Notes on Liberty

Chapter 1 Introductory
1. The subject of this Essay is Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.
2. The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome and England.
I. When the authorities were regarded as vultures preying on the weaker members of the community, the aim of patriots was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community, and this limitation was what they meant by liberty. It was attempted in two ways:
a. By obtaining a recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe, and which if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was held to be justifiable.
b. The establishment of constitutional checks, by which the consent of the community, or of a body of some sort, supposed to represent its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important acts of the governing power.
II. When men ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to them much better that the various magistrates of the State should be their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure.
a. Since the rulers are now identified with the people, their interest and will the interest and will of the nation, the nation did not need to be protected against its own will. There was no fear of its tyrannising over itself. But success discloses faults and infirmities which failure might have concealed from observation.
The “people” who exercise the power are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised; and the “self-government” spoken of is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous of the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority—the tyranny of the majority.
b. Tyranny of the majority: when society is itself the tyrant—society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannising are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. It practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Therefore, there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling.
c. How to make the fitting adjustment between individual independence and social control?
People set different rules of conduct in every and each different age and country. Yet the rules which obtain among themselves appear to them self-evident and self-justifying.—Custom is not only a second nature, but is continually mistaken for the first.
1) The practical principle which guides them to their opinions on the regulation of human conduct, is the feeling in each person’s mind that everybody should be required to act as he, and those with whom he sympathises, would like them to act.
No one acknowledges that his standard of judgement is his own liking; but an opinion on a point of conduct, not supported by reasons, can only count as one person’s preference; and if the reasons, when given, are a mere appeal to the similar preference felt by other people, it is still only many people’s liking instead of one.
Most commonly, their opinions depended on their desires or fears for themselves—their legitimate or illegitimate self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority.
2) Another grand determining principle of the rules of conduct has been the servility of mankind towards the supposed preferences or aversions of their temporal masters or of their gods. This servility, though essentially selfish, is not hypocrisy; it gives rise to perfectly genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it made men burn magicians and heretics.
3) Interests of society also had a great share in the direction of the moral sentiments, as a consequence of the sympathies and antipathies which grew out of them. The likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful portion of it, are thus the main thing which has practically determined the rules laid down for general observance, under the penalties of law or opinion.
Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realised, except where religious indifference has added its weight to the scale. Wherever the sentiment of the majority is still genuine and intense, it is found to have abated little of its claim to be obeyed.
3. The sole end for which mankind are warranted in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their member, is self-protection. The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
I. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. We own ourselves.
II. This doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. For the same reason, liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.
III. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of a man as a progressive being.
IV. He may rightfully be compelled to perform for the benefit of others, for a person may cause evil to others not only by his action but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
V. In cases where a person’s conduct affects only himself, or if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary, and undeceived consent and participation, society has only an indirect interest.
4. The appropriate region of human liberty comprises
I. The inward domain of consciousness: demanding liberty of conscience in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to be inseparable from it.
II. The principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits: of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character: of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow; without impediment from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong.
III. The liberty of combination among individuals: freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others; the persons combing being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived.
5. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.
6. There is in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation; and as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend to disappear.
Chapter 2 Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion
1. No argument can now be needed against permitting a legislature, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear.
Let us suppose then that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice.
But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate.
2. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error:
I. The opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true.
a. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of INFALLIBILITY.
b. We’ve never taken our fallibility seriously, though we’d admit it in theory.
And even when we do, we just turn to repose on the infallibility of “the world” in general; and it never troubles us that mere accident has decided which of these numerous worlds is the object of our reliance, or that ages are no more infallible than individuals.
c. The objections:
1) There is no greater assumption of infallibility in forbidding the propagation of error, than in any other thing which is done by public authority on its own judgement and responsibility.
If we were never to act on our opinions because those opinions may be wrong, we should leave all our interests uncared for, and all our duties unperformed. Thus, we may, and must, assume our opinion to be true for the guidance of our own conduct.
A: Complete liberty of contradicting and disapproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action.
Human beings are capable of rectifying our mistakes by discussion and experience.
Any person whose judgement is deserving of confidence has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct, because he feels that the only way in which a human being can understand the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind.
2) Men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being “pushed to an extreme.” Some particular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to be questioned because it is so certain.
