On Liberty's liberty

John Stuart Mill's On Liberty supports drug legalization because there is no reason why the state should block citizens from consuming any substance they choose at their own risk. It attacks general public education as little more than a ploy to make every citizen the same, molding them into wh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The independent review (Oakland, Calif.) Calif.), 2010-03, Vol.14 (4), p.599
Main Author: Braun, Carlos Rodriguez
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Democracy
Drug legalization
Failure
Free markets
Freedom of movement
Freedoms
Human rights
Income redistribution
Interventionism
Mill, John Stuart
Morality
Philosophers
Political power
Private property
Property rights
Protectionism
Public schools
Social aspects
Socialism
United Kingdom
Works
Writers
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Summary:John Stuart Mill's On Liberty supports drug legalization because there is no reason why the state should block citizens from consuming any substance they choose at their own risk. It attacks general public education as little more than a ploy to make every citizen the same, molding them into whatever form pleases the government. Published in 1859, On Liberty is a radical defense of freedom of thought, expression, and action. Trapped between social romanticism and utilitarian rationalism, Mill appears to be an imprecise eclectic aiming simultaneously at the supremacy of the individual and the greatest happiness of the greatest number, standing between liberty as a principle and the denial of nonlegal rights (Winch 1970, 15; Rees 1985, 8). The two most intuitive and widespread notions about liberty are that it is something exercised on an individual level and that it is limited by that fact for everyone else.
ISSN:1086-1653
2169-3420