On Liberty经典读后感有感
《On Liberty》是一本由John Stuart Mill著作，Longman出版的Paperback图书，本书定价：GBP 7.99，页数：192，特精心从网络上整理的一些读者的读后感，希望对大家能有帮助。
《On Liberty》精选点评：
●就喜欢这种充满张力和矛盾的文本。。。paper的源泉啊。。。
●棒
●今天讀起來太理所當然
●我想读这本书 2015-05-18 One book continues to dominate philosophical debate about free speech: John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. In this classic discussion of the limits of individual freedom in a civilized society Mill defends the view that extensive freedom of speech is a precondition not just for individual happiness, but for a flourishing. //paris
●飞机上一口气读完的，说实话第一遍没看懂
●终于开始哲学了！Mill写的就是个很温暖很正直的世界。他说他写的是专门给那些已经成熟的国家，有能力自我纠正，通过自由的辩论对话来做决定。当时Mill也是研究哲学太多，脑子要爆炸了，幸好他的女权主义妻子给他关于现实很多影响。这也是他注重个人，少数的权力的原因。诶黑格尔就是反面的，单身的哲学狂人。
●我挺喜欢Mill的，其中一大原因是他的句子都比较短 ╮(╯_╰)╭
●读的虽然很迷糊，但是时不时有很强的观点可以抓住，最后三章是用Spark“翻译”看完的，在那个时代Mill就对自由有这么高的觉悟了不成为我的偶像都难.... ”Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign“
●Theories are to a certain extent.......
●很多人把mill归类于自由主义事实上mill 是效益主义的殿堂级人物啊喂，当然说mill是古典自由主义也不算错咯
《On Liberty》读后感(一)：好难读的书啊
从学校图书馆里翻到了两个译本，一个是严复的译本，一个是马君武的译本。大致翻了一番，感觉北京理工出版的严复译本，字体和装帧都和我意，就把严复的天演论和群己权界论买了下来。
严复翻译的是典雅，看起来相当吃力。从导言翻看，愣是看不懂写了些什么。然后找穆勒的原文翻来看，好嘛，不愧是大师，也看不懂。哎，最后两相对照，终于看出点眉目。毕业后，没有精力再认真研读这些书本了。然后朋友过来，就把群己权界论送朋友了。
可是有时候心里又有些痒痒的，就从网上找到电子版，在实验室把这本一百多页左右的书打印了，抽空看一看。得承认，大师的书很不好读啊。断断续续了有一年了，才草草连看带念了一遍。生词还没查。学校草地上，租住的房子里，小区健身的地方，抽空我都会念一念。感觉很爽，就是不知道大师在说啥。得承认，这是我至今为止碰到的最难念的书本了。虽然只有短短的一百页。但是里面的句子，各种修饰语，各种限定条件，哎，念着爽，理解起来就难了。我第一遍把生词划了一遍，下一步就要查生词了，之后就看能不能把意思给搞懂。我想把这本书搞定，之后英语阅读就不成问题了。
《On Liberty》读后感(二)：Brief notes on "On Liberty"
什么是真理？我认为真理是对一件事情的最本质最透彻的理解。是否有绝对真理？理论上来说，可能有（超越时空、界限）；但目前人类的知识和能力还达不到获得绝对真理的程度，假设存在有可能获得的可能性的话（e.g., 即使未来我们掌握了关于宇宙大爆炸起源的我们认为的全部信息，我们还是不确定是否有全能全知的上帝(们)的存在，亦或是整个人类文明都是某个高等生物发明的一场游戏）。目前我们对于任何事情的判断，无论是文化社会宗教甚至是科学，获得的都是相对真理。对于科学，我们目前认为最”真“的一类学科，我们对待其正确的态度仍然是基于我们迄今获得的观察、思考、验证获得假说和结论，让目前最好的理论不断经受检验、挑战，乃至以后获得更好的见解。这种态度是推动人类科学和文明进步的源泉。
如何接近真理？John Stuart Mill的《论自由》里所倡导的充分鼓励思想的交锋是在承认真理的相对性的基础上一个极好的建议。第二章里面的那句"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." 如果世界上所有人（除却一个人）有一个意见，那个人有相反的意见，人类缄默那个人的言论，不比那个人缄默人类的言论（如果那个人还有这个权力的话）更有正当性。
撇开Mill这句话里体现的自由主义是否过于理想化不谈，他对言论自由的极力拥护，无论在什么时代，无论是处在什么社会制度下，都令人深思。Mill的论证让人信服的一个原因（quote的这句话也体现出这点）是他认为一个好的论证是能在被push到极端情况下仍然成立的，因此他在论证中也做到了论证极端情况。
为何需要鼓励思想/言论自由？Mill的论据分为三个部分：1）如果少数人的意见存在正确的可能性（或者包含部分正确性），那么权威或者多数人限制少数人自由发声的行为不仅会让我们接受谬误、远离真理，更让我们犯下认为大多数人或者权威所持意见等同于绝对真理的错误、否认了对于观点正确性的可证伪性(fallibility)。
2）如果少数人的意见实为谬误，缄默少数人的意见还是存在弊端的。因为人们通过对真理和谬误的充分讨论，会使大家（包括处于更为正确的那一方）对于真理都有更清晰、乃至透彻的理解。
