A critical examination and contemporary application of John Stuart Mill's principle of liberty as propounded in his essay "On liberty".

Mill's essay On Liberty has been regarded as one of the greatest landmarks and heritages of Western liberal thought. Mill's pleas for the search for truth and the march of mind toward human progress through his principle of liberty as propounded in his essay On Liberty have everlasting value. At the same time, Mill's principle of liberty contains certain contradictions. Also, it has the limitations of nineteenth-century individual liberalism. While his recognition of social change of the "age of transition" to twentieth-century democratic and social liberalism was reflected to a considerable extent in his principle of liberty, Mill, in On Liberty, did not really identify liberty with new lines of approach to political, social, and economic problems taking place in the transitional period. The purpose of this study is to evaluate and criticize through systematic analysis the essence of his principles of liberty, to point out the values and limits of these principles, and to discuss the problem of the relation between Mill's doctrine and its practical application to some actual contemporary conditions in the United States and Asia. In order to fulfill this purpose, the concept of modern liberalism and the English strand of it are defined, as is utilitarian liberalism, which is the immediate background of Mill's liberal theory. Further, Mill's "Hellenizing tendency" which played a formative part in the development of his ideas, is discussed Also, Mill's doctrine of liberty is compared with the theories of liberty of four modern western political thinkers.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Grantor

Baylor University.

Year dc:date.issued

1963

Author dc:creator

• Kashiwagi, Keigaku, 1924-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Cherry, Horace Dicken, 1928-

• Mill, John Stuart, 1806-1873. On liberty.

Statement dc:rights

• Baylor University works are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. Contact libraryquestions@baylor.edu for inquiries about permission.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2104/13270

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:baylor-ir.tdl.org:2104/13270