(Published in Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 59, No.3; September 1981)
John Kilcullen
What is Mill's principle of liberty? The question may seem superfluous, since he gave his own apparently careful formulation (223/34-224/10).[Note 1] However he gave several formulations in different terms, and his principle has been interpreted in a number of ways.[Note 2] The Acts meant to be subject to social control have been said variously to be other-regarding acts, acts which harm others, or affect them, or affect their interests, or violate duties owed to them, or violate their rights. These formulae are not equivalent. An act may harm others (indirectly), yet not be other-regarding; an other-regarding act may harm others without any violation of duty; an act may violate a duty to others without violating anyone's right. But it seems to me clear enough, if all Mill's statements are taken together, that the correct formulation is this: punishment is justified only for violations of secondary rules prescribing duties to others. Duty and Liberty divide the whole field of human conduct, without overlap; and there are no duties besides duties to others.
Mill's theory of punishment derives from Bentham's theory of sanctions. Bentham lists four sanctions: the physical, the political, the moral or popular, and the religious.[Note 3] The physical sanction works naturally and spontaneously, not being purposely inflicted by anyone; it is dropped from Mill's list,[Note 4] apparently because he thinks it is of the essence of a sanction to be purposely inflicted.[Note 5] Mill adds another: the moral sanction is not the popular under a different name, but another force which Bentham failed to recognise (X 95/9-27, 97/29, 13/14-6). The moral sanction imposed by Conscience is internal, the sanctions recognised by Bentham are external (X 228-30). Since one's Conscience is not another person (though Mill sometimes personifies it, 225/23-6), and its sanction is not purposely inflicted, the moral sanction does not seem to fit Mill's implicit definition any better than the physical sanction did. But at all events, Mill's principle of Liberty is that a person should not be punished, by his conscience, by public opinion, or by the law, except for violating a duty to others. On other grounds we may dislike or despise a person, and we are entitled to act on our dislike in certain ways (277/42-280/16). Though the person disliked may suffer 'very severe penalties' (278/29), this does not count as punishment provided there is no intention to cause him suffering; the dislike of others is a natural and spontaneous consequence like the physical sanction, not a purposely inflicted punishment (278/31-3, 282/33).
According to Mill, we do not call anything a duty unless we think that a person may rightly be compelled by sanctions to fulfil it---that non-fulfilment would be wrong and deserving of some sort of punishment, by law, public opinion or conscience (X 246/8-20). If this is what we mean by duty, then whatever may rightly be sanctioned is a duty, and it follows immediately that only duties may rightly be sanctioned. There are other things which we may dislike or despise a person for not doing; but, as we saw above, dislike is not punishment, and such things are not duties (X 246/22-6). Duty 'in every one of its forms' (X 246/17), and only duty, is rightly sanctioned by the threat of punishment.
The forms of duty include duties of perfect obligation and duties of imperfect obligation (X 247/3-248/2). The former are duties of Justice, to which rights in other persons correspond; they may be enforced by sanctions of any kind, including legal sanctions. No rights correspond to duties of imperfect obligation. They do not require any particular act on any particular occasion (X 247/6-8); such a duty is violated, I suppose, if suitable acts are not done often enough over a period of time. Duties of imperfect obligation are not to be enforced by the law (276/22-3);[Note 6] but since duty in everyone of its forms is enforceable, violations of duties of imperfect obligation may be punished by public opinion or conscience. For example a person lacking in generosity may be reproached by others, or by his own conscience. Those who take Mill's principle to mean that Society may limit liberty only to protect rights overlook duties of imperfect obligation.[Note 7] Society may protect rights (276/15), but 'this is not all that society may do' (276/19).[Note 8]
Mill's usual short formulation of his principle is that Society may intervene only to prevent harm to others. Its brevity may make this convenient, but it can be misleading; it is only a first approximation ('prima facie', 224/41; a 'question open to discussion', 276/26). To avoid being misled, we must notice, first, that some duties require benefit, not merely the avoidance of harm (224/43-225/7, 276/16-8; X 338/17-23). Mill sometimes argues that to disappoint an expectation of benefit is to inflict harm (225/7-8, X 256/22-38); but he recognises that the distinction makes a practical difference (225/9-10), and his argument is rather unconvincing, especially since sometimes the expectation of benefit presupposes the duty.[Note 9] To cover failure to confer due benefits 'harm' must be stretched somewhat. Second, in another respect it is artificially narrowed. To harm a person's soul, if it is possible, is the worst kind of harm, but Mill does not think that Society would be justified in preventing it. The 'harm' meant is harm to worldly interest.[Note 10] Third, it must not be supposed that because harm (in the stretched, and narrowed, sense) can justify the interference of society, that therefore it always does (292/21-3). Society may prevent only harms 'which it is contrary to the general interest to permit' (293/5-6); that is, only harms done in violation of a right (X 250/18-35), or of a duty of imperfect obligation---in short, of duty, in one of its forms. Anything for which it is 'for the good of mankind' that a person be held accountable to others is a socially obligatory duty, and nothing else is (279/25-30); for some harms a person is not held accountable (293/2-4).
