On Liberty

On Liberty is dedicated to one simple principle: that men and women should be free to do as they please, without interference from society or the State, unless their actions might cause harm to others. While many of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, from Adam Smith to William Godwin and Thoreau, had celebrated liberty, it was Mill who transformed the concept into a philosophy, claiming it for a central role in social policy and government, and arguing for a redrawing of the line between the authority wielded by the State and the independence of the individual - a view that continues to inform debates about personal liberty to this day.

This edition contains an introduction which puts the work in its biographical and political context, and explores the unresolved contradictions in liberal philosophy.

About The Author

John Stuart Mill (1806-73) was educated by his father and through his influence obtained a clerkship at India House. He formed the Utilitarian Society which met to read and discuss essays, and in 1825 he edited Bentham’s Treatise upon Evidence. In 1826 he suffered an acute mental crisis and found that poetry helped him recover the will to live, particularly the work of Wordsworth.

Having reconsidered his aims and those of the Benthamite school, he met Harriet Taylor and she inspired a great deal of his philosophy. They married in 1851. Utilitarianism was published in 1861 but before that Mill published his System of Logic (1843), Principles of Political Economy (1848) and On Liberty (1839). His other works include his classic Autobiography (1873). Mill retired in 1858 and became the independent MP for Westminster from 1865 to 1868. He spent the rest of his life in France and died in Avignon.