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Introduces the central problem of liberty in political philosophy and explains Mill’s harm principle. It also distinguishes Mill’s view from positive freedom and notes the limited cases where liberty may be restricted.
alright let's talk about John Stewart's Mills view on liberty and generally the issue of liberty and political philosophy is concerned with how much liberty or freedom should the government give its people should the government be heavily involved inpeople's lives kind of like being Big Brother looking over people's shoulders to make sure they live their lives in certain kinds of ways versus not for example should their remember our concept we learn and Rousseau should there bepositive freedom where people are forced to be free where the government kind of intervenes in people's everyday lives to force them to live a certain kind of lifestyle that supposedly a rational person would agree to so there arevarious issues on liberty for example should there be liberty such as having freedom of speech and the freedom to criticize your government various other liberties such as simple things like being able to dance to music or live particular
kinds of lifestyles and the other issues can come up for example should one be free to dress in a messy kind of way or is one free to walk around and not having taken a shower just smell andmaybe offend a bunch of people have an offensive smell so there are a variety of different kinds of questions of what what kind of behavior should a government step in for or should the government be more hands-off andallow for a lot of freedom right there can be more restrictive forms of government that are much tighter in their control about maybe even what people kind of clothes people can wear what kind of lifestyle choices people canmake and then there are more liberal societies that have a more Liberty the government gives people more leeway and more freedom to live their life as they so choose given certain possible constraints and so recall that on a
liberal Western democracy where I'm using that term in a technical sense in regards to those representative democracies that old values such as the separation of church and state as well having a separation of powers checks and balances havingequal civil rights things like this remember on a Western liberal democracy is very common and it's a general characteristic of such democracies to allow for a lot of Liberty which goes against kind of our traditional notions of theamount of Liberty that was given in monarchy such as during feudal times during for dictatorships or authoritarian States there's much more Liberty so John Stuart Mill puts forth the harm principle and the harm principle is this adults incivilized society should have the liberty or freedom to do what we want in life so long as we don't harm others so long as we're not harming others violating their rights to life infringing upon other people's liberties then
we can live life as we so choose we cannot be forced to do things that are good for us such as by the government the government exercising positive freedom and forcing us to be free we can't be forcedto do things that are supposedly good for us so for example if someone wants to drink alcohol non-stop well in relevant situations that should be fine and you can have the Liberty you can have the freedom to continuallydo that and the government cannot force you to stop being an alcoholic for backwards civilizations and children Mill says where people are incapable of being persuaded by free and equal discussion tyranny and force is warranted if it's tothe benefit of the people so notice that he holds that the harm principle applies only in relevant situations if we're dealing with what he calls a backward civilization where people generally are incapable of being persuaded by free and
equal discussion and by reason then in those situations we the government should limit people's liberties and actually kind of have a tyranny it's okay to have a government that's more tyrannical forces people to live in a certain kindof way as this will be to the benefit of the people but if you're living in a civilized society in which people are educated and people can listen to reason and can be persuaded by rational discussion than inthese kinds of situations the harm principle applies and Mills says that people should have the Liberty to do whatever they want in life so long as they don't harm others all right so he does say however that there
Covers Mill’s exceptions to the harm principle, including defense, taxes, and rescue duties. It then explains how Mill grounds rights and liberty in utilitarian reasoning, often in a rule-utilitarian way.
are certain exceptions first he says this we can be forced to contribute to the common defense we can be forced to have to pay taxes or military to protect us from foreign invaders to have taxes to pay fora police state and relevant kinds of agencies also we can be forced to save a drowning child in a shallow pool all right if there's a shallow pool and a child is drowning on it drowning in the poolnotice that this is a shallow pool so whether you can swim or not you will be able to save the child you should be able to save the child and Mill says you should be punished if you failto do so the government should be able to punish you for not saving this drowning child in a shallow pool so these are some exceptions to the home principle he also says that we should be utilitarians with an
eye for the progress of humankind so ultimately at the end of the day mill is a utilitarian and our decision-making and the ability to have a great amount of Liberty that is all based on utility at the endof the day political decision-making should be grounded in utility and the greatest happiness for the greatest number he says that we should not harm others rights rights that are grounded on long term utility so normally for utilitarian isfor a utilitarian you might think that it's kind of odd to talk about rights like the right to life the right to have freedom of speech the right to assembly like this it's usually usually utilitarians you might thinkdon't really use the concept or notion of rights they usually just talk about acts and what act brings about the greatest happiness for the greatest number but here Mill is relying on rights that we have rights but these
rights he brings in talks of rights but he ultimately grounds the existence of rights on utility that the rights exists such as having the right to life because it brings about the greatest happiness for the greatest number whenwe think about it in a long-term way so in this respect we can read mill at times as being a rule utilitarian a rule utilitarian says to obey that rule that leads to the greatest overall happiness so thereis the kind of inconsistency in Mills various writings at times we can read him as being an act utilitarian where we're supposed to perform that act that leads to the greatest happiness for the greatest number and at timeswe can read him as being a rule utilitarian to obey that rule that leads to the greatest overall happiness in this particular respect in our discussion of Liberty he seems to be a rule utilitarian he says that we
should so we should abide by the harm principle we have the freedom to do whatever we want in life so long as we don't harm others well how do we determine what harm will harm is when you're violatingsomeone's rights well how do we know what our rights are well what our rights are are those rights that lead to the greatest happiness for the greatest number so we can think of rights like the right to lifeand the right to freedom of speech as being rules right don't kill others without good reason right don't limit other people's speech we can think of these rights as being rules so in this respect we can read himas being a rule utilitarian that ultimately there are these rules in regards to determining whether you're harming someone or not and these rules are grounded in the greatest overall happiness alright so let's look at some examples here so
Uses examples like punishing an innocent person or allowing market competition to show the difference between act and rule utilitarianism. These cases illustrate why Mill favors rules that protect long-term happiness rather than short-term gains.
can you for example execute an innocent person to stop a riot so let's say there is a mass murderer in a village right and people don't know who this mass murderer is and the people are getting antsy rightthey're getting on edge because there's this mass murder that's been going around killing various people and it looks like the people are about to riot and they're about to destroy shops villages and they might just do some veryirrational things there can be this mob mentality right so let's say this situation is on the verge of happening so the sheriff seeing that this is that this riot is about to occur realizes that well in their prisonis the local drunker all right the local drunkard is a harmless person but it's just that they're publicly intoxicated a lot of the time but this person that won't harm a fly whether they're drunk or not drunk they
they're just they won't harm a fly so what the sheriff can do in this particular situation is frame the drunkard in the drunk tank to say oh it's actually the drunkard who is the mass murderer and then hangthe drunkard so hang an innocent person who did not commit the mass murders and this will stave off the riot so the act utilitarian perform that act that creates the greatest happiness for the greatest number would say inthis situation yes the sheriff should do that the sheriff should frame an innocent person who's the local drunk and claim that they they are the mass murder but the drunkard is a mass murder even though the drunker isnot because this leads to the greatest overall good right this leads to the greatest overall happiness in this case however a rule utilitarian will say something different rule utilitarian this situation will say no you should not do this
you should not frame the drunkard as being the mass murder because this will create fear and gloom in innocent people right once innocent people realize that hey I can be executed for a crime that I've never committed becauseit happened to the drunkard and it happens whenever an act might lead towards the greatest happiness this will create a lot of fear in society a lot of gloom especially in the long-term picture imagine that this practice offraming innocent people continually happens well in the long-term taking an account long-term utility this will lead to a really bad state of affairs so therefore the rule utilitarian will say that the greatest happiness promotes the rule to notexecute innocent people so here we have a rule that cannot be broken no matter what or you really till attend do not execute innocent people but ultimately what justifies the rule to not execute innocent people well what justifies