Another common formula is that society may not interfere with self- regarding acts. This does not imply that every other-regarding act may be interfered with; to be subject to control the act must also be required or forbidden by a duty. To rule out punishment of acts under a certain description it is enough to restrict it to some genus to which acts under that description do not belong; it is not necessary to define the punishable species precisely. Such categories as 'other-regarding acts', 'acts which harm others' or 'acts which affect the interests of others' are too broad, but suffice for one of Mill's main purposes, to rule out enforcement of so-called duties to self.
A duty to self would require or forbid some self-regarding act. An act is self- regarding if it affects only the agent, directly, and in the first instance; indirectly, through its effects on the agent, it may affect other people (225/32-3).[Note 11] For example, murder is other-regarding; suicide is self-regarding, even though it may affect those connected with the agent 'through their sympathies and their interests' (281/17). It has been suggested that Mill means by a self-regarding act one which affects others only through their beliefs or antipathies;[Note 12] see 283/32-291. This is inaccurate; there may be effects on others, whatever their attitude, because their interests are in fact dependent on the wellbeing of the person directly affected (280/23-30, 281/17). Indirect effects do not make the act other-regarding; it is envisaged in Mill's definition of a self-regarding act that it may have such effects. Even if every self-regarding act had indirect effects the distinction would still stand, and there would be self-regarding acts which were not other-regarding. An act is self-regarding as long as the causal line to any effects it has on others passes through some effect on the agent.
Murder and suicide are action-types. A particular act may come under several types, that is, it may have several appropriate descriptions. Though it is hard to imagine a particular act which could appropriately be described as both murder and suicide, there may be particular acts which are other-regarding under one description and self-regarding under another. A duty to others requires or forbids other-regarding acts; if a particular self-regarding act is, under another description, other-regarding, then per accidens it may violate a duty to others. Mill's principle does not mean that no act to which a self-regarding description is appropriate may be punished, but that it may not be punished qua self-regarding, i.e. not because of its effects on the agent (281/25-31,282/3-5, 295/30-8).
However Mill's examples of acts which are both self- and other-regarding do not quite fit his definition. If we stick to the definition, such examples could arise only when the concrete act has direct effects on the agent and also direct effects on others. Another approach is suggested by Mill's reference to 'being drunk on duty', and his treatment of precautions (295/20-38). In such cases the effect on others is indirect, by way of effects on the agent, and yet there may be a violation of duty to others. Let us redefine a self-regarding act so as to leave out reference to the distinction between direct and indirect effects. An act is self-regarding under a certain description if to describe it that way does not imply any effect on others; if some such effect (including an indirect effect) is implied, then the act is other-regarding.[Note 13] To be self-regarding a description need not imply that the act does not affect others, it is enough not to imply that it does; therefore an other-regarding description may also be appropriate. Whether a particular self-regarding act affects others, and is also other-regarding, depends upon contingent circumstances. If it happens to affect others in violation of some duty to them it will be punishable. Thus circumstances (being on duty) may render some so-called duty to self (not getting drunk) at the same time a duty to others (279/25-6). That takes it out of the province of liberty (282/7); although one act may be both self- and other-regarding, it cannot be in the provinces of liberty and duty at the same time---they do not overlap.
Similarly with precautions: the probability, under the circumstances, of effects, even indirect effects, on others will justify an other-regarding description, and may be enough to bring the act under some duty to others (295/20-38, X 340/3-6). When Mill says that self-regarding conduct leading up to violations of duty is not itself punishable, he must be referring to cases where the connexion is remote and contingent upon possible future circumstances (281/40, 282/8-9), and therefore uncertain. Unless the act's effects on others are pretty probable, the general good is not likely to be served by laying down a duty which covers it.