3）在大多数情况和事件中，持有不同意见的人往往各自掌握部分真理。通过充分的沟通、互相理解，我们可能都会有所收获，更为接近真理。
《On Liberty》读后感(三)：发聋振聩，醍醐灌顶（1859）
这本书是我在2013年读过的最好的书。原本是在读启蒙时代关于社会契约和政府理论的书时顺便读到此书，结果却是最受启发。书中提到令中国停滞千年的因素今天仍然存在，其现实意义一点都不减当年。 本书中文翻译不是很好懂，需要全神贯注才能看进去。后来拿英文原著来读了一遍，这才发现原文也很不好懂，译者翻译已经相当好了，只是因时代较早，行文习惯不同，又使用了较多长句，才使中文读来也有些困难。最后中英文各读两遍，才觉得读通了。译者许宝骙，系杭州人氏，民主党派，解放后在历次政治运动中也颇受冲击。其所做序言，则批判色彩过重，有失公允。 本书的核心是如何划分个人和社会之间的权力边界。这可以概括为两条：一是个人的行为只要不涉及他人的利害，个人就有完全的行动自由，不必向社会负责；二是只有当个人的行为危害到他人利益时，个人才应当接受社会或法律的惩罚。这两点似乎不言自明，但在其论述过程中，你会看到社会如何对与大众不同的思想、行为方式进行干预和限制，并且熟视无睹，以为理所当然，从而对社会造成伤害。 第一章引论部分，作者明确本书不是要讨论对统治者权力的限制，而是在理想情况下，即统治者已经代表了被统治者的意志时，人民对自己施加权力，是否还需要限制。作者认为，当社会作为集体而凌驾于构成它的各别个人时，这种社会暴虐比许多其他种类的政治压迫还可怕，因为它使人们有更少的逃避办法，这是由于它透入生活细节，奴役到灵魂本身（p5）。这种暴虐不仅通过法律和行政手段，还通过舆论和社会观点来进行：“社会要借行政处罚以外的办法来把自己的观念和行事准则当做行为准则来强加于所见不同的人，以束缚任何与它的方式不相协调的个性的发展，甚至，假如可能的话，阻止这种个性的形成，从而迫使一切人物都按照它自己的模型来剪裁他们自己的这种趋势（p5）”。作者认为应该建立一个行为准则，来调整个人独立与社会控制的关系。这个简单的原则就是：任何人的行为，如果只影响到本人，他的独立性在权利上就是绝对的，只有在涉及他人的那部分才须对社会负责（p11）。由此可以导出人的思想自由、言论自由、志趣和生活设计的自由、以及结社自由。一个社会若不尊重这些自由，就不是自由的。作者认为，人类若彼此容忍各照自己所认为好的样子去生活，比强迫每人都照其余的人所认为好的样子去生活，所获是要较多的（p14）。 第二章论述了为什么要允许思想和讨论自由。作者认为意见自由以及发表意见的自由对人类的精神福祉非常必要，“假如全体人类减一执有一种意见，而仅仅一人执有相反的意见，这时，人类要使那一人沉默并不比那一人（假如他有权力的话）要使人类沉默较可算为正当（p19）”，论据主要有四点： 一、被压制的意见可能是正确的。作者用了很多历史上的例子说明，时代并不比个人较为不可能错误一些，很多一度流行的观点已为现代所排斥，同样，现在流行的很多观点会被未来时代所排斥。任何意见都应当获得机会为自己辩论。作者指出，由于社会的不宽容，由于人们对于不信仰他们所重视的信条的人的敌视，舆论象法律一样有效，这就诱使人们把意见遮掩起来，一大部分最积极、最好钻研的知识分子都觉得最好把真正的原则以及信念的根据保藏在自己心里。作者指出，其结果是：“在精神奴役的一般气氛之中，曾经有过而且也会再有伟大的个人思想家。可是在那种气氛之中，从来没有而且也永远不会有一种智力活跃的人民（p39）”。 二、即便公认意见都是正确的，但如果不能经常接受充分和无所畏惧的讨论，活的真理会变成死的教条：“毋宁说只是一个迷信，偶然贴在宣告真理的字面上罢了（p41）”。人们会忘了它的理性依据。 三、在缺乏自由讨论的情况下，最后不但意见的根据被忘掉，就是意见的意义本身也常常被忘掉了。当一个信条尚在为其存在而奋斗时，人们对信条有一种生动的领会，并能透入情感真正支配行为；但是当信条变成一个承袭的东西时，它变得与人类内心生活几乎完全没有联系，“竟象是存在于人心之外，其本身除了作为一名哨兵监守心脑使其空虚以外也对它们别无任何作用（p46-47）”。其结果便是信仰的是一套，做的是另一套。“凡独特的教义都遭受较多的问难，都必需较经常地在公开的反驳者面前为自己辩护。而一到战场上已无敌人的时候，教者也好，学者也好，就都在他们的岗位上去睡觉了（p49）”。 上面这第二、第三点很有意义，它论述了在确立起权威地位，不再面临挑战后，真理是如何沦为教条，人心如何变为荒漠的。基督教也好，儒家思想，共产主义思想也好，似乎都逃不过这法则。 四、两种彼此对立的意见，并不总是此为真确彼为谬误，有可能是都反映了真理的一部分，需要不同意见来补充。 作者在本章关于基督教道德的看法也较有洞见，他认为基督教道德并非是基督本人的作品，而是此后很久由头五个世纪的天主教会逐步建造起来的。它更多是一种消极的戒律，而非正面提出行为准则。一个宣称只认服从为唯一价值的伦理标准之下绝对不可能生长出很多（事实上源于希腊、罗马的）好的道德准则来的。如果只坚持所谓基督教教义，只会产生一种低贱卑屈而富于奴性的品性。 第三章主要讲社会应鼓励个性。作者认为个性的自由发展乃是社会福祉的首要因素之一。个性有助于首创性。“凡是听凭世界或者他自己所属的一部分世界代替自己选定生活方案的人，除需要一个人猿般的模仿力外便不需要任何其他能力（p69）”。“人性不是一架机器，不能按照一个模型铸造出来，又开动它毫厘不爽地去做替他规定好的工作；它毋宁像一棵树，需要生长并且从各方面发展起来，需要按照那使它成为活东西的内在力量的趋向生长和发展起来（p70）”。随着每人个性的发展，每人也变得对于自己更有价值，因而对他人也更有价值，一个民族也变得大大地更加值得个人来做它的成员。要给每个人本性任何公平的发展机会，最重要的事是容许不同的人过不同的生活。