the rule is that it brings about the greatest overall utility when thought about in a long-term way so here we can start getting a picture of the difference between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism here's another scenario do youhave the right to create a better product which harms competitors finances let's say you're about to open your own business creating a new product that will that's a very good product that will allow that will lead towards yourcompetitors towards other businesses in that same market to lose money so you're hurting your competitors finances well doesn't that mean you're harming your competitors right and the harm principle says you can act and do whatever you want solong as you don't harm others well aren't you harming your competitors finances in this case isn't this harm so therefore you should not be able to open your business you don't have that freedom or Liberty what will it
rule utilitarian say in this situation the rule utilitarian mill says in this situation actually you are allowed to open your business and create this better product because a free market leads to the greater happiness in the big picturein the long term big picture a grand scheme of things it leads to the greater overall utility to allow for free market because this allows for people to create better products which which can have a better impact onpeople's lives right insofar as people can buy better things and it also really opens the door and promotes people to make inventions right if it was a case that you are harming others because you are in the sensethat you're not allowed to do this act you're harming others finances so you're not allowed to open up or create new inventions and things like that because you're hurting your competitors finances this would lead to problems right and
it leads to the greater overall utility to promote a rule that you're allowed to create better products in an open and free market and because and this rule should be put in place because it leads to the greateroverall happiness so in this situation we shouldn't really consider you let's say you're opening up this business creating a better product we shouldn't understand you as really harming your competitors finances in the negative sense of harm that isrelevant to the harm principle in other words you are allowed there's a rule that's ultimately justified on utilitarian grounds that allows you to enter the market with your new and better product all right so let's go through a
Lists the liberties Mill thinks a free society must protect, especially thought, speech, and assembly. It also explains why open discussion, moral persuasion, and social pressure still matter for self-improvement.
list of some liberties that mill puts forth here are some freedoms that the government should allow people to have there's the liberties of thought and speech Leary's of taste freedom to have your own tastes and pursuits such inregards tastes such as regards to beauty or art music your own pursuits your own personal projects career goals etc Liberty for assembly to assemble and get together in groups especially political organizations pursuit of a good life as wesee fit remember the good is living a flourishing or good life we can create our own conception of a good life and we should have the freedom to pursue this conception our own conception of the good life solong as we don't harm and he says that no society is free if it lacks one of these liberties so all societies if there are really free societies they should have these kinds of liberties do them okay so
continuing on let's talk about arguments for freedom of thought and speech what might be some arguments for promoting reasons why we should allow for freedom of thought and speech so at this time I'd like you to press pauseand think about this what might be some justifications for allowing for this kind of Liberty all right and what mill says one argument in favor of the freedom of thought and speech is that a silenced opinion could betrue if the government's intervenes and doesn't allow certain people to talk and silence his viewpoints well a silenced opinion could be true and this can be harmful then if we silence people's opinions especially ones that are true secondargument for freedom of thought and speech is this a silenced opinion can contain a partial truth it's only through debate that this can be extracted and the whole truth may be may be known so a lot of times
when people debate in politics some of the things they say might be wrong but in a good number of cases even though people say things that are wrong sometimes they might say something that is true they might containa partial truth involved and so this can be beneficial in fleshing out this partial truth right and this can help us acquire and kind of gather all the relevant truths it can add to the total amount of truthsthat we need to have in order to make good political decisions a third argument in favor of freedom of thought and speech is this even if the received opinion is true it needs to be tested so that weall know that it's not mayor prejudice so even if there is a kind of general consensus where there's a kind of received view or received opinion then most people hold and Paul we should let other people dissenters especially
