John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty"

Paper Summary:

This paper describes, from "On Liberty", Mill's ideas on individual freedom, both social and political. This paper presents Mill's ideas designed to address the difficult task of balancing the values of democracy with individualism and liberty and setting limits to democracy. This paper agrees with Mill's central principle that only self-protection can justify either the democratic state or public opinion from interfering with the liberty of the individual.

From the Paper:

"Mill argues that, in a democracy, it is not the people but a few highly influential individuals who possess the power to judge whether an opinion or decision is accurate or acceptable. It is, therefore, their opinions and not those of the electorate that are the deciding ones within society and upon which the laws and morals of the democratic state is based. In "On Liberty", as in his other works, Mill seriously questions the effects that this air of infallibility has upon individualism and freedom, stating that this influential elite are wrong "to assume that their certainty is the same as absolute certainty"."

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