On the Normative Sources of John Stuart Mill's Personal Liberty: Between Individual and Collective Autonomy

Introduction

The issue of personal liberty represents one of the central themes of modern political-philosophical discourse, and it is precisely within the environment of liberal thought that the normative sources of this concept play a special and in many respects still insufficiently appreciated role. Discussions about the origin, legitimacy, and scope of personal liberty repeatedly return us, alongside the works of the classics (John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau), to the work of John Stuart Mill On Liberty, in which the conception of personal liberty forms one of the fundamental pillars of social liberalism. The tension between individual claims of liberty and the collective demands of society thus appears as a permanently present philosophical challenge that is an immanent part of modern liberal reflection as well. In the context of these considerations, it is necessary to recall that the question of liberty in today's debates, if it is to remain conceptually consistent, must not be isolated from the dimension of social responsibility, which supplements liberal concepts of autonomy and independence with the aspect of the individual's social interconnectedness with the community (Švec, 2022). Liberalism manifests itself not only as a protector of individual entitlements against the interventions of authority, but also as a normative framework reflecting the necessity of social cooperation, redistribution, or solidarity. In this sense, Mill's thought represents an example of the tension between the individualist and social dimensions of liberty. Several interpretations, including his utilitarian reflection on justice, point to the fact that the conflict between personal liberty and collective claims is not a manifestation of some "incompleteness" of argumentation, but an inherent feature of social liberalism (Kahn, 2012).

The examination of the normative sources of personal liberty in Mill therefore naturally leads to the question of the extent to which individual autonomy can be understood as a value superior to the collective good, or whether, on the contrary, there are social situations in which it is legitimate for collective interests to limit the personal liberty of the individual. Modern pluralist democracies have been repeatedly confronted with this tension in recent decades, from issues of public health and social justice, through the regulation of speech, to questions of economic externalities. This is also why Mill's work remains subject to constant reinterpretation and his conception of liberty offers broad potential for advocacy from the positions of both classical and social liberalism. In light of the above, we pose the question in this text: what are the normative sources of Mill's conception of personal liberty and in what way do these sources shape the tension between individual and collective autonomy in his theory? This tension acquires particular relevance due to the fact that Mill's early understanding of individual liberty was markedly individualistic and elitist, while in his later work a gradual transformation toward social and collective responsibility can be observed. Such interpretations support the conclusion that Mill is not a philosopher of rigid individualism, but an author who introduces into the liberal tradition a pluralism that emphasizes individuality, the utilitarian perspective of social good, the epistemological dimension of the search for truth, and at the same time a social dimension based on cooperation.

The aim of this contribution is therefore to present an interpretation that connects these normative sources, explains their internal relationships, and subsequently analyzes the conflict between individual and collective autonomy as a constitutive element of social liberalism.

Mill's Social Liberalism and the Role of Liberty

Mill represents a key figure in the effort to understand the transition from the classical elitist liberalism of the 19th century to its social form, which begins to reflect not only the negative definitions of liberty, but also the social preconditions without which one cannot speak of the real exercise of autonomy in the life of the individual. We are speaking of the development of the conception of positive or effective liberty, which was already discussed by Rousseau, Humboldt, Constant, Tocqueville, and Saint-Simon, the last of whom, though not a liberal, certainly contributed to the concept of the need for a social dimension of liberalism. In the second half of his work, especially in Chapters on Socialism, Mill emphasized that liberalism cannot be reduced to a purely individualistic doctrine, because alongside the protection of individual entitlements it also includes elements of social cooperation, solidarity, and responsibility toward others. In this sense, Mill appears as a paradigmatic representative of that type of liberal thought that transcends the boundaries of strictly defined negative liberty and develops a deeper concept of individuality and social development.

