Riley - The Routledge Guidebook to Mills On Liberty

John Stuart Mills On Liberty is widely regarded as one of the most influential and stirring pieces of political philosophy ever written. Ever relevant in our increasingly surveillance-dominated culture, the essay argues strongly in favour of the moral rights of individuality, including rights of privacy and of freedom of expression. The Routledge Guidebook to Mills On Liberty introduces the major themes in Mills great book and aids the reader in understanding this key work, covering:

the context of Mills work and the background to his writing

each separate part of the text in relation to its goals, meanings and impact

the reception the book received when first published

the relevance of Mills work to modern philosophy.

With further reading included at the end of each chapter, this is an essential guidebook for all students of philosophy and political theory, and all those wishing to get to grips with this classic work.

Jonathan Riley is Professor of Philosophy at the Murphy Institute, Tulane University, USA.

Series Editor: Anthony Gottlieb

The Routledge Guides to the Great Books provide ideal introductions to the work of the most brilliant thinkers of all time, from Aristotle to Marx and Newton to Wollstonecraft. At the core of each Guidebook is a detailed examination of the central ideas and arguments expounded in the great book. This is bookended by an opening discussion of the context within which the work was written and a closing look at the lasting significance of the text. The Routledge Guides to the Great Books therefore provide students everywhere with complete introductions to the most important, influential and innovative books of all time.

Available:

Gramscis Prison Notebooks John Schwarzmantel

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DescartesMeditations Gary Hatfield

HobbesLeviathan Glen Newey

Galileos Dialogue Maurice A. Finocchiaro

Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations Marie McGinn

Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics Gerard J. Hughes

Heideggers Being and Time Stephen Mulhall

Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit Robert Stern

Lockes Essay Concerning Human Understanding E. J. Lowe

Platos Republic Nickolas Pappas

Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Sandrine Bergs

Forthcoming:

De Beauvoirs The Second Sex Nancy Bauer

Paines Rights of Man Frances Chiu

AquinasSumma Theologiae Jason Eberl

Kierkegaards Fear and Trembling John A. Lippett

Machiavellis The Prince John Scott

Gibbons History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire David Womersley

Foucaults History of Sexuality Chloe Taylor

Fanons Wretched of the Earth Jean Khalfa

JacobsDeath and Life of Great American Cities Peter Laurence

Webers Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism David Chalcraft

Augustines Confessions Catherine Conybeare

Routledge Guides to the Great Books

Jonathan Riley

First published as Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Mill on Liberty, 1998

This edition published as The Routledge Guidebook to Mills On Liberty, 2015 by Routledge

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1998, 2015 Jonathan Riley

The right of Jonathan Riley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Riley, Jonathan, 1955

The Routledge guidebook to Mills On liberty / Jonathan Riley.

pages cm. -- (The Routledge guides to the great books)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Mill, John Stuart, 1806-1873. On liberty. 2. Liberty. I. Title.

JC585.M63R55 2015

323.44--dc23

2015001817

ISBN: 978-0-415-66539-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-66540-7 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-72858-2 (ebk)

In memory of Patrick Sutherland Fallis (19481981)

le feu follet

The past is a foreign country, wrote a British novelist, L. P. Hartley: they do things differently there.

The greatest books in the canon of the humanities and sciences can be foreign territory, too. This series of guidebooks is a set of excursions written by expert guides who know how to make such places become more familiar.

All the books covered in this series, however long ago they were written, have much to say to us now, or help to explain the ways in which we have come to think about the world. Each volume is designed not only to describe a set of ideas, and how they developed, but also to evaluate them. This requires what one might call a bifocal approach. To engage fully with an author, one has to pretend that he or she is speaking to us; but to understand a texts meaning, it is often necessary to remember its original audience, too. It is all too easy to mistake the intentions of an old argument by treating it as a contemporary one.

The Routledge Guides to the Great Books are aimed at students in the broadest sense, not only those engaged in formal study. The intended audience of the series is all those who want to understand the books that have had the largest effects.

AJG
October 2012

Mills classic essay on individual liberty is the focus of a large literature. Surely there is nothing new to say about it, some (perhaps most) will think. Anyway, aside from his grand rhetoric, what is the interest for students of philosophy? Isnt his argument pretty straightforward, at least to the extent that we can make sense of it? Importance of moral rights, respect for rule of law and all that. Who needs a Guidebook to such ho-hum liberalism?

But a new guide to On Liberty is very much needed, I shall insist. Mills radical argument has largely been obscured by commentators, where it has not been dismissed as incoherent. His doctrine is not now, and has never been, what most people understand by that ambiguous term liberalism. In its place, much more conventional liberalisms continue to predominate in the philosophical literature. Today, students are likely to be misdirected toward one of these tamer alternatives, or worse, in the name of Millian liberalism.