Mill Individual Liberty

Individual liberty was very sacred to Mill, he said in one of his essays that unless the individual is left to live as they wish in the part of his conduct which merely concerns himself, civilization cannot advance; the truth will not for lack of a free market in ideas, come to light; there will be no spontaneity, originality, genius, for mental energy, for moral courage. He said society would be crushed by the weight of collective mediocrity. Whatever is rich and diversified will be crushed by the weight of custom, by men's constant tendency to conformity, which breeds only 'withered' capacities, 'pinched and hidebound', 'cramped and dwarfed' human beings. 'Pagan self-assertion' is as worthy as 'Christian self-denial'. 'All errors which a man is likely to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his

Threatening a man with persecution unless he submits to a life in which he does not exercise his choice of his goals; to close all doors before him no matter how benevolent it may seem is robbing that man of his freedom; treating him as if he is not a being with a life of his own to live. Who are we to impose such restrictions? This is freedom conceived by liberals in the modern world from the days of Erasmus (some would say of Occam) to our own. We see these restrictions in our constitution as it says ‘every person has the right to life and liberty’, but then goes further to unless said person goes against the law that would render these rights and freedoms null and void. Since a free man is not hindered to do what he has the will to do – Hobbes; it is therefore illogical to say absolute freedom