Page 246 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Western Political Thought

Notes of critical enquiry, but also the training of individual character. He regarded individual character
as a result of “civilization, instruction, education and culture” (Mill ibid: 115). Happiness, for Mill,
was the ability of the individual to discover his innate powers and develop these while exercising
his human abilities of Autonomous thought and action. Happiness meant liberty and individuality.
Liberty was regarded as a fundamental prerequisite for leading a good, worthy and dignified life.
“The contention of the essay On Liberty is that happiness so conceived is best achieved in a free-
society governed by the Principle of Liberty”.
Mill applied the principle of liberty to mature individuals, and excluded children, invalids, the
mentally handicapped and barbarian societies in which race itself was considered “nonage”.
Liberty could be withheld where individuals were not educated. He considered liberty as belonging
to higher and advanced civilizations, and prescribed despotism or paternalism with severe
restrictions in case of lower ones.
Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided
the end be their improvement and the means justified by actually effecting that end.
Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time
when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.
Mill also cautioned against sacrifice or infringement of liberty for the sake of making a state
strong. Such an action or policy would be inherently counter-productive, for states were made up
of the individuals who composed them. His concluding paragraph was a good testimony of the
liberal temper and outlook.
A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its
hands even for beneficial purposes will find that With small men no great thing can
really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed
everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order
that the machine might work smoothly, it has preferred to banish (Mill ibid: 120).

But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens
human nature is not the excess, not the deficiency of personal impulses and preferences.

It is generally believed that Mill’s essay on liberty was essentially written with the purpose of
defending the idea of negative liberty (Berlin 1969). Barry (1995: 216, 227) questioned this assessment,
for he contended that Mill understood liberty not only as involving absence of restraints, but also
as self-mastery, involving the exercise of choice. It is true that Mill advanced a notion of positive
liberty, but he valued choice and individuality as ends in themselves, and not because they promoted
general happiness. He did not propose a single overarching principle or values which normally
accompanied theories of positive liberty (Berlin 1969). Conscious of the power society and the
majority could wield, Mill sought to protect the individual’s private space. He was right in observing
that a society could be as oppressive as a government. The theme in On Liberty was not the absence
of restraints, but the denial of individual autonomy by the coercion exercised by a moral majority
and/or an intrusive public opinion (Berlin ibid).
By individuality, Mill meant the property in human beings that made possible the scrutiny of
prevailing ideas and conventions and subjecting them to the litmus test of reason. Freedom meant
not only absence of restraints, but also an ability to cultivate some desirable qualities. It was a notion
that was rooted in the individual’s ability to exercise his choice, for otherwise a human being did not
differ from the apes. However, Mill’s linkage between individuality and liberty made him conclude
that only a minority was in a position to enjoy freedom. The majority of people remained enslaved

240 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY