiences of William and Ellen Craft in Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom. John Locke’s work is known to have influenced the founders of the United States government, and his values can be seen in the establishing documents e.g. the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States. Moreover, Locke’s ideals have had an influence on the values of United States citizens, which has affected western political thought overtime. William and Ellen Craft’s decision to take the risk to escape slavery was initiated and verified by the words of Thomas Jefferson within the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to

Read More
528 Words | 3 Pages

Epic tales are those in which a warrior is deemed a hero, performs superhuman actions, and bravely saves a nation from a deadly fate. Beowulf and Sir Gawain were and still are two famous and really good stories. Throughout these two stories we learn about their background and their beliefs. They are both considered poems. Even if one of them is an epic poem and the other is not.

Read More
278 Words | 2 Pages

John Stuart Mill’s essay, “On Liberty,” and Herbert Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance” each argue the value of tolerance in society. Their arguments converge in the belief that the majoritarian argument can be harmful, but diverge in their ideas about the value of free discussion of opinions. As a whole, Mill and Marcuse have contradictory arguments about the value of tolerance. Mill and Marcuse each assert that the opinions of a society 's majority can be repressive and harmful.

Read More
714 Words | 3 Pages

Mill actually believes that people could not survive by only thinking themselves. In other words, people could not become more selfish as much as Kant stated because life force people to give importance to others. Since, they may be succeeding what they desire to do when they help each other on their necessities. Mill defends that people can accomplish individually of aims and closures ought to be considered some portion of their happiness.

Read More
859 Words | 4 Pages

Dissent is to speak against the majoritarian or established view and is something that is, as Mill points out, repressed in democratically elected government as much as tyrannical ones and in fact is a growing tendency in the modern democracies. This is done, according to Mill both by the force of opinion as well as by legislation; in other words, modern democracies, although supposedly based on “consent” is actually the tyranny of the power over individuals where all non-conformist ideas, views, and opinions are shunned and outright rejected and suppressed. Mill

Read More
809 Words | 4 Pages

The pursuit of self-gratification and preservation forms only a minute part of this concept. Promotion of personal liberties and control in the various aspects of an individual’s life and situation has been a major part of American history since its very dawn. Individualism first appeared in America in the early 17th century with the arrival of the Pilgrims, a people facing religious persecution in their home country of England. While they did indeed band together as a group under a common cause, their fight for the ideals of personal liberty was an individualistic one.

Read More
1384 Words | 6 Pages

John Stuart Mill was a philosopher, political economist and civil servant in the 19th century . Mill is a Liberalist, which means that he believed that the government should not influence our personal choices as equal citizens of a society. John Mill was also a Utilitarian,

Read More
1128 Words | 5 Pages

Introduction: John Stuart Mill essay on Consideration On representative Government, is an argument for representative government. The ideal form of government in Mill's opinion. One of the more notable ideas Mill is that the business of government representatives is not to make legislation. Instead Mill suggests that representative bodies such as parliaments and senates are best suited to be places of public debate on the various opinions held by the population and to act as watchdogs of the professionals who create and administer laws and policy.

Read More
1104 Words | 5 Pages

It was not until Mill’s late teens that he began to study Jeremy Bentham and his utilitarianism theory. “Reading Bentham satisfied Mill’s cravings for scientific precision and gave him a new way of looking at social intercourse” (Buchholz 97). Mill became so intrigued with Bentham that he decided to preach the Benthamite gospel in the Westminster Review, a publication started by his father and Jeremy Bentham. Mill’s views soon changed as he grew older. It is said that Mill had a mid-life crisis at the age of twenty because he took the Bentamite precision too far and actually forgot the ultimate goal of Utilitarianism in the first place, happiness.

Read More
756 Words | 4 Pages

says that “the human society is essentially a series of market relations; and political society becomes a means of safeguarding private property and the system of economic relations rooted in property” (Macpherson, 1). John Locke (1632-1704), another eminent political thinker based his notion of individualism on the premise of theological justification. He views all individuals as being created equal in the eyes of the creator and therefore God reserves the right to ownership of all the individuals. And therefore it becomes incumbent on the part of an individual to recognise the right and freedom of the other individual . The basic essence of his theory of individualism is that an individual is expected to live within the confines of a social

Read More

More about Mill On Liberty

Related Topics

Open Document