He sits at the edge of jurisprudence, but what he says is relevant to lawyers and relevant to a wider audience than just lawyers. Mill was strongly influenced by utilitarianism, but he was as much concerned with moral philosophy as with legal philosophy. Modern jurisprudence-the philosophy of law-starts in the late eighteenth century, with Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism.
His thesis is simple: the only purpose for which mankind is warranted in interfering with the liberty of action of any of its number is protection of self and the only purpose, therefore, for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilised community against that individual’s will is in order to prevent harm to others. Mill sets out to establish the limits of the power which can legitimately be exercised by society over the individual. The English political philosopher John Stuart Mill considered this question in his essay On Liberty 150 years ago. How far should the state impinge on individual liberty?
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