John Stuart Mill, writing in the midnineteenth
century, advanced Locke’s liberal
philosophical project with a more systematic
theory of liberty – its nature, the manner
of its exercise, its relation to human welfare
and to the discovery of truth, and the role of
the state in limiting the freedom of individuals.
Mill’s theory, even more than Locke’s,
regarded individuality and self-interest,
properly understood, as the source of social,
not just personal, progress and well-being.
Mill insisted that untrammeled freedom of
individual thought, inquiry, worship, and
expression is the surest path to truth and
social improvement. And while Mill readily
conceded that individuals’ freedom of action could be limited more than their
freedom of thought, he proposed a rule that
would create and defend a very broad
domain of individual autonomy and selfpromotion,
while minimizing the scope of
government intervention.