On Liberty

On Liberty is John Stuart Mill's elegant defense of personal freedom in a world that loves to tell people what's "good for them." His core idea is the harm principle: society may limit an individual's actions only to prevent harm to others, not to enforce morality, tradition, or majority opinion.

Mill argues that free speech-even offensive or unpopular speech-is vital, because silencing ideas robs us of truth, weakens our understanding of what we believe, and turns living beliefs into dead d...