John Stuart Mill Research Paper

Our society faces a lot of challenges despite living in such a liberal world. We like to limit the activities we are not okay with or don’t understand so in terms we label them as wrong or even outlaw them. We don’t like to experiment new ways of life because we are often times too comfortable living in our own shell of what is good and what is not that anything outside of it is considered to be erroneous. John Stuart Mill stresses on the issue of conscience and individuality. Mill’s theory is that society should be free of any constrains, we should allow different opinions and experiments of living in order for man to be true to his nature. Society must facilitate and provide these alternatives of living in order for society to be vibrant …show more content…
By doing this we grow and learn from those experiments and live in the true nature of man.
John Mill writes “As it is useful while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiment of living; that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one thinks fit to try them.” (Mill, 65) Mill is not suggesting that actions should be as free as opinions. In the contrary, actions and the liberty of a person should be limited, only to the extent that he doesn't become an inconvenience or harm to others. As long as he acts in his own desires and intuitions, opinion and actions should be free to practice at the persons own cost. Having experiments of life should be the main concern in everyones minds, however, the majority of people are considered to be average and practice the norms. Mill writes, “But the evil is, that individual spontaneity is hardly recognized by the common modes of thinking, as having any intrinsic worth, or deserving any regard on his on account.” (Mill, 65) In other words, people who are