The Principle of Liberty

Third Clause: The question must be settled by those merits.

4. In conclusion, the substantive force of Mill’s principle of liberty is given by the three kinds of reasons excluded by the first clause, with the last two clauses saying in effect that reasons of right and wrong, as defined in Utilitarianism, Chapter V: ¶¶14–15, especially reasons of moral rights and justice, must settle the case. The result is that only certain kinds of rea- sons—only certain kinds of utilities—are appropriate to invoke in Mill’s form of public reason.

§4. On Natural (Abstract) Right

1.Let’s ask why Mill said (in I: ¶11) that he would forgo any advantage to his argument which could be derived from the idea of abstract right as a thing independent from utility.

One obvious reason, certainly, is simply to inform the reader of his philosophical position and to reaffirm his official utilitarian view that all rights, whether moral, legal, or institutional, are founded on utility (Utilitarianism, V: ¶25).

Utilitarians generally recognized the various rights of private property, for example. They held that these rights are justified because they promote the general welfare. But it is also possible, in principle at least, to argue that restrictions on the right of private property, or its abolition altogether, might be even more favorable to the general welfare, in view of present or future social conditions.

Mill accepts the general form of this argument. The special features of his view arise from his interpretation of utility in terms of the permanent interests of man as a progressive being. The idea that rights have a philosophical justification apart from utility, whether utility is understood in Bentham’s or in Mill’s way, or in some other way, all utilitarians rejected. This was one of their objections to the idea of natural rights, which Bentham described as “nonsense on stilts.”3

2.But a second reason why Mill mentions his disavowal of abstract

3.Bentham said in Anarchical Fallacies: “Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and

imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense,—nonsense on stilts.” See Nonsense upon Stilts, ed. Jeremy Waldron (London: Methuen, 1987), p. 53. This book contains the text of three historically important critiques of the rights of man, those of Bentham, Burke, and Marx.

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right is that his formulation of the principle of liberty may seem to presuppose it. This he wants to deny.

But if the overwhelming majority of society wants very much to interfere with the self-regarding conduct of but a few others—and Mill, in his strong chapter on “Liberty of Thought and Discussion,” says they have no right to do so (On Liberty, II: ¶1)—we want to ask why shouldn’t they? On some ways of understanding utility, the sum of utility would certainly seem to increase.

Mill also says at the same place (II: ¶1) that the principle of liberty of thought and discussion is to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual when the question of compulsion and control arises. I assume here that Mill means by “absolutely” that the principle of liberty admits of no exceptions, that it always holds under the normal conditions of the democratic age (at least barring very special circumstances). One is led to ask how the principle of liberty could always hold and allow of no exceptions, even in the case of a single individual, unless the principle invoked some natural right which could not be overridden.

Here we have to keep in mind Mill’s statement in II: ¶1, where he says that even a whole people lack the power (right) to silence political discussion, even against a single person. This power, whether exercised by the people or by their government, is illegitimate. He says: “If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” Once again, this prompts us to ask: how can the number of persons fail to make any difference as to the justification of silencing discussion unless some doctrine of natural, or abstract, right lies in the background? Is Mill simply indulging in a rhetorical flourish?

3. I interpret the passages that suggest a doctrine of abstract right as Mill’s way of saying that it is better for the advancement of the permanent interests of man as a progressive being that the public political conception of the coming democratic society always affirm the principle of liberty without exception, even when applied to the case of a single individual dissenter.

Keep in mind that what Mill is doing is advocating the principle of liberty as a principle subordinate to the principle of utility to govern the public political discussions as to how to regulate basic political and social

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institutions. Recall that he regards these institutions as ways to form and to educate a national character suitable for the democratic age. He is saying that when we understand the role of the principle of liberty and the present and future conditions of its application, we will see that there are no good reasons founded on utility for making any exceptions when utility is properly understood as the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.

This interpretation is confirmed by what Mill says in II: ¶1. He writes: “Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception . . . of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

Of course, Mill has in mind opinion on general matters of doctrine, political and social, moral, philosophical and religious. He believes it is in the permanent interests (security and individuality) of man as a progressive being to know which of these general doctrines are true, or most reasonable; and he believes also that the necessary condition of reasonable belief on these questions is complete freedom of discussion and inquiry. “The beliefs which we have most warrant for have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded” (II: ¶8).

Thus by silencing one person in expressing an opinion, we do injury to the public process of free discussion. And this free process of discussion is necessary for advancing the permanent interests of man as a progressive being in the present age. Moreover, the injury done to free discussion is done without any compensating advantage. Not only does the silencing of discussion educate to the wrong kind of national character, but it tends to deprive society and its members of the benefits of truth. This last point is made in On Liberty, II: ¶¶3–11, the “infallibility argument,” in which Mill argues that no human, regardless of his convictions, is infallible; and if all who express contrary opinions are suppressed, those who are wrong will lose the chance to discover the truth.

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Conclusion

As we have discussed it, the idea of public reason involves the idea of admissible reasons vs. those reasons that are not admissible. But grounds must be given for why all reasons are not admissible, since it is easy to think that surely all reasons should be tallied up. Different political conceptions of justice may, of course, hold different reasons as admissible and offer different grounds for doing so.

In justice as fairness, the grounds for limiting the reasons admissible in public reason are the liberal principle of legitimacy—the principle that the collective political power of citizens on matters of constitutional essentials and basic questions of distributive justice should turn on the appeal to political values that all citizens may reasonably be expected to endorse, and so rest on a shared public understanding. Given the fact of reasonable pluralism, which free institutions lead and sustain, citizens have a duty to one another to exercise their power in accordance with this principle. A democratic society in which this is done realizes an ideal of civility.4

Mill’s grounds for his idea of public reason are different, of course, but hardly antithetical. His principle of liberty along with his principles of moral right and justice, and the other principles of the modern world, are all principles subordinate to the supreme principle of utility. The principle of liberty is to be strictly followed in public discussion. This is part of society’s basic institutions educating citizens to a certain national character: one that, of course, takes the equal liberties for granted, and promotes in the most effective way the permanent interests of humankind.

4. See Restatement, pp. 40–41 and 90–91, on the liberal principle of legitimacy and the fact of reasonable pluralism. See also Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993; paperback ed., 1996), pp. 137, 217.

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