John Stuart Mill's On Liberty

In the political work On Liberty, John Stuart Mill forms an argument in support of the freedom of speech and explains in detail why silencing an opinion is wrong. He does this by exploring the ways that silencing an individual’s opinion in a variety of situations harms society, whether the opinion silenced is true or false. In The Second Treatise of Government, John Locke explains his views on political philosophy but never explicitly states a clear view on free speech, it does allude to an attitude against the liberty Mill is a proponent of. In this essay I will examine how Locke’s principles concerning how politics should be would lead him to agree or disagree with Mill’s strong defense of free speech.
In Chapter 2 of On Liberty, Mill argues
Here Mill says “The meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience” (Mill, p.36). Here, Mill is saying that if we don’t ever have to defend an opinion from dissent, then the opinion loses its meaning. He says that if the truth is just known and never debated or explained, the people will not be able to refute objections to it. If a person cannot refute objections to their argument, then he can’t truly understand his own
However, to this I respond that even though the lawmakers are required to follow these same laws, they often have the power and resources to undermine these laws. Also, just because it may not affect the majority negatively does not mean that it won’t infringe on some people’s rights. The opposing side could then say that when Locke says, “It is a power, that hath no other end but preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the subjects”. He is saying that the only power the government has is to protect our rights; therefore, they would not have the power to use that against us. However, I would argue that it also says this means they never have the power to destroy, enslave, or impoverish the subjects; so he is only using the extreme cases of our “rights”. He never mentions any liberties other than the ones that affect our life/ our ability to live. In Chapter 11, Locke talks about what right the government doesn’t have and he never mentions free speech; if he felt as strongly as Mill on this issue he would have mentioned it as something that the government cannot do, as he does with our literal