J. B. Schneewind is a professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Sidgwick's Ethics
and Victorian Moral Philosophy and The Invention of Autonomy.
Sample Chapter
On Liberty
Chapter I
Introductory
The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will,1 so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine
of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately
exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms,
but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon
to make itself recognized as the vital question of the future. It is so far from being new, that, in a certain
sense, it has divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages; but in the stage of progress into which the more
civilized portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself under new conditions, and requires a different
and more fundamental treatment.
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. But in old times this contest was
between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government. By liberty, was meant protection against the
tyranny of the political rulers. The rulers were conceived (except in some of the popular governments of Greece)
as in a necessarily antagonistic position to the people whom they ruled. They consisted of a governing One, or
a governing tribe or caste, who derived their authority from inheritance or conquest; who, at all events, did not
hold it at the pleasure of the governed, and whose supremacy men did not venture, perhaps did not desire, to contest,
whatever precautions might be taken against its oppressive exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary, but
also as highly dangerous; as a weapon which they would attempt to use against their subjects, no less than against
external enemies. To prevent the weaker members of the community from being preyed upon by innumerable vultures,
it was needful that there should be an animal of prey stronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down. But
as the king of the vultures would be no less bent upon preying on the flock than any of the minor harpies, it was
indispensable to be in a perpetual attitude of defence against his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, 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. First, 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. A second,
and generally a later expedient, was 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. To the first of these modes of limitation, the ruling power, in most European
countries, was compelled, more or less, to submit. It was not so with the second; and to attain this, or when already
in some degree possessed, to attain it more completely, became everywhere the principal object of the lovers of
liberty. And so long as mankind were content to combat one enemy by an other, and to be ruled by a master, on condition
of being guaranteed more or less efficaciously against his tyranny, they did not carry their aspirations beyond
this point.
A time, however, came, in the progress of human affairs, 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. In
that way alone, it seemed, could they have complete security that the powers of government would never be abused
to their disadvantage. By degrees, this new demand for elective and temporary rulers became the prominent object
of the exertions of the popular party, wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a considerable extent,
the previous efforts to limit the power of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling power emanate
from the periodical choice of the ruled, some persons began to think that too much importance had been attached
to the limitation of the power itself. That (it might seem) was a resource against rulers whose interests were
habitually opposed to those of the people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified with the
people; that their interest and will should be 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 tyrannizing over itself. Let the rulers be effectually
responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and it could afford to trust them with power of which it could itself
dictate the use to be made. Their power was but the nation's own power, concentrated, and in a form convenient
for exercise. This mode of thought, or rather perhaps of feeling, was common among the last generation of European
liberalism, in the Continental section of which, it still apparently predominates. Those who admit any limit to
what a government may do, except in the case of such governments as they think ought not to exist, stand out as
brilliant exceptions among the political thinkers of the Continent. A similar tone of sentiment might by this time
have been prevalent in our own country, if the circumstances which for a time encouraged it had continued unaltered.
But, in political and philosophical theories, as well as in persons, success discloses faults and infirmities which
failure might have concealed from observation. The notion, that the people have no need to limit their power over
themselves, might seem axiomatic, when popular government was a thing only dreamed about, or read of as having
existed at some distant period of the past. Neither was that notion necessarily disturbed by such temporary aberrations
as those of the French Revolution, the worst of which were the work of an usurping few, and which, in any case,
belonged, not to the permanent working of popular institutions, but to a sudden and convulsive outbreak against
monarchical and aristocratic despotism. In time, however, a democratic republic came to occupy a large portion
of the earth's surface, and made itself felt as one of the most powerful members of the community of nations; and
elective and responsible government became subject to the observations and criticisms which wait upon a great existing
fact. It was now perceived that such phrases as "self-government," and "the power of the people
over themselves," do not express the true state of the case. 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 or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed
in making themselves accepted as the majority: the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their
number; and precautions are as much needed against this, as against any other abuse of power. The limitation, therefore,
of the power of government over individuals, loses none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly
accountable to the community, that is, to the strongest party therein. This view of things, recommending itself
equally to the intelligence of thinkers and to the inclination of those important classes in European society to
whose real or supposed interests democracy is adverse, has had no difficulty in establishing itself; and in political
speculations "the tyranny of the majority" is now generally included among the evils against which society
requires to be on its guard.
