PHIL 150 · Set Texts — Mill's On Liberty

Led by John Stuart Mill

The third set text of the Cambridge Part IA Philosophy syllabus, read with Mill himself. On Liberty draws the line between the conduct society may rightfully coerce and the conduct over which the individual is sovereign — the harm principle — and mounts the most famous defence of free speech ever written. The student works through the argument and tests its boundary against hard cases, while weighing its real imperial-age limitation.

1. Module 3 ○ Open

   Mill's On Liberty: The Harm Principle, Free Speech, and Individuality

   Led by John Stuart Mill

   The question

   When, if ever, may society rightfully compel an individual to act against their own will? Mill's answer is a single principle — only to prevent harm to others — and *On Liberty* is the working-out of everything that follows from it: why neither a person's own good nor others' disapproval can justify coercion; why even false and offensive opinions must be free, since silencing them assumes our own infallibility and lets received truths rot into dead dogma; why the free development of individuality is a chief element of human well-being rather than a nuisance to be tolerated; and where, in the difficult cases, the line between self-regarding and other-regarding conduct actually falls. The module reads the essay as the unified argument it is, and tests its boundary against the cases that strain it.

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