His early work On Liberty represents the most sharply formulated version of the conception of liberty that has become one of the fundamental reference points of liberal thought. In this work, Mill understands liberty primarily as the protection of the individual against disproportionate interventions by society or political authority in matters concerning his own person. In the introductory chapter, he explicitly states that the subject of his interest is not the metaphysical freedom of the will (Mill, 2001). "The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others (...) Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign" (Mill, 2001, p. 14). It is therefore a question of how to normatively justify such limits of social control that are compatible with the maximum development of human individuality and at the same time operate against the background of the liberal tradition associated with the utilitarian understanding of the welfare of the individual and society, without meaning the pure utilitarianism of Bentham, from whom Mill diverged.

It is also necessary to recall that Mill's thought emerges from a specific historical context. The nineteenth century was marked by fundamental transformations of political and social structures, namely through individualization and the formation of civil society, and Mill reflects these changes as a philosopher who, while building on classical liberalism, simultaneously responds to new forms of social threats, which he calls the "evils of capitalism." One of the most pronounced fears he articulates is the so-called social tyranny of the majority, which can manifest not only through state intervention but also through subtler forms of social pressure and conformity. "Society can and does execute its own mandates (...) it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself" (Mill, 2001, p. 9). "In this argument, the philosopher relies on the concept of 'tyranny of the majority,' which he borrows from Alexis de Tocqueville. According to the author, therefore, simple protection of the individual through institutions is not enough — they can protect against violations of the law, but they cannot protect against the dominance of a single 'correct' opinion, whose executor, according to Mill, state institutions become" (Švec, 2022, p. 95). The protection of individuality in his early work On Liberty therefore acquires a new dimension. It is not only about limiting the authority of the state, but also about defending against the power of social judgment.

Contemporary secondary literature (for example Riley and Kahn) points out that Mill's theory of justice and liberty cannot be understood without the context of his specific type of utilitarianism (Kahn, 2012). In this respect, Mill does not copy the traditional (Benthamite — author's note) utilitarian decision-making procedure, which would rely on exceptionally rich information about utility and aim toward a calculation of a set of rules maximizing the overall feeling of utility. Rather, it seems that he has in mind a democratic social decision-making process within which diverse preference orderings are aggregated, such as can be expected from reasonable, though fallible, individuals striving for security, and which these individuals shape and express in relation to various possible sets of rules (Riley, 2012, p. 161).

Mill's conception of liberty rests, in schematic form, on three main normative pillars, which stem from the basic assumption that: "(...) the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others" (Mill, 2001, p. 13). For Mill's conception of liberty, it follows that:

a) The first pillar is the principle according to which the only legitimate reason to interfere with the liberty of an individual is to prevent harm to others. In the second chapter of On Liberty, Mill formulates the well-known thesis: "The only aim for which the liberty of action of an individual can be justly restricted is the self-preservation of others" (Mill, 2001, p. 69).

b) The second pillar is individuality, to which Mill attributes fundamental importance. Individuality is not only a manifestation of liberty, but also the main source of moral and intellectual development of the human being. In the third chapter of On Liberty, he explicitly states that individuality is among the elements of well-being (Mill, 2001). His understanding of individuality significantly exceeds the private dimension; it is perceived as a social productive resource, which later becomes a key point of social-liberal argumentation.

c) The third pillar is the dimension of social being. Mill does not see the individual as an isolated being, but as a member of society in which the diversity of lifestyles and the plurality of forms of life constitute necessary conditions for civilizational development. As Mousourakis shows, this position is closely related to Mill's fallibilism, i.e., the conviction that the human being is fallible, his knowledge is incomplete, and therefore plurality represents not only a social asset but an epistemic necessity (Mousourakis, 2013). "From Mill's perspective, uncertainty, openness, and opacity are part of the concept of the human being; there will always be something uncertain and incomprehensible about every individual" (Mousourakis, 2013, p. 392).

