 This Penguin Version is Excellent |
| Review Date: July 21, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Ii Naotaka, between Continents |
America's defense department should take some of the billions spent on the stealth bomber or the B1 and spend it to make Arabic and Farsi translations of this book in the hundreds of thousands. We could pack the bomb bays of a squadron of stealth bombers with the translations and carpet the cities of Muslim countries with this treatise on freedom. This is The Book, folks. You cannot read this little book without it changing your life. It is an extended argument about freedom, about true morality, about freeing your mind, about untrammeling the possibility of peace and prosperity in the world. This is the book that lays out the path for treating other human beings with respect and opening the way toward progress in any and all societies. For the discussion of the "harm to others" principle alone, this book merits the world's attention and praise.
Perhaps the most famous aspect of Mill's extended argument about liberty is his discussion of the "tyranny of the majority." His argument grows from the long history of religious persecution suffered throughout Europe that led to book bans, bigotry, and even torture and burning at the stake for people who did not conform to the majority superstition, namely the dominant form of Christianity wherever one lived. Mill lived in a time when even the staid and relatively moderate views of the English Church forced people to conform their lives or face public humiliation and financial ruin, and sometimes lynching. The resulting dynamic was that free thought was thus discouraged and progress thwarted. Mill's point is that in such a psychological milieu, people are not mentally free to seek a better way. They are rather trammeled to superstition and the concomitant tyranny of the majority, the majority being emotionally dependent and mentally ham-strung by religion and religious fears and prejudices.
America today is witnessing the truth of this dynamic through the virulent and underhanded tactics of the fundamentalist X-tian political right who seek to thwart medical research and impose a legislated theocracy in parts of the country. The effort to put dark-age arguments about "intelligent design" on a scientific par with evolutionary theory is a perfect and alarming example. Mill's argument in On Liberty was prescient in demonstrating what can happen when people allow religion to influence political life. The brand of literalist religion we see in America has been the bane of societies throughout history and respresents a true pragmatic evil on a scale far worse than any imagined "Satanic" sinfulness that Christians associate with popular and secular humanism. Fundamentalist religion, especially in the forms of Christian and Muslim extremism, is a societal cancer when viewed through the lense of reason and of Mill's enlightened utilitarianism. No society that allows religion to make in-roads to politics can flourish. Proof is in the failed Middle East, where no country can manage to pull its people out of poverty and squalor in spite of sitting on the world's richest oil reserves. Mill's argument in this small book speaks volumes about why Muslim countries are doomed to failure and why the Christian right in America (the blood cousins of Islamic radicals) represent the biggest and most un-American evil in our country's history. If America represents freedom, there can be no room for the "ten commandments" in the county court house.
Highly recommended as a must read for everyone. |
On Liberty: More Relevant Than Ever
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| Review Date: February 18, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Len Hart, Houston, TX USA |
In his classic essay "On Liberty", John Stuart Mill deals with the issue of "civil liberties" -not the metaphysical issue of "free will". While most attacks on civil liberties have historically occurred from the right within the context of a tyrannical or an aristocratic rule, Mill deals with threats against liberty from within the institutions of democracy itself. The issue is especially relevant at a time when widespread domestic wiretapping and surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The aim of early libertarians was to limit the power of the ruler over those governed; Mill, however, identifies a need to limit the power of elected governments and officials as well. Mill is not merely addressing the issue of "who should rule?", he seeks to establish limits on the power that government may exercise over minorities and individuals. His work is more relevant now than ever.
While "government of the people" is an ideal to be aspired to, Mill argues that such an ideal is often not the case in fact. He argues that those exerting the power of the government -elected officials, bureaucrats, the judiciary -often develop their own interests. They are sometimes influenced by those constituencies in ways that are at odds with the interests and liberties of individuals or other groups.
Mill makes no distinction between a tyranny of one and a tyranny of many. A tyrannical majority running roughshod over the rights of individuals and minorities is no less a tyrant because it is a majority, because it is elected, or because it is elected by a majority.
