Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope

by Sarah Bakewell

The two words featured in those lines, diversity and development, would always go together with the word freedom in Mill’s thinking. Each of those three nourished the others. For him, we become fully developed human beings if we have freedom, but also plenty of contact with the diversity of ways in which one can live a human life—including even the most eccentric possibilities. A liberal society lets us develop our own such possibilities through contacts with diversity, all taking place in a culturally rich environment and without state interference. Except, of course, if what we do hurts others. For Mill, as for Humboldt, the state’s task is to step in if my own pursuit of freedom and experience is damaging yours. The state has no business telling people what they should do: it is no part of its role to define a single perfect form of life or morality. Its role is to enable each of us to have the space we need to stretch ourselves, without robbing others of their space.