著者

多胡 智之

出版者

日本法哲学会

雑誌

法哲学年報 (ISSN:03872890)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2003, pp.176-184,228, 2004-10-20 (Released:2008-11-17)

参考文献数

6

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Whenever Mill's On Liberty is interpreted, it has been interpreted as the philosophy of autonomous but selfish human being. Most interpreters have thought as if On Liberty consists only of the chapters I, II, and III. This interpretation of On Liberty caused the conception of two Mills, the author of On Liberty and the author of other writings, principally Utilitarianism. And also, it makes the peculiarity of On Liberty prominent. But Mill himself declared in chapter IV of On Liberty, that “it would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine to suppose that it is one of selfish indifference”. So, restricting On Liberty to the selfish-individualistic philosophy is inappropriate and to see only one side of the story. The purpose of this paper is to reinterpret On Liberty by referring to the chapters IV and V which have not been taken seriously. Especially in chapter IV, Mill claims that it is important to recognize that we care each other the part of a person's life which concerns only to him, out of good office. This is the clue. In my paper, I will name this relationship as altruistic mutuality, and point out that the feature of this concept is to present alternatives for others, not to control him. Moreover, I will argue that altruistic mutuality is legitimately founded on his principle of liberty. And furthermore, I will show that On Liberty interpreted in this way opens the possibility of perfectionism whose end is not to accomplish each person's faculties but to create morally healthy society, and that On Liberty is the preparation to Mill's subsequent writings.