Episode 138: Toby Buckle discusses Mill's liberty principle
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Who was John Stuart Mill and why is he still influential today?
Yeah, no.
Hello and welcome to Elucidations, an unexpected philosophy podcast. I'm Matt Tykman, and with me once again is Toby Buckle, host of the Political Philosophy Podcast and the editor of a new book called What Is Freedom? Conversations with Historians, Philosophers, and Activists from Oxford University Press. Which is a um print compilation of many interviews that he's done on his political philosophy podcast. Uh it's a great read. I highly recommend it. Toby Buckle is here to discuss John Stuart Mill's Liberty Principle. Toby Buckle, welcome.
Thanks so much for having me on, Matt. I really appreciate it. Um, yeah, cheers. Great to have you back. I guess I'll interview you this time. Yes. Yes. I'm all yours. Ask away.
Yeah. So I imagine that most of our listeners are familiar with John Stuart Mill, but maybe not everybody. So maybe we could just start with like a quick little capsule biography. Uh who was John Stuart Mill? Yeah, terrific.
So like you say, um, if people listening are doing a philosophy degree, they'll very, very likely have at least come across the name, certainly if you do a course on ethics or moral philosophy, if you do a history of political thought course the name will come up. Uh John Stuart Milwith is a nineteenth century British political moral philosopher, writer on political economy, He had a pretty interesting life. Um most famously he had a really interesting childhood. He was the father of James he was the son, sorry, of James Stuart Mill, um a good friend of Jeremy Bentham's. And really famously his childhood was an experiment to produce a genius where he was learning. Greek from age eight and Or perhaps even earlier, in fact.
He actually worked most of his life in the East India Trading Company, which as an admirer of Mill, I see no reason to skirt around the fact that he was personally involved for a lot of his life in a pretty ugly form of colonial domination. That is just part of who this historical person was. He was also a member of Parliament. He was either the first or the second member of Parliament to call for votes for women, which is kind of cool. And He's just someone who Has had a huge amount of impact in the history of moral thought, the history of political thought, and like you say, he will turn up on all sorts of reading courses to this day. One final side to Mill, I'll maybe mention if people are getting to know him for the first time, is he often can have a bit of a reputation as something of a sort of stuffy Victorian moraliser, and he had that side.
One thing that always held Helps me when I'm getting to read Mill or I'm coming back to it, is he was also, in many ways, a very emotional, very sensitive person who got really hurt by certain things. He went through for a lot of his life what we would now call severe clinical depression and would pull himself out of it and fall back into it again. repeatedly through his early adult life. And I think that adds a lot a lot of like background to reading him and to sort of feeling not just the arguments but the emotion that he's self consciously trying to get into his works. But anyway, that's a short introduction to who this person is and and looking at them for the first time.
Yeah, I'm almost tempted to say this um experiment in producing a genius via extreme parenting. was successful in the sense that it did produce a genius, but maybe a little bit off the mark in that it seems to have caused a lot of trauma.
Yeah, and I mean, it's really hard, and I'm certainly not a psychologist, to sort of say if someone's experiencing trauma or depression, there sometimes may not be a clearly defined reason for it. And with Mill it would seem like an A to B, you know, his upbringing to later depression in life. But you don't know. You n you never You can get a feel for someone's ideas, but you're never quite in their head. And also what made him a genius. in many ways, was the things he did to pull himself out of his depression. So from his childhood he had a lot of influences from utilitarianism.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who was John Stuart Mill and why is he still influential today?
0:15–5:50
2
What is Mill’s liberty (harm) principle and how does it limit freedom?
5:50–12:02
3
How does the liberty principle distinguish between self‑regarding and other‑regarding actions?
12:02–16:43
4
Why is playing chess allowed but mugging prohibited under Mill’s principle?
16:43–22:38
5
How does Mill’s liberty principle differ from a rights‑based explanation?
22:38–27:22
6
What are the main criticisms of the liberty principle and its reliance on consequentialism?
27:22–32:19
7
How can the liberty principle be applied to contemporary issues like sex‑work regulation?
32:19–37:50
8
What are the practical takeaways for listeners about freedom, judgment, and political philosophy?
37:50–42:47
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Elucidations
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