Mill and Rousseau: A Comparison of Their Ideas of Liberty

When he said that entirely mankind has no good to silence ane dissenter, he was really affirming that freedom of judgment, the right to be convinced sort of than coerced, is an inherent quality of a morally mature spirit that a liberal society is one which both acknowledges that right and shapes its institutions in such a way that the right is realized. To tolerate individuality and private judgment, as if they were tolerated vices, is not enough; a liberal society puts positive value on them as essential to well-being and as marks of a eminent civilization. The real argument for political freedom, he though, is that it produces and gives scope to a high type of moral character.

To hear public questions freely discussed, to realize a sh atomic number 18 in political decisions, to have moral convictions and to take the responsibility for making them effective are among the ways in which reasonablenessable human beings are produced. The reason for constructing this kind of character is not that it serves an ulterior end save it is an intrinsically human, civilized kind of character.

In On self-sufficiency (1859) dweeb writes, "If it were felt that the free development of individuality is one of the leasing essentials of well being; that it is not only a adjust element with all that is designated by the terms civilization, instruction, education, culture, but is itself a necessary part and condition of all these things; there would be no danger that liberty should be undervalue

The limitation of the power of government over individuals loses none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable to the community. equal other tyrannies, the totalitarianism of the majority is still held in timidity as operating through acts of public authorities. But persons of censure understand that when society is itself the tyrant, its means of tyrannizing are not cut back to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. lodge can and does execute its own mandates. If it issues wrong mandates or either in things in which it should not interfere, it exhibits a social tyranny far more dangerous than other forms of political oppression. nonetheless though it is not upheld by as extreme penalties, it leaves few means of escape because it cuts more deeply into the details of life. Mill felt such a penetration enslaved the very consciousness of individuals.

(Boston, 1959), 127 - 131, 137 - 140. Houghton Mifflin Co..

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