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Editorial

Mill Matters Mightily

by Rick Lewis

In this year’s first issue of Philosophy Now, we celebrated the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species. In the final issue of the year, we look at another book published in the same year, 1859. On Liberty by John Stuart Mill is much shorter but has had nearly as great and long-lasting effect on political thought as Darwin’s book had on biology. It is still the book people reach for when they want to protest against infringements of personal freedom.

Mill’s ‘dangerous idea’ is that individuals should be able to do absolutely anything they like, so long as they don’t harm other people in the process.

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