Constraint Flashcards
What is freedom in terms of speech and action?
What is Mill’s main aim?
To establish the limits of the state interference in the lives of individuals
- to establish one’s aspect of when the law’s authority is legitimate/illegitimate
- we get an account of political liberty or freedom
What is Mill’s argument for freedom of speech and thought
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is robbing the human race
What is Mill’s strategy to prove that there is no good argument for suppression?
- argue if the expressed opinion is true, then society ought not to censor it.
- if expressed opinions are false, society ought not to censor it
- if the expressed opinion is partially true/false, then society ought not to censor it
Why should true opinions not be suppressed?
- deprive others of exchanging a falsehood for truth
- on the assumption of its falsity, assumes the infallibility of the censor or undercuts its justifications
- on the assumption that it is not useful, assumes infallibility about judgements of usefulness
Why should false opinions not be suppressed?
debating false opinions promotes understanding of true opinions
Why should partially true opinions not be suppressed?
debating partially true opinions promotes discovering the full truth
What is the value of Individuality
- Mills argues that individual sovereignty should be respected since individuality and the ability to create your character is one of the building blocks of well-being
- inward forces propel us to different objects, so we shouldn’t be forced into the same ways of life by custom, social opinions and traditions
- the person has ways of life that are suitable and unstable to her, she should be free to experiment with her life, find and create her personality
Why does Mills say we should consider ourselves?
- character creation is a fundament good
- freely being who you are or being free to discover yourself is essential to wellbeing
- pressed for one’s identity or forced to conform to what society deems correct diminishes the total amount of happiness in our world
What are the qualifications of the harm principle?
- Mills is only talking about adults when it comes to this principle
- inaction may lead to harm just as action can, so a person may be responsible if they are found to be negligent
What is the principle of utility?
- actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote pleasure; wrong in proportion as they tend to pain
- any action performed by an individual government or society, is only right as promotes pleasure more than pain
What are the 3 applications of the principle of utility?
- permitting physical harm amongst citizens diminished pleasure, the harm principle is a justified political principle
- controlling people’s actions such that they cannot discover their character diminished pleasure, pleasure is through experimentation and sovereign
- controlling speech diminishes pleasure, one may be forced to live without truth, thus one can’t develop one’s intellectual abilities
What is the scope of the individual’s freedom?
- consequences of an individual’s actions only bear on her interest, she is free to act as she pleases
- her actions and their consequences are ‘sefl- regarding’, she is free to act and experiment
Why should the individual be accorded this amount of freedom?
- individual is in the best position to know what her interests are and how to serve them
- not only is she in a better to know what she needs, but she is more likely to do what serves her interest
- giving individuals this freedom tends to promote utility
what are the objections to harm principle?
- no one is an entirely isolated being, so there are no truly self-regarding actions
- those who are incapable of self-governance
What is the harm principle?
- we should understand the harm principle not just in terms of physical harm
- covers people’s interests including the obligations that are owed to them
