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WillowOne's Positions

On Liberty

Overview

A short essay on the limits of the power that society may legitimately exercise over the individual. Mill's answer is the harm principle: the only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over a member of a civilised community against their will is to prevent harm to others. From it he derives a defence of freedom of thought and discussion, arguing that a suppressed opinion may be true, that if false it still sharpens the truth by contest, and that an unchallenged truth becomes a dead dogma. He goes on to defend individuality against the tyranny of custom and majority opinion.

Notes

The source of most of my views on free speech, on cannabis and prostitution, and on the proper reach of the state generally. Mill's point that you cannot know your own view is right until you have heard the best case against it is why I try to steelman the positions I reject. The harm principle is vaguer at the edges than it looks, since almost anything harms someone, and working out where the edges are is most of what political argument consists of.

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