The Expression And It's Legal Limit In The Context Of Democracy

Freedom of expression is an important part of Mill's liberalism theory. However, for a long time, it had not been discussed in academic circle. In fact, Mill's theory of freedom of expression quite comprehensively reflects basic idea of his liberalism theory, and contains the rich legal thoughts. Through the theory of freedom of expression, we can not only the overall outline of Mill's liberalism theory, but also can help perfect national legislation, judicature by absorb the knowledge of his theory. This article ,from the point of law, will comprehensively analysis Mill's theory of freedom of expression, combining academic research and Mill's theory practice achievements, and appraisal, analysis his theory. This article applies method of comparison analysis, method of historical analysis, method of valuable analysis, etc.The thesis consists of four parts. The first part, the legitimacy and the legal limit of freedom of expression, the main idea of Mill's theory of freedom of expression .In this part, the paper reviews the main idea of Mill's theory of freedom of expression in On liberty, and combines the comment of domestic and overseas, in order to restored the original appearance of Mill's theory of freedom of expression. The second part, the social background and the theoretical basis of Mill's theory of freedom of expression. As Mill said, the question of liberty was not a new question, but an old one. However, as the transition of social economy and culture, the old question need to be reviewed and researched again, in order to deal with in new way, and it's the excellence of Mill. Then, the paper analysis the theoretical basis of Mill's theory of freedom of expression, and analysis Mill how to discuss his theory by applied utilitarianism liberalism. The third part is the Inherent logic of Mill's theory of freedom of expression. Mill's theory of freedom of expression contains two parts, i.e. the legal legitimacy and legal limit of freedom of expression. In fact, Mill applied utilitarianism to discuss the legal legitimacy of freedom of expression, i.e. from the perspective of the combine of freedom of expression and the realization of legal purpose. And the harm principle respects Mill's thought of negative freedom. The fourth part is the value and the limit of Mill's theory of freedom of expression. Mill's theory of freedom of expression abandons the abstract thought of right, instead of the thought of positivism. Meanwhile, Mill's theory of freedom of expression also did effect to judicial practice, and the paper will display the practice value of Mill's theory of freedom of expression by several cases. However, also there is some limit in his thought. Mill put too much emphasis on free speech into social value and function, thus ignores the intrinsic value of freedom of expression. Meanwhile, the harm principle ignores the scale of freedom of expression, i.e. the harm principle can't solve all conditions, therefore, and it needs other principles to perfect.