Question

Read the excerpt below and answer the question. The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing only because others believe it. (from "On Liberty: On Individuality, as One of the Elements of Wellbeing"; chapter 3, section 3) Explain Mill's argument in this passage and describe, in your own words, how this excerpt applies to public and private life today. Your answer should be at least one hundred words.

Answer 1

John Stuart Mill is arguing against conformity. The human being, through its faculties of "perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference", only excercices those faculties when going against custom, against what is known as received wisdom. If someone merely follows the dictates of custom, then he is not thinking, or judging, or making moral choices: he is, so to speak, on autopilot, or simply following the herd. He is not asserting himself as an individual in full command of his humanity. In our daily lives we face many situations where we follow preestablished behaviors: at work, in the street, when dealing with our family. But it is only when we depart from what is expected from us that we become individuals, when we reject the well-worn path of custom and make personal choices.

Answer 2

Mill thinks that people will become independent thinkers if they observe reality , evaluate it and act upon it according to their own conclusions. People should make their own decisions and justify them. To achieve this, they have to try by themselves. People will not become independent thinkers if they imitate what others do, or if they copy what other people believe in. For example, today people believe in what commercials on TV tell them. Commercials belong to public life and their aim is to make people believe they will be happy if they get expensive goods. Happiness is part of private life. There are a lot of teenagers who think they will be happy if they get the latest smart-phone. They cannot think by themselves or arrive at the conclusion that happiness should not be associated with material things. When they believe in the material idea of happiness, they are buying a false idea. The idea the market makes them believe in.