The distinction between descriptions which do, and those which do not, imply effects on other persons is clear. However, it is possible that every particular action of a self-regarding type will in fact have effects on others---direct, indirect, actual or probable---justifying some other-regarding description. To apply a self-regarding description to an act does not put it into a charmed circle protected by the principle of liberty; it does not even establish a presumption that it should be free, since it cannot be presumed that if a self- regarding description applies any other applicable description will also be self-regarding. However the application of an appropriate other-regarding description does not straightway bring the act under social control; it is also necessary that, under that description, it should be required or prohibited by some duty to others. The principle of liberty is that only duties to others may be enforced. There is a presumption of liberty for all acts, other-regarding acts included (293/20,30); what confirms the presumption is failure to bring the act under a duty.
Mill seems to regard an act of two or more consenting persons which does not affect anyone else as a sort of joint self-regarding act, freedom for which is implied in freedom for acts qua self-regarding (226/8-11,276/28-30,299/15-9). In fact he added a clause to this effect to his definition of self-regarding acts (225/31). This makes the term equivocal and the concept untidy, and is in my opinion a mistake. Perhaps self-regarding acts and acts between consenting parties should both be free, but this is not a good reason for making one a species of the other. Bentham's definition, and my earlier statement and revision of Mill's definition, make no reference to consent; consent cannot, on these definitions, convert an other-regarding act into a self-regarding one. However, consent will make an act normally forbidden by duty to others permissible, if we assume that consent is good evidence that the harm (or withholding of benefit) on account of which the act is normally forbidden is in this case not happening.[Note 14] That Mill was making this assumption is suggested by his proviso that the consenting parties must be of full age, of ordinary understanding, and not forced or deceived (226/11, 276/29): a child, or an adult deceived, cannot be assumed to know whether harm is being done, and a person forced may say that no harm is being done though he knows it is; perhaps Mill would have agreed that if it can be shown in a particular case that harm really is being done interference would be justified, consent notwithstanding. So I offer this as a reconstruction of Mill's position, that acts between consenting parties are other-regarding (since this description does imply an effect on another person), but they can be assumed to violate no duty.
It seems, then, that my interpretation fits the text, with minor reconstructions. Mill's principle of liberty is that a person may do as he pleases---ought to be allowed to do as he pleases---provided he violates no duty to others. How much freedom this principle guarantees depends on the list of duties. If the utility principle were a rule of duty to others, so that one owed it to others to do in every case the best possible act, there would be no liberty. Mill rejects such all-embracing conceptions of duty (288/25-38) on utilitarian grounds: the general happiness will be increased if people are allowed to do as they please except where secondary rules are required (X 337/27-35, XV 762). Liberty is limited only by secondary rules prescribing 'distinct', 'assignable', 'definite', 'specific' duties (281/19, 282/2, 10). A code of secondary rules may be more or less comprehensive; Mill leaves its content vague, except in one respect: he wanted to abolish 'what are called' duties to self (279/25).[Note 15] Otherwise he was apparently content with the measure of liberty allowed by commonsense morality; he assumes the substantial utility of current morality, at least as a draft code capable of gradual improvement (X 224/20-32). His own proposed amendments, apart from the deletion of duties to self, are for tightening up (X 340/3-16, II 372). He accepted the current code not because it was current, but because it was in general sound, and his support was provisional.[Note 16] As the code of duties to others is revised, so the area of liberty will be enlarged or reduced.
Theories of liberty may take three forms. No attempt may be made to define the limits of liberty; the theory may simply assert that a person's claim to do as he chooses should be given some weight, and should not be overridden except for sufficient reasons. But perhaps there may be in every case some sufficient reason; so a second possibility is to put restrictions upon what may be accepted as a reason. Such a restriction is a higher-order rule, a rule governing deliberation; it does not define in advance a class of free acts, each case has to be decided as it arises. A third possibility is to put forward a principle asserting that acts of a certain class are to be free; this principle may be absolute, or it may be prima facie, in which case it may be supplemented by restrictions upon what can be weighed against it. Mill's principle is usually taken as an example of the third possibility, asserting freedom for self-regarding acts. But it may well be reasonable to apply an other-regarding description also to a particular self-regardinb act. Mill's principle as I understand it is rather an example of the second possibility: that the act violates a duty to others is the only acceptable reason for interference.