To the social dimension of Mill's philosophy, we add one more important supplement. There are two relevant arguments that justify Mill's transition from classical to social liberalism. The first is essentially non-academic, connected with his marriage to Harriet Taylor Mill, who awakened in the author a certain degree of sensitivity to justice and equality — both social and in matters of gender equality. It is said that many works would either not have been created without Harriet Taylor, or would have taken a completely different form. The second argument, which is overlooked in secondary literature but which we consider absolutely crucial, even preceding the first argument, is the acceptance of the phenomenon of the "natural lottery," which was made more famous by John Rawls, yet this terminus technicus was neither invented by him nor was he its original creator. It was precisely John Stuart Mill, and it is precisely this argument by which he also conceded ground to the socialists, and which significantly changes the classical-liberal stance of the author into that of a social liberal. Mill expresses himself on the natural lottery in several places, and we quote the most relevant: "The strongest of all determining circumstances is birth. The great majority are what they were born. Besides birth, the other main cause of success in life is chance and opportunity (...) industry and skill would not suffice unless opportunities and fortunate coincidences, which happen only to a small group of people, also played a part" (Mill, 2005, p. 684). And further he also states: "Only a few people are born into great wealth and many are born into poverty (...) the majority of people are no longer enslaved (...) by the power of the law, but by poverty (...) (people are — author's note) excluded by the contingency of birth from both the pleasures and the mental and moral advantages which others inherit without effort and independently of merit" (Mill, 2005, p. 677).

Normative Sources of Personal Liberty in the Philosophy of J. S. Mill

The normative sources of personal liberty in Mill's philosophy do not spring from a single principle, but from a multilayered and mutually interconnected structure of his moral-political thought. Mill does not defend liberty exclusively as a natural right of the subject, although some passages of his work On Liberty may at first glance seem almost naturalistic. In Mill's case, the source of normativity arises from the interweaving of utilitarian-moral and socio-economic variables, which significantly distinguishes Mill's theory from classical defenders of natural rights, as well as from strictly hedonistic or economizing versions of utilitarianism or classical liberalism (Jeremy Bentham, Adam Smith). Mill is not a thinker of a one-sided interpretation of liberty "from," but an author who, within liberalism, advocates the interconnection of individual autonomy, utilitarian utility, social responsibility, and the public interest. Probably for this reason as well, Mill's philosophy is labeled eclectic. However, we disagree with this claim by critics, using an argument we have often employed in defense of Rawls's theory in other texts. Incidentally, we are speaking of John Rawls, who took from Mill the two principles of justice as well as the terminus technicus "natural lottery" and also had, according to critics, overly ambitious plans in the introduction of his most significant work A Theory of Justice in terms of combining egalitarianism, deontology, and liberalism. We consider this criticism to be rather a lack of moral imagination and canonical or ideologizing notions about the meanings of these concepts (deontology, egalitarianism, social justice, equality). Mill, in his works, explains and defends these seemingly impossible connections exceptionally thoroughly, down to their most fundamental consequences, while often conducting a polemic with himself and employing his entire argumentative apparatus when opposing himself.

I. Normative Source: Liberty as Long-Term (Maximized) Good and the Development of the Human Being and Society

The discussion of the normative sources, or the utilitarian justification of liberty in Mill's philosophy, has been present in secondary literature for decades. In On Liberty, Mill himself emphasizes that his argumentation does not rely on abstract right, but on the long-term good of the developing human being in the broadest sense (Mill, 2001). Mill's utilitarianism, however, is not reduced to the maximization of pleasure; it is based on the distinction between higher and lower pleasures, with liberty, individuality, and the development of human capacities belonging among the highest quality forms of good. Tarrant shows in this context that Mill understands utility as a hierarchical and multi-layered category, which allows the defense of even an apparently absolute principle of liberty without coming into conflict with his own utilitarian starting point (Tarrant, 2004). "Mill's conception of utility is neither reductionist nor purely aggregative; it is structured by qualitative differences that allow liberty to function as a principle resistant to simple maximization" (Tarrant, 2004, p. 5).

