The Place of Liberty
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Mill on Liberty

One Simple Principle

–        Democ has its own dangers (tyr. of maj. &’prevailing opinion’) So min must be protected.

-         On Lib concerned with q of ‘the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual’.  JSM argues that we should reserve considerable powers to indiv (once civ.)

-         Anarchy? – JSM takes view that if people given complete freedom then some will surely abuse it, using absence of gov. to exploit others; then, as he points out, without laws to restrain people’s actions on us, our lives would hardly be worth living.

-         JSM seeks a princip, or a set of princips, that’ll allow us to decide each case on its real merits, rather than leaving matter to arbitrary custom/pop morality – JSM’s ‘greatest enemy’.

-         Liberty Principle: you may justifiably limit a person’s freedom/action only if they threaten harm to others

-         But say friend falling into heroine addiction – may you forcibly interfere to stop her only if she’s likely to cause harm to others? – this e.g. opens up serious issues with regards to both interpretation and plausibility of JSM’s principle.

-         Prob. no soc. past/present has ever lived by the principle as JSM intended it to be understood.

-         JSM himself shied away from some of its most unconventional consequences.

-         Liberty Principle – only to apply to ‘any member of a civilised community’ – only applies to people in ‘the maturity of their faculties’.  Kids & backwards (Victorian attitude) excluded from it, for ‘Liberty… has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free & equal discussion’ – point that lib only valuable under certain circumstances, if they don’t apply then lib can do lots of harm. 

-         Lib valuable as a means to improvement – moral progress.  Under some circs lib just as likely to have opposite effects.  But JSM no doubt once civ – Liberty Principle.

An Illustration: Freedom of Thought

-         Moral systems of Socratic Philos & Christianity suppressed cos. conflicted with established views ‘known for certain’ to be true – illustrates that humans capable of monumental error.

-         An Objection to Mill: Is it right to assume that it’s always better to know the truth than to remain in ignorance?  JSM’s argument appears implicitly to assume that knowledge will lead to happiness.  Why should we believe that? – Not hard to think of scientific inventions we’d have been better off without – e.g. dev of nuclear bombs.  So should we not sometimes oppose freedom of thought?  JSM’s answer is that we’re just as fallible on that issue as we are on any other (assumption of infallibility has shifted from one point to another).  But position not quite as clear as JSM makes out.  If we can’t know for certain whether believing the truth is more likely to lead to happiness than harm, then we have no more reason, on this argument, to permit freedom of thought than to ban it.  Thus JSM must be making the assumption that, in general, believing the truth is a way of achieving happiness. 

Harm to Others:

-         (My point: whatever JSM means by this, he’s inconsistent – if ‘affect’: brown shoe polish objection to buying black shoes – without serious range of applications.  Clear he didn’t mean to be understood in this manner.

-         What if we use terminology of ‘interests’ (like John Rees) – damage to interests: gives some help, but unfortunately no-one’s been able to give an adequate definition of ‘interests’ in this sense.  (Remember exceptions of competitive exam/overcrowded profession)

Justifying the Liberty Principle

Liberty, Rights, and Utility

-         More on harm principle and interests: ‘This conduct consists… in not injuring the interests of one another; or rather certain interests which, by express legal provision or by tacit understanding, ought to be considered as rights’ (So when aunt strikes me out of will, my interests suffer, but she doesn’t infringe my rights). Seems promising, but 2 serious probs.:

-         Problems with the ‘interests’ approach to the Liberty Principle:

-         1. How do we know what rights we have? Say I claim right for my business to be protected vs. competitors; what can JSM say to show me that I have no such right?

-         2. Very odd for JSM to use the concept of ‘rights’ at such a crucial point in argument: early on in essay, declares he foregoes ‘any advantage which could be derived to my argument from the idea of abstract right, as a thing independent of utility’ – how’s this consistent with the idea of an appeal to ‘rights based interests’ – apparently contradicts it. Idea of natural rights problematic – if axiomatic, if someone disagrees, then we’re left with nothing more fundamental to say in their defence.  Also, if they’re fundamental, and so not arrived at by other argument, how do we know what rights we have, if self-evident, then how come many authors have disagreed about what those rights should be. (troubling thought that not more than opinion)  Mill v. suspicious of the idea of natural rights. 

-         So how can he use notion of ‘rights-based interests’?  Can’t be those interests already repected by law – JSM was critical of the current state of affairs (custom & prejudice). 

-         So – neither natural rights not conventional rights.  JSM defended a view of rights based on utilitarianism.  Connection between rights & util’y made explicit in Utilitarianism: ‘To have a right is… to have something which society ought to defend me in the possession of…why?… general utility.’. In brief, basic idea to lay out a sys of rights which’ll max’se general happiness.  (True that JSM’s rule utilitarianism implicit in his view rather than explicitly stated.)  Util’n legisla to max’se hap’s by setting laws to guarantee secure rights of indivs –JSM thinks this achieved by giving people private sphere of interests where no intervention allowed, while allowing a public sphere where int’n OK, but only on util’n grounds. 

