An Analysis Of Mill 's Free Rights And Limits

As an indispensible advocator of utilitarianism after John Locke, is John Stuart Mill an act utilitarian or rule utilitarian? There has been extensive debate within the academic circle whether Mill is a consequentialist or not. Nonetheless, a basic view that gained universal agreements between debaters is that Mill proposed the "harm principle" and tried to make an evident confine between individual right of liberty and public political power of the society. In On Liberty, Mill expressed and defended his view on freedom of expression and individuality. Furthermore, he extended his liberty into the economical and trading field. The main purpose of this essay, as the author himself considers, is to analyze limits to individual liberty and public interference through the research on Mill’s utilitarianism and his "harm principle".Firstly, the beginning chapter is to indicate the research background and research value in the same chapter.It follows the second chapter portraying the foundation of Mill’s thought, which, are the natural rights and utilitarianism.The subsequent chapter involves the key point of this essay, in which, the analysis and commentary on Mill’s defense of the right of liberty along with the limits to public interference lie. Moreover, Mill’s harm principle and his theory of political economy are particularly depicted in this chapter.The forth chapter includes the author’s perspective on how Mill had contributed positively to the world through his "liberty" and "limit" theory.Eventually, along with the conclusion of this essay, the ending chapter provides deficiencies of this essay, in which way provides some reference to subsequent researches on Mill’s thought on liberty.Through the discussion in the chapters above, the author is convinced that Mill had left us considerably significant source of thinking on liberty in modern societies. It is universally admitted in civil society that, as a natural man, everyone is reserved with inviolable rights, which includes the right of liberty; while as a social man, some of our actions must be limited through legal and moral means. Consequently, where is the balancing point between the right of liberty and social interference? This is an important question raised for us to think.