What is Mill’s principle of liberty?
In the 19th century, the world started to emerge with a response to oppose the ancient regime of Conservatism, this response is what we know as Liberalism. An idea that believes in protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual.
In particular, in the document On Liberty, John Stuart Mill also emphasizes the contribution of having individual freedom to the society as a whole is unpredictable, by expressing the diversity of a society and freedom of speech.
Viewing the historical trend, I believe the individual freedom that was proposed in Mill’s On liberty builds the foundation for human historical revolution.
John Stuart Mill, a British philosopher, utilitarian, and liberal, who believes in the liberty of an individual will benefit the society. In Mill’s life journey, there are 2 mentors who enlighten Mill’s thinking and influence his many works. The first, is Mill’s father, who is a proponent of the idea of utilitarianism and educates John Mill during his early life. Under the influence of utilitarian instilling. John Mill utilizes the core idea of Utilitarianism as the foundation of his work. And expresses many ideas of Utilitarianism in his work, On Liberty, including individuality. Which is the primary force for the highest good of utilitarianism.
Another influence, Mill’s wife, Harriet Taylor Mill, also plays a significant role in assisting Mill’s work.
By communicating with Harriet Taylor, Mill starts to rethink social justice. In particular, his work On Liberty, published in 1859. At that time, the world was also in a time of intensive conflict with the old world versus the new world. As well as liberalism versus conservatism. Despite the victory of the French Revolution, Conservatism is still a popular political philosophy for European aristocrats.
The work On Liberty, is one of John Stuart Mill’s most influential liberal works. In the work On Liberty, Mill proposes the importance of liberty and interests in self-improvement. Also, he firmly believes that individual decision over collective decision is better for a society development. In addition, he also asserts that society needs to have diversity and freedom of speech. To be more specific, in the work On Liberty, Mill stated that:
“Such being the reasons which make it imperative that human beings should be free to form opinions. And to express their opinions without reserve….” (Mill, 123)
Analyzing this sentence, we can clearly interpret that Mill wants to emphasize the significance of one’s freedom of opinion.
More importantly, he also talks about how society needs to have an open environment for expressing people’s opinion as freedom of speech. Because Mill thinks such freedoms are from nature and you cannot prohibit them. In addition, this sentence implicitly reveals that Mill suggests a more open government-control society, rather than the order of loyalty of the hierarchy because hierarchy diminishes society’s diversity and progress.
However, we can reflect on the example of the French regime before the revolution, it is controlled by the absolute power of Louis XIV, and society presents less diverse and stagnantly progressing results.
In addition, in the work On Liberty, Mill also indicates that:
“He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan and life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape like one of imitation….” (Mill, 127).
In this sentence, Mill expresses the idea that individuality over collectivity is beneficial for society. Furthermore, he thinks if we let people choose the life they want to live and produce something in what they like, the result of their contribution to society is unexpected. In contrast, if we follow the collective decision, society will remain constant and less innovative.
Mill’s On Liberty expresses all the core values of the liberalism ideology. And those values also act as an important role to world history with two different trends. From one trend, we can look at the relationship between liberalism and the ages of revolution. Including the French Revolution, Haitian Revolution, and Latin American Independence. Starting with the French Revolution, when we look at the French Revolution in depth. We can see the long term causes for the French Revolution are driven by the new idea of infiltration, which mainly involves liberalism.
In particular, at the early stages of the French Revolution, liberalism ideologies empower the group of French enlightenment philosophers to start to redefine the individual freedom and rethink their society.
Moreover, come up with the idea that maybe we don’t necessarily need a king to rule us and tells us what we should do. Perhaps, People could essentially rule themselves. Moreover, viewing the French Revolution itself. We can see the French Revolution is a revolution that collides with two notions at once. Which is the revolution of liberty and efficiency and the revolution of equality.
Specifically, the revolution of liberty is to pursue the freedom to do what you want. And efficiency is to question how things should be produced in a society. Which echoes the idea of diversity and individuality of Mill’s, On Liberty. Thus, we can also see the connection of the French Revolution to liberalism is indivisible. And individual freedom awakens people to question society and reform it. Moving to the Haitian Revolution, we can also see a similar trend, of which the relationship with the liberalism ideology.
The Haitian Revolution is largely connected to the victory of the French Revolution.
This is because, at that time, Mulatto, the free people of color, came to France to learn the new ideas about enlightenment, equality and rights, and liberalism that passed from the French Revolution. Through liberalism, Mulattos start to rethink the ideal of their individual liberty and rights and bring back those ideas to the Haitian. When liberalism ideas spreads over Haitian, color people, who previously believe slavery is their only choice for life, totally awakens and start to rebel for their greater individual freedom.
For example, Vincent Oge is a wealthy free colored person who learns and brings back new ideas to Haitian people and starts to revolt for equality and liberty. Despite his unsuccessful attempts, we start to see the inclination of slaves starting revolution with aims of their individual freedom.
In a similar way, the Latin American Independence also shows the same response to this trend. Inspired by liberal ideas, People in Latin America start to have a reaction to its political and economic reform.
For example, people start to think there is no need to have a king or a queen to control them from the mother country. People want to gain more individual independence from their mother country. On the other hand, the tension also starts between white elites in Latin American and mother land by having different perspectives on trade policy. The white elites think economic mercantilism is less freedom and unprofitable. By pursuing their individual freedom, they want to employ the free market, capitalism. With greater market access, the elites will also gain more profits from capitalism, which also urges Latin American independence. In the same trend, all those revolutions indicate that individual liberty is the foundation of every historical revolution.
From the other trend, we can also look at the relationship between liberalism and the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution is a transformation from handmade production to machine-driven production, which creates a new trend to the world. In particular, Liberalism encouraged the laissez-faire capitalism idea, which is an economic belief that allows the transaction between private entities with minimum government interference. This idea supports the freedom of individual activity in the free market.
During industrialization, this idea plays an important role that makes businesses grow in wealth.
Echoing this new trend, the rest of the world also shows the response to the European new capacity of production. For instance, Meiji Japan restoration is one response from the east to British Industrialization.
In particular, Japanese get rid of their old feudalism and bring back democracy with the idea of individual freedom to the society. In addition, they also bring back the western factories to mimic the western industrialization. This world historical trend also shows that individual freedom is the foundation of historical revolutions.
In conclusion, viewing the world historical revolution trend.
Moreover, we can see the French Revolution, Haitian Revolution, and Latin American Independence all share an interlinked relationship with liberalism ideology.
Without the idea of individual freedom inspiring. People will not have the notion to rethink their social life and question it. Similarly, liberty of individuals also acts an important prerequisite for the rise of the Industrial Revolution. Considering both pieces of evidence. It is indisputable that individual freedom in John Mill’s On liberty builds the foundation for human historical revolution.
What is Mill’s principle of liberty?
Written by Wenzhe Guo
