According to Mill, when is individual liberty rightfully restricted?

• A. Liberty should be unrestricted in society
• B. Individual liberty can only be restricted to prevent harm to others
• C. Liberty should be restricted to promote virtue
• D. Liberty is determined by social contract

Answer: (B)

Mill’s harm principle says that individual liberty can be restricted only to prevent harm to others. He argues that people should be free to pursue their own lives and make their own choices about how to live, even if those choices seem immoral or unwise, as long as they don’t interfere with the rights and safety of others. This emphasis on self-government and the value of自由 inquiry and personal development means coercion to promote virtue or to moralize society is misplaced; restricting liberty on paternalistic grounds undermines individual autonomy and the benefits of diverse, freely tested ways of life. The idea isn’t that liberty is unlimited; the limit is the point at which one person’s actions would harm someone else’s rights or well-being. Social-contract style justifications aren’t the focus of Mill’s view; he centers on preventing direct harms rather than enforcing a particular moral or political order.