The Morality of On Liberty

Abstract

Many defenders as well as critics of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1859)[1] believe that in this work Mill argues against the state enforcing morality by law.[2] I consider this a mistaken interpretation of Mill's argument. As one of his earliest champions pointed out: "Mr. Mill never says, nor is it at all essential to his doctrine to hold, that a government ought not to have a "standard of moral good and evil which the public at large have an interest in maintaining, and in many instances enforcing"".[3] Rather, Mill proposes a "standard of moral good and evil", a true morality, and he argues in favor of enforcing this true morality, by public moral disapprobation by society, and by fines, imprisonment, execution, etc., by the state, when it will promote the general welfare: "Some rules of conduct, therefore, must be imposed—by law in the first place, and by opinion on many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law" (220).[4] Since, however, the true morality that Mill argues in favor of enforcing in these two ways is much narrower in scope than the false morality that was enforced in his day, Mill devotes most of On Liberty to defending, from public moral disapprobation and the law, conduct that the false morality of his day considered immoral—drunkenness, gambling, polygamy, etc. His position is that this conduct is not immoral, and hence, ought not to be publicly morally condemned or sanctioned by law. Only genuinely immoral conduct—deception, physical assault, neglect of dependents, etc.—ought to be publicly morally disapproved of and sanctioned by law.