John Stuart Mill's Principle of Liberty - Essay Example

Today our society is preoccupied with notions of democracy, liberty, and observance of human rights, which we may tend to view as symbols of modernity. But many of us forget that modern Western societies rest on the heritage of thinkers who during several centuries had been laying the ground for modern democratic institutions and practices.1 In this regard, one of the important historical figures involved into perhaps the most thorough defence of principles of liberalism was John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), the British philosopher and economist thought to be among the most influential philosophers of the nineteenth century.2 In his treatise "On Liberty" Mill offered a principle of liberty which we may conditionally divide into two parts. Its first part declares that one has the right to do whatever he or she wants and be free from the interference from other people, and the second part states that the only allowable justification for an interference into ones actions is the prevention of harm from being inflicted on others.3 Even today, this two-sided principle of liberty seems to belong to the set of basic values our society would wish to be governed by4, and therefore this principle may be expected to be the basis for public policy, insofar as we perceive public policy as intentions and actions of a government authorised by citizens to govern the society. I prefer this definition of public policy because it establishes a direct connection between expectations of a society and the effectiveness of their embodiment by governments. With such observations in mind, let us try to find out to what extent, if at all, John Stuart Mill's principle of liberty is a workable and attractive basis for public policy in light of real-life challenges. While this task presupposes the possibility of the existence of the link between Mill's principle of liberty and public policy, to accomplish our task would mean to re-examine whether such a link may indeed exist, and whether it really exists. For this purpose, we shall consecutively analyse both premises of Mill's principle of liberty, and shall try to see whether they hold separately and in combination. I believe that this approach has the advantage over the undifferentiated examination of the application of Mills principle to public policy, because in the latter case we may fail to exactly identify aspects of the principle that cause difficulties in its practical implementation as a basis for public policy. Besides, the fact Mill himself differentiated between the spheres of application of the principle of liberty in positive (freedom for personal development) and negative (knowledge that our freedom from harmful interference of others is protected) ways suggests that for him, as a utilitarian, this differentiation was needed in order to provide a practically applicable frame for his moral philosophy. Indeed, while for Mill the maximisation of happiness serves as the moral end, he realises that the task of distribution of limited amount of goods that can promote happiness requires the establishment of strict social norms violation of which should be punished for the common benefit. The first part of the Millian principle of liberty, which declares that a person has the right to do whatever he or she wants and be free from the interference from other people, stems from Mills principle of utility "grounded on the permanent interest of man as a progressive being".1 By this Mill implies that the choice of forms of governance should be based on their capacity to promote development of faculties of each individual, which would generally increase moral freedom, responsibility, and rationality among people, thus leading to more happiness. This aim is justified by the fact that free personal development is an end for each individual, and at the same time is a proper way for the whole society to thrive.1 So, it is after all the utility that dictates the best forms of social life.2 Therefore, with the personal development being the basic value, Mill states that liberty, insofar as it an indispensable precondition for such a development, is the fundamental human right.3 Consequently, the first part of the principle of liberty, offering prospects of the increased welfare4, should constitute a basis for public policy, along with the principles of democracy and representative government, which, by the way, to a large degree follow from the first part of the Millian principle of liberty. Indeed, for instance representative government simultaneously promotes individuality by instigating people to actively participate in resolution of problems of society, and at the same time needs individuality of citizens in order to function well. In this way, the first part of the liberty principle exemplifies that basic value of modern democracies which we today take for granted, but which was not always self-evident, and for the elaboration of which Mill has to be credited. On ground of this, we see that public policy must be based on this part of the principle of liberty, and, moreover, the general effectiveness of public policy is an indicator of the degree to which this part of the principle is observed. It may be objected that this inference is somewhat general and does not give concrete hints as to how to integrate this part of the principle of liberty into public policy. However, I believe that as the vast majority of people would readily justify this first part of the principle of liberty, this commandment must be explicitly and implicitly taken into account by public policy. The second part of the Millian principle of liberty states that the only allowable justification for an interference into ones actions is the prevention of harm from being inflicted on others.1 Clearly, the failure to integrate this maxim into public policy would endanger the whole society as it would turn the valuable liberty into insecurity. Therefore, it may equally seem that the second part of Mills principle of liberty has to constitute not only an attractive basis for public policy, but a totally obligatory one, because otherwise the first part of the principle would not work. However, when it comes to the real-life application of the second part of the principle it turns out that it is quite difficult to make it workable. This happens because of the difficulty in the definition of the notion of harm itself.2 Unfortunately, examples of how this is possible abound. For one, consider terrorist attacks in many Western countries, including ours. Ironically, what contributed to such attacks was the usage by terrorists of opportunities offered by the first part of Mills principle of liberty, like for instance privacy of information exchange. But attempts to reduce terrorist threat demonstrate that serious compromises between two parts of the liberty principle are inevitable, because protection of people from harm often leads to the additional limitations of their own liberty, as would be the case with tightened control over the exchange of information. Moreover, while it is justified that for example during a war a government temporarily limits liberty for the sake of its