Chapter I: Intro.
i. Need of protection against the magistrate and the non-legal tyranny of the majority.
NOTE: the threat of mass-society to individual liberty
ii. Essay thesis:
The sole permissible end for individual or collective interference with individual liberty of action is the avoidance of harm to others (other regarding actions). In  matters concerning only oneself, one’s right is absolute (self-regarding actions).  Over oneself, one’s body and mind, the individual is sovereign.  Hence, the following sacrosanct: absolute liberty of conscience, tastes, opinion & speech; limited liberty of pursuits and association (no harm to others clause).
iii. Method of argument: utilitarian argument (that is, PU) applied to the “permanent interests of man as a progressive being.”

Chapter II: Freedom of thought and discussion.

1. These freedoms necessary for the well-being of humankind because:

• suppressed opinion might be true.
• even if partially true, the discovery of full truth is easier with an open discussion of it.


• even if the suppressed opinion totally false, its presence is needed to avoid true contrasting opinion be transformed in dogma without knowledge of supporting reasons.

NOTES:
• limitations to these freedoms always advantageous to the majority or dominant view.
• it's impossible to set bounds for temperate, informative, non-tendentious discussion.  So, anything goes. However: limits in case of clear and present danger, e.g. “corn-dealers are starvers of the poor!” said to mob in front of corn-dealer house; “fire!” in crowded cinema

1. Individuality important to well-being of individual because

• A. plasticity argument
• human nature not like a machine, built after a fixed model, but like a tree developing through its own forces and responding to the demands of the environment. We are, in many respects, different from one another.
• such development is good because it brings out the best in us.

NOTE: note Mill's optimism and his attack on calvinism and dark view of human nature.
• B. Pleasure/pain argument
• Sources of pleasure and pain different for different people.  Hence, unless people left free to pursue their different interests and ends, they’ll miss out on happiness.

•  genius and spur to change and improvement are maximized in an atmosphere valuing individuality and different thinking.
•  danger of mass-society in which mediocrity produces oppressive custom: in this case, even mere eccentricity is a good.

• One not allowed:
•   to injure those interests of others which by law or tacit understanding are considered important.
•   to avoid one’s share of labor and sacrifice needed to defend society from injury and molestation.
• Apart from the above, one’s freedom is complete because that is the  sphere of self-regarding actions.  There is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion and that of one offended  by it.


If we don’t agree with one’s behavior, we can avoid his company (without parading the avoidance), warn others, not offer him optional positions.
Examples: temperance laws; Sabbatical precepts; persecution of Mormons because of polygamy.

• self-regarding actions affects only oneself; other-regarding actions affect others as well.

Problem: no man an island.
• self-regarding actions affect only my interests, i.e., my personal concerns according to common standards; other regarding actions affect others’ interests as well.

Problem: if public opinion has final word, then very reason for distinction between self and other regarding actions is lost.
• self-regarding actions don't affect other people's rights; other regarding actions do.

• restraint or compulsion is an evil; hence, the burden of proof is on its advocates.
• we either cannot advance the interests of the individual by compulsion, or doing so involves evils outweighing the good one because adult individual knows what’s good for him better than society which is likely to interfere at  wrong time for wrong reasons.
  
• Treating citizens as children turns them into children, which is incompatible with democratic self government
  

1. Society has a right to pass judgment in matters of morals, i.e. there ought to be a public morality.

Rationale: Society is, among other things a community of  ideas, including moral ideas.  Without shared ideas in politics, ethics etc. society cannot survive.

2. So, society has a right to enforce its judgment on moral issues.  No theoretical limits can be set to the power of society to legislate against immorality.

Rationale:  Society has a right to protect itself from danger.  But an attack on common morality is a danger. (Other leg is education involving religion because we do not know of any other way to teach morality but through religion.)
3. The moral judgments which should be enforced are those about which the man in the street feels a strong combination of intolerance, indignation and disgust.  No reason need be given.

Rationale: This necessary for the keeping of common morality.  Whether such morality is right or wrong is irrelevant to the right of society to enforce it.
Problem: Too much stress on feelings and too little on reason (consider the case of witch burning).  At a minimum, there must be a demand for rational justification.
NOTES:  For Devlin,
• what’s tolerated varies from time to time (e.g. fornication, adultery etc.)
• the maximim degree of individual freedom should be allowed compatibly with the integrityof society.

1. Cases in which liberty is unjustly denied because the actions involved are essentially self-regarding:

• restrictions on sale of poisons, opium, alcohol

Rationale: these restrictions on liberty of buyer. However, it's permissible:
• to require registration
• to control drinking in drunkard not fullfilling obligations
• to compel idle to work if not fulfilling obligations
• Prohibition of actions dangerous for agent only.

Rationale: these self-regarding actions.  However, it's permissible to have warnings (Crossing of safe bridge example).
NOTE: self-slavery impermissible because contradictory with idea of freedom, which doen't include the “freedom to alienate one’s freedom.”
• regulations about number of liquor shops.

Rationale: no paternalism against any group. However, it's premissible to tax liquor because not a necessity.
• Requests public licences for practicing.  However, certificates may be issued as advisory to the public.

• Family relations involving abuse.
• avoiding educating one’s children. However, home school ok, if reasonable state tests passed.
• Procreating without any means to support progeny.

• individual concerned do often better job than state.
• even when state would do slightly better, it’s educational and  conducive to development that individuals do it: e.g.  jury trial, philanthropic and industrial voluntary associations. Moreover, greater experimentation within society.
• avoids the evil of giving added power to the state.

Rationale: Where state has massive control, liberty exists in name only.

• General rule: greatest possible decentralization of power consistent with efficiency and greatest possible centralization of information and diffusion from the center.