Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
John stuart mill, “of the liberty of thought and discussion
John stuart mill, “of the liberty of thought and discussion
John stuart mill thought and discussion
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Sam Friedell
Introduction to Political Philosophy
Professor Glyn Morgan
Essay #2
4/20/14
Question: How does Mill justify freedom of expression? Is his argument persuasive?
In his Writing, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill does an incredible job explaining how his argument for the freedom of expression can be utilized to help individuals discover the ultimate truth of an individual’s opinion and the validity to their opinions. Before determining whether or not John Stuart Mill’s argument for freedom of expression is persuasive, and whether or not it works, it is important to understand the argument itself. In the second section of his piece of writing Mill lays out and goes into his argument for freedom of expression. In defending freedom of expression he argues, “The received opinion may be false… or the received opinion being true, a conflict with the opposite error is essential to a clear apprehension and deep feeling of its truth. But there is a commoner case than either of these; when the conflicting doctrines, instead of one being true and the other false, share the truth between them; and the nonconforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the truth” (On Liberty, pages 43 & 44). Mill uses his argument of freedom of expression to show that even though people will have different opinions, instead of settling on the fact that one opinion is true and the other is false, they can work together in a fair manner to figure out and share the truth between them. Mill’s argument is then later broken up into four separate grounds, which can be found on page 50 of On Liberty, which allows for us to better understand the overall argument.
The first ground of his argument is the concept or idea of “infallibility.” Here he says, “...
... middle of paper ...
...finally, I think the biggest upside to Mill’s argument is that it’s always to one’s advantage to know the truth. While the argument that Mill makes could be very beneficial, if it is followed properly, there are still some downsides to it. The world isn’t a perfect world; we don’t live in a utopia. With this in mind, if people attempt to go by Mill’s argument, if one individual disagrees with what another individual has to say, it could get ugly; it could lead to a verbal or physical argument if one individual “pushes them [the other individual] hard”.
All in all, while even though we don’t live in a perfect society, for the most part, John Stuart Mill’s defense of freedom of expression should work; the way I thought about his overall argument is that it always helps to know the truth and that means doing whatever it takes, within fair grounds, to reach that truth.
Much of his argument rests on the nearly indisputable belief that if we, as a
Mill begins “On Liberty” by asserting the principle that we should never regulate the actions of others, except if those actions harm others. He goes on to suggest that we should not restrict speech, even when we find it false. What seems odd about this is that Mill is a utilitarian, which means that the rightness or wrongness of a policy or action depends on its consequences. Clearly, some speech does an awful lot of harm and not much good, so how can Mill hold the view that we should never censor? (Your answer should include Mill’s discussion of why censorship “robs the human race” and you should cover both cases in which the minority view is false and when it’s
One of the more severe charges against Mill's conception of liberty involves socio-cultural background of the author's politics. Mill advocates paternalism on moral grounds in several instances that suggest an intellectual bias and a level of intellectual superiority, embedded in the nineteenth century culture and the Western world. Under Mill's paradigm, freedom is limited to those who are capable of rationality, allowing despotism as a sufficient alternative to 'educating' in all other instances (Goldberg, 2000). Thus, one's incompetence allows for a coercive force and social control (Conly, 2013).
For more than two thousand years, the human race has struggled to effectively establish the basis of morality. Society has made little progress distinguishing between morally right and wrong. Even the most intellectual minds fail to distinguish the underlying principles of morality. A consensus on morality is far from being reached. The struggle to create a basis has created a vigorous warfare, bursting with disagreement and disputation. Despite the lack of understanding, John Stuart Mill confidently believes that truths can still have meaning even if society struggles to understand its principles. Mill does an outstanding job at depicting morality and for that the entire essay is a masterpiece. His claims throughout the essay could not be any closer to the truth.
...Mill does not implicitly trust or distrust man and therefore does not explicitly limit freedom, in fact he does define freedom in very liberal terms, however he does leave the potential for unlimited intervention into the personal freedoms of the individual by the state. This nullifies any freedoms or rights individuals are said to have because they subject to the whims and fancy of the state. All three beliefs regarding the nature of man and the purpose of the state are bound to their respective views regarding freedom, because one position perpetuates and demands a conclusion regarding another.
There were some moral problems that Mill ran into with his principle. One of the first problems was that actions are right to promote happiness, but wrong as they sometimes tend to produce unhappiness. By moving a victim from a mangled car would be the noble thing to do but what if pulling him from the wreck meant killing him. He intended to produce a happy outcome, but in the end he created an unhappy situation. Utilitarianism declares that men can live just as well without happiness. Mill says yes, but men do not conduct their lives, always seeking happiness. Happiness does not always mean total bliss.
In relation to social obligations and advancement of society, Mill writes advocating the expression of one’s opinion as the main driving force. Mill states, “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in sile...
Case: You are at home one evening with your family, when all of a sudden, a man throws open the door. He’s holding a shotgun in his hands, and he points it directly at your family. It seems he hasn’t seen you yet. You quietly and carefully retrieve the pistol your father keeps in his room for home protection. Are you morally allowed to use the pistol to kill the home invader?
expediency is actually harmful. Mill would argue that hurting society is not truly expedient, and
...ave the freedm to make mistakes and have discussions and debates in a healthy setting where others can learn from each other, and be able to raise their voice without having to be worried by the idea of being bullied. He strongly believed in having the freedom to develop your own personality and having the strength to make choices. Mills is only able to see progress in society if we enter a world of culture, free conformity, and harm. We must be given the right to free expression, freedom and the right to liberty without the fear of threat or being silenced. It’s because of these justifications that mill believes that mankind would not be justified in silencing an individual just like that one inidivdual, if given the power to do so, would not be justified in silencing all of mankind. Through these actions, we as humans will create the ultimate gaood for mankind.
John Locke (1632-1704) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) are two important thinkers of liberty in modern political thought. They have revolutionized the idea of human freedom at their time and have influenced many political thinkers afterwards. Although their important book on human freedom, John Locke’s The Second Treatise of Government (1689) and John Mill’s On Liberty (1859), are separated 170 years, some scholars thinks that they are belonging to the same conceptual tradition, English Liberalism. In this essay, I will elaborate John Locke and John Stuart Mill view on human freedom and try to find the difference between their concept of human freedom despite their similar liberal tradition background.
Mills starts out in his first argument by being concerned that people were being silenced when voicing their opinions. He voices that by saying: “First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility”(50). Mills means that when someone’s opinion is being silenced by another, the latter will assume that their believes are to be true.
My thoughts and feelings on Mill vary, but I’d like to share my negative opinion towards the principle and hope to put it in a different perspective. The harm principle was published in Mill’s work, Of Liberty, in 1859. He states, “That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant (978).” This means that government is not able to control peoples’ actions unless they are causing harm to other individuals.
Fitzpatrick, J. R. (2006). John Stuart Mill's political philosophy: Balancing freedom and the collective good. London [u.a.: Continuum.
An individual does not make a community, and a community does not make a society. In order to have a functioning and prosperous society, one must relinquish some free will in return for protection. According to John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, there are certain rights of the individual which the government may never possess. Centuries after the publication of Mill’s Essay, the court case Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegeta l , 546 U.S. 418 (2006) challenged the protective role of government against the free exercise of religion. In this instance, Mill would agree with the court ruling because, like his views concerning free exercise of will, government restriction and majority rule, both the court ruling and Mill’s ideals are concerned for the best interests of the individual rather than for the greater good of society.