Topic > John Stuart Mill: Defender of Oppressed Ideas and Opinions

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher who was very interested in political opinions and being a public servant. His views consisted of a mixture of those of many philosophers of the past, but with his own complexity that made them those of Mill. He took ideas from Locke and others including Jeremy Bentham and John Herschel. Mill's main quest was towards utilitarianism. With all this together, Mill's views on liberty, rights and liberties led to the birth of his book On Liberty. Notably, Mill was also the second member of parliament to call for women's suffrage. Mill was undoubtedly the defender of oppressed ideas, opinions and even groups of people. His work ends up being something studied by many for years. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Freedom for Mill was simple, it was freedom of speech. There are, he says, three types of beliefs: true ones, partially true ones and completely false ones. If an opinion is condemned to silence, it must be absolutely true, to deny this opportunity would be to presuppose our reliability. The repressed opinion could, on the contrary, be a part containing some truth. In cases like this, the only likelihood of obtaining the truth would be through the clash of opposing opinions. The silenced philosophy may, of course, be entirely false. That's the problem with censorship, there's no room to expand. When you condemn an ​​opinion, you also condemn believers, suppressing the group as a whole. Freedom for Mill also meant the optimal cultivation of one's individuality: a person should be free not only to think and speak as he wants, but also to act as he wants, provided only that he does not cause harm to others. Individuality is the basis for the improvement of society: it is thanks to the fact that voters express the full extent of their individuality that society becomes attentive to new and better practices. Individuality is, equally important, the premise for the expansion of each person consistent with his or her specific desires. this is often honest in itself. man's aim is not to act as a worker in an excessively social machine; man's goal is "the highest and most harmonious development of his strengths". Mill's first argument in defense of free speech and in opposition to censorship is easy enough to understand. He claims that when you censor true expression, you can deny people the opportunity to exchange truth for error. This directly supports most of Mill's arguments. The defender of censorship can now respond and argue that we can trust censors to filter true expressions from false ones. This way we can have censorship, without denying everyone access to reality. Mill doesn't like this because he assumes that censorship is infallible. He says we have ample evidence and common knowledge to suggest that individuals do not appear to be infallible and capable of separating truth from lies. There is no perfect way to censor. History teaches us, as citizens, this lesson. In the past, opinions and concepts that we currently believe to be true or that we are told are true were suppressed. After all this was said, Mill wasn't done. Yes, according to Mill everyone has the right to express their opinion, even if that opinion is repressed. But when should we remain silent? Simple. At least in his mind, it was. All this leads to the "harm principle". Mill believed that “…one can justifiably limit a person's freedom of action only if it threatens harm.