Since Mill defines duty as what may rightly be enforced (X 246/19), the principle of liberty is nearly a tautology. But not quite: the point of substance is that the only enforceable duties---the only duties---are duties to other people. So the principle needs to be proved. The premises from which it follows are: (1) That only duties may rightly be enforced; (2) that something may rightly be enforced only if its enforcement is conducive to the general happiness ('expedient'); (3) that it is not expedient to enforce any (so-called) duty to self; and (4) that there are duties only to people. The argument of On Liberty is meant to establish (3); the other premises are taken for granted.
It is sometimes said that in On Liberty Mill used non-utilitarian arguments (though he said he would not, 224/34-38);[Note 17] and that he had to, since no genuinely utilitarian argument could prove the principle with the absoluteness he intended (223/35). In my opinion the arguments are utilitarian, but insufficient.
Mill argues that interference in a self-regarding act will not do enough good, to the agent and indirectly to others, to justify the probable harm. This is a typical utilitarian argument, provided good and harm are assessed in the appropriate way. Coercion, even when not misdirected, is an evil, in itself and in some of its consequences (282/39-40); it is justified only when it is needed to prevent a greater evil. The justification is less in the case of self-regarding acts (279/40-280/11), and the risk of misdirection is greater (277/24-32, 283/18-31).[Note 18] Further, as Mill argues in Chapter III, interference risks the loss of certain benefits of freedom; it inhibits possibly useful 'experiments of living', it impedes the development of spontaneity, energy and originality. These characteristics may have valuable effects, and they are also to be valued for themselves. As Mill asserts in many places, ideal nobility of character, energy, and other things, should be valued for their own sakes, as parts of happiness, and not merely as means to it; and he argues that a utilitarian can consistently, and should, hold this (X 235/9-237/9; VIII 952/1-22; X 95/28-96/7,110/27-9, 13/8-11). Even if such things are not accepted as parts of happiness, they are at least useful means to it---if not the agent's own happiness, at least the happiness of mankind generally, which is the utilitarian standard (X 213/37-214/5). It would seem, then, that arguments for liberty as a part of, or a means to, happiness can be accepted as genuinely utilitarian even if they are not put in hedonistic terms.
However Mill's arguments are inconclusive. 'Experiments of living' may cost something to the experimenter, and to those who depend upon him by ties of sympathy or interest; hence, as Mill admits (262/7-11), it is well to learn from the experiments of others---in fact there will be no progress unless we do. There will therefore be some optimal level of experimentation: too much deference to the supposed lessons of the past will slow progress, too little will waste past experiments, and it may harm the experimenter excessively, and perhaps consequently also slow progress. Similarly the development of energetic, spontaneous, original character through autonomous activity may cost something, since some of this activity may do damage. It may be best to settle for some degree of originality less than the maximum. Experimentation and originality are inhibited by the enforcement of other-regarding duties also. Mill's arguments do nothing to show that the optimal levels of experimentation and autonomy are most likely to be attained by drawing the line just where he wants to draw it---or indeed by drawing any line instead of deciding case by case.
Mill wants to draw a sharp exceptionless line, excluding coercive interference in the self-regarding affairs of civilised adults, but allowing certain other types of interference. advice may be offered, even obtruded (277/38); we may act on our dislikes even to the point of inflicting 'very severe penalties'; coercive interference is permissible in other-regarding affairs, and in the self-regarding affairs of children and backward peoples (224/11-33). Particular instances of these abstractly distinguishable types of interference may be very similar; if it is true of some of these types that interference is in some instances expedient, then it is likely to be true of all of them. Mill exaggerates the differences:
(a) It is true that in self-regarding actions the agent himself is the person most interested (277/20); but the utilitarian must consider effects on everyone affected, giving equal weight to the welfare of each person---'everybody to count for one' (X 257/35). The harm done by an act is an equally weighty reason for intervention no matter who does it or suffers it.
(b) Society may have only a small interest in the agent individually (277/23); but this is also true of the person affected by an other-regarding act. In both cases Society's interest in the many people who might be affected by similar acts may be substantial, and sufficient to justify punishing this act as a deterrent.
