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Discussed and debated from time immemorial, the concept of personal liberty went without codification until the 1859 publication of On Liberty. John Stuart Mill's complete and resolute dedication to the cause of freedom inspired this treatise, an enduring work through... Read Full Overview

John Stuart Mill's classic work on utilitarianism.

Liberty was published in 1859, when the nineteenth century was half over, but in its general spirit and in some of its special tendencies the little tract belongs rather to the standpoint of the eighteenth century than to that which saw its birth. In many of his speculations... Read Full Overview

In his much quoted, seminal work, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill attempts to establish standards for the relationship between authority and liberty. He emphasizes the importance of individuality which he conceived as a prerequisite to the higher pleasures-the summum bonum... Read Full Overview

'Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.' To this 'one very simple principle' the whole of Mill's essay On Liberty is dedicated. While many of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, from Adam Smith to Godwin and Thoreau, had celebrated... Read Full Overview

A celebration of individuality, diversity, and nonconformity, On Liberty still makes a persuasive argument for what John Stuart Mill believed to be humankind's essential liberties: the freedoms of speech, assembly, and the pursuit of pleasure, so long as one's actions... Read Full Overview

Combining John Stuart Mill's influential work with a set of relevant primary sources, On Liberty addresses the issues of autonomy and freedom at its core while also offering useful insights into the author's intellectual outlook.

Since its first publication in 1859, few works of political philosophy have provoked such continuous controversy as John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, a passionate argument on behalf of freedom of self-expression. This classic work is now available in a new edition that also... Read Full Overview

Complete and unabridged paperback edition.

First published in 1859.

'Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.' -John Stuart Mill On Liberty presented one of the most eloquent defenses of individual freedom in nineteenth-century social and political philosophy and is today perhaps the most widely-read liberal argument... Read Full Overview

Published in 1859, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty presented one of the most eloquent defenses of individual freedom in nineteenth-century social and political philosophy. Today it is perhaps the most widely-read liberal argument in support of the value of liberty. Mill's... Read Full Overview

Contents include a selected bibliography and an editor's Introduction broken into two sections. The first section provides a brief sketch of the historical, social, and biographical context in which Mill wrote and the second traces the central line of argument in the text to... Read Full Overview

On Liberty is a philosophical work written by John Stuart Mill. Building upon Mill's ethical system developed in his work Utilitarianism, Mill applies the lens of Utilitarianism to society and the state. Mill proposes standards of three basic liberties that individuals should... Read Full Overview