PHILOS 1B03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: John Stuart Mill, Harm Principle, James Fitzjames
17 Mar 2018
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Constant: liberty of the ancients and liberty of the moderns. Ancient liberty: we cannot trust the government to control our country, we must keep our control. Argued against the traditional views of upper classes. According to mill, society should be organized so that as many people as possible can be as happy as possible. The only way power can be exercised is to prevent harm from others. The government can only legitimately infringe upon people(cid:859)s freedom is if they are causing harm to others. We can have as much freedom as possible just do not harm others: you can harm yourself, just not others. You have absolute freedom of all subjects: mentally, free to think, see, feel, and read whatever we want, as long as it is not harming somebody else in a direct and observable way. The state cannot force us where to live, who to marry, or what job to do: some countries do not have this freedom.
