On Liberty

Mill’s On Liberty (1859) defends individual freedom against both the state and the more insidious pressure of social conformity. The whole thing rests on one principle, the harm principle, and everything else follows from it.

The harm principle

The entire book sits on one foundation. The only justification for society to exercise power over an individual, against their will, is to prevent harm to others.

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. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

You can reason with someone, persuade them, beg them. But you can’t force them to act differently because you think it would be good for them.
Mill’s utilitarian foundation is still there, but the conclusion is anti-paternalist: over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

The hard part is defining harm. Offense doesn’t qualify. Moral disapproval doesn’t qualify.
The harm has to be concrete. Physical injury, economic damage, direct infringement of someone’s rights. Influence and persuasion are fine; coercion isn’t.

Mill also carves out an exception: this only applies to people “in the maturity of their faculties.” Children and those who can’t take care of themselves get different treatment.

Free speech

Silencing an opinion is always wrong.

First, the silenced opinion might be true. To suppress it is to assume your own certainty is absolute certainty.

All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

Second, even a mostly false opinion may contain a grain of truth that completes our understanding.

Third, even if the prevailing opinion is completely true, without challenge it becomes what Mill calls a “dead dogma.” People hold it by rote, don’t understand why it’s true, and can’t defend it.

The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors.

Fourth, without debate, the meaning of a doctrine weakens and its effect on character fades.

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 silencing mankind.

Mill would oppose any ban on political criticism or dissent. Expressing disapproval, even harsh condemnation, is exactly the kind of discourse a free society needs.
The only time speech can be limited is when it directly incites harm, like riling up a mob into immediate violence. Context turns speech into incitement, and that’s the line.

Knowing your own side

Mill has a strong point about what it takes to hold a justified opinion. You earn it. Not by reading only arguments that support you, but by seeking out the strongest objections and engaging with them.

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.

The person whose judgment deserves confidence has kept their mind open to criticism, has listened to opposing views, and has taken up their position against all challengers.
Not by avoiding difficulties, but by seeking them out. Only then do you have the right to trust your own judgment above others.

Individuality

Mill argues that human flourishing depends on individuals developing their own faculties according to their own judgment. Conformity produces stunted people.
Diversity of character and what he calls “experiments in living” make society richer.

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.

The paradox is that cultivating individuality strengthens social bonds rather than weakening them.
When individuals develop what’s unique in them, they become more valuable to themselves and more valuable to others. More life in the individual units means more life in the whole.

It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation.

Mill is making the case that a society of conformists can never produce anything great. Genius can’t survive under conditions of conformity.
You need people doing weird things, trying different approaches to life, even failing, because that’s how knowledge and progress happen.

When civilizations rot from within

When a civilization can no longer defend its own values, when neither its intellectual leaders nor ordinary citizens have the will to stand up for it, that civilization is already finished.

A civilisation that can thus succumb to its vanquished enemy, must first have become so degenerate, that neither its appointed priests and teachers, nor anybody else, has the capacity, or will take the trouble, to stand up for it.

Intellectual stagnation comes first. People stop critically examining their beliefs. Then conviction weakens, and they hold principles by rote. Institutions become performative. And when challenged, no one rises to the defense.

Mill references the fall of the Western Roman Empire, destroyed and then regenerated by “energetic barbarians.”
He isn’t endorsing barbarism. A decaying civilization that can’t articulate why its values matter deserves to be replaced by something with more vitality.

This ties back to his argument about dead dogma. A society that stops debating and defending its ideas is already in decline, whether it knows it or not.

The case against government overreach

Mill gives three reasons to limit government interference, even when it doesn’t directly infringe liberty.

First, individuals usually do things better than the government can. The people most invested in an outcome are the best ones to manage it.

Second, even when government might be more efficient, it’s preferable for individuals to handle things themselves because the process is educational.
Doing things yourself strengthens judgment and develops your active faculties. A citizenry that outsources everything to the state becomes passive.

Third, and Mill calls this the most important: every function added to government increases its power.
If all major institutions were branches of the state, and all employment flowed from the government, then no amount of free press or democratic elections would make that country genuinely free.

The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.

A state that trades individual development for administrative efficiency ends up with neither.