For Mill, personal liberty has a twofold utilitarian dimension: on the one hand individual, because the individual can achieve the full development of his potential only in an environment where he is autonomous; on the other hand societal, because society as a whole profits from the diversity of life experiments, even flawed ones (Mill, 2001). "The purely liberal element of the author's philosophy is the fact that, in opposition to some colleagues, primarily from conservative ranks, John Stuart Mill advocates the protection of even 'bad' or otherwise socially inconvenient opinions" (Švec, 2023, p. 5). His argumentation is based on the conviction that by suppressing opinions, authority (the state) deprives society of new perspectives on various problems. "It is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings (...) and these are the main ingredients of social progress" (Mill, 2001, pp. 58-59). Thus, for Mill, liberty is not only an individual right, but at the same time a mechanism for producing a higher form of social utility. Riley, for example, interprets this aspect as follows: Mill's utilitarianism in the analyzed passages is characterized by a significant perfectionist shift, as it ties human happiness to the development of higher intellectual, moral, and aesthetic capacities. Higher pleasures, which are inseparable from the exercise of these capacities, have according to Mill a qualitative superiority over all forms of bodily or purely sensory satisfaction and establish a normative understanding of a dignified human life (Riley, 2012, pp. 158-161).

II. Normative Source: Liberty as Openness to Questioning

The second source of normativity builds on Mill's epistemological fallibilism, as emphasized by Mousourakis (2013). According to him, Mill proceeds from the conviction that human knowledge is permanently incomplete and fallible, and therefore must remain open to constant questioning and revision, which for him becomes a normative requirement of social and political life (Mousourakis, 2013, p. 387).

Three normative theses follow from this epistemological position.

a) First, no one has privileged access to truth; the plurality of opinions and freedom of speech are therefore necessary not only from the perspective of individual autonomy, but also from the perspective of social knowledge. Mill repeatedly emphasizes that even a mistaken opinion may contain part of the truth or be necessary for its clarification, as in this passage: "Even opinions which are partially erroneous contain parts of the truth; and it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied" (Mill, 2001, p. 18).

b) Second, the development of knowledge is possible only under conditions of open discussion, while a monopoly on truth leads to stagnation, which Mill considers one of the most serious social problems.

c) Third, individual life experiments represent a source of new knowledge, innovation, and moral progress, where liberty is thus not only the protection of individual space, but at the same time an epistemological precondition of social dynamism.

Freedom of speech, open discussion, and the possibility of experimenting with ways of life in Mill's thought are not merely individual rights, but fulfill a fundamental epistemological function in society. The suppression of plurality of opinion leads not only to the restriction of the individual, but above all to the weakening of the collective capacity to distinguish truth from error and to correct one's own beliefs. Mill therefore rejects any claim to definitively close discussion and emphasizes that silencing an opinion harms society as a whole. "If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error" (Mill, 2005, p. 66). It is precisely in this sense that liberty becomes for Mill a normative condition of epistemological progress and social development.

III. Normative Source: The Human Being as an Entity that Develops within Society

Liberty is not individualistic isolation, but the way in which the individual can participate in the collective civilizational process. Mill states: "Human beings are not like sheep; their goodness is not merely a matter of obedience, but of the development of the internal sources of action" (Mill, 2001, p. 63). Mill's understanding of liberty is not exhausted in the negative sense of non-interference, but also includes an active dimension of the development of human individuality within civil society. Society has a natural interest in the development of individuality because it profits from the talents, creativity, and critical reflection of its members. Mill's understanding of liberty gradually shifts from a purely individualistic model to a socially oriented liberalism, in which the development of the individual takes place in a necessary relationship to society. Liberty is no longer understood exclusively as protection against interference, but as a condition for the development of human capacities within social structures. Mill distinguishes the sphere in which the individual has full autonomy from the sphere that "concerns its [society's] interest," thereby establishing a normative relationship between individual self-development and social good. "To the individual should belong that part of human life which principally concerns himself; to society, that part which concerns its interest" (Mill, 2005, p. 136). This shift allows liberty to be understood also in its positive sense — as the capacity of the individual to exercise his possibilities within civil society, thereby making Mill's thought one of the starting points of social liberalism. Mill at the same time points out that the development of individuality requires certain social constraints, which, however, do not constitute a denial of liberty but its precondition. As he explicitly states: "Certain restraints are however necessary — to prevent strong natures from encroaching on the rights of others (...) but for the individual there is a full compensation in the development of the social side of his nature" (Mill, 2005, p. 121). The liberty of the individual is thus, for Mill, inseparable from the social framework that enables the development of the capacities of all members of society and prevents the dominance of some over others.

