John Stuart Mill, author of On Liberty, defines the nature of civil liberty, and most importantly, the harm principl. He aims to give readers a better understanding of the nature and limits of power that can be exercised by society over individuals. The purpose of this book is to inform interested individuals about the rights of individuals and the limitations of the government. This book of philosophy was written almost 150 years ago. By reading the book, the reader is able to apply Mill's message and examples to our lives in America today. The ahead-of-the-times ideas that are in On Liberty can be related to our world because it discusses controversies that are still seen in our courtrooms today. Mill is able to accomplish his purpose because he uses many examples, thoughts, and theories about individual and social rights. He works through each of his ideas, looking at both sides of the issue to enable the reader to make their own informed decision about each matter. This book has a practical meaning because it allows the reader to develop and reason ideas about government power and when that power should be exercised over the people. Unfortunately, this book does have one draw back. Mill was a very educated man and wrote very well for his time. Yet today, our style and writing techniques are not the same as they were in the nineteenth century. This makes On Liberty a difficult book to read. His book is very decriptive, yet his wording is not easily understadable and some paragraphs have to be read two or three times to fully understand what he is writing about. Aside from his writing style, John Stuart Mill has put together an essay full of educated ideas about society and individuals. John Stuart Mill wrote an informative book geared towards an educated audience. He has achieved his purpose for the essay through the use of situations and examples that can be applied to real life cases still today. He managed to keep the readers interested and I look forward to reading other books he has written.

It was not Socialism itself that is an evil, but the way it was implemented in some countries, in response to white-anglo-whatever's totally value-less review. Mill's book about liberty was of vast importance in freeing the individual from the tyranny of communal opinion. Someone may dislike homosexuals, but has no right to harass them or pass ethical judgements on them for what is their choice, of no harm to anyone else. Those are opinions of an indeterminate validity. Socal intervention may only be used to protect someone from restriction of their liberties. What Mill lacks in rigour, he makes up for in persuasiveness. He has some great lines in defense of liberty, a pre-dominant value of human life. Although, it is to be noted that the book can be somewhat tedious in areas which it is repetitive. This book also illustrates what can be seen as a fault in utilitarianism. Utilitarianism takes no notice of other values, or of a conflict of values, such as liberty of existence over the majorities happiness, in which ethics slides into absurdity.

J.S. Mill has written the best promulgation of classical liberalism in his book "On Liberty" (OL). Although a socialist himself, many of the ideas in OL are actually tenets of modern libertarianism (also called classical liberalism). Mill states that the only reason that force can be used on any man is to prevent harm to others. I consider "focre" to be either social or economic. Mill saw it as only social, which explains his socialism.

Not to detract from Mill or OL, the book is a resounding defense of civil-liberties. OL completes modern democratic theory as promulgated by John Locke in his "Two Treatises of Government." While Locke argues for some kind of democracy reminiscent of Athens, Mill qualifies Locke's point by protecting the minority from the majority. This book should be read by Americans who want to know more about freedom, and by our elected officials.

Sadly, it's our elected oficials who probably won't get it.

Not that Mill was ever obscure or inaccessible, but while Prof Schneewind's Introduction adds little value, the notes and annotations by Dale E Miller certainly renders this compendium transparent, even to folks like me who have been dumbed down by years of television debates as primary intellectual nourishment. He enlightens each of Mill's chapters with a short and easily assimilated introductory overview. Complementing this with text annotations, collected at the back of the book. The annotations appear to be very well selected, as they are never too numerous to make flipping to the back of the book tedious, yet they manage to illuminate every aspect or item I might have found even remotely confusing, ambiguous or otherwise incomprehensible in the modern idiom.

This text is an excellent starting point for reading JS Mill, and is very well suited to the armchair philosopher who wishes to get into the material with ease and without encumbrance. However, there may be too little in the annotations in terms of external references, or cross references to Mill's other writings, or background information to satisfy the more academically inclined.

Of course anyone with even a nominal interest in what liberty is... NEEDS to read JS Mill. But then, you wouldn't be here if you didn't know that, right?

In the first edition of this book Gray offers an indirect-utilitarian interpretation of Mill's moral theory, and argues that this provides a suitable foundation for the Liberty Principle and Mill's liberalism more generally. He contends that the resulting position is a very attractive one. It is a compelling piece of exgesis. In the second edition he still maintains this reading of Mill, but no longer finds Mill's liberalism attractive. His primary complaint is its euro-centrism. He now also buys a number of other objections which he discussed at length and rejected in the first edition, and I found this a little disappointing; it is one thing to say you overlooked a point in your earlier work, but another admit you made numerous bad arguments. And he is very quick to dismiss his own earlier rebuttals; you have the sense that once he gave up on Millian liberalism he felt he had to accuse it of every possible sin.

