John Stuart Mill (존 스튜어트 밀)- On Liberty (자유론)

출처: 구글에서 찾은 그 흔한 Meme

To explore Mill's justification for free speech, analyse his notion of 'experiment in living', and examine his 'simple' harm principle as an account of the limits to legitimate state interference. (Talking points: Individuality; Freedom of Speech; Harm/Offence)

밀의 자유론은 무엇인가....? On Liberty

1. Attempts a defence freedom on utilitarian grounds.

2. Utility - "in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being" 

3. But isn't freedom a good distinct from utility?

4. And wouldn't limiting some people's freedom bring about more happiness (c.f. Katie Hopkins)?

Tyranny of the Majority (다수의 횡포)

1. Subjective of this essay is civil or social liberty: 'the nature and limits of power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual'. 

2. Usual concern is with the tyranny of the 'magistrate' 

3. Mill highlights the tyranny of the majority through opinion.

4. "Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues... any mandates at all in things in which it ought not to meddle (간섭하다), it practices a social tyranny more formidable (어마어마한) than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslave the soul itself   ".

5. Need a moral defence to create an ethos of freedom and toleration in society.

밀의 자유론과 트위터 조리돌림 (Public Shaming)에 대해서...

ex) Lindsay Stone + Justine Sacco

http://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=892602&cid=41773&categoryId=41780

『자유론』은 '다수의 횡포(tyranny of the majority)'¹⁾에 대해 심각한 경고를 보내면서 시작한다. 밀의 생각은 이렇다.
현대 민주주의 사회에서는 다수 대중이 최고 권력자의 위치에 오르면서 그들과 다른 생각을 하고, 다른 삶을 살아가는 '비주류 소수'에 대해 무자비한 탄압을 가한다. 여론과 관습을 내세워 '대세에 순종'할 것을 강요하는 것이다. 옛날 독재자처럼 정치적·물리적으로 폭력을 휘두르지는 않는다.

[네이버 지식백과] 자유론 [On Liberty] - 자유를 고민한 (서양의 고전을 읽는다, 2006.5.22, 휴머니스트)

이에 대해 Mill은 , The Harm Principle을 내세웠다.

1. Need a limit to when others can legitimately interfere with our actions. 

2. “the object of this essay is to assert one very simple principle…that principle, is that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection (자기 방위). That the only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.  (남에게 직접적으로 해를 입는 것을 예방하는 것만이 허락됨.)His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant…there are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him…[but] not for compelling him…in the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” 

The Harm Principle Content?

1. Only intervene to prevent harm. (오직 해를 예방하기 위해서 남의 자유로운 발언에 횡포를 놓을 수 있다.)- 그런데 그 harm의 정도가 뭐임?

2. Good of the individual is not sufficient... therefore ....

3. No perfectionist legislation (i.e. trying to make people live more fulfilling lives, by banning things like violent video games)

4. No Paternalist legislation (i.e. forcing people to do things in their interest, like making motorcyclists wear helmets).

Freedom of Speech

1. “if all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had that power would be justified in silencing mankind.” 만약 한 사람을 제외하고 모든 인류가 하나의 의견만을 갖고 있다면, 그리고 그 한사람이 전체의 반대되는 의견을 갖는다면,  인류는 그 한사람을 침묵시키는 행위는 결코 정당화 될 수 없음.

2. Mill argues this will have the best consequences. (발언/표현의 자유를 존중해야 최고의 결과를 가져올 수 있다...)

3. But will it?

4. Can only restrict speech to prevent direct harm (e.g.  Inciting an angry mob 화난 대중을 선동). 

5. Offence is not sufficient. (모욕으로는 불충분)

Counter-Examples:

1. Holocaust Denial Legislation

(Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Liechtenstein,  Lithuania, Luxembourg,  Poland, Portugal, 

Romania and Switzerland)

홀로코스트를 부정하는 발언에 대한 처벌법

2. UK-Racial and Religious Hatred Act (2006).

인종 종교차별 발언에 대한 처벌법

Mill's Defence

1. Fallibilism (오류가능주의. 경험, 관찰, 실험 등에 의해서 인간이 내릴 수 있는 어떤 결론, 즉 주장이나 과학적 견해도 오류 가능성이 있다는 철학적 견해 또는 주의.)

2.  the prevailing opinion on any topic is rarely completely correct, it is “only by the collision of adverse opinions that we can uncover the whole truth of any doctrine”. 

3. The value of dead dogmas vs. living truths. (죽은 도그마인가 살아있는 진실인가 )

4. Harm vs. Offence distinction:  (피해와 모욕의 구분.

Is it plausible ? 타당한가?

Is it too secular or western? 너무 세속적이고 서구적인거 아님?

Of Individuality, As One of the Elements of Well Being

-‘Where, not the person’s own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principle ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress’

-We should not blindly follow custom (우리의 자유를  알지 못하게 억압하는 관..관습따위 가버렷!)

