Synopses & Reviews
Two cornerstones of liberalism from the great social radical of English philosophy John Stuart Mill was a prodigious thinker who sharply challenged the beliefs of his age. In On Libertyone of the sacred texts of liberalismhe argues that any democracy risks becoming a "tyranny of opinion" in which minority views are suppressed if they do not conform to those of the majority. The Subjection of Women, written shortly after the death of Mill's wife, Harriet, stresses the importance of sexual equality. Together they provide eloquent testimony to the hopes and anxieties of Victorian England, and offer a trenchant consideration of what it really means to be free.
Review
On Liberty remains a classic. . . . The present world would be better than it is if [Mill's] principles were more respected. (Bertrand Russell)
Synopsis
'Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.' To this 'one very simple principle' the whole of Mill's essay On Liberty is dedicated. While many of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, from Adam Smith to Godwin and Thoreau, had celebrated liberty, it was Mill who organized the idea into a philosophy, and put it into the form in which it is generally known today.
The editor of this essay, Gertrude Himmelfarb records responses to Mill's books and comments on his fear of 'the tyranny of the majority'. Dr Himmelfarb concludes that the same inconsistencies which underlie On Liberty continue to complicate the moral and political stance of liberals today.
About the Author
John Stuart Mill (1806 &1873) was the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century.
Alan Ryan, the warden of New College, Oxford, is the editor of the Penguin Classics edition of Utilitarianism and Other Essays.