-         Does this solve question of where to draw line between private/public spheres?  JSM not explicit, but a ready answer can be given by utilitarianism: increases general happiness to pass a law (say) protecting people from attack in streets but diminish general happiness for law vs. exam/professional competition.  (Also explains his defence of freedom of thought)

-         Idea that a utilitarian defence can be given of P of L strongly criticised: not diff to find e.g.s where utility & liberty seem to conflict (e.g. stopping heroin addiction) – i.e. utilitarianism would seem to encourage the type of paternalism that the P of L rules out  (doesn’t allow people to interfere for their own good).

-         ‘Utility in the largest sense’, but why does he add ‘grounded in the permanent interests of man as a progressive being’. 

Individuality and Progress

-         JSM claims that ‘the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being’.

-         Why shouldn’t we force people in matters concerning their own interests?:

-         1. He’s the person most interested in his well-being.

-         2. His knowledge of his own circs & feelings vastly superior to anyone else’s.

-         3. Soc’s interference likely erroneous (general assumptions can be wrong in indiv cases)

-         4. The harmful effects of being constrained likely to outweigh errors a person may make.

-         (5. Independence of judgement, JSM claims, will surely lead to superior consequences)

-         (6. Exercise of freedom of choice vital to full dev of human nature.  Slaves to custom will never dev into rounded, flourishing indivs; not nec cos. they’ll be unhappy but cos. they’ll fail to dev capacity for choice, one of their most distinctively human capacities.)

-         (7.  Allows experiments of living, which JSM thinks serves human progress best.  Role models can show others how (not) to live.  JSM’s view is that mankind is progressive, in the sense that humans are capable of learning from experience, to the LT benefit of all.)

-         Criticisms of JSM on liberalism:

-         1. Fitzjames Stephen: freedom from the interference of others just as likely to lead to idleness, & lack of interest in life. 

-         2. Are we really progressive (witness experience of 20^th cent.) If humans less capable of improvement than JSM imagines, the utilitarian case for liberty correspondingly weakened.

-         Progress is the cornerstone of JSM’s doctrine.

Liberty as an Intrinsic Good

-         In effect, Wolff argues, JSM has presented lib as instrumentally valuable: lib valuable as a way of achieving the greatest possible happiness for society.  Perhaps he should have argued that lib is intrinsically good – good in itself.

-         JSM would have rejected such a representation of his views, argues Wolff.  JSM clear that liberty is good primarily as a means to improvement, & where it fails to have that effect (kids & backwards) there’s no case for liberty.  Lib only intrinsically good when it adds to our happiness, but then it’s ‘part of happiness’ rather than an independent value.

-         Other ways of defending liberty without relying on utilitarianism (e.g. John Rawls).

Problems with Liberalism

Poison, Drunkenness, and Indecency

-         JSM himself falls short of endorsing some of the most shocking implications of his view: e.g. anyone who’s been convicted of violence to others when drunk should be prohibited from drinking (Here, for JSM, the danger of harm outweighs an indiv’s right to drink alcohol – door open for paternalism?…) Sex in public. 

-         How can JSM make this view consistent with P of L – ‘public indecency’ – After all, JSM insists that mere offence is no harm.  Seems to allow customary morality to override P of L.

-         One understands that following JSM’s P of L would lead to a soc. we might never wish to see: As Devlin points out: P of L goes vs. laws vs. duelling, incest between siblings & euthanasia.

Marxist Objections to Liberalism

-         Marx’s Critique of Liberalism: lib’m seeks a regime of rights to equality, liberty, security, & property: political emancipation.  Liberal rights actually an obstacle to human emancipation – egoistic rights of separation which encourage people to view others as limitations to his freedom.  Lib’m a sham community of ‘equal’ citizens, which cloaks egoistic competitions between unequals in civil society.  A genuinely emancipated society is one in which indevs see themselves & act as fully co-operating members of a community of equals.

Communitarianism and Liberalism

-         Communitarians share Marx’s opposition to atomism/individualism of lib’m.  Com’ns argues that it’s not only a false view of human nature to suppose we can throw off bonds of custom, but also has dangerous consequences: denying importance of community puts us on a path which will lead to indiv alienation, &, ultimately, the dislocation of society.  To overcome this must acknowledge imp’ce of customary morality – the bond which holds soc. together: so OK to stop people from doing things which’ll seriously undermine customary morality.

-         Likely reply that proposing highly repressive form of society with little space for indiv. freedom or liberty.  Coms likely to argue that this is crude & false – favours positive liberty: thorough socialisation a preliminary to the dev of freedom, which inevitably involve education about one’s real interests.

-         If JSM’s negative freedom leads to isolation and alienation, then the con’s +ve freedom leads to repression in the name of freedom.

Conclusion

-         JSM’s def of lib rests v. heavily on idea that humans capable of moral progress.  If wrong, poss that a communitarian soc better on utilitarian grounds. 

Other Notes in this Category

1. Exam Questions - On Liberty
2. John Stuart Mill’s Art of Living: by Alan Ryan
3. On Liberty Exam Questions
4. On Liberty in Focus
5. The Place of Liberty

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