The Conflict between Individual and Collective Autonomy in Social Liberalism

The conflict between individual and collective autonomy cannot be interpreted in Mill's philosophy as an accidental tension or a consequence of incomplete argumentative lines; rather, it is an immanent feature of social-liberal thought that naturally follows from the way Mill understands the individual, society, and the relations between them. Individual liberty represents for Mill a fundamental precondition for human development, yet at the same time he acknowledges, even as early as in On Liberty, that society possesses legitimate interests that may, under certain circumstances, justifiably interfere with the autonomy of the individual. We will therefore repeat the quote from the previous subchapter: "To the individual should belong that part of human life which principally concerns himself; to society, that part which concerns its interest" (Mill, 2005, p. 136). Or: "There is, however, a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest. This sphere comprises all those parts of a person's life and conduct which affect only himself, or if they also affect others, only with their free, voluntary, and undeceived consent and participation. When I say 'only himself,' I mean directly and in the first instance; for whatever affects himself may affect others through him, and the objection which may be grounded on this contingency will receive consideration later" (Mill, 2002, p. 35).

In this context, Mill never claims that individual autonomy is an absolute value. Its boundaries are defined both by the harm principle and by the broader social consequences of the individual's actions on other individuals and on society. It is precisely in these consequences that space arises for conflict between personal liberty and collective autonomy, because society is not and cannot be understood as a collection of isolated units, but as a structure of mutually interconnected individuals that requires a certain degree of discipline, cooperation, predictability, and mutual coordination with regard to Mill's goal — the development of the individual.

In the introduction to On Liberty, he repeatedly warns that society can be more dangerous than formal political authority. On the other hand, however, Mill (chronologically) increasingly emphasizes the need for positive liberty and challenges the absolute inviolability of personal liberty. Traditional interpretations of the principle of non-interference with individual liberty presuppose an apparently clear boundary between legitimate and illegitimate interference with that liberty, but this boundary is in fact highly variable and contested in many areas, a fact the author is sufficiently aware of. Mill defends an almost absolute freedom of speech, yet at the same time admits that there are situations in which restriction may be justified by harm to the public interest.

A particular problem that Mill does not explicitly develop is the fact that many forms of action do not have harmful consequences for specific individuals, but for society as a whole. These are so-called collective externalities, which manifest themselves cumulatively and often with delay. Mill's conception of society as a dynamic system in which individuals continuously influence each other implies that liberty cannot be understood in isolation; its normativity is necessarily intertwined with social norms. To highlight the tension, we provide several direct quotations from the originals of Mill's works: "Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit" (Mill, 2005, p. 136). In upholding this principle, Mill even tightens it when he introduces two principles of individual conduct in society:

"(A) Individuals do not mutually harm each other's interests, which, according to laws or unwritten agreement, are rights.

(B) 'Each will bear his share (to be fixed on some equitable principle) of the labors and sacrifices incurred for defending the society or its members from injury and molestation. Society has the right to enforce the observance of these conditions from those who attempt to withhold compliance'" (Mill, 2005, p. 136).