A: Unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case. To call any proposition certain, while there is anyone who would deny its certainty, if permitted, is to assume that we ourselves are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other side.
3) In the age of “destitute of faith, but terrified at scepticism”, people should not know what to do without their “true opinions”. This mode of thinking makes the justification of restraints on discussion a question of usefulness; and escapes the responsibility of claiming to be infallible judge of opinions.
A: The assumption of infallibility is merely shifted from one point to another. The usefulness of an opinion is itself matter of opinion. The truth of an opinion is part of its utility, and no belief which is contrary to truth can be really useful. There can be no fair discussion of the question of usefulness when an argument so vital may be employed on one side, but not on the other.
4) A concrete case (EXAMPLE): the belief in a God and in a future state, or any of the commonly received doctrines of morality.
A: It is not the feeling sure of a doctrine which I call an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide that question for others, without allowing them to hear what can be said on the contrary side. And so far from the assumption being less objectionable or less dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or impious, these are exactly the occasions on which the men of one generation commit those dreadful mistakes which excite the astonishment and horror of posterity.
i. Socrates: “Corruptor of youth” ii. Jesus Christ: “Blasphemer” iii. Marcus Aurelius: persecuted Christianity
5) The persecutors of Christianity were in the right; persecution is an ordeal through which truth ought to pass, and always passes successfully, legal penalties being, in the end, powerless against truth, though sometimes beneficially effective against mischievous errors.
A: We cannot commend the generosity of its dealing with the persons to whom mankind are indebted.
History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries. Persecution has always succeeded, save where the heretics were too strong a party to be effectually persecuted. The real advantage which truth has consists in that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.
6) No person can be allowed to give evidence in a court of justice who does not profess belief in a God (any god is sufficient) and in a future state.
A: Under pretence that atheists must be liars, it admits the testimony of all atheists who are willing to lie, and rejects only those who brave the obloquy of publicly confessing a detested creed rather than affirm a falsehood.
7) We do not now put to death the introducers of new opinions.
A: Our merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion, because in respect to all persons but those whose pecuniary circumstances make them independent of the good will of other people, opinion, on this subject, is as efficacious as law; men might as well be imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread.
d. The price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.
1) No one can be a great thinker who does not recognise, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.
2) Not only that, it is as much and even more indispensable to enable average human beings to attain the mental stature which they are capable of. There never has been, nor ever will be, in a general atmosphere of mental slavery, an intellectually active people.
II. If all the received opinions are true.
a. To shut out discussion entirely is seldom possible, and when it once gets in, beliefs not grounded on conviction are apt to give way before the slightest semblance of an argument. The true opinion abides in the mind, but abides as a prejudice—this is not the way in which truth ought to be held by a rational being. Truth, thus held, is but one superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which enunciate a truth.
b. The cultivation of the understanding of mankind consists in learning the grounds of one’s own opinions.
1) Objection: Let them be taught the grounds of their opinions.
Answer: Such teaching suffices on a subject like mathematics, where there is nothing at all to be said on the wrong side of the question, but on every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting reasons. It has to be shown why that other theory cannot be the true one: and until this is shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do not understand the grounds of our opinion.
Example: Cicero always studied his adversary’s case with as great intensity as his own.
2) Objection: It is enough if there is always somebody capable of answering them, so that nothing likely to mislead uninstructed persons remains unrefuted.
Answer: However, this cannot be accomplished unless they are freely stated, and placed in the most advantageous light which they admit of.
Example: Church makes a broad separation between those who can be permitted to receive its doctrines on conviction and those who must accept them on trust.
c. The fact is that not only the grounds of the opinion are forgotten in the absence of discussion, but too often the meaning of the opinion itself.
Almost all ethical doctrines and religious creeds are full of meaning and vitality to those who originate them. Their meaning continues to be felt in undiminished strength, and is perhaps brought out into even fuller consciousness, so long as the struggle lasts. At last it either prevails and becomes the general opinion, or its progress stops. They subsided into acquiescence, and from this time they may usually be dated the decline in the living power of the doctrine.
The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors, which is well described as “the deep slumber of a decided opinion.”
Example: It is scarcely too much to say that not one Christian in a thousand guides or tests his individual conduct by reference to those laws.
d. Is it necessary that some part of mankind should persist in error to enable any to realise the truth?