(c) Interference in self-regarding acts must proceed upon general presumptions which may not hold in a particular case (277/28-30); but this is also true of interference with other-regarding acts. The common rules of other-regarding duty do not rest entirely on each person's independent assessment of his own interests (283/21-5). These rules are not enforced only by the person whose interest is directly at stake; usually he needs and gets the support of others, who judge that the action in question is bad for him, and is not legitimately required by the good of the agent (281/37-8). Thus even the rules of other-regarding duty reflect 'some people's opinion of what is good or bad for other people' (283/28). Even in assessing effects on his own interests, a person must use commonplace cause-&-effect generalisations few of which have been thoroughly checked against his own experience.
(d) In self-regarding matters people do not always learn from their own mistakes (279/40, 280/8), still less from seeing the mistakes of others (283/11-17). The harmful consequences may take a long time to show; they may never be obvious and clearly traceable to the acts which caused them; people lack foresight and strength of will. Correction by experience may be no more likely for some self-regarding than for other-regarding conduct.
Further, as Mill defines sanctions, some instances of the application of sanctions to self-regarding conduct may not differ much from non-coercive interference. For a close friend (or even one's own conscience) to express moral disapproval of a self-regarding act is ruled out; but this is not much different from the 'obtruding' of advice. Friends may be well-informed of the particular circumstances (277/30-1), and their moral disapproval may not do much damage even if misdirected; Mill's arguments are not enough to prove his principle in its application to such cases.
Mill wants to prove that a person's own good is not a warrant for interfering with his actions (223/42); more accurately, that the punishment of a self-regarding act cannot be warranted by the good it might do to the agent and to others whom it might deter. He wants to prove this using the utility principle as a premise. Now 'that principle is a mere form of words without rational signification, unless one person's happiness...is counted for exactly as much as another's' (X 257/33). To apply it correctly, we must consider equally all the good and all the evil done to all the persons in any way affected. It is paradoxical to try to derive from such a premiss the conclusion that in certain decisions the good likely to be done to one person, or class of persons, is not to be considered.[Note 19] Only on the implausible assumption that that good will always be very trivial will the liberty principle be a good 'summary' rule giving substantially the same guidance as the utility principle directly applied.
But besides 'summary' rules, Mill postulates another kind of moral rule. He suggests that it may further the general happiness to commit oneself to obeying certain rules as a matter of strict principle; such a rule may be imperfectly adapted to some cases, in which deviation might produce more good than evil; but a commitment to strict obedience even in those cases, or in most of them, is useful so that others may know what to expect, to give security, to reduce conflict (277/34-5; VIII 1154-5; XV 762). The corresponding dispositions of character will be useful in the same way (X 235/22-4, 239/17-20; VIII 952/4-10).The beneficial results of security are enough to compensate for what is lost in the odd case to which the rule is imperfectly adapted. [On this see Kilcullen, "Utilitarianism and Virtue".] Among the more stringent rules justified in this way are the rules of Justice (X 255/22-3, 31-5), which include the principle of liberty (X 255/27).[Note 20]
So there is another utilitarian argument which Mill could have used (though he did not): in some cases interference in self-regarding conduct might do more good than harm, but what is lost by not interfering in these cases will be more than made up for by the good effects of being known to abstain from such interference as a matter of principle. This is an argument which non-utilitarians might also acknowledge---unless they hold (as some do) that the resistance of others, and the risk of being coerced oneself, are not to be balanced against the duty of preventing certain evil acts. The argument's force depends on social circumstances, on how much insecurity and conflict there would be if people tried to enforce their conceptions of self-regarding duty on one another. It does not seem to me strong enough, under existing social conditions, to rule out paternalism, except perhaps in especially contentious matters. It is, in fact, as much an argument against enforcing contentious rules of duty to others. If it proves any principle at all, it is that contentious rules should not be enforced, not that duties to self should not be enforced.
Mill's principle of liberty is one of the shibboleths of contemporary 'small-l' liberalism. I believe I have shown that it is usually misunderstood, and that Mill's arguments for it, though not contemptible, are inconclusive.[Note 21]
Macquarie University
Received February 1980
Note 1. I.e. p. 223 line 34 to p. 224 line 10, in volume XVIII of J. S. Mill Collected Works, ed. J. M. Robson et al., Toronto 1963f. References to other volumes in this edition will be preceded by a volume number.
