The Limits Of The Law

John Stuart Mill is one of the most famous liberal thinkers of 19th century. He developed classical liberalism to a real system and gave a very detailed exposition on the classical liberalism law. His theory was known as the greatest achievements of the classical liberalism Law. "On Liberty", a book as a concentrated expression of Mill's freedom, includes almost all of his beliefs and concepts. From the unique life experiences of Mill, and based on the interpretation of "On Liberty", the author trys to draw the concept of Mill's classical liberalism Law.This paper is divided into six parts: The preamble, The formation of Mill's thinking and the significance of "On Liberty" , The content of Mill's liberal law, The utilitarian basis of Mill's liberal law, Historical significance and Conclusion.The preamble elaborates the main reasons of the author's choice and writing intent. As the most famous person in 19th century, both Mill's biography and his theory extremely has the legendary color. Mill's understanding for human nature and relationships between law and liberal has the historical groundbreaking, and has had the profound influence to the later generation. For this reason, the author takes Mill and "on liberty" as the object of study, and then elaborates his liberalism law ideas emphatically.In order to understand Mill's thinking betterly, the first part of the paper aims to provide affecting factors to Mill's thinking. As a political critique, Mill always pays more attention to the reality and then elaborates it. For understanding the theory of Mill correctly, we can't break away from his experience of life. This part starts with Mill's living experience and then addresses the developing process of Mill's theory. In the first part, the author analyzes the characteristics of the liberal law, with a view to display Mill's liberal jurists thinking in the overall level. Then with the analysis of Mill's living experience, the author trys to elaborate the root of his thinking. Finally this part provides the basic content and the historic importance of "on liberal". As a master of classical liberalism, Mill's Liberalism thinking is almost expressed in "On Liberty", and the author refines the concept of law from "On Liberty". So the background, historical significance and the purpose of the exposition of "On Liberty" become an essential part of this paper.The second part elaborates Mill's liberalism law specifically. This part takes the relations between law and freedom as a core, and discusses specifically on the definition of freedom, "tyranny of the majority", "personality" and the legal restrictions on the freedom of the specific issues. Mill thinks the liberal as a individual limit from the society. Liberal is a process which develops unceasingly, it manifests for the right to the authority resistance. When social develops to the democratic stage, it seems that the authority and the right become identical, and the despotic seems already eliminated. But Mil thinks that this viewpoint is wrong, In the democratic situation , despotic is still existed, it embodied as the "tyranny of the majority". Because of using law and public opinion as the rule tool, "Tyranny of the majority" means more evil. And this tyranny becomes the biggest drawbacks to suppress the human personality. For Mill, personality is one of the most important factors to social well-being. If it is suppressed, then society will lose their vitality inevitably, and the Social progress will become impossible. Therefore, Mill advocated that in order to guarantee the full development of individuality, there must be a limit on the authority and retain a field of absolute freedom for persons in society. Mill thinks that the law should be used to protect liberal, and we must delimit a boundary between the law and the freedom. Only when freedom surmounts this boundary, the law can be allowed to wield power freely. The primary intention of the second part lies in providing a reasonable standard for legal interference.The third part of the article discusses the utilitarian basis of Mill's liberal jurists specifically. As a utilitarian believer, Mill believes that all of his theory should be attributed to the utilitarian eventually. And the elaboration goal of this part is to seek the utility support for Mill's legal view. Mill thinks that the pursuit of happiness is a human instinct, and with this instinct, he can get the abilities to judge which way of living is happiest. No one more than their own can understand their own, and there is no one can make more correct judgment than himself. So the best result only exists in the situation that makes one person to do his own things. Therefore authority should not interfere personal matters. Mill thinks that every person has the emotion of community. This kind of social emotion makes the person give the same level repayment when he accepts the kindness comes from the society and other people. If some one dose not fulfill the duty, he will have to receive the legal sanction. As the most important penalty method, the legal authority originates from the people's repayment to society. Mill thinks that happiness is final pursues, and "all the issues are recourse to the utilitarian in finally", so in this part the paper provides Mill's exposition of happiness firstly, and then applies those ideas to prove liberal and law with the purpose to provide the philosophical foundation to Mill's liberalism law..The forth part provides appraisals to Mill's liberalism law. This part mainly elaborates the characteristics of Mill's liberalism law, its influence to later generation's, his innovation on theory and his theory flaw. Any kind of theory has its own characteristic, and Mill's lies to the liberal understanding. He defines liberal on ethical dimension, and pays more attention to the relationship between individual and society. Mill's ideas embodies his human concern, and all of his attention and interpretation for personality are unprecedented. Mill's theory caused a huge controversy, but it is undeniable that his thinking even had more directly and deeply impact to political in England. As a master of classical liberalism and the boundaries of classical liberalism and neo-liberalism, his thinking has had the extremely profound influence to the later generation. However any theory is not perfect, Mill's ideas exists theory flaw inevitably too.The conclusion part is the summary to the full text. In this part, the author summarizes all the points of the article to show Mill's liberalism of Law in a overall level.With the way of Comparison and analysis and through the interpretation of "On Liberty", this paper wants to describe the main ideas of mill's Liberalism Law. Mill's ideas bodies more reflects on Bentham's theory. Therefore the paper will pay more attention to compare Mill with Bentham, with a view to stated Mill's thinking more accurately.