Answer: I affirm no such thing. As mankind improve, the number of doctrines which are no longer disputed or doubted will be constantly on the increase. In that case, I should like to see the teachers of mankind endeavouring to provide a substitute for it.
Example: Socratic dialectics exemplified in the dialogues of Plato; School disputations of the Middle Ages: they were essentially a negative discussion of the great question of philosophy and life.
Comment: It is the fashion of the present time to disparage negative logic—that which points out weaknesses in theory or errors in practice, without establishing positive truths. Such negative criticism would indeed be poor enough as an ultimate result; but as a means to attaining any positive knowledge or conviction worthy the name, it cannot be valued too highly.
III. When the conflicting doctrines share the truth between them; and the nonconforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the truth, of which the received doctrine embodies only a part.
a. Most frequently, heretical opinions would front the received truths as enemies, and setting themselves up, with similar exclusiveness, as the whole truth, because in the human mind, one-sidedness has always been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception.
b. Examples:
1) In the eighteenth century, when nearly all the instructed were lost in admiration of modern science, literature, and philosophy; with what a salutary shock did the paradoxes of Rousseau explode like bombshells in the midst, dislocating the compact mass of one-sided opinion, and forcing its elements to recombine in a better form and with additional ingredients.
2) In politics, it is almost a commonplace that a party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life, knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be preserved from what ought to be swept away.
c. Objection: Some received principles, especially on the highest and most vital subjects, are more than half-truth.
Answer: Christian morality is a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active; Innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good; in its precepts “thou shalt not” predominates unduly over “thou shalt.” It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life. Doing what lies in it give to human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting each man’s feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow creatures, except so far as a self-interested inducement is offered to him for consulting them.
While in the morality of the best Pagan nations, duty to the state holds even a disproportionate place, infringing on the just liberty of the individual; in purely Christian ethics, that grand department of duty is scarcely noticed or acknowledged.
I believe that the sayings of Christ are irreconcilable with nothing which a comprehensive morality requires. This being so, I think it a great error to persist in attempting to find in the Christian doctrine that complete rule for our guidance which its author intended it to sanction and enforce, but only partially to provide.
3. I acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not cured by the freest discussion, but is often heightened and exacerbated thereby. But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect.
4. We have now recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds:
I. If any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.
II. Though the silenced opinion be an error, it may contain a portion of truth; it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
III. Even if the received opinion be the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be vigorously and earnestly contested, it will be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.
IV. The meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct.
5. Objection: The free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion.
Answer: The gravest of the principal offences is, to argue sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion.
While regard to intemperate discussion, namely invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like, the denunciation of these weapons would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them equally to both sides. Instead, only those who hold any unpopular opinion are often stigmatised as bad and immoral men.
This is the real morality of public discussion: One should have the calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents and their opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favour.

Chapter 3 Of Individuality, as one of the Elements of Well-being
1. Let us next examine whether the same reasons do not require that men should be free to act upon their opinions, and to carry these out in their lives, without hindrance, either physical or moral, from their fellow-men, so long as it is at their own risk and peril.
2. Actions should not be as free as opinions. But it is desirable that in things which do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself.
3. The greatest difficulty in maintaining this principle is not the appreciation of means towards an acknowledged end, but in the indifference of persons in general to the end itself. People do not see that the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being.
I. Wilhelm von Humboldt: The Sphere and Duties of Government
“The end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal or immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires, is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole”; therefore, the object “towards which every human being must ceaselessly direct his efforts, and on which especially those who design to influence their fellow-men must ever keep their eyes, is the individuality of power and development”; for this there are two requisites, “freedom, and variety of situations”, from the union of which arise “individual vigour and manifold diversity,” which combine themselves in “originality.”
II. The question is one of degree.
a. On one hand, it’s absurd to pretend that people ought to live as if experience had as yet done nothing towards showing that one mode of existence or of conduct is preferable to another.
b. On the other, no one’s idea of excellence in conduct is that people should do absolutely nothing but copy one another. It is the privilege and proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity of his faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way. This is because:
1) Other people’s experience may be too narrow; or they may not have interpreted it rightly.
2) Their interpretation of experience may be correct, but unsuitable to him.
