It somewhat astonishes me that I am doing this. But there we go. You can find here and here the two previous posts looking at the earlier parts of John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty' My vast process of quotation and commentary continues...
***
Mill moves on to discuss how the individual and society interact. What authority society can impose on the individual and what the individual owes to society. The first point is that he says there is no 'contract': Though society is not founded on a contract, and though no good purpose is answered by inventing a contract in order to deduce social obligations from it, every one who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit, and the fact of living in society renders it indispensable that each should be bound to observe a certain line of conduct towards the rest. This conduct consists, first, in not injuring the interests of one another; or rather certain interests, which, either by express legal provision or by tacit understanding, ought to be considered as rights; and secondly, in each person’s bearing his share (to be fixed on some equitable principle) of the labours and sacrifices incurred for defending the society or its members from injury and molestation.These conditions society is justified in enforcing, at all costs to those who endeavour to withhold fulfilment. Nor is this all that society may do. The acts of an individual may be hurtful to others, or wanting in due consideration for their welfare, without going to the length of violating any of their constituted rights. The offender may then be justly punished by opinion, though not by law. As soon as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it, becomes open to discussion. But there is no room for entertaining any such question when a person’s conduct affects the interests of no persons besides himself, or needs not affect them unless they like (all the persons concerned being of full age, and the ordinary amount of understanding). In all such cases, there should be perfect freedom, legal and social, to do the action and stand the consequences.
He allows considerable freedom - note the final section, under which one would have to assume that he could have no cause to condemn any sexual relationships. But what is also notable is what the individual owes to society. This could be taxation or it could be some form of conscription, according to what is outlined so far. He seems to prefer that law not get involved - as even in situations where the state has jurisdiction, there is the case of deciding whether good is done by taking action. I'm hoping this will be clarified.
It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine to suppose that it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have no business with each other’s conduct in life, and that they should not concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another, unless their own interest is involved. Instead of any diminution,there is need of a great increase of disinterested exertion to promote the good of others. But disinterested benevolence can find other instruments to persuade people to their good than whips and scourges, either of the literal or the metaphorical sort. I am the last person to undervalue the self-regarding virtues; they are only second in importance, if even second, to the social. It is equally the business of education to cultivate both. But even education works by conviction and persuasion as well as by compulsion, and it is by the former only that, when the period of education is passed, the self-regarding virtues should be inculcated. Human beings owe to each other help to distinguish the better from the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and avoid the latter. They should be for ever stimulating each other to increased exercise of their higher faculties, and increased direction of their feelings and aims towards wise instead of foolish, elevating instead of degrading, objects and contemplations.
Here we see the real importance of having a social conscience, but it seems Mill wants people to seek to inspire their fellows to intellectual and moral study as well as to socially beneficial projects. He goes on to say that no-one has any right to try tell another person what to do with their life: He is the person most interested in his own well-being: the interest which any other person, except in cases of strong personal attachment,can have in it, is trifling, compared with that which he himself has; the interest which society has in him individually (except as to his conduct to others) is fractional, and altogether indirect; while with respect to his own feelings and circumstances, the most ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else. [...] In the conduct of human beings towards one another it is necessary that general rules should for the most part be observed, in order that people may know what they have to expect: but in each person’s own concerns his individual spontaneity is entitled to free exercise. Considerations to aid his judgment, exhortations to strengthen his will, may be offered to him, even obtruded on him, by others: but he himself is the final judge. All errors which he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good.
This is a strong claim for individual decision-making - and indeed, in many ways, we do see that in society. Speech may be somewhat policed, but a person can choose to smoke, not to have a pension, to do a Masters, to run marathons, to remain childless and so on.
In the following paragraph, Mill says that it's perfectly valid to judge others - to admire them or view them with distaste. In the latter case, he also seems to approve of telling them freely where their want of reason or good conduct lies. This is a way of offering him another perspective on himself - and Mill seems to think that's a good thing. he's free to be an eccectric, but if one disapproves, one is free to tell him he's an idiot. Now, this seems to me as though it would rather have the effect of inhibiting individuality. After all, is the person making the judgment always making valid judgments?
Here is his explanation for taking that position: It would be well, indeed, if this good office were much more freely rendered than the common notions of politeness at present permit, and if one person could honestly point out to another that he thinks him in fault, without being considered unmannerly or presuming. We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except those which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far as they are the natural and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment. A person who shows rashness, obstinacy, self-conceit—who cannot live within moderate means—who cannot restrain himself from hurtful indulgences—who pursues animal pleasures at the expense of those of feeling and intellect—must expect to be lowered in the opinion of others, and to have a less share of their favourable sentiments; but of this he has no right to complain, unless he has merited their favour by special excellence in his social relations, and has thus established a title to their good offices, which is not affected by his demerits towards himself.
