On Liberty

Kids, I get to control what you eat now, but when you're an adult, being an adult means you get to eat whatever you want, whenever you want, and however much of it you want.

Eat, pray, love, which is like famous movie and also a book that I was like, oh, because I think that almost encapsulates like, yes, I'm finally free to be who I want to be.

I can love who I want to love for as little or as long as I want.

I can pray to whoever I want to pray to.

And there are many things that I like about this transition.

So I don't want anyone to think like... that I'm like anti-liberalism in this sense of the word.

But Mill argues famously in his book On Liberty that the only legitimate reason for society or government to restrict individual freedom in the sense of choosing things is to prevent harm to others.

So like he's using a modern notion of freedom and he's saying that the only legitimate publicly acceptable argument for why we should restrict anyone's actions is because they would harm somebody else.

The boundaries of free speech are reached at the point where the speech does unjustified harm to others.

And we can go all the way back to John Stuart Mill and his book "On Liberty", published in 1859, for what we call the harm principle.

And that's what the harm principle states, that the only reason for abridging the rights of others is to prevent harm.

That was written in 1859.

Yeah.

And when you read On Liberty, On Liberty-

Yeah

...

So I'll give you an example of a col- a collateral cost that I think is, is overblown, and this is John Stuart Mill's idea that there's just huge value in seeing evidently false views be debunked in real time.

This famous quote from chapter two of On Liberty where he says, "Well, you shouldn't ban a view because maybe it's correct.

You shouldn't ban a view because maybe it contains, uh, a, a bit of truth and a bit of falsehood." And then the third reason is even if a view is categorically undeniably false, you shouldn't ban it because, boy, it's this value...

Th- these are-- this is me, um, paraphrasing Mill now.

it is rather a measure of his success in promoting these objects and of the disgust with which his success is regarded by those who are opposed to his political ideas it was known or ought to have been known by every one who supported mr mill's candidature in eighteen sixty five that he was a powerful advocate of proportional representation and that he attributed the very greatest importance to the political industrial and social emancipation of women He advocated years ago in his Political Economy the scheme of land tenure reform with which his name is now practically associated.

His essay on liberty left no doubt as to his opinions upon the value of maintaining freedom of thought and speech.

His article entitled A Few Words on Non-Intervention might have warned the partisans of the Manchester School that he had no sympathy with their views on foreign policy.

there is little doubt that the majority of mr mill's supporters in eighteen sixty five did not know what his political opinions were and that they voted for him simply on his reputation as a great thinker a large number however probably supported him knowing in a general way the views advocated in his writings but thinking that he would probably be like many other politicians and not allow his practice to be in the least degree influenced by his theories just as radical airs apparent are said to lay aside all inconvenient revolutionary opinions when they come to the throne it was believed that mr mill in parliament would be an entirely different person from mr mill in his study it was one thing to write an essay in favor of proportional representation it was another thing to assist in the insertion of the principle of proportional representation in the reform bill and to form a school of practical politicians who took care to insure the adoption of this principle in the school board elections it was one thing to advocate theoretically the claims of women to representation it was another to introduce the subject into the house of commons to promote an active political organization in its favor and thus to convert it from a philosophical dream into a question of pressing and practical importance it was one thing to advocate freedom of thought and discussion in all political and religious questions it was another to speak respectfully of mr odger and to send mr bradlaugh a contribution toward the expenses of his candidature for northampton the discovery that mr mill's chief objects in parliament were the same as his chief objects out of parliament branded him at once as an unpractical man and his success in promoting these objects constituted his failure as a politician his fearless disregard of unpopularity as manifested in his prosecution in conjunction with mr p a taylor of ex-governor eyre was another proof that he was entirely unlike the people who call themselves practical politicians his persistency in conducting this prosecution was one of the main causes of his defeat at the election of eighteen sixty eight if to be unpopular because he promoted the practical success of the opinions his life had been spent in advocating is to have failed then mr mill failed