3) To conform to custom, merely as custom, does not educate or develop in him any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment of a human being.
III. It is supposed that to possess impulses of our own, and of any strength, is nothing but a peril and a snare. Yet desires and impulses are as much a part of a perfect human being as beliefs and restraints.
a. Strong impulses are only perilous when not properly balanced. It is not because men’s desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.
b. Energy may be turned to bad uses; but more good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent and impassive one, because the same strong susceptibilities which make the personal impulses vivid and powerful, are also the source from which the most passionate love of virtue, and the sternest self-control are generated.
IV. The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice.
He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties.
Thus, an intelligent following of custom, or even occasionally an intelligent deviation from custom, is better than a blind and simply mechanical adhesion to it.
V. Once in some early state of society, the element of spontaneity and individuality was in excess. But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; personal impulses and preferences are now in deficiency. It does not occur to people to have any inclination, except for what is customary. Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke; they like in crowds. Human capacities are withered and starved.
a. Objection: According to the Calvinistic theory, the one great offence of man is self-will. All the good of which humanity is capable is comprised in obedience.
Answer: If it be any part of religion to believe that man was made by a good Being, it is more consistent with that faith to believe that this Being gave all human faculties that they might be cultivated and unfolded, not rooted out and consumed.
b. There is a different type of human excellence from the Calvinistic: a conception of humanity as having its nature bestowed on it for other purposes than merely to be abnegated. “Pagan self-assertion” is one of the elements of human worth, as well as “Christian self-denial.”
VI. It is by cultivating the individuality, and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation. Because in proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others.
a. Objection: The stronger specimens of human nature may encroach on the rights of others.
Answer: As much compression as is necessary to prevent this from happening cannot be dispensed with; but for this there is ample compensation in the point of view both of human development and of himself. To be held to rigid rules of justice for the sake of others, develops the feelings and capacities which have the good of others for their object.
VII. Therefore, individuality is the same thing with development, and it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings.
4. It is necessary further to show, that these developed human beings are of some use to the undeveloped—to point out to those who do not desire liberty, and would not avail themselves of it, that they may be in some intelligible manner rewarded for allowing other people to make use of it without hindrance.
I. They might possibly learn something from them. Originality is a valuable element in human affairs.
a. There is always need of persons to commence new practices, and set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense in human life, without which human life would become a stagnant pool.
b. There is only too great a tendency in the best beliefs and practices to degenerate into the mechanical. Without originality, such dead matter would not resist the smallest shock from anything really alive, and there would be no reason why civilisation should not die out.
II. In order to have genius, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow. Persons of genius need more freedom because they are more individual than any other people.
a. People are mostly indifferent to this. But for those unoriginal minds who cannot feel the use of it, originality opens their eyes; which being once fully done, they would have a chance of being themselves original.
b. The great tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind. At present individuals are lost in the crowd. However, the initiation of all wise or noble things comes and must come from individuals. The honour and glory of the average man is that he is capable of following that initiative.
III. A person’s own mode of laying out his existence is the best, because it is his own mode. People shall not be shaped all after one model for the mere reason that they have diversities of taste.
a. Different persons require different conditions for their spiritual development, and cannot exist healthily in the same moral.
b. The general average of mankind today have no tastes or wishes strong enough to incline them to do anything unusual, and they consequently do not understand those who have, and class all such with the wild and intemperate whom they are accustomed to look down upon. The tendencies of the times cause the public to endeavour to make every one conform to the approved standard, which is to desire nothing strongly, and whose ideal of character is to be without any marked character, which is a bad idea, because:
1) Instead of great energies guided by vigorous reason, and strong feelings strongly controlled by a conscientious will, its result is weak feelings and weak energies, which therefore can be kept in outward conformity to rule without any strength either of will or of reason.
2) The greatness of England is now all collective; individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our habit of combining.
5. The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement. The only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty, since by it there are as many possible independent centres of improvement as there are individuals. The contest between the two constitutes the chief interest of the history of mankind.
I. Thus, a people may be progressive for a certain length of time, and then stop when it ceases to possess individuality.