凡是压毁人的个性的都是专制，不论管它叫什么名字。天才只是少数，但为了他们，必须保持能让他们生长的土壤。天才只能在自由的空气里自由的呼吸（龚自珍在呐喊“我劝天公重抖擞”时，一定是倍感时代令人窒息）（p74-76）。作者指出，压制个性就像中国的裹脚一样，只会把每个人都变为碌碌平庸之辈。 在这里，作者拿中国作为反例，指出习俗的专制会造成人类进步的障碍。中国是一度有过首创性的，并且在当时成为世界上最伟大和最有势力的民族。当中国的祖先早已有了壮丽宫殿和雄伟庙宇的时候，欧洲人的祖先还处于“筚路蓝缕，以启山林”的阶段。但此后，习俗开始统治，中国人不复保有个性，也开始停滞下来。“中国乃是一个富有才能并且在某些方面甚至也富有智慧的民族，因为他们遇有难得的好运，竟在早期就备有一套特别好的习俗…他们还有一套极其精良的工具（大一统思想和官僚制）用以尽可能把他们所保有的最好智慧深印于群体的每一心灵，并且保证凡是最能称此智慧的人将得到有荣誉有权力的职位…可是，他们却已变成静止的了，他们几千年来原封未动；而他们如果还会有所改进，那必定要依靠外国人（p85）”。 事实上，作者当时的论断在今日仍有其现实意义。相比从前，中国的年轻一代已变得更有个性。但整体看，中国人还是更愿意选择和别人一样的生活和成功标准，这也是攀比的一个原因。在教育中也是如此，很多家长仍然是拿一个同样的成功标准来要求孩子，他们从自己的生活经验得出结论，和别人不同是要付出代价的，和大家一样则痛苦最小。 第四章中，作者讨论了社会凌驾于个人的权威的限度，再次指出社会无权干涉个人生活中只涉自己的部分。 第五章讲了原则的应用。在这章中，作者总结了本文第三段中提到的两条准则。但在其应用方面，估计在现代社会还会有所争议，也关乎政府监管的理论和边界。作者认为禁止对中国输入鸦片侵犯了购买者的自由，这种认识是有其时代局限性的。作者认为地区自治和鼓励结社有助于培养公民意识。 在本章最后部分，作者反对将一国最优秀的人才都吸纳入政府。这一观点颇有意思，不知新加坡政府对此会做何感想。作者认为，如果最优秀的人都集中到官僚机构，那么谋求钻进官僚机构，然后步步高升，就会成为大家进取的唯一目标，而公众则会缺乏约束官僚机构的能力。在这样的地方，凡是官僚机构所真正反对的事就没有一件能办得通。这个组织自身愈是完善，它从群体各等级中为自己吸收并训练最能干的人员愈是成功，那么它对包括这官僚机构的成员在内的一切人们的束缚也就愈加完整。管制者自己也成为他们的组织和纪律的奴隶。最终，这个官僚团体一定会堕入惰性相沿的例行公事之中。要刺激这个团体的能力使其保持高度水准，唯一的条件是在这个团体外面有同等能力的监视批评负责（p132-134）。这些观点非常深刻，中国古代改革的困难就是由于这个原因，即便皇帝具有最高权威，如果官僚集团反对，他也无法推行任何改革。这在今天也有同样的问题。在解决上一是需要发动群众，二是要分化瓦解官僚集团。 总的来看，欧洲由于有血淋淋的宗教迫害和战争历史，宽容、信仰自由和思想自由早已深入人心。而中国由于千百年大一统思想，人们还是不习惯于鼓励个性，并且还是倾向于以社会侵犯纯属个人领域的选择，社会则继续通过舆论、思想等行使所谓不声不响的否决权。大一统的思想仍在影响教育甚至创新。学会接受差异还需要时日。这本书，因此仍还有很强的现实意义。
《On Liberty》读后感(四)：Civilization and Liberty
The two articles of Mill "civilization" and "on liberty" actually discussed two sides of one coin of human society development. However whether or not civilization and liberty are contradicted with each other is arguable. According to my comprehension of human history, as human beings became more civilized, they became more socialized, i.e. there is more contact and cooperation between people, and thus the inter-dependency level among people went up. And as people are more accustomed to this inter-dependency, the spirit of independence is lost, not only in action, but also in thought.That is because this inter-dependency does not only come from dependency and specialization in economic activities,which seems inevitable if ones want to improve their living standard, but also come from the dependency and specialization in mind training, what is brought about by public education, professional academia, modern election-based democracy and mass media.
