Introduction

This is an analysis of On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, selected passages of which are anthologized in Today's Moral Issues by Daniel Bonevac, p. 179-191. In this essay Mill claims that respect for individual liberty is an absolute requirement of the principle of utility. Mill articulates a principle of individual liberty in terms of the distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding actions, claiming that only those actions which are clearly other-regarding may be legitimately regulated by the public. He then attempts to show how a society that tries to regulate the purely self-regarding actions of its citizens will inevitably be worse off than one that does not.

In this essay I will try to show that Mill's results are achieved more by an appeal to common sense than by a rigorous application of a philosophical principle. Specifically I will argue (1) that his principle of liberty is not (as Mill claims) justified on the basis of purely utilitarian considerations and (2) that his answers to problematic cases are actually incompatible with the principle of liberty.

In the summary and critique of Mill's views, I will consider only cursorily his arguments for the liberty of thought and expression, focussing instead on his argument for liberty in conducting ones private affairs and on the applications of his principle to problematic cases.

Summary

Mill asserts his principle of liberty (also known as the "harm principle") as folows: "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." Put negatively, there are no cases when it is morally acceptable to force an individual to do something for his or her own good. Whereas any action or inaction that substantially affects the welfare of someone other than the agent may be subject to regulation, no action that affects only the agent may be regulated at all. The only qualification Mill places on this principle is that it be restricted in its application to adults in "the maturity of their faculties." Mill sees his principle as dictating (1) the freedom of thought and expression, so long as the aim of expression is not to cause harm to others (as in an attempt to incite violence through inflammatory rhetoric), (2) the freedom to conduct ones private affairs as one sees fit even if there are others who, though unharmed, regard this conduct as being "foolish, perverse, or wrong," (3) the freedom of a group to assemble for any purpose whatever providing that it does no harm to people outside the group, and providing that all participants are both undeceived and uncoerced.

Mill defends his views concerning the liberty of thought and expression by considering the consequences of suppressing (a) opinions strongly believed to be false, (b) opinions which are in fact false, and (c) opinions that are neither completely true nor completely false. For Mill, in order to justify suppressing opinions that we merely believe to be false we must assume (falsely) that we are infallible. Furthermore, Mill holds that even if we were to stipulate that there are certain opinions that could not possibly be true, it is essential to allow their expression anyway because the act of refuting them benefits us in various ways. Finally, Mill reminds us that in the real world most opinions are neither completely true nor completely false. It is as important to appreciate the element of truth that exists in opinions that are basically false as it is to see the element of falsity in opinions that are basically true.

Mill defends his views concerning the liberty of conduct by (i) considering the legitimacy of the distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding actions and (ii) by considering the likely effects of social intrusion into private affairs.

(i) Mill considers the objection that there is hardly anything that a member of society can do that does not affect other people. Anyone who harms himself at least diminishes his ability to help others, and may even render himself a burden to the very people whom he might otherwise be helping. Mill answers that if a person harms himself in a way that violates a specific obligation to other people, then his action is not self-regarding but other-regarding. However, to the extent that what a person does prevents him from helping others only in ways that they had no right to expect, then these actions are self-regarding and must not be interfered with.

(ii) In Mill's view the strongest reason for not interfering with self-regarding conduct is that society is no better judge of what is good for a person than that person. Consequently, when society interferes with self-regarding conduct it is as at least as likely to do harm as it is to do good.

Mill tests the harm principle by applying it to several problematic situations. The principle, he says, would not prevent us from physically restraining a person from crossing an unsafe bridge if we have reason to believe that the person does not know it is unsafe. Liberty, Mill says, consists in doing what we desire, and the person in this case obviously does not desire to fall into the river. Mill also claims that the harm principle does not prevent the state from selectively taxing products like alcohol and tobacco, even though this seems tantamount to the restriction of self-regarding actions. Mill's reasoning is that since the taxation of some products is required for generating revenue, the state must tax those products that it can best afford to spare, i.e., those that cause harm to its citizens. Finally, Mill claims that the harm principle is inconsistent with voluntary slavery. His reasoning is simply that a principle intended to preserve personal liberty would not have that effect if it could be made to require a person to abdicate his liberty.

Critique

Mill's weakest arguments relate to the distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding conduct and to his applications.

As noted above, Mill responds to the objection that a person who does harm to himself thereby harms others by invoking the distinction between actions which violate specific obligations and actions which do not. This is a sensible distinction, but it casts doubt on Mill's commitment to defend the harm principle by reference to the principle of utility alone. From the point of view of utility there are specific obligations, e.g., keeping a fairly inconsequential promise, that have far less moral value than other actions that do not correspond to any obligations at all, e.g., going out of ones way to help people. Far from justifying the harm principle, then, the principle of utility could be used to justify violating individual liberty when the good to society is substantial. Mill says that when specific obligations are not being violated the "inconvenience" that the harm principle requires us to tolerate is "one which society can afford to bear for the greater good of human freedom." But this statement is based on the false assumption that all harms that result indirectly from people's self-regarding actions are mere inconveniences.

All of the applications of Mill's principle discussed above are somewhat problematic. Mill's example of an individual crossing a defective bridge seems sensible, but his suggestion that we are justified in restraining people when they clearly do not understand the consequences of their actions may be applied in such a way as to allow the restriction of any self-regarding action known to be harmful or dangerous. If we simply stipulate that no person "in the maturity of their faculties" would do x if they truly understood the harm that would result from doing x then we can plausibly argue that if they are willing to do x they either are not in the maturity of their faculties or they do not understand the consequences of doing x. Either way, we would be justified in restraining them. The real question, which Mill does not address, is whether a person acting in ignorance of the consequences to him or herself is acting in a self-regarding or other-regarding way. I think it is obvious that mere ignorance does not make the action other-regarding. Consequently, Mill seems committed to the view that there are self-regarding actions with which we are morally obligated to interfere.

Contrary to Mill's assertions, the harm principle does not allow the selective taxation of goods like alcohol and tobacco. Because, as Mill observes, measures taken to make something more difficult to purchase differ only in degree from outright prohibition, the selective taxation of products believed to cause injury to the user simply can not be justified. The principle might allow taxation on the basis of a distinction between goods that are essential to survival from those that are not, but any further division of the latter category distinguishing those that are harmful and those that are not can not be tolerated.

Mill claims that voluntary slavery would contradict the principle of liberty. This is a fair point, but again Mill fails to address the question whether such an act should be considered self-regarding or other-regarding. More importantly, Mill does not observe that voluntary slavery differs only in degree from other kinds of contracts. Whenever we make a promise to someone else we engage in a voluntary restriction of our personal liberty: we give the promisee the moral or legal right to restrict what was formerly self-regarding conduct. (Indeed, a contract may simply be defined as a method for converting self-regarding actions into other-regarding actions.) On the surface, at least, it seems that Mill's rejection of voluntary slavery should be extended to the rejection of contracts in general.

Conclusion

In On Liberty, Mill articulates the concept of liberty and its importance in ways that comport with common sense. The problem is that he does not do this in a philosophically consistent manner. He defends freedom of conduct in a way that seems to undermine his commitment to utility as the fundamental moral principle. When dealing with problematic applications, he ceases to employ the critical distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding actions. This raises general questions about the principle of utility and the usefulness of the harm principle. If it is indeed necessary to go beyond considerations of utility to justify our fundamental intuitions about liberty, then the most pressing philosophical question is one that Mill has left unanswered: what role does the principle of utility actually play in his philosophy?