Question 1

According to Mill, "What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and will of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected against its own will. There was no fear of its tyrannizing over itself."

Accepted Answer

According to Mill, the rulers should be identified with the people and their interest and will should be the interest and will of the nation. He believes that there is no fear of the nation tyrannizing over itself and therefore, the need for protecting the nation against its own will is unnecessary.

Question 2

Mill says, "The will of the people, moreover, practically means, the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the elites."

Accepted Answer

Mill actually states that "the will of the people" means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people, but he does not equate this group with "the elites." Instead, he is highlighting a distinction between the general will of the population and the specific will of those who are most active or numerous in expressing their opinions.

Question 3

According to Mill, "the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this, as against any other abuse of power; thus the revolt of an oppressed class is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard."

Accepted Answer

The answer of According to Mill, "the people, consequently, may...

Question 4

Mill says, "there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them."

Accepted Answer

Mill argues in his work "On Liberty" that not only must individuals be protected from government or legal constraints on their behavior, but also from the pressures and restrictions imposed by society's prevailing opinions and customs. He believes that individuals should be free to pursue their own paths and ideas, as long as they do not actively harm others.

Question 5

Mill says, "There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism."

Accepted Answer

Mill argues that while collective opinion can have a legitimate role in society, there must also be limits in order to protect individual independence. This is crucial for maintaining a healthy society, just as protection against political despotism is necessary.

Question 6

Mill says, "Yet the people of any given age and country no more suspect any difficulty in it, than if it were a subject on which mankind had always been agreed. The rules which obtain among themselves appear to them self-evident and self-justifying. This all but universal illusion is one of the examples of the magical influence of reason, which is not only, as the proverb says, a second nature, but is continually mistaken for the first."

Accepted Answer

The answer of Mill says, "Yet the people of any...

Question 7

Mill says, "Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority."

Accepted Answer

Mill believes that the morality of a country is often influenced by the interests and feelings of its ascendant class, which may believe in their own superiority over other classes.

Question 8

Mill says, "The object of this essay is to assert one very simple principle; that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection."

Accepted Answer

Mill clearly states in the beginning of his essay that the sole justification for interfering with someone's liberty is self-protection, which aligns with option A.

Question 9

Mill says, "This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological."

Accepted Answer

Mill argues that the appropriate region of human liberty includes the inward domain of consciousness and demands liberty of conscience, thought and feeling, freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects.

Question 10

Explain what Mill means when he says, "the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this, as against any other abuse of power... thus the tyranny of the majority is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard." Do you agree with Mill?

Accepted Answer