protection, the war with terrorism has no visible end.3 On the other hand, aside from direct threats to life, if any type of negative influence is considered by some people as harmful and by others not, then the second part of Mills principle of liberty may fail to give a proper judgement. Indeed, there are people who claim that allegedly vulgar and impolite behaviour of some individuals or representatives of certain social groups is harmful for moral sensitivities of others. And while Mill thought that an offence of the moral sensitivities is not a harm by itself because people may confuse personal attitudes with moral commandments4, in some cases intolerance may develop between social groups and individuals which can lead to direct harm. Moreover, examples of self-negating actions of individuals, like asocial behaviour akin to drug addiction or suicidal inclination of a person, which in some cases are free from direct coercive influence of external agents and from direct relation to them, pose another problem for the definition of what harm is, and in such instances the second part of the liberty principle may collide with principles of morality that demand that we should try to help our fellow creatures and to prevent harm from being self-inflicted. However, any attempts to interfere with behaviour for an alleged benefit of a person are of the paternalistic nature, and Mills himself claimed that in relation to actions that affect only a person undertaking them liberty superseded safety, because he viewed coercive interference as the force working to degrade personal capacities of people. All these controversial aspects of the second part of the Mills principle of liberty testify to the difficulties when it comes to finding a proper definition of what is harmful, and to what degree harm may and should be socially controlled. What also adds to the difficulty with the real-life application of this part of the liberty principle is the fact that under the disguise of its observation authoritarian regimes may justify their actions in reality directed against liberty. On ground of this we may see that to employ the second part of the Mills principle of liberty as a basis for public policy would entail controversy and ambiguity arising from its practical application. Therefore, it may be said that the second part of Mill's principle of liberty might not be a truly workable basis for public policy, because, being a way too optimistic, it presupposes only rational solution of problems often based on human irrationality. However, I would argue that difficulties with the Mill's principle can be attributed to social changes since the time of Mill. So, instead of abandonment, Mills principle has to be adapted to properly balance liberty and its protection. With the above considerations in mind, we may conclude that in general Mills principle of liberty is an attractive, and even obligatory, basis for public policy. This fully concerns the first part of the principle which requires that people be free to pursue their ends without interference. Moreover, this requirement today belongs to the most important values of the Western democracies. Similarly, the second part of Mills principle of liberty, which states that the only justification for interference into pursuits of people is prevention of harm from being inflicted on others, must be observed by public policy in order to make the first part of the principle workable. However, real-life implementation of the second part of the principle often generates controversy due to the existing plurality of definitions of the notion of harm. Therefore, public policy should be based on this part of the principle with an important reservation that its pursuit does not disrupt the balance with its first part. For example, in application to terrorist threat one of ways to keep such a balance may be to lessen ambiguity of definition of what harm is by clearly charting those activities in which people can freely engage without risk of prosecution, and directly protect those liberties.1 More generally, there should be incessant public debates about which activities can warrant legal coercive interference. For example, in todays context the developments within informational sphere should be among the most urgent topics for public discussion, because such abusive activities as computer hacking require legal counteraction that would simultaneously observe the basic principle of freedom of information. All in all, there must be some scale for assessment of harmfulness of actions that may have ambiguous interpretation, and one of the main principles for the formation of such an assessment scale is an openness of public discussion so that the general public is aware of any possible limitations on the personal liberty that public policy may adopt. In any case, this scale cannot remain fixed and therefore all new social, political, and economic developments will inevitably keep such public debates ongoing. We may also link such an approach to the formation of an assessment scale with the Difference Principle formulated by John Rawls, in which it is stated that violation of equality can take place only if such violations will favour the worst-off members of society. 1 Similarly, we may consider the violation of the personal liberty permissible if, aside from an alleged harm to the sentiment of a person whose liberty is limited by such a violation, we divert an even larger harm from other people. In any case, without having a clearer picture of what to protect and what to fight, we may put limitations on law enforcement to prevent it from possible infringement on liberties, only diminishing its effectiveness in implementation of the second part of Mills principle of liberty. Sources Berlin, I. (2002). Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford University Press. Dworkin, R. (2005). Taking Rights Seriously. Harvard University Press. Gray, J. (1991). J. S. Mill's On Liberty in Focus. Routledge. Hampsher-Monk, I. (1992). A History of Modern Political Thought. Cambridge University Press. Kelly, P. (2003). J. S. Mill: on Liberty. In Boucher, D., (Ed.), and Kelly, P., (Ed.). Political Thinkers, Oxford University Press, pp. 324-342. Levine, A. (2001). Engaging Political Philosophy. Blackwell Publishers. Lyons, J. (1994). Rights, Welfare and Mill's Moral Theory. Oxford University Press. Mill, J., S. (1859). On Liberty. In Robson, J., M., (Ed.). (1963). Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. University of Toronto Press, v. 18, pp. 213-310. Mill, J., S. (1861). Utilitarianism. In Robson, J., M., (Ed.). (1963). Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. University of Toronto Press, v. 10, pp. 203-259. Rawls, A. (2003). Book on Republicanism. Retrieved February 03, 2006, from http://www.rawls.org/Intro_to_book.htm. Rawls, J. (2005). A Theory of Justice. Belknap Press. Rees, J., C. (1985). John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Riley, J. (1998). Mill on Liberty. London, Routledge. Ryan, A. (1970). John Stuart Mill. New York, Pantheon Books. Skorupski, J. (1998). The Cambridge Companion to Mill. Cambridge University Press. Ten, C., L. (1980). Mill On Liberty. Oxford University Press. Read More