- Human flourishing requires choice. 인류의 번영은 선택을 요구한다.

-‘the mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used.’ 

- ‘Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model…but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.’ 

Of Individuality

- We need to experiment to work out what makes us happy. 

-We need eccentrics (별난게 필요함)

-Conformity stifles development and progress.  (순응은 안돼 노노노)

-The Wolfenden Report (1957). 

The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden report, afterLord Wolfenden, the chairman of the committee) was published in Britain on 4 September 1957 after a succession of well-known men, including Lord Montagu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood, were convicted of homosexual offences.

The Harm Principle

Is it a simple principle? 

1) What counts as harm? 

- Harm and offence are distinguished – can this distinction be upheld? 

Harm cannot just be physical

In Ch 4 of OL Mill talks in terms of “interests”. 

Does this help? How do we define interests?

Did Amazon harm HMV?  

The Politics Book (DK London) 에서 참조, 

1. For a healthy society, individuals should be free to think and act as long as they don't harm others. 

2. Often this doesn't happen because of the tyranny of the majority.

3. This brings conformity and hampers (방해하다) the testing out of new ideas and ways of life.

4. That so few dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time. 

여기에 더해 John Stuart Mill의 political ideology는 결국 liberalism.

"In <On Liberty>, John Stuart Mill made a famous defence of an important tenet of liberalism: that individuality is the foundation of a healthy society."

Tyranny of the Majority 

-Mill warned about the complacency of this view. He said that the elected government distils (증류하여 제거하다) the views of majority, and this majority might end up wanting to oppress the minority. This "tyranny of the majority" meant that there was a risk that interference by even elected governments would have harmful effects. At least as serious as political tyranny was the risk of the social tyranny of public opinion, which tends to lead to conformity of belief and action. These forms of tyranny were all the more serious, argued Mill, because people's opinions were often unthinking, rooted in little more than self-interest and personal preference. Ultimately, the received wisdom is then nothing more than the interests of a society's most dominant groups. Britain at time was still going through the transition towards a modern democracy, and Mill said that people did not yet appreciate the dangers. The prevailing mistrust of government was a relic from the era in which the state was viewed as a threat to individuals, and the potential for tyranny by a democratic majority was not yet widely understood. This confusion meant that the government's actions were both unnecessarily called for and unjustifiably condemned. Also, the tyranny of public opinion was on the rise and Mill feared a general tendency for society to increase its control over the individual. 

*Freedom of action-such as the right of assembly was central to Mill's idea of individual liberty, alongside freedom of thought and freedom of opinion. 

Justifiable interference (정당화될 수 있는 간섭)

-A moral dam was needed to stop this trend, so Mill attempted to set out a clear principle to define the right balance between individual autonomy and government interference. He argued that society could only justifiably interfere with individuals' liberties in order to prevent harm to others. Concern for the individual's own good might justify an attempt to persuade him to take a different course of action, but not to compel him to do so: "Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign," Mill said. This principle of individual liberty applied to thought, to the expression of opinions, and to actions. 

-Mill argued that if this principle is undermined, the whole of society suffers. Without freedom of thought, for example, human knowledge and innovation would be restricted. To demonstrate this, Mill put forward an account of how humans arrive at truth. Because human minds are fallible, the truth or falsity of an idea only becomes known by testing it in the bubbling cauldron of opposing ideas. By stifling ideas, society might lose a true idea. It might also suppress a false idea that would have been useful to test and potentially reveal the truth of another idea. Mill rejected the argument that some ideas are more socially useful than others irrespective of their truth. He believed that this argument assumes infallibility in deciding which beliefs are useful. Although heretics were no longer burned at the stake, Mill believed that the social intolerance of unorthodox opinions threatened to dull minds and cramp the development of society. 

(아, 마지막 문장 속 시원하다. 전통적이지 않은 의견에 대한 사회적 불용이 사회의 발전을 막는다는 말...)

The harm principle

-Mill's criterion of harm was a useful and easily stated principle to define the appropriate boundary between state and individual, expressed at a time when the relationship between the government and the people was going through rapid change.

-Policies on smoking during the 20th century illustrate how the principle can be used as a way of thinking about government restrictions on individual behaviour. Although it had long been understood that tobacco did people harm, society had never prevented individuals from smoking. Instead, health information was supplied to persuade people to stop smoking and, by the late 20th century, smoking was declining in the US and many European countries. 

-This was in line with Mill's principle of liberty: people could freely smoke even though it harmed them, because it did not harm others. Then new medical information came to light showing that passive smoking was harmful. This meant that smoking in public places now violated the harm principle. The principle was reapplied, and smoking bans in public places were initiated to reflect this new knowledge With its rapid decline in popularity, smoking has in a sense become a habit of eccentrics, but despite the increasing evidence about the health dangers, few would advocate an outright ban. 