I read the Subjection of Women for my 17th Century Philosophy class. I found it interesting, but hard to read. Mill tends to be repetative and wordy. He is very much the early feminist until you get to page 86 or 87 when he tells you that for all women can do, they should stay home and care for the family anyway. I would suggest that others read this book, but give yourself time, because about 20 pages a night was all that I could muster. At 100 pages it's not too long, but could have been said with more clarity and organization.

Mill states here that he still believes traditional gender roles (as we now call them) are desirable, but, being John Mill, he passionatly believes in the freedom of lifestyle choice for the individual. Hard to argue with that.

The Oxford Classic's edition of th Principles of J.S.Mill is an awful one. It not only omits complete sections of the work and doesn't mention it in the cover but lacks notes and even an index.

Don't buy it!

I must be a complete idiot. I finally decided to open this abridged edition of Mill's Political Economy & Chaps on Socialism, just to see what's going on in there. Lo & behold, as anybody with eyes can see, there ARE extensive notes on the text, including an index of names referred to by Mill! However, I wish to reiterate my claim that it is an "awful edition" for idiots who don't open the book or are unable to read the table of contents. Why doesn't Oxford provide user guides to explain these complex matters?

Mill has to be among the most egotistical and arrogant of philosophers. That is saying quite a bit.

"On Liberty" shows this very well. In this little tract, he is hailed as focusing on the individual and extolling freedom, etc. In fact, however, it is a rather good reflection of his dim view of the majority of humanity as "mediocre" (which may or may not be accurate), and his very self-serving view of eccentricity. Why is this so? Quite simply, this can be seen by his vaunted "harm principle." It seems great on the surface, and hard to argue that it would limit "good" eccentricity. But this is not the case. If one wishes to stretch what is considered "harm," and (in following from the "Considerations on Representative Government") what is considered "self-protection," one would run against Mill's ideology, and one can guess that this protector of liberty would then be more than willing to come down on this "dangerous" eccentric. In the end, it turns out that Mill is very supportive of eccentricity....as long as it is the eccentricity of John Stuart Mill. Moreover, his system seems like it would only work if it became what he was arguing against: he wants to liberate (certain) people from the bonds of social prejudice. Yet, in order to free people from the intoleration of social opinion, tolerance must become the social opinion, which would be just as biased and intolerant as the previous variety. Perhaps this is where we have the origin of our modern "tolerance of all, except the 'intolerant.'"

For a man hailed so much for his writings, a deeper reading reveals a rather elitist and self-centered ideology. Quite a disappointment.

You can read Rand, Emerson and Hayek. You can even marvel at the orations of Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. There is still not a single book that defends individual liberty and individual spirit as well as J.S. Mill's "On Liberty."

First, it must be said; If we are judging by original philosophical arguments, Mill is not much. His "Utilitarianism" (on which much of "On Liberty" was built) has been attacked from many angles. His "Representative Government" is better replaced by Locke's "Second Treatise" or (if you've time to kill), Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws." I still give this five stars though because "On Liberty" is just that good. I've already read it 5 times in '02!

What makes it so gosh-durn tasty is that it is the first book- to my knowledge- to defend individual liberty without stooping to the 'natural rights' or 'social contract' balderdash. Liberty, Mill argues, is good for a few reasons. First, it maximizes debate which helps avoid the stifler of all societies, dogmatism. It is also the best way not to screw things up, meaning, that people know their interests better than others. As the reviewer below points out, Mill does disdain majority rule though it's not out of contempt for the masses (Mill is clear this is not what he means.) Rather, his view is that majority rule leads to tyranny just as fast as despotic rule. What it boils down to is that Mill defends democracy, liberty, skepticism and tradition (yes..simultaneously) as long as each AVOIDS dogmatic thinking and operates while keeping the individual sacrosanct. Ya know..come to think of it...Bush, Gore, Dashcale, Gephardt, Hatch, Lott and the entire beltway clan might benefit from this read. I wonder if they can understand such big thoughts?! Just kidding!! (No, I'm not!) ;-/