In the past, human society solve this problem with Elitism. With the help of the privilege of economic exploitation solidified as a regime, which enable them to give up economic independence and focus on mental independence, and elite consciousness, which make mental achievements more appropriate for their life goal, upper class people can somehow fight against this trend. But ever since the industrial revolution, as José Ortega y Gasset said, a new age of the revolt of the masses appeared, with the help of technical progress and social transform caused by it.
eople are too much influenced by the thoughts of famous people and great minds. When people are trying to train great minds with great minds they just forget those great minds they rely on were not trained themselves.Great minds make themselves great with independent thinking. Education at best can only feed them with material for thinking and encourage them by always promoting a critical spirit towards peoples' thoughts. Unfortunately, contemporary liberal education nurture people in a paternalism way. They make students to read things they think are good and great. But because it is not a personal choice, it is very possible that the students' mind are not prepared with reading these, they are not in a equal position with those great minds.They may either can not understand them and thus admit them as authority because they think those thinkers' intelligence is superior than theirs; or they try hard to understand the thoughts with the assumption that those thoughts should make sense as they are so acknowledged by the public and lose the critical spirit in this respective comprehension process. In this way, the goals of education is to cultivate people to meet the expectations the society have for educated people rather than free their mind so that they can think on themselves.
(Several advice in my mind to improve the contemporary education: more facts and methodology, less opinions; rely on the direct discussion between teacher and students and among students more, rely on the books written by people who can not have direct conversation with the students less;if they do introduce opinions of people other than the teacher, introduce opinions criticizing on this piece or think in a very different way)
Mass media works in a even more destructive way. Those reporters try their best to select news and comment on news in a way that is welcome by the popular and take least efforts for them to accept it. This mechanism indulges people to be lazy and stupid.
