Few texts have sustained such extensive reference and quotation in Anglo-American politics as JS Mill’s classic.
Mill’s famous ‘Harm Principle’ – that government power may only be justifiably used to prevent harm to others, not to improve one’s own good – still provides the ground on which numerous debates around civil liberties, lifestyle choices, and more recently ‘nudge theory’ are fought. Moreover, Mill’s rousing defence of the liberty of the press never ceases to be relevant. Yet it is imperative to understand the aims and context of On Liberty if Mill’s arguments around press liberty and the Harm Principle are to be properly understood – as the endless argumentation about what ‘harm’ means shows.
Attending to the whole of On Liberty, in the spirit of pursuing knowledge for its own sake, shows these familiar ideas in a new light. By tackling this canonical work as a whole we gain valuable insights into Mill’s inspiring defence of personal autonomy, and see quite how at odds Mill would have been with contemporary political rhetoric – just as he was in his own time.
Georgios Varouxakis
professor of the history of political thought, Queen Mary University of London; author, Mill on Nationality
#BattleFest2021: From GB News to Ben & Jerry’s - boycotts or censorship?
#BattleFest2021: How to fight cancel culture and win
#BattleFest2021: Girl, boy, other: how do we talk to kids about gender?
#BattleFest2021: Is it time to rethink the precautionary principle?
#BattleFest2021: Is levelling up really levelling down? The great inequality debate
#BattleFest2021: Racism and how to fight it
#BattleFest2021: The status of science after the pandemic
#BattleFest2021: The Irish border question
#BattleFest2021: Will green jobs save us?
#BattleFest2021: Can our data be used for good? The ethics of research
#BattleFest2021: Protection for me but not for thee? The equality conundrum
#BattleFest2021: Hate, heresy and the fight for free speech
#BattleFest2021: Feminism’s civil war
#BattleFest2021: From profits to prophets - why has big business gone woke?
#BattleFest2021: Is there a case for fossil fuels?
#BattleFest2021: A ’nudge’ too far? The rise of behavioural science and technocratic rule
#BattleFest2021: 20 years in Afghanistan - what happened?
#BattleFest2021: Who are we? Identity in crisis
#EducationForum: Teaching white privilege: making schools less racist or more divided?
#Arts&Society: Truth and politics in the theatre - in conversation with David Ireland
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free