JS Mill reflects upon the principles of freedom and liberty in his iconic Essay ‘On Liberty’. He is particularly concerned about the limits set by democracy upon individuals ‘the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty’1, social tyranny and the so called phenomenon ‘tyranny of the majority’, which he argued that would question the definition of democracy, and especially liberal thought, ‘’Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant—society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannizing are
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When it comes to freedom of speech, there are two main points which need to be taken into consideration. Firstly, what is known today as ‘’hate speech’’ might instigate violence. If someone manifests a hostile attitude towards an ethnical group, for instance, and encourages others to engage into violent acts towards the members of that community, then should the free speech be considered harmful in the first place? Secondly, there is a matter of which Mill didn’t express interest towards; mental health and psychological harm, as for Mill, the harm was only …show more content…
For instance, while the use of tobacco is permitted all over the European Union, smoking in public is prohibited now in countries such as the UK. While this has been debated for a while, most of the European countries, including the Eastern European such as Romania prohibited recently smoking in the public places (since 02-02-2016). This can be explained in correlation with Mill’s liberty principle. While smoking itself is a self-regarding act, public smoking always affects a third party, being people around the smoker who become passive smokers by force.
To conclude, Mill’s harm principle had the purpose to protect the fundamental human rights in order for the humankind to achieve progress. While nowadays some of his arguments might not be applicable and the concept itself has been vastly criticized, it still constitutes one of the foundations of liberal
When it comes to freedom of speech, there are two main points which need to be taken into consideration. Firstly, what is known today as ‘’hate speech’’ might instigate violence. If someone manifests a hostile attitude towards an ethnical group, for instance, and encourages others to engage into violent acts towards the members of that community, then should the free speech be considered harmful in the first place? Secondly, there is a matter of which Mill didn’t express interest towards; mental health and psychological harm, as for Mill, the harm was only …show more content…
For instance, while the use of tobacco is permitted all over the European Union, smoking in public is prohibited now in countries such as the UK. While this has been debated for a while, most of the European countries, including the Eastern European such as Romania prohibited recently smoking in the public places (since 02-02-2016). This can be explained in correlation with Mill’s liberty principle. While smoking itself is a self-regarding act, public smoking always affects a third party, being people around the smoker who become passive smokers by force.
To conclude, Mill’s harm principle had the purpose to protect the fundamental human rights in order for the humankind to achieve progress. While nowadays some of his arguments might not be applicable and the concept itself has been vastly criticized, it still constitutes one of the foundations of liberal