Note 2. J. Rees 'A re-reading of Mill on Liberty' Political Studies 8 ( 1960), pp. 113-129, reprinted with a 'Postscript' in P. Radcliff (ed.) Limits of Liberty, Belmont, 1966 (references will be to this reprint); T. Honderich 'Mill on Liberty', Inquiry 10 (1967), pp. 292-297; R. J. Halliday 'Some Recent Interpretations of J. S. Mill', Philosophy 43 (1968), pp. 1-17; C. L. Ten 'Mill on Self- regarding Actions', Philosophy 43 (1968), pp. 29-37; C. L. Ten 'Mill and Liberty', Journal of the History of Ideas 30 (1969), pp. 47-68; A. Ryan The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, London, 1970, Ch. XIII; H. J. McCloskey John Stuart Mill: A Critical Study, London, 1971, pp. 104-129; D. G. Brown 'Mill on Liberty and Morality', Philosophical Review 81 (1972), pp. 133-158; R. Wollheim 'John Stuart Mill and the Limits of State Action', Social Research 40 (1973), pp. 1-30; J. Stegena 'J. S. Mill's Concept of Liberty and the Principle of Utility', Journal of Value Inquiry 7 (1973), pp. 281-289; G. L. Williams 'Mill's Principle of Liberty', Political Studies 24 (1976) pp. 132-140; C. L. Ten 'Self-regarding Conduct and Utilitarianism', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 55 (1977), pp. 105-113; D. Lyons 'Liberty & Harm to Others', Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Suppl. vol.5 (1979), pp. 1-19; D. P. Dryer 'Justice, Liberty & The Principle of Utility in Mill', ibid. pp. 63-73.
Note 3. J. Bentham An Introduction to the Principles of Morals & Legislation, ed. J. H. Burns & H. L. A. Hart, London, 1970, p. 35.
Note 4. E.g. in his account of Bentham's doctrine. X 97/25-30. Usually Mill also ignores the religious sanction, perhaps for the reasons explained at X 411/38-415/5. The law, public opinion, and conscience are the agencies Mill regularly recognises which secure obedience to rules.
Note 5. Cf. Ryan op. cit. pp. 238, 243.
Note 6. Thus Mill does limit the legal enforcement of morality; law and morality do not differ only in the type of sanction used---the law's function is to enforce only some moral duties, viz. duties of Justice. (Similarly Kant held that the law cannot exact duties to self, or duties of broad obligation to others, but only duties of Justice; and it is concerned only with outward conformity with those duties, not with the inward morality of motive; The Metaphysical Elements of Justice, tr. J. Ladd, New York, 1965, pp. 18-21, 34-36). However this is not the whole of Mill's principle of liberty, or its main point; it puts limits on the application of sanctions of all kinds, including the moral sanction. See J. O. Urmson 'The Interpretation of the Moral Philosophy of J. S. Mill', Philosophical Quarterly 3 (1953) p. 16, and Brown art. cit. pp. 146-149. Mill's position is like Bentham's, who held that private ethics and legislation have the same end, and the acts they are concerned with are in great measure, though not perfectly and throughout, the same; op. cit. p. 285. Mill was more concerned to limit both law and morality than to distinguish between them.
Note 7. E.g. Rees art. cit. pp. 106-107, Williams art. cit. pp. 132-135, Stegena art. cit. p. 288.
Note 8. 'Constituted rights' (276/22) has been taken as equivalent to 'legal rights'; see e.g. Rees art. cit. p. 98. But the expression refers back to 'certain interests, which, either by express legal provision or by tacit understanding, ought to be considered as rights' (276/14-15, my italics); this includes more than actually existing legal rights. A right is 'constituted' by any kind of sanction, any means by which society defends a person in the possession of it (X 250/19-28).
Note 9. For other criticism see Brown art. cit. pp. 142-146, 158. Brown's formulation of the principle of liberty (ibid. p. 135) is different from mine. As I formulate it, it is not inconsistent with duties to do positive benefit.
Note 10. Cf. Locke's 'civil interests', 'Letter Concerning Toleration', Works, London, 1824, Vol. 5, p. 10. Harm, interest and welfare have to be given artificially restricted meanings in liberal theory to be of any use in supporting tolerant conclusions, and the restrictions seem to be dictated by the conclusions desired. These concepts are best regarded as summing up conclusions justified (if they are justified) in other terms.
Note 11. Compare Bentham's definition of self-regarding offences: 'Offences, which in the first instance are detrimental to the offender himself, and to no one else, unless it be by their being detrimental to himself...'; op. cit. p. 189. According to Mill no self-regarding act is an offence. Unlike Mill, Bentham includes self-regarding duties in morality (p. 284), and holds that 'there are few cases in which it would be expedient to punish a man for hurting himself' (p. 292)---Mill claims there are none.