OK, so a Twitter campaign would be fine, but maybe not a de-platforming? Though one would be justified in not asking him to speak. In fact, it's not quite as severe as this passage seems to suggest, as we shall see later - it is essentially a kind of paternalistic disapproval. Indeed, Mill seems to think that any dishonourable individual behaviour should be overlooked if the person has done great good for society.
The real shame-game comes into effect with the sins he describes as immoralities: Acts injurious to others require a totally different treatment. Encroachment on their rights; infliction on them of any loss or damage not justified by his own rights; falsehood or duplicity in dealing with them; unfair or ungenerous use of advantages over them; even selfish abstinence from defending them against injury—these are fit objects of moral reprobation, and, in grave cases, of moral retribution and punishment. And not only these acts, but the dispositions which lead to them, are properly immoral, and fit subjects of disapprobation which may rise to abhorrence. Cruelty of disposition; malice and ill-nature; that most anti-social and odious of all passions, envy; dissimulation and insincerity, irascibility on insufficient cause, and resentment disproportioned to the provocation; the love of domineering over others; the desire to engross more than one’s share of advantages (the pleonexia of the Greeks); the pride which derives gratification from the abasement of others; the egotism which thinks self and its concerns more important than everything else, and decides all doubtful questions in its own favour;—these are moral vices, and constitute a bad and odious moral character: unlike the self-regarding faults previously mentioned, which are not properly immoralities, and to whatever pitch they may be carried, do not constitute wickedness. They may be proofs of any amount of folly, or want of personal dignity and self-respect; but they are only a subject of moral reprobation when they involve a breach of duty to others, for whose sake the individual is bound to have care for himself. What are called duties to ourselves are not socially obligatory, unless circumstances render them at the same time duties to others. The term duty to oneself, when it means anything more than prudence, means self-respect or self-development, and for none of these is any one accountable to his fellow creatures, because for none of them is it for the good of mankind that he be held accountable to them.
He's distinguishing, effectively, between folly and immorality - and immorality takes us into heavily populated waters. One can think of numerous politicians and other public figures who instantiate a fair few of these dispositions. On the whole, though, this seems to be a kind of justification for the kinds of shaming we saw in the hunter-gatherer societies.
Now he makes clearer still the distinction between how to treat folly within an individual's own conduct, that does not harm others, and the kind of infractions that do harm society: It makes a vast difference both in our feelings and in our conduct towards him whether he displeases us in things in which we think we have a right to control him, or in things in which we know that we have not. If he displeases us, we may express our distaste, and we may stand aloof from a person as well as from a thing that displeases us; but we shall not therefore feel called on to make his life uncomfortable. We shall reflect that he already bears, or will bear, the whole penalty of his error; if he spoils his life by mismanagement, we shall not, for that reason, desire to spoil it still further:instead of wishing to punish him, we shall rather endeavour to alleviate his punishment, by showing him how he may avoid or cure the evils his conduct tends to bring upon him. He may be to us an object of pity, perhaps of dislike, but not of anger or resentment; we shall not treat him like an enemy of society: the worst we shall think ourselves justified in doing is leaving him to himself, if we do not interfere benevolently by showing interest or concern for him. It is far otherwise if he has infringed the rules necessary for the protection of his fellow creatures,individually or collectively. The evil consequences of his acts do not then fall on himself, but on others; and society, as the protector of all its members, must retaliate on him; must inflict pain on him for the express purpose of punishment, and must take care that it be sufficiently severe. In the one case, he is an offender at our bar, and we are called on not only to sit in judgment on him, but, in one shape or another, to execute our own sentence: in the other case, it is not our part to inflict any suffering on him, except what may incidentally follow from our using the same liberty in the regulation of our own affairs, which we allow to him in his.
