ABSTRACT
In the essay On Liberty Mill seeks to defend individual liberty against the social tyranny of the majority who, through laws and the pressure of prevailing opinion, seek to suppress both opinions and conduct to which they are opposed. This is the source of the threat to liberty in the stage of progress that civilized societies have now entered. The majority are in power, and they may abuse that power. It is taken for granted that people are entitled to act on the basis of their feelings, even when these are unsupported by reason. The more progressive elements of society do not challenge this view that the mere preferences, “likings or dislikings,” of society should be the standards of conduct of all. Instead, they have merely sought to replace one set of preferences for another, which they find more congenial (Mill 1977: 222).