talk and have the freedom of speech because even though we have a received opinion and most people hold this political viewpoint and it's true still this received opinion needs to be tested by dissenters so that we all knowthat it's not mayor prejudice that we're all holding on to this received opinion even received opinions that are true need to be tested and when they are tested in opens open debate this can give us more assurance andconfidence in our viewpoints of holding this received opinion of why it is true okay so next let's talk about self improvement so we have Liberty right on Mills view and in generally in western liberal democracies to live lifeas we so choose so long as we don't harm others does this then mean that there's no room for self improvement where people cannot come in and try to intervene in our lives right and try to make us
better because we have the freedom to do whatever we want so long as we don't harm others and what mill says is that even though we have extensive Liberty we should try to educate and have conversation with otherson goodness so just because we have extensive Liberty this doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to have political conversations and conversations about life and ethics and how we ought to live our lives with others we should still continueto have these conversations and try to provide advice insight try to educate others about what is good what is right what is just and he says that we should shun individuals who do not promote goodness but its oppositeright those who live a lifestyle that is not one that is towards living a flourishing life a good life or their making political decisions that are unjust unwise incorrect etc we should try to change them right if they
don't change if they don't listen to reason then we should go to other measures one possible measure is to shun individual no longer be their friends etc and of course as we should expect even what's included in thearmed principal mill says this those that gravely harm others should be punished by the government those that actually do harm others the government then has a right to step in and punish them right we don't have the libertyor freedom to do whatever we want once we start harming others we're how we determine what's harm is if it breaks a rule right that is eventually grounded in utility right if someone brings about harm then the governmenthas authority to come in and stop them from harming others government can come in and disallow people to have that kind of Liberty to harm other people all right so now here is a look I have a small
list of things and the question is do these harm others so the government should interfere remember whether something is a harm or not depends upon whether it breaks a rule where the rule is ultimately justified based on longterm utility so what about gambling drunkenness idleness uncleanliness is this harming others such that the government should interfere if there's someone let's say who just Gamble's all the time Gamble's all their money there's someone who just drinks allthe time non-stop Drucker if there's someone who is just lazy not doing anything with their life right just sitting on the couch just watching TV not doing anything there with life maybe living off their parents or just beinga bum right not doing anything completely idle unmotivated being lazy should the government interfere or should the government allow for liberty for people to do these things and have the freedom to make these kinds of lifestyle choices what
about uncleanliness what if someone goes around dressed unclean and just messy etc should the government interfere is this I mean others so I'd like for you to press pause and think about these various examples here and think does
Applies the harm principle to drunkenness, gambling, drugs, and other lifestyle choices, showing when government should and should not intervene. It concludes with Mill’s defense of experiments in living, religious freedom, and cultural liberty such as music, dance, and theater.
this harm others in the relevant sense of harm such that the government should intervene or not all right so what mill says is that no one should be punished for just being drunk so let's take the case ofbeing drunk right mill says that the government should not come in and punish someone for being drunk however there can be certain scenarios where they should be punished let's say if they're drunk on the job where they mightbe harming others right where let's say if they're working some kind of large machine and they're drunk and make the Machine crash into someone and take someone's life well then that's a problem or if someone is drunk drivingwhere they could seriously harm someone then there should be punishment but outside of those kinds of situations the government should not interfere right if someone just wants to be a drunkard right but they're not being drunk on the
job or not drinking and driving or being drunk in harmful situations well then we should just allow them to be drunk they should have the Liberty to do so same with gambling right as long as they're not harmingothers right let's say we have a single single person who just every time they get their paycheck they just like gambling in a way right they just like going gambling and they end up losing all their money wellthey should have the freedom to do this so mill wants to provide Liberty generally for these kinds of situations but they don't hold in all cases once it involves the potential or the real potential or possibility for harmingothers then they should not be allowed to do so however we might ask this question won't it lead to the greater happiness to restrict the drug addict from taking drugs right won't this in some way lead to the
