ON LIBERTY ESSAY

In On Liberty Mill applies his philosophical system of utilitarianism, actions based on their
consequences, to the government and argues that a government's primary goal should be
protecting its citizens' individual liberty.

Mr John Stuart Mill says in ‘ON LIBERTY’ that “…the only purpose for which power can be
rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent
harms to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant”. I do not agree
on these lines quoted by Mr Mill.

Mr Mill says that “His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant”, But let us
take terrorism in account, where recruits are above 20, so constitutionally they have right to
speak, act on their actions without any hesitation but in time these recruits do harm to whole
community, so in this case these innocent humans need some MORAL education to know what
is right.

According to me, a member of a civilized community has attachments to every member of his
community, now when a person from such civilized community joins a terrorist group the whole
community gets abandoned, in which he is harming himself and whole community.

Today if a person tries to suicide and if in case he fails then he is executed for harming himself.
But what if his ETHICS were strong enough to make him sustain every war of his life. Attempt
to suicide and suicide are same the only difference in crime that a suicide victim cannot be
executed for his crime, and act of suicide is not only self-harming crime but it does influence
people to do so, people connected to victim might lose their hope to live and might commit the
same act.

If powers are not rightfully exercised over person from the civilized community, against his will
to prevent harm to himself either physical or moral then civilized community will never be
civilized. By what means do we refer a community as a civilized community, when a
community has well-educated people, people in the community have their morals, limits. So it's
needed to execute people when they have wrong morals and then they will have to get educated
about ETHICS & MORAL values.

I, in my opinion, stand along a side with democracy and no harm to anyone by any means either
physical or moral. Intellectual said that “physical harm heals in time, but moral harm takes a life
to heal”.

In his book, John Stuart mill quotes that greatest good of the greater number is what to be done
in liberty. But when British empire invaded India, India was the wealthy country on the globe
and was well educated that they found how to defeat corrosion and Ayurveda got its start, people
in India started to practice plastic surgery, there were many medical practices made, that were
not even though by any other. Countries like China and India made paper, tea, coffee and were
exported to British colonies as they could not make it. As Mr Mill says that India was a
backward country at the time when British empire invaded India, then how could a backward
country in education do such good inventions to prevent corrosion and how was bhaskaracharya
able to discover that earth was spear but not flat way before Galileo could think off. When Mr
Mill quotes that the greatest good of a greater number is what liberty is then British empire has
never done the same because they imposed taxation forcefully on India and in many countries
they were ruling at that time.

Mr John Stuart mill says that if an action doesn't hurt somebody in a physical manner then the
action done by a person is right, so no one could stop him from doing it but let us take this
further when British empire started trading opium with countries like China, opium caused harm
to community of China and they got addicted to opium they were not hurting them but it was
time and choice made by the people in the country which made them Suffer, this is where
education start's coming into account. if a person needs full liberty and right to speak then he
needs to be educated because words he speaks might influence others to do harm to society and
themselves.

There is a quote of Mr Mill that"a person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by
his inactions and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury". So this is only the
reason why a person needs to be well educated and person with high qualification need to have
community-level jobs where people on such post are accountable for well-being and harm of
society/community.

As we know that leaders of the terrorist group are not educated and have only their MORALS and
ETHICS, all they have are dead dogma. So a dead dogma can lead whole community to do things
which are wrong according to morals and when the community starts executing their practices over
other community that leads to harm of community in both moral and physical way.

This is where Mr.Mill says "right of liberty does not apply to children, or to "backwards" societies.
It is only when people are capable of learning from discussion that liberty holds; otherwise, the
people must be taken care of". Mill also notes that he is not justifying the claim of liberty as an
abstract right. Rather, he is grounding it in utility, on the permanent interests of mankind. So in
case of terrorist groups, they should be executed and then should be taken care of by our
communities to make them well educated and more ethical.

After laying out the major issues, Mill then turns to what he calls "the object of his essay." He
writes that he will argue that the only time individuals or society as a whole can interfere with
individual liberty is for self-protection. Mill states that the argument that a certain law or public
opinion might be for an individual's own good or welfare does not suffice to justify that law or
public opinion as a coercive force; coercion by the many toward the individual is only acceptable
when an individual poses a threat to others. It is fine to argue with a person about his actions, but
not to compel him. Mill writes, "Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is
sovereign."

A person should have the right to act as they wish as long as the negative consequences of such
actions are only felt by that person. However, if a person's act is not self-regarding and adversely
affects others, a person should be held accountable for that act.

Mill then discusses “Self-Regarding Actions and Autonomy,” during which he argues that a person
cannot be punished or coerced to change if his actions only affect himself. It is not the purpose or
right of society to protect the individual from themselves. The only thing the society may affect is
the public actions of said individual. But in my case that if a person harms himself is like a child
as mill said "right of liberty does not apply to children, or to "backwards" societies. It is only when
people are capable of learning from discussion that liberty holds; otherwise, the people must be
taken care of". So if a person harms himself the society and social relatives should take care of
him.

Mill says that very often, public opinion is wrong. This is because the majority is often tainted
with motives and biases, and they shouldn’t affect the decision being made. Mill analyses past
wars, world events, and historic acts of discrimination to support this theory. He concludes that
the majority’s opinion is not always rooted in good faith. Making sure that the minority is always
included in debates and discussions is always necessary. In this particular answer, I say that I have
not watched how world works, but I do have watched my community, society, state and my
country, my country INDIA is land of ETHICAL and MORAL values where EDUCATION is part
of everyone's life, education not in particular field but education in self-interest and mastering
themselves in their war of life. Democracy will never fail when every person is well educated and
has all the values of life. I think in Mr mills case the people around him are not educated and
thought that every ethical and moral value is a dead dogma as their ancestors could not explain
them.

So, at the end of my essay I just want to make an understanding that if a person is not penalised
for having bad morality and is not educated to have good moral values and ethics, he will definitely
find his way to a sort of terror or self-destruction and in a way at some point will cause harm to
society.
People who say that self- harm has no immediate effect to community allow me to quote

"THOSE ARE WATER DROPLETS WHO DONT HAVE IMMEDIATE EFFECT ON

SURROUNDING BUT YES THEY FORM DESTRUCTIVE SEAS AND OCEANS."

let us make a world 🌎 with happy faces.

Name-Jayesh Anil Sharma.
Class- 1st year