While society may not tolerate criminal behavior, for example, society may not legitimately interfere with or suppress all non-conforming behaviors indiscriminately or because a majority may not approve. What then are the powers that society may legitimately exercise over the individual? Mill answers:
"The only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
-J.S. Mill, On Liberty
James Madison -called the "Father of the Constitution" -may have anticipated Mill's ideas in his draft of the Bill of Rights -the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Implicit in the Bill of Rights is the recognition that the power of the state is a blunt instrument. Abused, it can oppress and repress individuals and minority groups alike. The Bill of Rights addresses this issue by guaranteeing "due process of law", limiting state power over individuals and groups, guaranteeing that groups and individuals may speak freely, worship freely.
The Fourth Amendment specifically is a promise that our government made to us in its very founding:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
-Fourth Amendment, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution
Let's make something abundantly clear: there are no "inherent powers", "Implicit" authorizations" that would, in any way, overturn, limit, or repeal the Fourth Amendment. Many politicians are not only wrong about that, they may have deliberately lied about it. Moreover, Congress may not overrule the Fourth Amendment with statutory law. Constitutional Law is supreme and provisions in the Bill of Right are valid until amended as set out in the Constitution itself. Widespread domestic surveillance is illegal whatever is done by Congress ex post facto -and until the Constitution is amended, it will remain illegal. At last, ex post facto laws, themselves, are expressly forbidden by the Constitution.
Mill is all the more remarkable for his insight into issues that remain contemporary. In every literate criticism of "special interest groups", PAC's, the gun lobby, the tobacco lobby, the Military/Industrial Complex, one sees the lasting influence of John Mill.
On Liberty is essential reading for anyone interested in law, the principles of government, political science, political philosophy, indeed, freedom itself. It is also essential reading for anyone interested in learning about the intellectual underpinnings of Anglo-American civil liberties. |
An excellent treatise.
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| Review Date: March 19, 2000 |
| Reviewer: David C. Rodgers, |
| This book deserves to be studied closely; I cannot praise too highly the man or his work. As Mill writes in his AUTOBIOGRAPHY, his education under his philosopher father James was perhaps the most tortuous experience imaginable for a young child, leaving the adolescent John with the impression that he was something of a facsimile of his father. Nevertheless, after much difficulty in assimilating what he was taught and defining who he was, the adult Mill respectfully stepped out from under his father's shadow and went on to make staggering intellectual contributions of his own. In this book, ON LIBERTY, Mill tackles the problem of "the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual." With some reflection, it can be seen how important this question is, for its implications touch every part of our social and private lives. Unfortunately, few recognize its importance, and the question is more often decided by unthinking custom or self-interest than reason. With scrupulous rigor, and impeccable intellectual honesty, Mill asserts the absolute necessity of dissenting opinions, of diversity in all things, and the dangers of concentrated power, be it in the form of a dictator or a democratic majority. The problems treated in this short book are just as relevant today as they were in Mill's time. Perennial political issues such as education reform, gun control, abortion, freedom of speech, taxation, the role of government, etc., are addressed either directly or indirectly; the book abounds with other, more personal, lessons on life as well, not the least of which was later encapsulated by Wittgenstein as: "If you want to improve the world, improve yourself." |
The great defender of individual liberty
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| Review Date: December 24, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Michael A Neulander, VA |
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.
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The Relevance of Mills Concept of Civil Liberties Today
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| Review Date: October 25, 1998 |
| Reviewer: , |
| John Stuart Mill deals with the issue of "civil liberties" --not the metaphysical issue of "free will". While most attacks on cilvil liberties have historically occurred from the right, Mill deals with threats against liberty from within the institutions of democracy itself. While the aim of the early libertarians was to limit the power of the ruler over those governed, Mill identifies a need to limit the power of elected governments as well. He argues that those who exercise powers in democratically elected governments are not the same as those over whom that power is excercised. Those exerting the power of the government (elected officials, bureaucrats, the judiciary, etc) develop their own interests and are influenced by special interests often at odds with the interests and liberties of individuals. Writing as he did in the 19th Century, Mill is all the more remarkable for his insight in light of what is happening today. In every literate criticism of "special interest groups", PAC's, "over-zealous prosecutors", etc., one sees the lasting influence of John Mill. Mill may be considered the heir apparent to John Locke and his work is most valuable when it is considered in an historical context which includes Locke's influence on our own founding fathers and James Madison's authorship of the "Bill of Rights", arguably the most effective limit on those forces tending to undermine civil liberties. |
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