In John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty, Mill states that individual liberty has limitations by one thing; the self-preservation of society and other individuals. As an individual one must retain the liberty to think and act as one chooses to do so without the suppression of ideas or opinions, as long as it brings no harm to others. “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their members, is self-protection for his own good, physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.” Mills states that this is a solution to two types of tyranny; the tyranny of the majority, in which the many persecute the few, and tyranny of public opinion, in which society seeks to impose a set of values on everyone. Mills has an acceptance of action that does not directly harm others, he thoroughly supports laws that penalize inaction where the action would prevent harm to another.
Mills believes that people have the right to believe and express their own opinion of thought. For example, he says that people should have a right towards what the government does but disagrees that people have no authority to decide an issue for all people. A negative outcome from this is that the people tend to believe in their own rightness and think that society should only have control over those directly affected by the situation. The positive outcome of Mill's thoughts on liberty is that people should have a right to themselves. As an example, for many years now women have been fighting for the same rights as men. Although our country has signed documents stating that women now are equal to men women still have to go the extra mile just to be seen as equal to a man. Mills states that everyone one has a pursuit in life and that as human they feel the need in controlling their own destiny without government interference. This is where the tyranny of public opinion demonstrates the influen...