II. Unfortunately, today, we tend to war against individuality.
a. We should think we had done wonders if we had made ourselves all alike; forgetting that the unlikeness of one person to another is generally the first thing which draws the attention of either to the imperfection of his own type, and the superiority of another, or the possibility, by combining the advantages of both, of producing something better than either. (The consequences are shown in the warning example of China.)
b. According to Wilhelm von Humboldt, there are two things necessary to human development, namely freedom and variety of situations. The assimilation of the latter is now promoted by:
1) Political changes to raise the low and to lower the high.
2) Extension of education to bring people under common influences.
3) Improvement in the means of communication to bring the inhabitants of distant places into personal contact, and keep a rapid flow of changes of residence between one place and another.
4) The increase of commerce and manufactures to open all objects of ambition to general competition, so that the desire of rising becomes a character of all classes.
5) The complete establishment of the ascendancy of public opinion in the State to eliminate the very idea of resisting the will of the public.
c. The solution is that the intelligent part of the public should be made to feel its value—to see that it is good there should be differences, even though not for the better.
d. If the claims of Individuality are ever to be asserted, the time is now, while much is still wanting to complete the enforced assimilation. Mankind speedily become unable to conceive diversity when they have been for some time unaccustomed to see it.

Chapter 4 Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Individual
1. Though society is not founded on a contract, every one who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit. This conduct consists in two things:
I. Not injuring the interests of rights of one another.
II. Each person’s bearing his share (to be fixed on some equitable principle) of the labours and sacrifices incurred for defending the society or its members from injury and molestation.
These conditions society is justified in enforcing at all costs to those who endeavour to withhold fulfilment.
Moreover, when an individual does harm to others without going to the length of violating any of their constituted rights, the offender may be justly punished by opinion, though not by law.
Thus, as soon as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it, becomes open to discussion.
2. Some objections:
I. Objection: This doctrine is one of the selfish indifference.
Answer: Instead of any diminution, there is need of great increase of disinterested exertion to promote the good of others. But disinterested benevolence can find other instruments to persuade people to their good than whips and scourges. Education works by conviction and persuasion as well as by compulsion, and it is by the former only that, when the period of education is passed, the self-regarding virtues should be inculcated.
Human beings owe to each other help to distinguish the better from the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and avoid the latter. But none is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it, except in cases of strong personal attachment.
Thus, in each person’s own concerns, consideration to aid his judgment may be offered, but he himself is the final judge.
II. Objection: Do you mean that the feelings with which a person is regarded by others ought not to be in any way affected by his self-regarding qualities or deficiencies?
Answer: By no means. Though doing no wrong to any one, a person may so act as to compel us to judge him, and feel to him, as a fool, or as a being of an inferior order. We have a right to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours.
The inconveniences which are strictly inseparable from the unfavourable judgment of others are the only ones to which a person should ever be subjected for that portion of his conduct and character which concerns his own good, but which does not affect the interest of others in their relations with them.
Acts injurious to others require a totally different treatment. These are fit objects of moral reprobation, and in grave cases, of moral retribution and punishment. Also, the dispositions which lead to them are properly immoral, and fit subjects of disapprobation which may rise to abhorrence
3. The distinction between the loss of consideration incurred by defect of prudence or of personal dignity, and the reprobation as an offence against the rights of others, isn’t a merely nominal distinction.
I. If he displeases us by spoiling his life with mismanagement, we shall not, for that reason, desire to spoil it still further, but rather endeavour to alleviate his punishment by showing him how he may avoid or cure the evils his conduct tends to bring upon him. The worst we shall think ourselves justified in doing is leaving him to himself. In this case, it is not our part to inflict any suffering on him, except what may incidentally follow from our using the same liberty in the regulation of our own affairs, which we allow to him in his
II. It is far otherwise if he has infringed the rules necessary for the protection of his fellow creatures, individually or collectively. In this case, he is an offender at our bar, and we are called on not only to sit in judgment on him, but, in one shape or another, to execute our own sentence.
III. Certain objections:
a. Objection: How can any part of the conduct of a member of society be a matter of indifference to the other members? For example:
1) If he injures his property → those who derived support from it/diminishes the general resource of the community
2) If he deteriorates his bodily or mental faculties → all who depended on him for their happiness/disqualifies himself for rendering the services he owes to his fellow creatures generally
3) In general → injurious by his example to those who the sight or knowledge of his conduct might corrupt or mislead.