However Internet may somewhat change that case. Although Internet is often criticized for it is making people shallower and more arbitrary as it keeps making information more and more fragmented from blog to twitter. People are more radical in Internet But it is making the process of acquiring knowledge more active and also give more space to off-mainstream thoughts with its advantage in long-tail market.
《On Liberty》读后感(五)：Conflict of rights shall never be a false statement.
The fuller life of the future depends on the manifold activities, even though they maybe antagonistic, of the individual.
The aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty.
o one, indeed, acknowledges to himself that his standard of judgement is his own liking; but an opinion on a point of conduct, not supported by reasons, can only count as one person’s preference.
Can you prevent such men from urging that plea, when they are charged with culpability for denying some doctrine which they are told is useful, but which they believe to be false？
The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has well spoken of “the deep slumber of a decided opinion.”
Many essential elements of the highest morality are among the things which are not provided for, nor intended to be provided for, in the recorded deliverances of the Founder of Christianity, and which have been entirely thrown aside in the system of ethics erected on the basis of these deliverances by the Christian Church.
First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. Second, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the truth, it is only be the collision of adverse opinions, that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied. Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension of feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.
There is no reason that all human existences should be constructed on some one, or some small number of patterns. If a person possesses any tolerable amount of common sense and experience, his own mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best itself, but because it is his own mode. Human beings are not like sheep; and even sheep are not indistinguishably alike. A man cannot get a coat or a pair of boots to fit him, unless they are either made to his measure, or he has a whole warehouseful to choose from: and is it easier to fit him with a life than with a coat, or are human beings more like one another in their whole physical and spiritual conformation than in the shape of their feet？
We have a warning example in China, a nation of much talent, and in some respects, even wisdom, owing to the rare good fortune of having been provided at an early period with a particularly good set of customs, the work, in some measure, of men to whom even the most enlightened European must accord, under certain limitations, the title of sages and philosophers. They are remarkable, too, in the excellence of their apparatus for impressing, as far as possible, the best wisdom they possess upon every mind in the community, and securing that those who have appropriated most of it shall occupy the posts of honor and power. Surely the people who did this have discovered the secret of human progressiveness, and must have kept themselves steadily at the head of the movement of the world. On the contrary, they have become stationary, have remained so for thousands of years; and if they are ever to be farther improved, it must be by foreigners. They have succeeded beyond all hope in what English philanthropists are so industriously working at, in making a people all alike, all governing their thoughts and conduct by the same maxims and rules; and these are the fruits. The modern regime of public opinion is, in an unorganized form, what the Chinese educational and political systems are in an organized; and unless individuality shall be able successfully to assert itself against this yoke, Europe, notwithstanding its noble antecedents and its professed Christianity, will tend to become another China.
The United States, where it is affirmed that both society and the government are most democratic, the feeling of majority, to whom any appearance of a more showy or costly style of living than they can hope to rival is disagreeable.
It is only because the institutions of this country are a mass of inconsistency, that things find admittance into our practice which belong to the system of despotic, or what is called paternal, government, while the general freedom of our institutions precludes the exercise of the amount of control necessary to render the restraint of any real efficacy as a moral education.
In France, a large part of the people having been engaged in military service, many of whom have held at least the rank of non-commissioned officers, there are in every popular insurrection several persons competent to take the lead, and improvise some tolerable plan of action. What the French are in military affairs, the Americans are in every kind of civil business; let them be left without a government, every body of Americans is able to improvise one, and to carry on that or any other public business with a sufficient amount of intelligence, order, and decision. This is what every free people ought to be : and a people capable of this is certain to be free; it will never let itself be enslaved by any man or body of men because these are able to seize and pull the reins of the central administration. No bureaucracy can hope to make such a people as this do or undergo anything that they do not like. But where everything is done through the bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is really adverse can be done at all. The constitution of such countries is an organization of the experience and practical ability of the nation, into a disciplined body for the purpose of governing the rest; and the more perfect that organization is in itself, the more successful in drawing to itself and educating for itself and educating for itself the persons of greatest capacity from all ranks of the community, the more complete is the bondage of all, the members of the bureaucracy included. For the governors are as much the slaves of their organization and discipline, as the governed are of the governors. A Chinese mandarin is as much the tool and creature of a despotism as the humblest cultivator. An individual Jesuit is to the utmost degree of abasement the slave of his order, though the order itself exists for the collective power and importance of its members.