Note 12. Ten 'Mill on Self-Regarding Actions', p. 31f, 'Self-Regarding Conduct & Utilitarianism', p. 105 (see n. 2 for bibliographic details); Wollheim art. cit. pp. 8-9. Another suggestion is that acts are to be classed as self-regarding or other-regarding (but not both) by the effects intended and foreseen; Ryan op. cit. pp. 248-249. This seems to have no basis in the text.
Note 13. To describe an act as 'felling a tree' does not imply effects on self or on others; by my definition it is therefore 'self-regarding', and not (as such) to be interfered with. Presumably Mill would also have classed it as self-regarding, since it is not other-regarding. But if it happens, in the circumstances, to affect another person (e.g. if the tree falls on him), the effect may not be through effects on the tree-feller. Mill's definition does not provide for such cases.
Note 14. 'This consent, provided it be free, and fairly obtained, is the best proof that can be produced, that, to the person who gives it, no mischief, at least no immediate mischief upon the whole, is done. For no man can be so good a judge as the man himself, what it is gives him pleasure or displeasure'; Bentham, op. cit. p. 159.
Note 15. For examples of ideas on duty to self before Mill's time see W. Paley Moral & Political Philosophy Bk. IV; Kant The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, tr. J. Ellington, New York, 1964, pp. 77-111. Paley treats of drunkenness and suicide. Kant gives an extensive list of duties to self: duties of perfect obligation forbidding suicide, self-mutilation, 'unnatural' sex, drunkenness, drug-taking, gluttony, lying and self-deception, miserliness, servility, wanton destruction of nature, cruelty to animals; and a duty of imperfect obligation to cultivate physical, intellectual and moral perfection.
Note 16. Wollheim has objected against Rees's interpretation that it makes Mill's principle conservative; art. cit. p. 6, and see reply by Honderich, art. cit. p. 296. In many ways Mill was conservative, but anyway the objection does not apply to my formulation, that it is right to enforce only what is a duty to others---meaning what really is a duty to others. This formulation leaves open the question how we decide what is truly a duty. Mill might have thought that no duty should be enforced unless it is commonly agreed to be really a duty---the utilitarian argument for this is obvious. But this formulates only a necessary condition; it does not imply that a person should help enforce everything commonly believed to be a duty whether he shares the belief or not.
Note 17. E.g Stegena art. cit.
Note 18. 'The rules of Prudence are almost always sufficient of themselves...The fear of causing hurt to oneself is a motive of repression sufficiently strong in itself; it would be idle to add thereto the fear of an artificial penalty...If I may lay down a general rule, it is this: -leave to the individual the greatest possible latitude in all cases where he can injure no one but himself, for he is the best judge of his own interests...Let the authority of the law be interposed only to prevent him from injuring his neighbour'; Bentham and Dumont, Bentham's Theory of Legislation, London, 1914, vol. 1, p. 81. Bentham and Mill were anticipated by Joseph Priestley: 'In some measure, indeed, everything that concerns individuals must affect the societies which they compose…[but] in numberless cases, more confusion and inconvenience would necessarily arise from the interference, than from the want of it; since individuals are, in many respects, better situated for the purpose of judging and providing for themselves than magistrates, as such, can be. These, and many other reasons, lead me to consider the business of religion, and everything fairly connected with it, as entirely a personal concern...'; Theological & Miscellaneous Works, London, 1831f, Vol. 22, p. 69.
Note 19. It has been suggested that in applying the utility principle one should disregard the pleasures of malevolence (Ten, 'Mill on Self-Regarding Actions', p. 34f), and distress caused by belief that the act is wrong (Wollheim art. cit. p. 12f; see Ten 'Self-regarding Conduct and Utilitarianism' for cogent criticisms). These are pleasures and pains of other people, not of the person who might be punished for a self-regarding act. Why is his good not to be considered?
Note 20. Williams quotes this and related texts, and comments, 'Therefore I think Mill's principle is indeed best seen in terms of justice and rights', art. cit. p. 134. However, the fact that it is a principle of Justice does not imply that it limits social Interference to the protection of rights. It is a duty of Justice to enforce only duties to others, but some duties to others are not duties of Justice.
Note 21. I am
grateful to Stanley Benn for comments on an earlier
version of this paper.
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