Sam FriedellIntroduction to Political PhilosophyProfessor Glyn MorganEssay no. 20/24/14Question: How does Mill justify freedom of expression? Is your argument persuasive? In his Writing, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill does an incredible job explaining how his argument for freedom of expression can be used to help people discover the ultimate truth of their opinions and the validity of their opinions. Before determining whether or not John Stuart Mill's argument for free expression is persuasive, and whether or not it works, it is important to understand the argument itself. In the second section of his paper Mill explains and deepens his argument in favor of freedom of expression. In defending freedom of expression he argues: “The received opinion may be false… or the received opinion may be true, a conflict with the opposing error is essential to a clear understanding and a deep feeling of its truth. But there is a more common case than these; when the conflicting doctrines, instead of one being true and the other false, share the truth with each other; and nonconforming opinion is necessary to furnish the rest of the truth” (On Liberty, pages 43 and 44). Mill uses his argument about freedom of expression to show that, even if people have different opinions, instead of being satisfied that one opinion is true and the other is false, they can work together equally to understand and share opinions. truth between them. Mill's argument is then broken down into four separate reasons, which can be found on page 50 of On Liberty, which allow us to better understand the overall argument. The first reason for his argument is the concept or idea of ​​"infallibility". Here he says: “… middle of paper… Finally, I think the greatest advantage of Mill's argument is that it is always to one's advantage to know the truth. Although the argument put forward by Mill can be very useful, if followed correctly, it still has some downsides. The world is not a perfect world; we don't live in a utopia. With this in mind, if people attempt to follow Mill's argument, if one individual disagrees with what another individual has to say, the situation could get ugly; could lead to a verbal or physical argument if one individual “pushes him [the other individual] forcefully.” All in all, while we don't live in a perfect society, for the most part, John Stuart Mill's defense of free expression should work; the way I thought about his general argument is that it always helps to know the truth and that means doing whatever it takes, within reason, to get to that truth.