Abstract
When he was engaged in the task of editing Bentham’s Rationale of Judicial Evidence, the young John Stuart Mill must have read the following passage:
What means liberty? What can be concluded from a proposition, one of the terms of which is so vague? What my own meaning is, I know; and I hope the reader knows it too. Security is the political blessing I have in view: security as against malefactors, on one hand — security against the instruments of government on the other.1
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Notes
William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4 vols, Oxford, 1765–9) Bki, pp. 125–6.
J. S. Mill, ‘On Liberty’, in Essays on Politics and Society, ed. J. M. Robson [Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. xviii] (Toronto and London, 1977 ) p. 348.
See David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, (Oxford, 1960) Bk in, Part II, sect. 2 pp. 484–501.
J. L. De Lolme, The Constitution of England (London, 1775) ch. viii, p. 112.
Charles Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws trans. T. Nugent (New York, 1949) Bk xi:6, p. 151 (translation revised).
Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation edited by J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (London, 1970) in:1 (CW), p. 34. Abbreviated references to CW are to the Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (London, 1968-).
Bentham, Traités de Législation, civile et pénale ed. E. Dumont, (3 vols, Paris, 1802) n:8 (Bowring, vol. i, p. 302). The translation used here is that of
R. Hildreth in Theory of Legislation (London, 1871) p. 97.
Bentham, Deontology, together with A Table of the Springs of Action and Article on Utilitarianism ed. A. Goldworth (Oxford, 1983) (CW),p. 315.
Mill, Essays on Ethics, Religion and Society ed. J. M. Robson, [Collected Works of John Stuart Mill vol. x] (Toronto and London, 1969) p. 255.
See H. L. A. Hart, Essays on Bentham, Studies in Jurisprudence and Political Theory (Oxford, 1982 ) pp. 79–94.
J. C. Rees, ‘A Re-reading of Mill on Liberty’, Political Studies, viii (1960) pp. 113–29.
Mill, ‘On Liberty’, p. 266. For a brief account of this debate, see John Gray, Mill on Liberty: A Defence (London, 1983) pp. 131–2 (n. 17).
See Rees, ‘A Re-reading of Mill on Liberty’, reprinted with a postscript in P. Radcliff, Limits of Liberty: Studies of Mill’s On Liberty (Belmont, California, 1966) pp. 87–107, esp. pp. 106–7.
See, for example, Gray, Mill on Liberty and C. L. Ten, Mill on Liberty, (Oxford, 1980 ).
See, for example, G. L. Williams, ‘Mill’s Principle of Liberty’, Political Studies, xxiv (1976) pp. 132–40;
D. G. Brown, ‘Mill on Harm to Others’ Interests’, Political Studies, xxvi (1978) pp. 395–9;
G. L. Williams, ‘A Brief reply to D. G. Brown on Mill’, Political Studies, xxviii (1980) pp. 295–6.
Maurice Cranston, Freedom, A New Analysis (London, 1953) pp. 65–82, esp. p. 69.
See Isaiah Berlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford, 1969) pp. 122–31.
See Ten, Mill on Liberty pp. 60–1; L. J. Hume, Bentham and Bureaucracy (Cambridge, 1981) pp. 93ff.
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© 1987 George Feaver and Frederick Rosen
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Rosen, F. (1987). Bentham and Mill on Liberty and Justice. In: Feaver, G., Rosen, F. (eds) Lives, Liberties and the Public Good. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08006-9_7
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