March 19th, 2015 On Liberty John Stuart Mill - Chapter 1 defines civil liberty as the limit that must be set on society’s power over each individual. o Here, society itself becomes the tyrant seeking to inflict its will and values on others.  Mill observes the idea that liberty can be divided into three types, each of which must be recognized and respected by any free society. - First, there is the liberty of thought and opinion. - The second type is the liberty of tastes and pursuits, or the freedom to plan our own lives. - Third, there is the liberty to join other like-minded individuals for a common purpose that does not hurt anyone.  Each of these freedoms negates society’s propensity to compel compliance. - Chapter 2 examines the question of whether one or more persons should be able to curtail another person’s freedom to express a divergent point of view. o Mill argues that any such activity is illegitimate, no matter how beyond the pale that individual’s viewpoint may be.  We must not silence any opinion, because such censorship is simply morally wrong. - Mill points out that a viewpoint’s popularity does not necessarily make it correct o This fact is why we must allow freedom of opinion. - Dissent is vital because it helps to preserve truth, since truth can easily become hidden in sources of prejudice and dead dogma. o Mill defines dissent as the freedom of the individual to hold and articulate unpopular views. - Chapter 4 examines whether there are instances when society can legitimately limit individual liberty. o Mill rejects the concept of the social contract, in which people agree to be a part of society and recognize that society can offer certain forms of protection while asking for certain forms of obligations.  However, he does suggest that because society offers protection, people are obliged to behave in a certain way, and each member of society must defend and protect society and all its members from harm. - In brief, society must be given power to curtail behavior that harms others, but no more.Chapter 1: Introductory - The object of this essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. o That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection.  That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of the civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. - But there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from the individual has, if any, only an indirect interest o Comprehending all that portion of a person’s life and conduct which affects only himself, or if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary, and undeceivedconsent and participation. Chapter II: Of the Liberty and Thought and Discussion - We have now recognized the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct groundso Which we will now briefly recapitulate.  First, of any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. - To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.  Second, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth- And since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.  Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth- Unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.  Fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct - The dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth ofany real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience. Chapter IV: Of the Limits to the Authority of Society Over the Individual - Though society is not founded on a contract, and though no good purpose is answered by inventing a contract in order to deduce social obligations from it, everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit, and the fact of living in society renders in indispensable that each should be bound to observe a certain line of conduct towards the rest. - The inconveniences which are strictly inseparable from the unfavorable judgment of others, are the only ones to which a person should ever be subjected for that portion of his conduct and character which concerns his own good, but which does not affect the interest of others in their relations with him. - With regard to the merely contingent, or, as it may be called, constructive injury which a person causes to society, by conduct which neither violates any specific duty to the public, nor occasions perceptible hurt to any assignable individual except himselfo The inconvenience is one which society can afford to bear, for the sake of the greater good of human freedom.Theories of Criminal Law: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Antony Duff - Every account of the structure of criminal law involves an attempt to explain the content of and relationship between four basic concepts: o Wrongdoingo Responsibilityo Faulto Punishment - The most ambitious accounts focus on a single concept in terms of which the others can be understood. - Duff argues that the central concept in criminal law is responsibility, understood as the legal demand to provide a rational explanation for our illegal behavior. o The criminal trial is not merely an instrument for identifying dangerous individuals  It is a communicative process by which individuals are made to account for their actions to their community o The commission of criminal wrongdoing is that which the law requires us to explain  The denial of fault, through