Liberty in key works of John Locke and John Stuart Mill

The ideas of liberty presented in the important works of John Locke and John Stuart Mill, The Second Treatise of Government (1689) and On Liberty (1859), are often viewed as belonging to the same conceptual tradition, that of English liberalism. This thesis is an articulation of the diversity between the theories of liberty expressed by Locke and Mill in the Second Treatise and On liberty. \ am aiming to provide a corrective to the tendency to ignore or to gloss over very significant differences between the two men. The work concentrates on the philosophical aspects of each theory of liberty, arguing that they differ in four respects. These are; definitions of liberty; justifications of liberty; how much liberty and for whom they recommend it, and finally, who they believe threatens liberty and how this threat is to be curbed. It is the purpose of this thesis to show that in terms of these areas Locke and Mill are pursuing different ends. I conclude that Locke and Mill present strikingly different theories of liberty and cannot be thought of as belonging to the one conceptual tradition in terms of the definition, the justification, the prescription and the threat to liberty. Ultimately, I question the value of including Locke and Mill in the one conceptual tradition of liberty solely on the basis that they argue ‘freedom from.’

Misunderstanding John Stuart Mill on science: Paul Feyerabend`s bad influence

Feyerabend, 1975; Feyerabend, 1981 and Feyerabend, 1987 takes J. S. Mill’s On Liberty to support the proliferation of theories in science and to emphasize the fallibility of scientific knowledge. On Liberty, according to Feyerabend, contradicts and overthrows Mill’s major study of science, A System of Logic. Staley (1999) reads the 2 works of Mill as giving complementary accounts of science. The present author rejects these interpretations of Mill, arguing that A System of Logic and On Liberty are mutually compatible since On Liberty concerns the nature of non-scientific knowledge and the methods that Mill believes are appropriate to expanding and assessing that knowledge.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide : a liberal approach versus the traditional moral view

Within the context of the debate over the recent suspended sentence given to John Stuart Godfrey by Underwood J in the Supreme Court of Tasmania for assisting his elderly mother with her suicide, this article examines some of the more popular arguments for and against the moral acceptability of euthanasia and assisted suicide. This article considers the arguments put forward on the “difference principle” by Rachels and Nesbitt before critically examining the liberal approach to the euthanasia issue as proposed by Kuhse. It is argued that whilst Kuhse is correct to reject the difference principle, she does so for the wrong reasons. The penultimate section of the article provides an overview of the traditional moral view against killing. The final part assesses whether the arguments put forward by proponents of the liberal approach are capable of overcoming this view.

Ghosts of Cadaques

A solo exhibition of surrealist paintings by Dr John Forrest

Melbourne's indigenous plants movement : the return of the natives

This thesis examines Greater Melbourne’s indigenous plants movement from the 1930s to the early twenty first century. It demonstrates the important scientific and educational role of the public intellectual, Professor John Turner, and of the Melbourne University Botany School which he led for thirty five years. The case study of the movement within the City of Sandringham and its successor the City of Bayside reveals how the inhabitants of an urbanised are responded to threats to the indigenous trees and wildflowers of their neighbourhood, stimulating botanists to assist them and using political means in order to achieve their conservation objectives. The thesis draws upon a range of local archives, conservation literature and private papers.

John Mystery and the Australian book trade

The John Mystery books are a collection of Australian children's books and ephemera produced by a little known publishing dynamo, Lester Sinclair, in the middle of the twentieth century. I identify factors which operated to position these items as forgotten elements of Australian literary history. After contextualizing the John Mystery brand of children's books, I suggest how children's literature scholars may find potential resources in the Children's Literature Collection and other heritage collections of the State Library of Victoria.