Freedom of speech[edit]

On Liberty involves an impassioned defense of free speech. Mill argues that free discourse is

a necessary condition for intellectual and social progress. We can never be sure, he contends,
that a silenced opinion does not contain some element of the truth. He also argues that allowing
people to air false opinions is productive for two reasons. First, individuals are more likely to
abandon erroneous beliefs if they are engaged in an open exchange of ideas. Second, by forcing
other individuals to re-examine and re-affirm their beliefs in the process of debate, these beliefs
are kept from declining into mere dogma. It is not enough for Mill that one simply has an
unexamined belief that happens to be true; one must understand why the belief in question is the
true one. Along those same lines Mill wrote, "unmeasured vituperation, employed on the side of
prevailing opinion, really does deter people from expressing contrary opinions, and from listening
to those who express them."[43][39]:51
As an influential advocate of freedom of speech, Mill objected to censorship:[44]
I choose, by preference the cases which are least favourable to me – In which the argument
opposing freedom of opinion, both on truth and that of utility, is considered the strongest. Let the
opinions impugned be the belief of God and in a future state, or any of the commonly received
doctrines of morality ... But I must be permitted to observe that it is not the feeling sure of a
doctrine (be it what it may) which I call an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide
that question for others, without allowing them to hear what can be said on the contrary side. And
I denounce and reprobate this pretension not the less if it is put forth on the side of my most
solemn convictions. However positive anyone's persuasion may be, not only of the faculty but of
the pernicious consequences, but (to adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the
immorality and impiety of opinion. – yet if, in pursuance of that private judgement, though backed
by the public judgement of his country or contemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being
heard in its defence, he assumes infallibility. And so far from the assumption being less
objectionable or less dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or impious, this is the case
of all others in which it is most fatal.
Mill outlines the benefits of 'searching for and discovering the truth' as a way to further
knowledge. He argued that even if an opinion is false, the truth can be better understood by
refuting the error. And as most opinions are neither completely true nor completely false, he
points out that allowing free expression allows the airing of competing views as a way to preserve
partial truth in various opinions.[45] Worried about minority views being suppressed, he argued in
support of freedom of speech on political grounds, stating that it is a critical component for
a representative government to have to empower debate over public policy.[45] He also eloquently
argued that freedom of expression allows for personal growth and self-realization. He said that
freedom of speech was a vital way to develop talents and realise a person's potential and
creativity. He repeatedly said that eccentricity was preferable to uniformity and stagnation.[45]
Harm principle[edit]
The belief that freedom of speech would advance society presupposed a society sufficiently
culturally and institutionally advanced to be capable of progressive improvement. If any argument
is really wrong or harmful, the public will judge it as wrong or harmful, and then those arguments
cannot be sustained and will be excluded. Mill argued that even any arguments which are used in
justifying murder or rebellion against the government shouldn't be politically
suppressed or socially persecuted. According to him, if rebellion is really necessary, people
should rebel; if murder is truly proper, it should be allowed. However, the way to express those
arguments should be a public speech or writing, not in a way that causes actual harm to others.
Such is the harm principle: "That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised
over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."[46]
At the beginning of the 20th century, Associate justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. made the
standard of "clear and present danger" based on Mill's idea. In the majority opinion, Holmes
writes:[47]
The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of
such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive
evils that Congress has a right to prevent.
Holmes suggested that shouting out "Fire!" in a dark theatre, which evokes panic and provokes
injury, would be such a case of speech that creates an illegal danger.[48] But if the situation allows
people to reason by themselves and decide to accept it or not, any argument or theology should
not be blocked.
Nowadays, Mill's argument is generally accepted by many democratic countries, and they have
laws at least guided by the harm principle. For example, in American law some exceptions limit
free speech such as obscenity, defamation, breach of peace, and "fighting words".[49]

Colonialism[edit]
Mill, an employee of the British East India Company from 1823 to 1858,[50] argued in support of
what he called a benevolent despotism with regard to the colonies.[51] Mill argued:[52]
To suppose that the same international customs, and the same rules of international morality, can
obtain between one civilized nation and another, and between civilized nations and barbarians, is
a grave error.… To characterize any conduct whatever towards a barbarous people as a violation
of the law of nations, only shows that he who so speaks has never considered the subject.
Mill justified the British colonization of India, but was concerned with the way in which British rule
of India was conducted.[53]

Slavery and racial equality[edit]

In 1850, Mill sent an anonymous letter (which came to be known under the title "The Negro
Question"),[54] in rebuttal to Thomas Carlyle's anonymous letter to Fraser's Magazine for Town
and Country in which Carlyle argued for slavery. Mill supported abolition in the United States,
expressing his opposition to slavery in his essay of 1869, The Subjection of Women:[55]
This absolutely extreme case of the law of force, condemned by those who can tolerate almost
every other form of arbitrary power, and which, of all others, presents features the most revolting
to the feeling of all who look at it from an impartial position, was the law of civilized and Christian
England within the memory of persons now living: and in one half of Anglo-Saxon America three
or four years ago, not only did slavery exist, but the slave trade, and the breeding of slaves
expressly for it, was a general practice between slave states. Yet not only was there a greater
strength of sentiment against it, but, in England at least, a less amount either of feeling or of
interest in favour of it, than of any other of the customary abuses of force: for its motive was the
love of gain, unmixed and undisguised: and those who profited by it were a very small numerical
fraction of the country, while the natural feeling of all who were not personally interested in it, was
unmitigated abhorrence.
Mill corresponded with John Appleton, an American legal reformer from Maine, extensively on the
topic of racial equality. Appleton influenced Mill's work on such, especially swaying him on the
optimal economic and social welfare plan for the Antebellum South.[56][57][58] In a letter sent to
Appleton in response to a previous letter, Mill expressed his view on antebellum integration:[56]
I cannot look forward with satisfaction to any settlement but complete emancipation—land
given to every negro family either separately or in organized communities under such rules as
may be found temporarily necessary—the schoolmaster set to work in every village & the tide of
free immigration turned on in those fertile regions from which slavery has hitherto excluded it. If
this be done, the gentle & docile character which seems to distinguish the negroes will prevent
any mischief on their side, while the proofs they are giving of fighting powers will do more in a
year than all other things in a century to make the whites respect them & consent to their
being politically & socially equals.