Supplemental Notes on John Stuart Mill's On Liberty

1) Introduction: Mill's primary work on rights is On Liberty, which was published in England in 1859. John Stuart Mill was the student of his father James Mill and Jeremy Bentham, who raised him to defend the theory of Utilitarianism. John Stuart Mill was a child prodigy and a genius of historical magnitude. He began reading Greek at the age of three, and Latin at the age of eight - he went on to published important work …

…prevent this must be seriously flawed. Mill can also be criticized on the grounds that it is not possible to determine what actually constitutes harm. Consider some of the hard cases that I mentioned above to bring this out, and think up some more of your own. It may be that the harm principle sounds good, but that it cannot be practically applied because it is far too vague concerning what exactly counts as harm.