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Criticism of Mill's concept of liberty
A critique of mills on liberty
Criticism of Mill's concept of liberty
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In Mills essay On Liberty he places great emphasize on individual roles in the political and social aspect of life’s systems. In Mills defense, such themes can be attributed to the liberty of individuals being responsible for their own destinies. Meaning that individuals should be the only ones to define and judge their actions. Mills feels that individuals should have the right to decide what is right or wrong and their standards of living should stem from those beliefs. Then from their primary way of living should implies one’s freedom to pursue whatever they feel is their own personal calling. Which would create individuality marking their own personal footprint in society off what they feel ad believe rather than following the masses and …show more content…
One being harm to others, mills considers whether or not one should face legal punishment if he/she act on their opinion. In other words, Mills identify individual liberty as one having their own liberty to act as one please. Mill then comes to the conclusion that actions and opinions are in two different categories so one should be held responsible for any actions that would do harm to another individual. One could conclude from this that Mills knows that the need for central control in certain circumstances is need in order to uphold order and maintain a respectable environment for all the individuals to freely express and live in an inclusive and exclusive environment. In terms of their living environment being inclusive and exclusive individuals would most likely associate themselves with those who share similar values and qualities as them verse being in the company of those who are of the …show more content…
That one thing is tranny, which, is a cruel from of government. By having an oppressive form of government in place the oppressive acts f that government isn’t limited to a selected group but all individuals are affect. The few in this case are affect because the government wants them to conform which erase their identity and forces someone else identity on them. Mill reference different forms of tyranny and how each form affects the individual and the society in which it serves. One thing Mills heavily explains tyranny when it comes to customs and traditions. Mills feels that this type of tyranny is an unforeseen submission of individuals to the customs and traditions of a particular society that will limited and isolated them, thus preventing them from obtain knowledge to realize their different potentials as individual people. If individuals are following such customs on the bases of government enforcement then they had no choice in the matter which is a forced act. Mill is totally against and enforcement of government on an individual freedom. This type of individuals has failed as an original individual and has become pray to the system in which its society wants it to follow ultimately they have failed to develop in the individual they are destine to be due to the enforcement of their
He is was total opposite of Metternich. Mill’s “On liberty” essay was about the individual liberty. To Mill’s, the only important thing is the happiness of the individual, and such happiness may only be accomplished in an enlightened society, in which people are free to partake in their own interests. Thus, Mills stresses the important value of individuality, of personal development, both for the individual and society for future progress. For Mill, an educated person is the one who acts on what he or she understands and who does everything in his or her power to understand. Mill held this model out to all people, not just the specially gifted, and advocates individual initiative over social control. He emphasizes that things done by individuals are done better than those done by governments. Also, individual action advances the mental education of that individual, something that government action cannot ever do, and for government action always poses a threat to liberty and must be carefully
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.
Utilitarianism defined, is the contention that a man should judge everything based on the ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. In other words Utilitarianism states that good is what brings the most happiness to the most people. John Stuart Mill based his utilitarian principle on the decisions that we make. He says the decisions should always benefit the most people as much as possible no matter what the consequences might be. Mill says that we should weigh the outcomes and make our decisions based on the outcome that benefits the majority of the people. This leads to him stating that pleasure is the only desirable consequence of our decision or actions. Mill believes that human beings are endowed with the ability for conscious thought, and they are not satisfied with physical pleasures, but they strive to achieve pleasure of the mind as well.
Wright Mill’s, regarding the fact that freedom, wealth, and equality are things that are not properly exercised in the “new society of America”. “We confront there a new kind of social structure, which embodies elements and tendencies of all modern society, but in which they have assumed a more naked and flamboyant prominence”. Essentially Mills is stating that the methods in which we as a society used to interpret politics, economics, etc. cannot be applied anymore due to the fact that modern society has evolved so much. Due to the fact that in modern day, the upper class elites have the largest influence on how essentially all aspects of society are run, it disregards the lower class’s abilities to exercise their rights to freedom and
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.
John Stuart Mill argues that the rightness or wrongness of an action, or type of action, is a function of the goodness or badness of its consequences, where good consequences are ones that maximize the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. In this essay I will evaluate the essential features of Mill’s ethical theory, how that utilitarianism gives wrong answers to moral questions and partiality are damaging to Utilitarianism.
In this passage Mills makes his point very simple when justifying when power should be used: “That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”.... ... middle of paper ... ... He thinks the biggest way that we can help people is to educate them.
In On Liberty by John Stuart Mills, he presents four arguments regarding freedom of expression. According to Mills, we should encourage free speech and discussion, even though it may oppose a belief you deem to be true. Essentially, when you open up to other opinions, Mills believes you will end up closer to the truth. Instead of just accepting something as true because you are told, Mills argues that accepting both sides will make you understand why your side is true or false. Mills is persuasive in all four of his claims because as history would show, accepting both sides of an argument is how society improves.
The term “civil or social liberties” is one that garners a lot of attention and focus from both Rousseau and Mill, although they tackle the subject from slightly different angles. Rousseau believes that the fundamental problem facing people’s capacity to leave the state of nature and enter a society in which their liberty is protected is the ability to “find a form of association that defends and protects the person and goods of each associate with all the common force, and by means of which each one, uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before” (Rousseau 53). Man is forced to leave the state of nature because their resistance to the obstacles faced is beginning to fail (Rousseau 52). Mill does not delve as far back as Rousseau does and he begins his mission of finding a way to preserve people’s liberty in an organized society by looking to order of the ancient societies of Greece, Rome and England (Mill 5). These societies “consisted of a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste, who derived their authority from inheritance or conquest” (Mill 5). This sort of rule was viewed as necessary by the citizens but was also regarded as very dangerous by Mill as the lives of citizen’s were subject to the whims of the governing power who did not always have the best interests of everyone in mind. Mill proposes that the only time “power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others” (Mill 14) and this is one of the fundamental building blocks of Mill’s conception of liberty. Rousseau, on the other hand, places more importance on the concept of a civic liberty and duty whose virtue comes from the conformity of the particular will with the general will.
Philosophy has offered many works and debates on morality and ethics. One of these works is the concept of utilitarianism. One of the most prominent writers on the theory of utilitarianism is John Stuart Mill. He suggests that utilitarianism may be the guide for morality. His writing on utilitarianism transcends through the present in relation to the famous movie The Matrix. In the movie, people live in a virtual reality where they are relatively happy and content and the real world is filled with a constant struggle to survive. The movie revolves around Neo, who tries to free people from the virtual world in which they live. In light of utilitarianism, freeing these people would be morally wrong. In this essay, I will first explain John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism and some objections it faces. I will then talk about utilitarianism’s relation to The Matrix and why it would be morally wrong to free the people and subject them to the real world.
Fitzpatrick, J. R. (2006). John Stuart Mill's political philosophy: Balancing freedom and the collective good. London [u.a.: Continuum.
John Stuart Mill came up with when one person is happy but the majority of people does something that makes that person upset, but the majority matters more than the one person who is upset. According to John Stuart Mill, “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind” (izquotes.com). This quote means that if one person had a different opinion than a whole majority of people then the whole majority are more stronger than the one person, so they can go along with the majority opinion. John Locke believed in life, liberty, and property and thought everyone had human rights to do what they wanted. According to John Locke, “Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself”(pintrest.com). It means that everyone has their own property to themselves and everybody else has rights but not to their property. For instance, our society came from two philosopher ideas of John Stuart Mill and John
middle of paper ... ... Philosophers, such as John Stuart Mill, have debated the role and the extension of government in the people’s lives for centuries. Mill presents a clear and insightful argument, claiming that the government should not be concerned with the free will of the people unless explicit harm has been done to an individual. However, such ideals do not build a strong and lasting community. It is the role of the government to act in the best interests at all times through the prevention of harm and the encouragement of free thought.