greater happiness if the government intervened and let's say stopped you know made having drug possession criminal criminal activity and things like that and intervene in various ways either through criminal punishment it's to try to stop people from takingdrugs shouldn't the government intervene in these kinds of Affairs and mill says no because society should allow for experiments in living so he doesn't he believes holding on to the no harm principle he believes that it leads tothe greater happiness to allow for the government to allow us to have the freedom to make decisions to be a drug addict and the government should not intervene and try to stop people from taking drugs if they wantto take drugs right and they shouldn't make a criminal activity etc unless you know there are relevant cases such as if they're taking drugs while they're driving so let's talk more about this experiments in living and what this
means so the idea with experiments in living is that we should have the freedom to experiment in different ways of living life right because if we allow for this kind of experimentation where people are taking different avenues andliving life in different kinds of ways they might be able to come upon some kind of good form of life that was previously unknown and so a justification of allowing for experiments and living allowing for the drug addictfor the excessive gambler etc is one justification is this individuals are more likely to know what will make themselves happy usually people know themselves better than others and others might know them they know their own inner thoughts soindividuals are more likely to know what will make themselves happy and what will lead towards living a good life such as certain career decisions another justification of this it allows for the greater good of freedom of choice rather
than being a slave to custom or the way things ordinarily have been done within a society so allowing for experiments and living even though people make poor decisions and Millwood say making the decision to be a drug addictor an alcoholic or just gambling all the time and gambling your money way that's a poor form of life but mill would say we should have the freedom to make those kinds of decisions because it allows for experimentsand living and why should we allow for experiments in living is because it leads to the greater good right it leads to the greater utility because we have the freedom of choice to make decisions in our own livesof how we want to live our lives also another justification of experiments and living is that it can lead to progress and new styles of life that others can follow it might lead to social progress right forms of
life styles of life that previously people thought were wrong you shouldn't live that kind of lifestyle you shouldn't do these kinds of things but through these experiments is learned that you know these lifestyles are ok alright if youif this is what you enjoy as long as you're not harming others then that's fine go ahead live that lifestyle right so it can lead to progress and new styles of life that others can follow also society hashad control over the individual up to adulthood right such as requiring people to go to school up to a certain level and there's parental control over children here in the United States up to the age of 18 andthings like this so there has been control over the individual up to adulthood so when people become adults they should then have Liberty they should have freedom to make decisions in their own life he says if public education
is poor and produces bad lives Society is insignificant part to blame for it so it's there's a kind of burden on society to make public education good enough to educate people on what kinds of lies our good livesand bad lives to help steer people away from the live lifestyle of being a let's say a drunk right or being a drug addict all right also he says liberty allows for Freedom From Religion all right so thegovernment can't force you to for example eat only kosher food or food that is relevant towards a particular religion or you know having this kind of Liberty that's in line with the harm principle will will be such thatpeople cannot be forced to abide by certain religious dietary restrictions especially if they're not a part of that religion so if we don't have if we have if we don't have separation of church and state and let's say
a state is putting forth religious laws and the like well then that can severely limit people's liberties and in with having extensive liberties in line with harm principle Mill says government can't force you to eat for example onlykosher foods also worship a particular religion you could have the freedom to worship different religions different God different gods or being atheists or DISA and also government can't force you to disallow urge or can't force clergy members tobe disallowed from being married for example now a particular church might might punish people certain people or clergy members from being married but the government cannot step in and intervene in those kinds of situations right the government hasto just kind of openly give everyone the freedom to be married if they want to but if a particular sect of a religious group doesn't disallows clergy members from being married well then that sect can for example disallow
that person from being a member of the sect because they decided to get married that's open to that particular sect to do something like that however the government cannot step in in that kind of situation and middle notesin a particular one group the Puritans have always tried to eliminate entertainment like music dancing and theater however instead mill says we need to have the liberty right to have experiments and living this leads to the greater utilityto have experiments in living to live lifestyles where we can for example make music listen to music dance have theater and things like this and this can these kinds of experiments can lead to beneficial different different beneficial kindsof lifestyles right which can help future generations where future generations can then choose those lifestyles and benefit from previous experiments in living alright so with that this ends our particular section on Liberty in light of mill and I
will see you for the next