This book is about the shape of intellectual perceptions in an era which was much more unsettled than the present, with preparation for a major war dominating the form of politics that were commonly perceived as getting along by going along. The index, pp. 215-228, covers a range of topics, and is good on the correspondence and works of Burckhardt, Mill, and Tocqueville, the major writers on the political situation of their era that form the basis for this book. The notes, pp. 167-206, are as expected for a book which began as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago. Note 5 on Chapter one admits, "Burckhardt left hundreds of pages of lecture notes on the Revolution, but his own opinions are so enmeshed in unattributed quotations and paraphrases that determining from the notes which thoughts are his has proved impossible." (p. 169). Reading the text of ARISTOCRATIC LIBERALISM with an eye on the notes in the back soon leads to sources that are from multiple authors. Note 33 is pretty clear that it is setting up a context. `For a few of many references, see Burckhardt . . . See also Mill, "De Tocqueville on Democracy in America" [II] (1840), CW, 18:167; Tocqueville, L'ANCIEN REGIME, OC, 2, pt. 1:47, 53;' etc. (p. 170). Note 34 cites both Tocqueville and Burckhardt in support of the statement, "The result was its destruction and the encouragement of a passion for unity and uniformity, for the elimination of special privileges and of independent groupings within society." (p. 16).

This book was published in 1992, long before 9/11/2001 became the dominant symbol of destruction that is such a contrast to the situation faced by Tocqueville, Mill, and Burckhardt due to "the social and cultural leveling carried out by the Old Regime gradually weakened and even destroyed all the bonds that had formerly connected individuals in a society of orders." (p. 16, citing note 33). This situation was taken seriously, but associated with "Individualism, in this negative sense, was intimately connected with political centralization. The destruction of political liberty--that is, of a political system based on local self-government--was the worst result of the Old Regime in Tocqueville's eyes." (p. 17). Calling a belief in any established order ARISTOCRATIC LIBERALISM, as this book does over and over, is almost quaint. Consider the choices faced by intellectuals of that time. "Too many of the ideas of the Revolution and the Enlightenment could easily lead to despotism, whether by a party or by a military dictatorship, for the aristocratic liberals to be comfortable." (p. 33). Perhaps we who regularly demonstrate and vote against such dictatorial tendencies have escaped the need to confront such fears, now that society is organized mainly for work and pleasure, so that now, the only form of order more important than entertainment values is the form of corporate hierarchy which people expect to submit to on the job.

Chapter 2 of ARISTOCRATIC LIBERALISM, with its emphasis on the hegemony of the middle class, the commercial spirit, stagnation, and mediocrity, comes close to a description of the current situation, though it doesn't consider how popular the link of home entertainment could make such modern adaptations as movies and sports, typically ersatz activities which create the illusion that localities have some grasp on the attention of the people living in a particular area. On a national level, it is easier to believe that those carrying out policy are not quite following orders as much as they are following Donald Rumsfeld, an old man who could be replaced any minute, like the Secretary of the Army, who didn't have to give up his job because of anything he did at Enron. He just submitted his resignation anyway, quite recently, when he found out who didn't want to see him around anymore. If anything, we have advanced from aristocracy to a *throw the bums out* mentality that is likely to be applied with little or no link to reality, whenever the majority finds itself hurting. Chapter 3, "Despotisms: The State and Its Masters," tries to consider the dangers of Public Opinion, Suffrage, the Prussian Constitution, Socialism and the Fear of Socialism.

Chapter 4 is on "Modern Humanism: The Values of Aristocratic Liberalism." A theme of much of the book is that no one took the side of the aristocrats for their sake; they were merely valued because they were not perceived as being pawns. "On the grand scale, diversity within a culture played a parallel role to the diverse character of human nature and particular individuals. A specialized society which allowed expression to only one aspect of humanity was repugnant for the same reason a purely one-sided specialized individual was: it was not fully human." (p. 104). "Burckhardt's Renaissance man was no example of calm balance and symmetry, in classical fashion, but of powerful, even demonic diversity of talent. As such, the Renaissance was in this way too the beginning of modernity for Burckhardt." (p. 105).

Chapters 5 and 6 still cling to the time frame of 1830-1870, in which "the priority many liberals put on preserving private property did not make them conservatives or reactionaries, at least not by choice, although when sufficiently frightened by the specter of socialism they tended to run for the authoritarian government, as Tocqueville lamented." (p. 141). Liberals in 2003 are still frightened enough of being called liberals to have much to say when confronted with long-term trends that could wipe out the prosperity which they claimed as a result of their policies in the 20th century. Liberals must be used to reading insults by now, but I'm not sure it will do them any good to read more of the type this book contains. "One element of an exclusion principle is contained, as I have noted, in the statement that liberals are not democrats, and that anyone who believes in immediate universal suffrage is not a liberal." (p. 140).

Rossi proposes a good argument on the Authorship of "Enfranchisment of Women". However, I feel that, at times, her argument becomes very confusing. There seems to me to be no doubt that Harriet Taylor Mill actually wrote the essay.

I would not recomend this item because it offers too much information. Most of it is irrelevant to the true work that Mill actually did. It contained minimal information about his methodology. Dont buy this if you are doing a research paper. It wont help.