Mill Indicates that "Liberty Consists in Doing what One Desires, and [One] Does not Desire to Fall into the River"

The debate over state interference in personal liberties has been a reoccurring concern since the beginning of the first types of democracies. In John Stuart Mill's, On Liberty, Mill addresses the need for little state intervention in order to respect personal liberty and autonomy. In his essay, Mill stresses the importance of the individual and the need for government not to restrain these liberties through paternalistic means. With his firm stance of his Harm Principle, devotion to utilitarianism, and analysis of liberties of thought and action, Mill confidently stresses that state pa…