Answer:
1) If a man, through extravagance, becomes unable to pay his debts, he is deservedly reprobated, and might be justly punished; but it is for the breach of duty to his family or creditors, not for the extravagance. If he had invested the money in business, the moral culpability would have been the same. Whenever there is a definite damage, or a definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the public, the case is taken out of the province of liberty, and placed in that of morality.
2) The example, on the whole, must be more salutary than hurtful, since, if it displays the misconduct, it displays also the painful or degrading consequences which, if the conduct is justly censured, must be supposed to be in all or most cases attendant on it.
b. Objection: Even if the consequences of misconduct could be confined to the vicious or thoughtless individual, society is bound to provide protection against themselves for persons of mature years who are incapable of self-government. After all, it only seeks to prevent things which experience has shown not to be useful or suitable to any person’s individuality, like gambling, drunkenness, incontinence, idleness, or uncleanliness.
Answers:
1) The inconvenience is one which society can afford to bear, for the sake of the greater good of human freedom.
2) But I cannot consent to argue the point as if society had no means of bringing its weaker members up to its ordinary standard of rational conduct. The existing generation is master both of the training and the entire circumstances of the generation to come, and is perfectly well able to make the rising generation, as a whole, as good as, and a little better than, itself.
3) No such persons of vigorous and independent characters will ever feel that others have a right to control him in his concerns, such as they have to prevent him from injuring them in theirs; it easily comes to be considered a mark of spirit and courage to fly in the face of such usurped authority, and do with ostentation the exact opposite of what it enjoins. (As is shown in the fashion of grossness in time of Charles II.)
4) When it does interfere, the odds are that it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong place, for in these cases public means, at the best, some people’s opinion of what is good or bad for other people; while in most cases, the public, with perfect indifference, passing over the pleasure or convenience of those whose conduct they censure, and considering only their own preference. And there is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it. In its interferences with personal conduct it is seldom thinking of anything but the enormity of acting or feeling differently from itself.
IV. Instances to show that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.
a. The antipathies which men cherish on no better grounds than that persons whose religious opinions are different from theirs do not practice their religious observances, especially their religious abstinences.
b. It is affirmed that in the country where both society and the government are most democratic—the United States, the feeling of the majority, to whom any appearance of a more showy or costly style of living than they can hope to rival is disagreeable, operates as a tolerably effectual sumptuary law.
c. It is known that the bad workmen who form the majority of the operatives in many branches of industry, are decidedly of opinion that bad workmen ought to receive the same wages as good, and that no one ought to be allowed, through piecework or otherwise, to earn by superior skill or industry more than others can without it.
d. Under the name of preventing intemperance, people in the United States have been interdicted by law from dealing of whatever of fermented drinks, except for medical purposes.
e. Sabbatarian legislation. It is a belief that God not only abominates the act of the misbeliever, but will not hold us guiltless if we leave him unmolested.
f. Mormonism: No community has a right to force another to be civilised, so long as the sufferers by the bad law do not invoke assistance from other communities.
Chapter 5 Applications
1. I offer the specimens of application, which may serve to
I. Bring into greater clearness the meaning and limits of the two maxims which together form the entire doctrine of this Essay, and
II. Assist the judgment in holding the balance between them, in the cases where it appears doubtful which of them is applicable to the case.
The two maxims are,
I. The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
II. For such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishment, if society is of opinion that the one or the other is requisite for its protection.
2. Although damage, or probability of damage, to the interests of others, can alone justify the interference of society, it doesn’t always justify such interference.
For example, in social competition, society admits no right, either legal or moral, in the disappointed competitors to immunity from suffering; and can only interfere when means of success employed is contrary to the general interest to permit—namely, fraud or treachery, and force.
3. There are questions which involve considerations of liberty only in so far as leaving people to themselves is always better than controlling them, and questions relating to interference with trade which are essentially questions of liberty.
I. For example, in trade, which is a social act, it is now recognised that both the cheapness and the good quality of commodities are most effectually provided for by leaving the producers and sellers perfectly free, under the sole check of equal freedom to the buyers for supplying themselves elsewhere, which is the doctrine of Free Trade.
II. Where the object of the interference is to make it impossible or difficult to obtain a particular commodity, the interferences infringes on the liberty of the buyer.
4. What are the proper limits of the functions of police? How far liberty may legitimately be invaded for the prevention of crime, or of accident?
