Mill's theory of Liberty
Mills essays On Liberty (1859), postulated certain forces as determining human conduct especially self-interest and mental association. From their working, he deducted political and social consequences. He did not diverge from the principles agreed upon by those with whom he was associated. Perhaps he did not add very much to them, but he saw their limitations more clearly than others did the hypothetical nature of economic theory, and the danger that democratic government might prove antagonistic to the causes of individual freedom and of the common welfare. The essay On Liberty defends of the thesis "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;" but, as an argument, it meets everywhere with the difficulty of determining the precise point at which the distinction between self-regarding and social (activity is to be drawn.
Mill's contribution to political theory occurs in On Liberty (1859), where he defended the broadest possible freedom of thought and expression and argued that the state can justify interference with the conduct of individual citizens only when it is clear that doing so will prevent a greater harm to others.
When contemporary liberals read their own views back into John Stuart Mill they often claim to see a liberalism that goes all the way down - one that permeates his moral, political and economic thought. When they look up and notice tensions, near-contradictions, or differences in the way Mill talked about liberty in each of these spheres, they have then to decide whether he was confused, inconsistent or hopelessly diverse. It may just be that the problem lies less in Mill than in the general presumption that the same vision of liberty runs through all of his thought.
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