-Mill의 harm의 범주는 국가와 개인 사이의 적절한 경계를 규정한 유용하고 쉽게 써진 법칙이다. 그 법칙은 정부와 민중 사이의 관계가 급변할때 쓰여졌다.  예를들면, 20세기의 흡연에 대한 정책은 개인의 행동에 대한 정부의 제한을 고안함으로써 어떻게 법칙이 사용될 수 있는지 보여준다. 담배가 오랫동안 사람에게 해롭다는게 알려졌음에도 불구하고, 사회는 절대 개인에게 흡연하지 말라고 하지 않았다. 대신에 사람들이 흡연할 수 있도록 설득하는 건강정보가 제공되었고, 20세기 말까지 미국과 유럽에서의 흡연이 줄어들었다. 이러한 방식이 Mill이 말하는 자유의 법칙이다. 흡연이 사람에게 좋지 않더라도 사람들이 자유롭게 흡연하는거. 왜냐하면 흡연 자체가 누구에게 해가 가지 않으니까. 하지만 간접흡연이라는 새로운 의학 정보가 알려지자 공공장소에서의 흡연 금지라는 새로운 법칙이 재적용되었다. 흡연의 인기가 시들어가며 흡연 자체가 특이한 습관이 되었고, 늘어나는 건강 위험성에도 불구하고 아직까지 이런 금지에 대해 명백히 옹호하는 사람은 거의 없다. 

Harm versus happiness

-The harm principle may not always deliver the results imagined by liberals, however. For example, if people found homosexuality immoral and repugnant (불쾌한/혐오스러운), they might argue that the mere knowledge that homosexuality was being practised would harm them. They might argue that the state should intervene to uphold sexual morals. This raises the issue of the underlying ethical basis for Mill's defence of the individual. <On Liberty> was written in the context of the philosophical system of utilitarianism, which Mill espoused (옹호했다). Mill was a follower of the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who argued that the morality of actions should be judged according to the extent to which they contribute to the sum total of human happiness. For instance, instead of judging lying as wrong in itself, one would need to condemn it because its various consequences- when reckoned together=cause more unhappiness than happiness. Mill refined and developed Bentham's theory, for example by making a distinction between "higher" and "lower" pleasures, meaning that it would be better to be born an unhappy Socrates than a happy pig, because only a Socrates has the possibility of experiencing higher pleasures. 

- One might perceive a conflict between utilitarianism and the approach taken in <On Liberty>, because the defence of individual liberty sounds like a separate principle, which might conflict with the happiness principle that takes precedence in a utilitarian approach. If homosexuality made the majority unhappy, for instance, utilitarianism would recommend that it should be banned, which would be a clear infringement (위법) of individual liberty. Despite this apparent conflict, Mill maintains that utility is still the ultimate, overarching principle in his system.  (공리주의와 개인의 자유의 충돌)

-Mill is not making an absolutist argument for individual autonomy. One way of viewing his argument is as concrete application of the happiness principle in the area of state versus individual action: Miill argues that liberty leads to social innovation and the growth of knowledge, which the contribute to happiness. This leaves open the possibility that Mill may have been too optimistic in thinking that the happiness principle always points towards liberty. He may even have been too optimistic with respect to the expression of opinions, not just to behavioural norms. For example, some might argue that the banning of the expression of certain opinions- the declaration of support for Adolf Hitler in today's Germany, for example- reduces unhappiness and is therefore justifiable on utilitarian grounds. 

Quotes 모음

"The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar"

"The tyranny of the majority" is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard. "

"Whenever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interest, and its feelings of class superiority."

"The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people."

Tutor의 Discussion questions: Things to consider

1. "It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that,' as if that gives them certain rights. it's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I'm offended by that.' Well, so fucking what?"- Stephen Fry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq5dNcrHE8w 

a. Is Stephen Fry right, or should people have a right not to be offended? What might this mean in practice?

-표현의 자유가 먼저인지, Offence가 먼저인지? 누군가 해를 입을 것을 생각해서 미리 표현과 행동의 자유를 억압하는 것은 아닌지 생각해 볼 필요가 있다. Stephen Fry의 경우, the incitement of religious hatred에 대한 반대 입장을 내놨는데 authority가 개인의 자유를 억압하는 것은 위험하다고 보고 있음. 

b. When does Mill think it is permissible (허용되는) to limit free speech?  

2. "If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."

What are Mill's reason for making this claim?

뭐긴 뭐겠어, 다수의 횡포에 견제하는게 이유지. 다수의 횡포에 견제하여 개인의 자유를 지키려는 노력. 어떤 경우에도 사회가 개인에 대해 강제나 통제를 가하게 하지 못하게 함으로써

3. "deliver us from the fatal arts and sciences...give back ignorance, innocence, and poverty, which alone make us happy."

Develop an argument in favour of Rousseau's claim that ignorance promotes happiness.

무지가 행복을 불러옴?