I. It is one of the undisputed functions of government to take precautions against crime before it has been committed, as well as to detect and punish it afterwards.
If a person attempts to cross a bridge which had been ascertained to be unsafe, and there were no time to warn him of his danger, people may seize him and turn him back, without any real infringement of his liberty; for liberty consists in doing what one desires, and he does not desire to fall into the river.
II. Nevertheless, when there is only a danger of mischief, no one but the person himself can judge of the sufficiency of the motive which may prompt him to incur the risk. In this case, he ought to be only warned of the danger, not forcibly prevented from exposing himself to it.
a. Word expressive of its dangerous character labelled on the drug can be enforced without the violation of liberty.
b. To require in all cases the certificate of a medical practitioner would make it impossible to obtain the article even for legitimate uses.
c. The only mode in which difficulties may be thrown in the way of crime committed without any infringement worth taking into account upon the liberty of others consists in providing “preappointed evidence” proposed by Bentham.
III. Purely self-regarding misconduct cannot be properly meddled with in the way of prevention or punishment.
But if, from any avoidable cause, a man fails to perform his legal duties to others, it is no tyranny to force him to fulfil that obligation.
IV. There are many acts which, being directly injurious only to the agents themselves, ought not to be legally interdicted, but which, if done publicly, are a violation of good manners, and coming thus within the category of offences against others, may rightly be prohibited.
5. What the agent is free to do, ought other persons to be equally free to counsel or instigate?
I. If people must be allowed, in whatever concerns only themselves, to act as seems best to themselves, at their own peril, they must equally be free to consult with one another about what is fit to be so done, to exchange opinions, and give and receive suggestions.
II. The question is doubtful only when the instigator derives a personal benefit from his advice.
Then a new element of complication is introduced; namely, the existence of classes of persons with an interest opposed to what is considered as the public weal, and whose mode of living is grounded on the counteraction of it. Ought this to be interfered with?
There are two arguments on both sides,
a. On the side of toleration, the fact of following anything as an occupation, and living or profiting by the practice of it, cannot make that criminal which would otherwise be admissible; one person should be as free to persuade as another to dissuade.
b. In opposition to this it may be contended that people is fully justified in assuming , if they regard it as bad, that its being so or not is at least a disputable question. This being supposed, they cannot be acting wrongly in endeavouring to exclude the influence of solicitation which are not disinterested.
1) Thus, though gambling is lawful, public gambling-houses should not be permitted. It is true that the prohibition is never effectual, but they may be compelled to conduct their operations with a certain degree of secrecy and mystery, so that nobody knows about them but those who seek them.
2) However, if considering the common operations of buying and selling, almost every article which is bought and sold may be used in excess, and the sellers have a pecuniary interest in encouraging that excess; but no argument can be founded on this.
6. Whether the State, while it permits, should nevertheless indirectly discourage conduct which it deems contrary to the best interests of the agent?
I. To tax stimulants for the sole purpose of making them more difficult to be obtained, is a measure differing only in degree from their entire prohibition, and not at all justifiable. Every increase of cost is a prohibition to those whose means do not come up to the augmented price.
II. But it must be remembered that taxation for fiscal purposes is absolutely inevitable; the State cannot help imposing penalties on the use of some articles of consumption. It is the duty of the State to consider what commodities the consumers can best spare.
Taxation of stimulants, up to the point which produces the largest amount of revenue, is not only admissible, but to be approved of.
III. The question of making the sale of these commodities a more or less exclusive privilege must be answered differently.
a. Offences against society are especially apt to originate in places of public resort; it is therefore fit to confine the power of selling these commodities to persons of known or vouched-for respectability of conduct.
b. Any further restrictions which belong to the system of paternal government are unjustifiable.
7. The liberty of the individual implies a corresponding liberty in any number of individuals to regulate by mutual agreement such things as regard them jointly, and regard no persons but themselves. These people should enter into engagements with one another in case their will may change.
Yet this general rule has some exceptions. Not only persons are not held to engagements which violate the rights of third parties, but it is sometimes considered a sufficient reason for releasing them from an engagement that it is injurious to themselves.
I. There should be limits to one’s power of voluntarily disposing of his own lot in life. Because the reason for not interfering with a person’s voluntary acts is consideration for his liberty. But by selling himself for a slave, he forgoes any future use of his freedom beyond that single act. He therefore defeats the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to dispose himself. It is not freedom to be allowed to alienate his freedom.
