 Was Mill a Liberal?Chin-Liew Ten
Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2002, vol. 1, issue 3, 355-370 Abstract: This article is a systematic repudiation of Joseph Hamburger's thesis in his book John Stuart Mill on Liberty And Control . Hamburger maintains that Mill wanted to promote the `moral regeneration of mankind' by eroding Christian belief and replacing it with a religion of humanity. He argues that Mill's defense of liberty must be seen in this context, although Mill himself tried to conceal some of his views. Mill in fact permitted interference even in the area of self-regarding conduct. He was against interference by public opinion, but not against interference by superior persons. Mill valued freedom because it enabled superior persons to promote the desired progress toward the religion of humanity. But this article argues that Hamburger fails to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate forms of interference, a distinction that is central to Mill's case for liberty. Superior persons are not allowed to coerce others from engaging in non-harmful but `miserable' conduct. The progress that Mill envisaged was to be achieved within the framework of freedom for all. Keywords: liberty; social control; self-regarding conduct; Christianity; religion of humanity; public opinion (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:pophec:v:1:y:2002:i:3:p:355-370 DOI: 10.1177/1470594X02001003005 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Politics, Philosophy & Economics |
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