POL3336 SLiu Final Freedom or Blindness PDF

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Freedom or Blindness
The definition of liberty and freedom is realization of our full potential and...

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Sophia Liu Dr. Eli L. Karetny POL 3336 16 September 2020

Freedom or Blindness The definition of liberty and freedom is realization of our full potential and allowance for self development, or so by John Stuart Mill. The commitment to freedom is what keeps us at liberty and the fear of conformism can very well take that same freedom away from us. To Mill, freedom with individual liberty is the most important human right someone has. That same human right is not given to us but instead is instilled within us, meaning these human rights belong to humanity itself. Now, this does not mean that it is a natural right because according to Mill there are no ‘natural’ rights, there are only interests that are legally protected. The initial problem was government tyranny but ironically at the moment, according to Mill, government regulation is needed to prevent something even worse. How can humanity resist majoritarian conformism and social tyranny in itself? Mill fears that with conformism we lose our freedom to individualism. John Stuart Mill truly believed that having access to the freedom of thought was one of the most crucial resources a society could have, only because suppressing such freedom would hinder access to the Truth. J.S Mill, on his ‘On Liberty’, states that “[...] Following from the first two domains of liberty, there is the liberty, within the same limits, of individuals to come together, their freedom to unite for any purpose not involving harm to others - always supposing that the people in question are of full age and aren’t being forced of deceived” (Mill 10). This does not necessarily mean governmental intervention on the freedom of thought, but protection

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of social welfare as a whole. As individuals, there is a commitment of freedom. Mills fights against an argument against his theory stating that there is only one Truth, that a diversity of opinions should not be deemed necessary, so long as everyone agrees to believe the same thing. In response, Mill shows the shortsightedness of this argument by using a similar argument regarding Protestants and the bible; the bible which represents the Truth. Mill iterates the idea that there will always be disagreements with people who hold their own ideas to the Truth - a constant presence of diversity of opinion. Though John Stuart Mill believes that freedom of thought will eventually become obsolete, it will only become obsolete under strict conditions, and that is eliminating the imperfections of mankind. He states, “As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one thinks fit to try them” (Mill 36). Ironically, such conditions to achieve ‘perfection’ cannot be expected to be realistically met, but one must keep in mind his dead dogma argument, which gives a scenario where even if one were to hold the Truth, it would be given that he or she must face the challenges of the ‘false’ in order to prevent the development of a dead dogma, in place of a living truth, and lose it’s ‘living power’. Most similarly to Christianity as stated above, where people’s beliefs do not properly reflect their conduct, contradicting their understanding of such doctrines they claim to have faith in. There is a saying in his writing where he states, “The only freedom that deserves the name is the freedom to pursue our own good in our own way, so long as we don’t try to deprive others of their good or hinder their efforts to obtain it” (Mill 10). In short, Mill believes that each and every opinion must be debated or refuted, which would be sourced from freedom of thought,

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otherwise that respective opinion - and all thoughts and opinions as a whole would lose their value. Mill was concerned with society as opposed to the State as he feared that the ‘will of the majority’ would become the eventual ‘will of the people’, threatening liberty and individual selfdevelopment so long as the ‘will of the people’ oppressed the views of the minority and eventually become to ‘tyranny of the majority’. The ‘tyranny of the majority’ serves as yet another branch of opposition to the freedom of thought - preventing the diversity of opinions. It is an inherent flaw to have the majority’s will to be carried out, all the while suppressing the views of the minority. With the ‘tyranny of the majority’, there would be no sense of individuality, which at one point, J.S Mill advocates for in order to prevent any obstacles to achieving the truth. Any free society must respect liberty - whether it be opinions, taste and pursuits, to plan one’s own life, or to join like-minded individuals for a mutual interest free of the harm principle. In pure democracy, the majority rules and any members’ interest in the minority will be harmed or ignored. This would mean that if the majority agreed in unison to act as tyrants, looting, destroying, harming anyone and anything the majority pleases to. Following this, Mill even admits that even when political leaders allow its citizens an ideal amount of individual freedom, society itself will eventually turn tyrannical. Opinions would eventually have to conform with societal standards, with those in the minority being forced into a standard of ‘individuality’, a paradox in itself. J. S. Mill does very much more than just a revision of the utilitarian theory of happiness, he provides his very own definition. He defines utilitarianism as a theory based on the principle that, “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness”. He goes on to define happiness as “pleasure and the absence

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of pain” (Utilitarianism Mill 4). There are principles to what utilitarianism is, according to Mill, “pleasure or happiness is the only thing that truly has intrinsic value”, the same way we value love and relationships because they are the sources of pleasure and happiness in humanity. People tend to not choose happiness but they do choose those who give them happiness. Providing for a family is probably one of the hardest tasks an individual has to do but yet we are still here having children and still providing for them. The only reason being is, they are our sources of happiness and to humanity, nothing is more important than happiness. Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch Philosopher, his thought frame worked around the idea that God and nature is all one in unison. According to Spinoza, with the truth, we will have God, and with God we will have nature. Free thought to him is the key to happiness, and that it comes from the unity of oneness. One being thought and two being extension. To Spinoza, thinking within itself is the highest power a human can have and that free thought is the most important because within free thought, we have thinking and within that, it grants the ability to develop ourselves and our powers. With that, we are able to use those ‘powers’ to find the highest pursuit of happiness. Spinoza also points out that, yes it is important to have free thought but it is also important to have peace and security but, we can only have peace and security through the obedience to the state. To further elaborate that equation, he claims that, obedience is needed to maintain stability so we can use the stability for peace and security to cultivate our freedom power. With that freedom power then do we have freedom of thought and then will happiness emerge? Spinoza does not explicitly state that the highest pursuit is happiness but when you have free will and free thought, you are at liberty to do whatever you want and, is that not what humanity is all about. The freedom to express oneself without conformism. Mill and Spinoza have similar endgoals but different journeys. They both wanted the fight for our free thought

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from one another and peace with security. Because with those, then will humanity be able to to be free. To summarize, John Stuart Mill, in his view, believes that the form of humanity that exists in this World is not perfect, it is filled with many cracks and flaws that prevent us from reaching a common truth. There are many factors that lead to this deduction, such as the ability to have access to freedom of thought, liberty, etc. Without access to such freedoms, Mill believes that there is no room to dispute or argue with other differing opinions, creating a scenario where the Truth would be buried deeper and deeper until its overall value has been lost. There will be no access to ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ pleasures in life if the ‘tyranny of the majority’ imposes a forced will unto the minority. It is a matter of developing human intelligence, not blindly following the opinions of the majority as pure democracy imposes. It is a matter of being a dissatisfied human over a satisfied pig, and is a matter of achieving happiness and having access to pleasures in life without being suppressed by social or political tyranny.

Works Cited Mill, John Stuart. Liberty. Jonathan Bennett. Newsom, William Austin. Spinozas Political Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008....