ABSTRACT
John Stuart Mill’s mature views on ethics and politics are to be found in On Liberty (published in 1859), Utilitarianism (1861), Considerations on Representative Government (1861) and The Subjection of Women (written in 1861-2 but published in 1869). Of these, Liberty is the centrepiece, detailing the doctrines and themes which govern most of the discussion in the other works. It is also the work by which Mill will be most remembered. He himself picked it out as ‘likely to survive longer than anything else’ that he had written.1 It has aroused more controversy than any other of his writings, and the essay On Liberty has been taken by many of Mill’s critics as well as his supporters to be the most distinctive if not authoritative statement of the liberal position.2