In one case, no anger; in the other, sufficiently severe punishment. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
He now imagines an adversary who suggests that no man is entirely isolated and that all folly will harm someone - his family, his heirs, society at large by setting a bad example. In addition, the adversary might suggest, the lack of self-governance could put this person in the position of a child who needs to be managed and restrained. Should not law or at least a vigorous society ban drunkenness and gambling and the like? The adversary continues: There is no question here.. about restricting individuality, or impeding the trial of new and original experiments in living. The only things it is sought to prevent are things which have been tried and condemned from the beginning of the world until now; things which experience has shown not to be useful or suitable to any person’s individuality. There must be some length of time and amount of experience after which a moral or prudential truth may be regarded as established: and it is merely desired to prevent generation after generation from falling over the same precipice which has been fatal to their predecessors. Mill answers this claim: I fully admit that the mischief which a person does to himself may seriously affect, both through their sympathies and their interests, those nearly connected with him and, in a minor degree, society at large. When, by conduct of this sort, a person is led to violate a distinct and assignable obligation to any other person or persons, the case is taken out of the self-regarding class, and becomes amenable to moral disapprobation in the proper sense of the term. If, for example, a man, through intemperance or extravagance, becomes unable to pay his debts, or, having undertaken the moral responsibility of a family, becomes from the same cause incapable of supporting or educating them, he is deservedly reprobated, and might be justly punished; but it is for the breach of duty to his family or creditors, not for the extravagance. If the resources which ought to have been devoted to them, had been diverted from them for the most prudent investment, the moral culpability would have been the same. George Barnwell murdered his uncle to get money for his mistress, but if he had done it to set himself up in business, he would equally have been hanged.
Mill's point is that the person should not be punished for the vice that leads to certain behaviour (drunkenness, say), nor for the behaviour if it causes no harm - but should it cause harm, he is punished for those harmful consequences. In the case of drunkenness, he would also be punished were he, say, a policeman on duty, for he would be failing in his duty. But a policeman who went home, got drunk and danced around his living-room singing 'I shot the sheriff' should be left alone.
And now Mill makes a strong point - society has been responsible for the education of children and this means it has some responsibility for the failings of individuals: If society lets any considerable number of its members grow up mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame for the consequences.
He further claims that coercion is ineffective and that the bad example claim doesn't hold, as if one is able to judge something a bad example, why should one follow it? Children, he deems, would be guided by their educators rather than by the bad example. But his most important reason for non-interference in matters of self-governance (rather than of social duty, when society can intervene) is that he claims that society usually interferes 'wrongly': On questions of social morality, of duty to others, the opinion of the public, that is, of an overruling majority, though of wrong, is likely to be still oftener right; because on such questions they are only required to judge of their own interests; of the manner in which some mode of conduct, if allowed to be practised, would effect themselves. But the opinion of a similar majority, imposed as a law on the minority, on questions of self-regarding conduct, is quite as likely to be wrong as right; for in these cases public opinion means, at the best, some people’s opinion of what is good or bad for other people; while very of it does not even mean that; the public, with the most perfect indifference, passing over the pleasure or convenience of those whose conduct they censure, and considering only their own preference. There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings [...] But there is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it; no more than between the desire of a thief to take a purse, and the desire of the right owner to keep it. And a person’s taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse.
He blames opinion-formers, writers, philosophers and religion for encouraging the public to believe that there is only one right way in matters of taste or opinion. He cites examples - of Puritans in parts of America prohibiting dancing and merry-making, of Roman Catholics and Muslims in other nations making various rules on individual conduct and of Americans disapproving of rich people spending their money as they wish! Another interesting example comes from 'the artisan class' in which bad workmen insist on being paid as much as good workmen, even when employers wish to pay good workmen more. Then he goes on to condemn forcibly the expansion of the concept of 'social rights', using the case of prohibition in America, which is worth quoting: “I claim, as a citizen, a right to legislate whenever my social rights are invaded by the social act of another.” And now for the definition of these “social rights.” “If anything invades my social rights, certainly the traffic in strong drink does. It destroys my primary right of security, by constantly creating and stimulating social disorder. It invades my right of equality, by deriving a profit from the creation of a misery I am taxed to support. It impedes my right to free moral and intellectual development, by surrounding my path with dangers, and by weakening and demoralising society, from which I have a right to claim mutual aid and intercourse.” A theory of “social rights” the like of which probably never before found its way into distinct language: being nothing short of this—that it is the absolute social right o fevery individual, that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in the smallest particular violates my social right, and entitles me to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance. So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty; there is no violation of liberty which it would not justify; it acknowledges no right to any freedom whatever, except perhaps to that of holding opinions in secret,without ever disclosing them: for, the moment an opinion which I consider noxious passes any one’s lips, it invades all the “social rights” attributed to me by the Alliance. The doctrine ascribes to all mankind a vested interest in each other’s moral, intellectual, and even physical perfection, to be defined by each claimant according to his own standard.
This is powerful indeed and does make one reconsider the rights-based theories.
The section ends with a critique of Mormonism, which is fascinating, but I'll let you omit it!
***
Next time, you may be glad to know - the final installment.
By the way, I took this photograph because the 'wild meadow' in the foreground smelt so amazingly good. I think the farmer does it for the bees.
Comments