II. The principle which demands uncontrolled freedom requires that those who have become bound to one another, in things which concern no third party, should be able to release one another from the engagement.
Wilhelm von Humboldt states that engagements which involve personal relations or services should never be legally binding beyond a limited duration of time; and that marriage should require nothing more than the declared will of either party to dissolve it.
I. However, there are moral obligations in the case of marriage, to themselves and to the third party. And this necessarily makes a great difference in the moral freedom of the parties to release themselves from the engagement, though not in the legal one.
8. Owing to the absence of any recognised general principles, liberty is often granted where it should be withheld, as well as withheld where it should be granted, which is most obviously shown in the case of family relations.
I. The almost despotic power of husbands over wives. The defenders of established injustice do not avail themselves of the plea of liberty, but stand forth openly as the champions of power.
II. A man’s children were literally a part of himself, and that he has the absolute and exclusive control over them.
To bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society. If the parent does not fulfil this obligation, the State ought to see it fulfilled. But what and how should the State teach?
a. I deprecate that the whole or any large part of the education of the people should be in State hands. Because the diversity in opinions and modes of conduct involves diversity of education. A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another.
b. There should be public examinations extending to all children.
1) The knowledge required for passing an examination should be confined to facts and positive science exclusively.
2) The examination in the higher branches should be entirely voluntary.
3) It would be giving too dangerous a power to governments were they allowed to exclude any one from professions, even from the profession of teacher, for alleged deficiency of qualifications.
It is not in the matter of education only that parents’ moral obligations fail to be recognised. To produce a child without offering it at least the ordinary chances of a desirable existence is a crime against that being.
a. The laws which forbid marriage unless the parties can show that they have the means of supporting a family, do not exceed the legitimate powers of the State, for it interferes to prohibit a mischievous act—an act injurious to others.
9. What should be the limits of government interference which concerns not restraining the actions of individuals, but helping them? Whether the government should do something for their benefit, instead of leaving it to be done by themselves?
The objections may be of three kinds:
I. When the thing to be done is likely to be better done by the individual than by the government.
II. It should be done by them as a means to their own mental education.
a. This is a principal recommendation of jury trial, free and popular local and municipal institutions, and the conduct of industrial and philanthropic enterprises by voluntary associations.
b. The training take the people out of the narrow circle of personal and family selfishness and accustom them to the comprehension of joint interests, the management of joint concerns, habituate them to act from public motives, and guide their conduct by aims which unite instead of isolating them from one another.
c. With individuals and voluntary associations, there are varied experiments, and endless diversity of experience. What the State can usefully do is to make itself a central depository, and active circulator and diffuser, of the experience resulting from any trials.
III. The great evil of adding unnecessarily to the government’s power.
a. If everyone in the country was paid by the government and looked to the government for every rise in life, not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this country free otherwise than in name.
b. The evil would be greater, the more efficiently and scientifically the administrative machinery was constructed.
1) If indeed all the high talents of the country are drawn into the service of the government, to be admitted into the ranks of this bureaucracy, and when admitted, to rise therein, would be the sole objects of ambition.
The governors are as much the slaves of their organisation and discipline as the governed are of the governors.
2) Under this regime, not only is the outside public ill-qualified to criticise or check the mode of operation of the bureaucracy, but even if there rises a ruler of reforming inclinations, no reform can be effected which is contrary to the interest of the bureaucracy.
Whatever may happen, riot or rebellion, the bureaucracy remains unchanged, for nobody else is capable of taking their place.
c. The absorption of all the principal ability of the country into the governing body is fatal to the mental activity and progressiveness of the body itself.
The official body are under the constant temptation of sinking into indolent routine, or rushing into some half-examined crudity, the sole check to which is liability to the watchful criticism of equal ability outside the body.
d. The way to secure as much of the advantages of centralised power and intelligence as can be had without turning into governmental channels too great a proportion of the general activity may be conveyed in these words: the greatest dissemination of power consistent with efficiency; but the greatest possible centralisation of information, and diffusion of it from the centre.
The mischief begins when, instead of calling forth the activity and powers of individuals and bodies, it substitutes its own activity for theirs.
However, the worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it. A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished