J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) [Paperback]

John Stuart Mill (Author), Stefan Collini (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521379172 | ISBN-13: 978-0521379175 | Publication Date: August 25, 1989

John Stuart Mill is one of the few indisputably classic authors in the history of political thought. On Liberty, first published in 1851, has become celebrated as the most powerful defense of the freedom of the individual and it is now widely regarded as the most important theoretical foundation for Liberalism as a political creed. Similarly, his The Subjection of Women, a powerful indictment of the political, social, and economic position of women, has become one of the cardinal documents of modern feminism. This edition brings together these two classic texts, plus Mill's posthumous Chapters on Socialism, his somewhat neglected examination of the strengths and weaknesses of various forms of Socialism. The Editor's substantial Introduction places these three works in the context both of Mill's life and of nineteenth-century intellectual and political history, and assesses their continuing relevance.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

A comprehensive introduction prefaces two classic texts, On Liberty and The Subjection of Women and the posthumously published Chapters on Socialism in this anthology of the celebrated Scottish philosopher's works.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (August 25, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521379172
• ISBN-13: 978-0521379175
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,335 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #82 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Current Events > Civil Rights & Liberties

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Utility as Mill's Ultimate Appeal on all Ethical Questions, February 6, 2010

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John M. Balouziyeh (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) (Paperback)

1. Introduction
John Stuart Mill opens his first chapter by establishing the sole basis of his moral system: "I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being" (¶ 11). His philosophy thus holds that actions are right in proportion to their tendency to promote happiness, and wrong in proportion to their tendency to promote unhappiness. Happiness is equivalent to pleasure and the absence of pain; unhappiness is equivalent to pain and the privation of pleasure. In this way, utilitarianism sets out a basic system to determine the morality of all actions, both private and public, individual and societal. On this basis, John Stuart Mill, in his essay On Liberty, sets out to define the proper limits of government and society on the freedom of the individual.

2. On Liberty
a. Liberty
John Stuart Mill opens his essay by defining the subject he will explore: "the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual" (¶ 1). This, he calls "Civil, or Social Liberty." The problem he will explore is the "struggle between Liberty and Authority," which is "the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar" (¶ 2). He explores the extent to which man's liberty may properly be checked by authority and he outlines the ways in which liberty is threatened by various tyrannies, such as the "tyranny of the political rulers" and the "tyranny of the majority" (social tyranny).
For Mill, liberty permits man to act as he wishes when no harm falls upon other people. It involves a series of rights and includes liberty of conscience, liberty of thought and feeling, freedom of opinion and sentiment, liberty of tastes and pursuits and of framing a plan of life to suit one's character, to do as one wishes in a way that does not harm others or impede from the exercise of this right by others, and freedom of association, with some limits (¶ 12).
Mill concludes that "the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection" (¶ 9). Accordingly, rulers are unable to use their power arbitrarily in a way that harms society. Social liberty was protected by obtaining "recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe," and also by establishing of a system of "constitutional checks" (¶ 2). With these two measures in place, the tyranny of rulers is checked.
However, limiting the power of government is insufficient to the end of guarding liberty. Mill then outlines a system for checking "social tyranny," for "Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself" (¶ 6). Mill lays out a series of rules of conduct, some of which are enacted by law, to offer protections within this scenario.

b. Tyranny
Mill's essay describes two threats to liberty: social tyranny, comprised of public opinion, as well as the tyranny of the public authorities. Society must be on its guard against the tyranny of the majority, which "was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities" (¶ 6). This tyranny manifests itself as a "social tyranny" whenever society executes "wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle" (¶ 5). Mill describes this tyranny as even more dangerous than the tyranny of rulers or magistrates, and calls for protections against society when it passes "its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them" (¶ 5).

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The great defender of individual liberty, December 23, 2006

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Michael A Neulander "Political Philosophy" (VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) (Hardcover)

John Stuart Mill, 1806-73, worked for the East India Co. helped run Colonial India from England. Minister of Parliament 1865-68 he served one term. Maiden speech was a disaster his second was great success. He was first MP to propose that women should be given the vote on equal footing with the men who could vote. He got 1/3 support, England gives franchise to women after U.S. He was a great Feminist, his essay "Subjection of Women" is written with great passion and prose. It was a brave position for him to take he was ridiculed for it. He favored democracy, and letting more men from lower classes the right to vote, but believed that people that are more educated should have more votes then less educated because they would make better decisions about what government should do. He would have wanted to extend education to the masses, so that all may have gotten 2-3 votes and so on. He didn't think it should be extended to where a small elite could carry the day on votes. The idea was that if the working class, and middle class, where divided on an issue, the people with more intelligence would have the power to tip the balance. Mill thought that people with more education would probably not only be better able to make political decisions, especially in terms of intellectually being able to see what would be best for the government to do, but that they would also be more concerned about the common good publicly then people in general. He was intensely educated by his father James. John could read Greek, and Latin at 6 yrs.; his Dad tutored him at home. Dad thought environment was everything. He was treated like an adult, never played games with kids; he had a very cerebral upbringing. He had a period of depression in his twenties, it changed his philosophy, and he recognized the importance of developing feelings along with the intellect, this is something that he stressed in his work. He read poetry to get out of depression; he became devoted to poetry and became a romantic. He fell in love with a married woman Harriet Taylor, was a platonic relationship, after her husband's death they married 3 years later and probably never consummated the marriage maybe due to his having syphilis. His dedication to "On Liberty" is to her, very devoted to each other. Both buried together in Avignon France where they used to vacation.

Mill as a moral theorist subscribed to a theory we call Utilitarianism. It means---In some way morality is about the maximization of happiness. Whether actions are right or wrong depends on how happiness can be most effectively maximized. I say in some way, because there are allot of different kinds of Utilitarians. Allot of different ways of saying exactly how it is the maximization of happiness comes into morality. Therefore, happiness is clearly an important idea for Utilitarians. Mill has a hedonistic view of happiness, he thinks that happiness can be defined in terms of "pleasure in the absence of pain." What is distinctive about Mill in this area is that he believes that some kinds of pleasure are better than others are, and add more to a person's happiness than other kinds of pleasures. He believes in what he calls, "higher quality pleasures." These are pleasures, he says, that we get from the exercise of faculties that only human beings happen to have. So the intellect, imagination, the moral feelings, these are the sources of higher quality pleasures people use. His view seems to be that a certain quantity of intellectual pleasure just adds more to your happiness, and a given quantity of some lower pleasure like a kind we would share with the animals such as sensation, taste, sexual pleasure, etc. His "higher quality pleasures" in a way echo Aristotle's ethics. The idea of those things that make us distinctly human that are the real key to our happiness, that is in Mill also. It is not as limited to reason and intellect as Aristotle thinks. Mill recognizes the importance of the appreciation of beauty, aesthetic pleasure, and moral pleasure. He frankly owes a debt to Aristotle that he never properly acknowledges, never gives him proper credit.

"On Liberty" is Mill's is his most widely read and enduring work. It is an indispensable essay on political thought, which strenuously argues for individual liberty. He is defending what he calls the "liberty principle." It is a principle that guarantees individuals quite a bit of personal freedom. "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." These quoted sentences in John Stuart Mill's book, "On Liberty," embody the crux of his argument; that the power of the state must intrude as little as possible on the liberty of its citizenry. In essence, Mill was against using the power of the state through its lawmaking apparatus to compel citizens to conduct themselves in ways that society deems moral or appropriate. Mill thought that people had not only a right, but also a duty to develop their intellectual faculties, which is indispensable to maximize their happiness. He believed that society improved for all its citizens when they where left unfettered to the maximum extent possible, allowing them to use their imagination and intellect to improve themselves. Mill postulates a theory that societies usually institute laws based primarily on "personal preference" of its citizenry instead of established principles. This lack of clarity of opinion often leads to the government frequently interfering in the lives of its citizens unnecessarily. For Mill, there are very few times when the state can infringe on the personal liberty of others. Firstly, the state has the right to promulgate laws that prevent a person's actions from harming others. Secondly, the state must protect those citizens who are not mature enough to protect themselves, such as children. Thirdly, he exempts, "... backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage." In Mill's view, immature societies need a benevolent leader to rule them until they have developed to a point where they, "... have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion ..." Mill said this third exemption did not apply to any of the countries in Europe. Mill believed that forced morality by the state on its citizen's liberties was destructive to their inward development, and could even lead to a violent reaction by them against the government.


There are different parts of his defense of this, different arguments that he gives. He has a long chapter on freedom of speech and press. He has some very specific reasons why he thinks those freedoms are important. Always in the background for Mill is the idea of development, and making it possible for more people to enjoy these higher quality pleasures. How do we help people develop their distinctly human faculties, in ways that will help them enjoy their higher quality pleasures? Because for him that is the way, we maximize the total amount of happiness that is enjoyed in the world, and that is the object of morality as far as he is concerned. Utilitarianists believe that maximizing happiness is ultimately, what morality is all about. That does not mean maximizing your own happiness that means maximizing the total amount of happiness that is enjoyed, not only by yourself but also by everybody else as well.

Roger Kimball, in his book "Experiments Against Reality" wrote, "On Liberty" was published in 1859, coincidentally the same year as "On the Origin of Species." Darwin's book has been credited--and blamed--for all manner of moral and religious mischief. But in the long run "On Liberty" may have effected an even greater revolution in sentiment.

I read this book for a graduate class in Philosophy. Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, and history.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Reminder of the Importance of Liberty, September 13, 2010

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Edward J. Barton (Tukwila, WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings (Paperback)

Mill was well ahead of his time - and his writings are as on-point today as they were 135 years ago. Perhaps the greatest Libertarian, Mill railed against the subjugation of women, demanded equal rights and sufferage, and viewed the role of the state to be limited to those areas where the common good public safety or protection outweighed the needs for individual liberties.

It is hard to believe that it was LESS THAN 100 years ago - in 1920 - that women received the right to vote in the US by constitutional amendment. Writings like Mill's helped turn the tide and show the hypocrisy of a democracy that was not democratic.

A worthwhile read - if only to remind ouselves of the need for liberty and equality, and a great refresher that the rhetoric of government, politicians and societal traditions of "freedom and liberty" do not always translate into action.