In On Liberty Mill writes, “ All that makes existence valuable to anyone depends upon the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people” (7). In the Euthyphro, Socrates asks, “Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods” (Euthyphro lines 10-11)?

Philosophy

According to the perspective of Mill, freedom of speech is essential but in a limited manner. The human rights are the ones that are created to serve the human beings and make their lives easier in a certain way that they could be able to determine the ways of their actions. The human rights are essential and provide the right of speech, but the human rights documents could place some limits and boundaries that could determine that what should be said and what should not be said in a particular manner. Because the freedom of speech many times lead to harm and offense pattern. The unlimited speech factors mostly include the factors of hate speech and needed some boundaries. Mill was considered as the great supporter of free speech, and in the given sentence quote he is supporting the idea of free speech. He added the factors that a struggle or a hardship occurred only when authority and liberty values are there. The struggle lies in the authority and liberty. The topic of free speech not only includes the factors that it should be held in a limited way or people should have the right to unlimited freedom of speech. Several other factors are needed to explain the concept of free speech including privacy, security, equality, and the harm that could be prevented due to the occurrence and availability of free speech. The speech is simply a significant part of social goods. It could lead to social welfare and the construction of a social structure in the best appropriate ways. According to the idea of Mill, the existence of human beings is important and became valuable when someone is dependent upon the allocated restraints on the actions of other people. It means that some restraints are important and lead to the valuable existence of humans.

According to the statement of Socrates, two factors are involved in it and have two different aspects. Socrates added the factors of religious aspects as according to his view, there are two possibilities of being loved by God. It is a simple and known phenomenon that mostly in every religion of the world pious man or woman are the ones who are loved by God. God prefers the good deeds and religious acts done by the humans, and in the statement of Socrates, it is a question that pious people are loved by God due to the reason of piousness, and another question that one is pious only due to the fact that he is being loved by gods and that is why he is pious and has a good soul. According to my perspective, the pious being loved by gods only when the humans became pious. In this case, the gods are happy due to the fact that piousness or good deeds are done by the humans, and it leads to the love of God and its achievement.

The views of Socrates and Mill are different from each other, however, containing some similarities as well. The main similarity is that both people want to target the human behavior in a certain way. Socrates wants to clarify the piousness of humans that could gain by conducting several acts of good deeds, and it could include the love of human beings with each other. Freedom of speech in a limited way and with the restrictions leads to the happiness of people because in that way people will consider that they should not hurt the feelings of other people. The difference between both views is that the one person wants to apply restraints to make the life of humans more valuable and other wants that pious people are loved by God, or God loves them due to their pious behavior.

Try to make some determination about what is more valuable about happiness – individual liberty (whether or not you can do as you like) or virtue (what kind of person you are and character you have). Justify your response.

Individual Liberty and Virtue are two different aspects but considered as the traits that are needed by the human beings. Individual liberty simply means that a person can spend his life with his own choices and able to fulfill his dreams according to his wishes. A complex perspective could also be explained that people who are free and do not restraint by any other factors to living their life. Virtue is an act of worship that is almost present in all religions of the world. In simple words, virtue is an act that is influenced by moral standards. It is considered as a good moral act that is taken to help someone or serve the human factors.

Individual liberty and the virtue acts lead to happiness because one could spend his life with his own choices and do good deeds to find pleasure and good emotional stability. About happiness, virtue is more suitable as compared to the individual liberty. Virtue is an action that is taken to do something good and under the rules of moral standards. Due to the occurrence of good deeds, one could enjoy the best feeling and emotional stability. Serving the humanity ultimately leads to happiness as it is the best way to show the world that people care about other people. In the scenario of virtue, one could serve other people and could lead to the attainment of true happiness. By serving other people and doing good deeds as the acts of virtue leads to the satisfaction of heart and attainment of happiness.

In the case of individual liberty, it is the way that allows a person to spend a life with his own will and without any outer constraint. It could lead to the happiness but as well as different other emotional constraints such as sadness. If one could have the right to individual liberty, then it will lead to the good and bad acts at the same time. By enjoying the right of individual liberty, one could make other people happier or sad such as the freedom of speech right. Freedom of speech is a perfect example of individual liberty in which one could act positively and negatively at the same time. Many times freedom of speech leads to the disastrous consequences and results in the negative outcomes. In this way, the true happiness can’t be achieved, because one could never be happy by doing wrong deeds and actions. Due to freedom of speech, one could hurt the feeling the others and could lead to the dissatisfaction of people. It invites right or wrong both scenarios and leads to the achievement of happiness and sadness at the same time. So, according to my opinion, virtue is more valuable towards the attainment of true happiness. In the way of virtue, true happiness could be achieved and with the achievement of emotional stability. But in the case of individual liberty, happiness could not always be found as compared to the virtue perspective.