If, however, we regard less the topics on which these two illustrious men wrote than the special service rendered by each of them to intellectual progress, we may not unfittingly compare the work of locke the descent from metaphysics to psychology to the noble purpose of redeeming logic from the superstition of the aristotelians and exalting it to something higher than a mere verbal exercise for schoolboys the attack that locke opened with such tremendous effect on the a priori school of philosophy was never more ably supported than by the logic and controversial writings of mr mill the remarkable fact in regard to both these great thinkers these conquerors in the realms of abstract speculation is their relation to politics locke was the political philosopher of the revolution of sixteen eighty eight mr mill has been the political philosopher of the democracy of the nineteenth century the vast space that lies between their treatises represents a difference not in the men but in the times locke found opposed to the common weal an odious theory of arbitrary and absolute power it is interesting to remember what were the giants necessary to be slain in those days the titles of his first chapters on government significantly attest the rudimentary condition of political philosophy in locke's day adam was generally considered to have had a divine power of government which was transmitted to a favored few of his descendants accordingly locke disposes of adam's title to sovereignty to whatever origin it may have been ascribed to creation donation the subjection of eve or fatherhood There is something almost ludicrous in discussing fundamental questions of government with reference to such scriptural topics.

And it is a striking evidence of the change that has passed over England since the Revolution that, whereas Locke's argument looks like a commentary on the Bible, even the bishops now do not in Parliament quote the Bible on the question of marriage with a deceased wife's sister.

nevertheless locke clearly propounded the great principle which in spite of many errors and much selfishness has been the fruitful heritage of the whig party political power then i take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death and consequently all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury and all this only for the public good locke also announced the maxim that the state of nature is one of equality mr mill's special views on the land question are not without parallel in locke for that acute thinker distinctively laid down that labor was the true ground even of property in land still it must be confessed that locke's political philosophy is much cruder than mr mills his essay on government is as the rough work of a boy of genius the representative government a finished work of art of the experienced master and this difference corresponds with the rate of political progress the english constitution as we now understand it was unknown at the revolution it had to be slowly created now the great task of the future is to raise the mass of the people to a higher standard of political intelligence and material comfort to that great end no man has contributed so much as mr mill perhaps the one writing for which above all others mr mill's disciples will love his memory is his essay on liberty In this undertaking, Mr.

Mill followed the noble precedent of Locke, with greater largeness of view and perfection of work.

And we have a really remarkably rich stack of source material guiding our journey today.

Primarily, we're working from a highly regarded Turkish translation of his masterwork on liberty.

Which is a fantastic edition.

It really is.

did not marry until 1851, which was two years after her first husband passed away.

It was a partnership of genuine intellectual equals, a dynamic that was exceedingly rare for that era.

And this relationship is the direct genesis of On Liberty, the masterpiece we are focusing heavily on today.

Which is such a cool origin story.

And so is it not the case that freedom is a higher good, liberty is a higher good? Mill puts it this way, that, "The happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct is not the agent's own happiness, but that of all concerned." So do you remember on Bentham's list of seven things, that seventh one said extent, how many others are affected.

Mill's famous book called On Liberty puts that minor point in Bentham's work at the center of everything he does, that now we're gonna, by bringing the question of quality versus quantity into our assessment of which pleasures are better, we are able to now really move beyond simple self-interest and ask a much, to many of our ears, richer question.

What about how, how do these moral decisions...

What does morality even mean if I'm not taking into consideration how it impacts everybody else? "As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a, as, as a disinterested and benevolent spectator." This is a direct attack on egoism or egotism, the idea that self-interest ought to be the highest criteria for decision-making.

That is just one of the many things that comes out of Mill's assertion.

A few more bits about Mill and then we'll wrap up and get to our Q&A.

Um, if you, uh, were trained as a teacher, a K through 12 teacher, or studied education, you probably read John Stuart Mill's On Liberty or ran into his, uh, very influential ideas on education.

So we are morally obligated, Mill argued, to support, encourage, and provide for universal education, and here's why.

Can I jump in on the weird waters thing, like, in this last point? So, like, would we want...

You know, we claim we don't want people to swim in weird post-liberal waters, so, like, we wouldn't want... them associating with an intellectual who said that John Stuart Mill's On Liberty is dangerous and society is a right to suppress heretical opinions, you know, like Wilmore Kendall, or we wouldn't want anyone to associate with a group of people who employed an intellectual who said that all liberal ideology is just a mask for the exercise of power against the minority, like James Burnham.

Yeah, I didn't say anything like you did.

That's what you've just said.