Defence Of Freedom

John Stuart Mill was an English thinker, social and political reformer in modern times,and his greatest contributions to the development of classical liberalism theory were that hehad made it systematic and brought it to the pinnacle of history. The book named “OnLiberty” explained all the liberal ideas of Mill’s. This article would readout the book “OnLiberty” step by step connecting with the social background and prior to the liberal ideologyand theory, and analytical interpret the core concept of Mill ’s liberal ideas-the “harmprinciple”.The introduction describes the origin of the problem, every aspect of the research review,theoretical significance and practical value, and research methods, which would expand theway for the discussion below.The first part deals with the formation background of “harm principle”. Mill’s theory wasbased on criticism of social reality as a starting point, and to understand his theory properlyand objectively cannot depart from the social reality which he lived in. This section hasdescribed the major changes in society and people’s thinking of massive change that triggeredby the industrial revolution of the United Kingdom and the revolution of France in19thcentury to reveal the deep social roots of “harm principle”.The second part illustrates the origins of the “harm principle” in many ways. This sectionanalyzes the core concepts of liberalism, including the individualism, the Free Democrats, aswell as the ideas of John Locke and Bentham which gave important impacts on Mill’s liberalscholars. Mill supported his own ideas of free thought and speech by individualism and hebelieved that effective ways to find correct opinions and the truths was to express their viewsand debates freely. The views and behaviors can be freely expressed or not have a directrelationship with the degree of democracy, but excessive freedom might lead to the tyranny ofthe majority. How to balance the majority and minority properly became the crux problem.Thus Mill solved this problem by bringing out harm principle in the comments on Locke’spersonal rights theory. However, Bentham’s utilitarianism theory had a great impact on Mill,but Mill did not stick and made critical amendments about Bentham’s utilitarianism.Part III defined the connotation of “harm principle” from three aspects: what is freedom,the range of freedom, and the restriction of freedom. It wasn’t a philosophical freedom but a social sense referred in Mill’s book “On Liberty”. And the core idea was defined a cleardelineation between the individual and the society in order to protect individual freedom.Personal freedom is nothing more but freedom of thought and behavior. Mill expressed thesetwo aspects of freedom in his mind. Freedom of thought and discussion is one effective wayfor a person to get the truth and to be a thinker. Free exchanges and combination of peoplecannot lack of free behavior, and the individuality is developed continuously and graduallywhen exercising the right of freedom. However, the relationship between the individual andthe society is not only opposing but also unificating, Mill advocated freedom, but he was notadvocating unrestricted freedom, as the society had the right to give interference andrestrictions on personal freedoms when necessary.Part IV expounds mainly on historical value and limitations of “harm principle”.“Harmprinciple” of Mill’s is the analysis of individuality and interpretation of human nature. Itcaused a huge controversy once it came out and it couldn’t be denied that this theorypromoted the theory and society then and afterwards. Indeed, due to the limitations of history,no theory is perfect; there are also defects in the harm principle theory.Conclusion section is concluding summary of this article which proved that “harmprinciple” rendered the soul of Mill’s liberalism.