Mill suggests that he made no alterations to the text at this point and that one of his first acts after her death was to publish it and to 'consecrate it to her memory.' The composition of this work was also indebted to the work of the German thinker Wilhelm von Humboldt, especially his essay On the Limits of State Action. The final draft was nearly complete when his wife died suddenly in 1858. Mill states that On Liberty 'was more directly and literally our joint production than anything else which bears my name.' After suffering a mental breakdown and eventually meeting and subsequently marrying Harriet, Mill changed many of his beliefs on moral life and women's rights. As the ideas developed, the essay was expanded, rewritten and 'sedulously' corrected by Mill and his wife, Harriet Taylor Mill. Mill's marriage to Harriet Taylor Mill greatly influenced the concepts in On Liberty, which was published shortly after she died.Īccording his autobiography, On Liberty was first conceived as a short essay in 1854.

A copy of On Liberty is passed to the president of the British Liberal Democrats as a symbol of office. It has remained in print since its initial publication. The ideas presented in On Liberty have remained the basis of much political thought. Some classical liberals and libertarians have criticized it for its apparent discontinuity with Utilitarianism, and vagueness in defining the arena within which individuals can contest government infringements on their personal freedom of action. On Liberty was a greatly influential and well-received work.

Among the standards proposed are Mill's three basic liberties of individuals, his three legitimate objections to government intervention, and his two maxims regarding the relationship of the individual to society. Furthermore, Mill asserts that democratic ideals may result in the tyranny of the majority. He emphasizes the importance of individuality, which he considers prerequisite to the higher pleasures-the summum bonum of utilitarianism.

Mill suggests standards for the relationship between authority and liberty. Published in 1859, it applies Mill's ethical system of utilitarianism to society and state. On Liberty is an essay by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill.

Mill on liberty and other essays