We started out the week discussing Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, two terribly interesting thinkers from before and after England's Glorious revolution. I am not much of a fan of either of these thinkers; I find them much too depressing.
All due credit to Hobbes for recognizing the importance of the social contract in government, but he was a bit overzealous with his beliefs about the rights of the appointed sovereign. It's all well and good to keep one's subjects united, but there is a thick black line between a representative of the people and a despot, and Hobbes wanted the Leviathan to skip right over that line without a backward glance. There is no sense in preserving natural human rights by giving them all up to one individual or ruling body.
Locke took Hobbes ideas a step further, realizing that there must exist a means for the subject's protection against the oppression of a sovereign. Even a sovereign has to be ruled by the laws of society. Nonetheless, Locke is insistent of a higher power to rule the nation, an organization that may not be above the law, but it is certainly stuck behind it, pulling the strings of humanity's freedom.
And so John Stuart Mill enters as a breath of fresh air, taking note from the French and American revolutions and the political theorists who followed in the footsteps of Hobbes and Locke. Mill's guiding principles are the tenets of modern liberalism. I agree wholeheartedly (of course I do, I'm a liberal) with Mill's ideas.
Mill focuses on the human right to opinions and actions. He writes that for man "over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign." Mill believes that as long as an individual takes no harmful action against another, there is no reason to prevent that individual from thinking and doing as it pleases: "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm for others." Mill does make the exception that these principles apply only to "human beings in the maturity of their faculties," providing for the protection of children.
Mill also presents the argument that humans are civically bound to interfere when the life of another is at risk, saying "a person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury." This principle would be difficult to apply in a judicial setting, except in such cases as child negligence, but is certainly a belief which many people share.
Mill then takes things even a step further saying first that human liberty expands to "liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological." This ambitious statement is certainly representative of the ideals set down in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Mill continues in this vein with the belief that individuals should be able to "[frame] the plan of our life to suit our own character, of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow." his statement is the foundation of liberal belief in freedom of lifestyle. The ultimate dimension of Mill's theory follows that of the First Amendment's right to assembly: "freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others."
Certainly Mill's beliefs, like most liberals, are idealism of a most extreme nature. These values, while revered, are still subject to the hypocrisy inherent to all human opinions and activities.
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