ABSTRACT
The Liberty Principle, together with liberty of discussion, would safeguard the conditions for spiritual and moral progress, liberating originality and genius and encouraging plenty of healthy conflict, disagreement, and dissent. Of the classic texts of liberalism John Stuart Mill's essay on Liberty stands in the first rank. Liberty which raises the interesting question of how liberty of discussion fits with the Liberty Principle. The struggle for liberty had historically been a struggle between subjects and Government. Liberty meant 'protection against the tyranny of political rulers'. The Liberty Principle expresses the doctrine of its liberal wing, and is in fact stated in the French Assembly's Declaration of Rights of 1789: Political Liberty consists in the power of doing whatever does not injure another. Liberty can prevail in a society only when 'barbarian' self-assertion and its oppressive and violent social structures have been overcome. The Liberty Principle also rejects interventions on grounds of offence to other people's feelings.
