Mill s Views on liberty of Thought and Expression
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), British philosopher-economist, had a great impact on 19th-century British thought, not only in philosophy and economics but also in the areas of political science, logic, and ethics. Mill stands as a bridge between the 18th-century concern for liberty, reason, and science and the 19th-century trend toward empiricism and collectivism. In Parliament, Mill was considered a radical, because he supported such measures as public ownership of natural resources, equality for women, compulsory education, and birth control. He is probably most famous for his essay “On Liberty” (1859). John Stuart Mill explains, The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. ... Mill wrote On Liberty to emphasize one principle: that individuals had absolute freedom to do what he wants if his actions are self-regarding. In perhaps his most passionate work, Englishman John Stuart Mill writes about the rights of individuals to do what they wish with their own life as long as the consequences of their actions dont harm other people. ... Mill was a liberal thinker and his thoughts shocked a world where democratic governments were seen as the utmost in political freedom. It could be of important note that Mill himself, was a powerful member of the British government as the chief civil servant of the East India Company which controlled India, then a British colony. Truly, Mill was speaking from a position of authority while he was supporting an extremely liberal government. In 1850s Britain, the time and place in which Mill composed On Liberty, the middle class had just received the right to vote twenty years earlier. ... Mill was observing while his countrys government evolved into a democratic structure and undoubtedly was using his observations as his stimulation for this work. Mill asserts that the government shouldnt act at the signal of the people because the public shouldnt have the compulsion power over their elected governing body.