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 not
restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute
its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which
it ought not to meddle, 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. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the
magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling;
against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as
rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation,
of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model
of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence;
and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human
affairs, as protection against political despotism.
But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general terms, the practical question, where to place
the limit?how to make the fitting adjustment between individual independence and social control?is a subject on
which nearly everything remains to be done. All that makes existence valuable to any one, depends on the enforcement
of restraints upon the actions of other people. Some rules of conduct, therefore, must be imposed, by law in the
first place, and by opinion on many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law. What these rules
should be, is the principal question in human affairs; but if we except a few of the most obvious cases, it is
one of those which least progress has been made in resolving. No two ages, and scarcely any two countries, have
decided it alike; and the decision of one age or country is a wonder to another. Yet the people of any given age
and country no more suspect any difficulty in it, than if it were a subject on which mankind had always been agreed.
The rules which obtain among themselves appear to them self-evident and self-justifying. This all but universal
illusion is one of the examples of the magical influence of custom, which is not only, as the proverb says, a second
nature, but is continually mistaken for the first. The effect of custom, in preventing any misgiving respecting
the rules of conduct which mankind impose on one another, is all the more complete because the subject is one on
which it is not generally considered necessary that reasons should be given, either by one person to others, or
by each to himself. People are accustomed to believe, and have been encouraged in the belief by some who aspire
to the character of philosophers,2 that their feelings, on subjects of this nature, are better than reasons, and
render reasons unnecessary. 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 sympathizes, would like them to act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to himself that his standard of judgment 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 a similar preference felt by other people, it
is still only many people's liking instead of one. To an ordinary man, however, his own preference, thus supported,
is not only a perfectly satisfactory reason, but the only one he generally has for any of his notions of morality,
taste, or propriety, which are not expressly written in his religious creed; and his chief guide in the interpretation
even of that. Men's opinions, accordingly, on what is laudable or blameable, are affected by all the multifarious
causes which influence their wishes in regard to the conduct of others, and which are as numerous as those which
determine their wishes on any other subject. Sometimes their reason?at other times their prejudices or superstitions:
often their social affections, not seldom their antisocial ones, their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness:
but most commonly, 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. The morality between Spartans and Helots,3 between planters and negroes,
between princes and subjects, between nobles and roturiers,4 between men and women, has been for the most part
the creation of these class interests and feelings: and the sentiments thus generated, react in turn upon the moral
feelings of the members of the ascendant class, in their relations among themselves. Where, on the other hand,
a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendency, or where its ascendency is unpopular, the prevailing moral
sentiments frequently bear the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority. Another grand determining principle
of the rules of conduct, both in act and forbearance, which have been enforced by law or opinion, 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. Among so many baser influences, the general and obvious interests
of society have of course had a share, and a large one, in the direction of the moral sentiments: less, however,
as a matter of reason, and on their own account, than as a consequence of the sympathies and antipathies which
grew out of them: and sympathies and antipathies which had little or nothing to do with the interests of society,
have made themselves felt in the establishment of moralities with quite as great force.
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. And in general, those
who have been in advance of society in thought and feeling, have left this condition of things unassailed in principle,
however they may have come into conflict with it in some of its details.
Excerpted from The Basic Writings of John Stuart Mill by John Stuart Mill Copyright 2002 by John Stuart Mill. Excerpted
by permission of Modern Library, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt
may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Summary
The writings of John Stuart Mill have become the cornerstone of political liberalism. Collected for the first
time in this volume are Mill's three seminal and most widely read works: On Liberty, The Subjection of Women, and
Utilitarianism. A brilliant defense of individual rights versus the power of the state, On Liberty is essential
reading for anyone interested in political thought and theory. As Bertrand Russell reflected, "On Liberty
remains a classic . . . the present world would be better than it is, if [Mill's] principles were more respected."
This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes newly commissioned endnotes and commentary by Dale E. Miller,
and an index.