Incidentally, when we mentioned John Rawls's two principles of justice, for which he was inspired precisely by John Stuart Mill (something that is not given the necessary seriousness or attention in contemporary political philosophy), these are precisely these two points. Here Mill clearly states that for the protection and opportunities that society offers, the individual simply must give something back to society according to an equitable principle. What constitutes an equitable principle Mill did not resolve, but this question is answered by his follower Rawls a hundred years later with the principle of redistribution in A Theory of Justice.

However, the author certainly does not stop at restricting liberty. We have stated that what concerns the individual is, according to the author, his own affair, and if he harms himself, society is not entitled to prevent him from doing so. And it is precisely here that another instance of eclecticism occurs, when Mill elsewhere admits that: "Even if a person by his vices and follies causes no direct harm to others, he nevertheless harms by his example and ought to be compelled to control himself for the sake of those whom the sight of him or the revelation of his conduct might corrupt or confuse" (Mill, 2005, pp. 142-143).

In the fourth chapter of On Liberty, Mill states that the individual is obliged to bear the consequences of his actions insofar as they affect the interests of others, and that society has the right to establish norms even where collective responsibility is at stake. "A person is responsible to society for those of his actions which concern the interests of others; in these cases the individual is responsible to society" (Mill, 2001, p. 72). Mill acknowledges that individual liberty must be embedded in broader social conditions that enable its realization and make it a real, not merely formal, possibility.

Contemporary debates, however, show that Mill's principle raises questions to which there is no unambiguous answer. Mill fundamentally rejects so-called hard paternalism, since his argumentation, relying on the aforementioned normative sources of individual liberty, points out that interventions into autonomy weaken both individual and social good, that no one has privileged access to the truth about the good life better than the individual himself, and that society as a whole profits from the diversity of life forms that paternalistic policies systematically suppress.

Mill's understanding of liberty, his normative justification of individuality, and the harm principle have become the subject of extensive philosophical discussion that continues unabated even in the 21st century. Contemporary interpretations (Kahn, Švec, Riley, West...) show that Mill's theory represents not merely a historical contribution to the formation of liberal thought, but remains a living and analytical source of arguments in disputes over the boundaries of personal liberty, the competencies of the state, or the shape of civil society. For the aforementioned reasons (the combination of classical and social liberalism, utilitarianism, elitism), Mill is subjected to criticism from multiple directions that challenge his emphasis on individualism, his utilitarian premises, and the applicability of the harm principle in modern complex societies.

Communitarians in this context argue that Mill's conception of individuality insufficiently reflects the social interconnectedness of the human being. According to them, identity is neither a choice nor a project of an autonomous subject, but is shaped by historical, cultural, and communal bonds.

At the opposite end of the critical spectrum stand libertarian objections, according to which Mill is not sufficiently liberal in the strictly negative understanding of liberty. Libertarians criticize Mill for the utilitarian foundation of his argumentation, which, in their view, relativizes liberty and its deontological starting points by understanding it as a means to individual or social good, rather than as an absolute right that cannot be violated even in the name of individual or collective benefit. Equally, from the liberal perspective stems the criticism that the harm principle is too broad and leaves room for dangerous interpretations. For example, the argument that any behavior with negative externalities can be regulated may, according to liberals, lead to socialist solutions, toward which Mill indeed inclined at the end of his life in Chapters on Socialism.

Modern social liberalism can therefore in many respects be understood as a continuation of Mill's tradition along the line Rousseau – Mill – Hobhouse – Dewey – Rawls. This is despite the fact that Mill is the only utilitarian among those mentioned and most of the cited authors would agree on fundamental questions of individual liberty only in that formally declared (negative) liberty in civil and political society is insufficient and that society or the state should play an active role. While libertarians rejected his utilitarian premises as a threat to personal autonomy (Nozick), social liberals sought to expand his conceptual framework with theories of justice (Rawls). These reinterpretations show that Mill's theory of liberty offers a sufficiently flexible normative foundation that allows us to consider the balance between individual autonomy and social commitments even in the conditions of contemporary democratic societies.

Conclusion

The present study has sought to demonstrate that the normative sources of personal liberty in the thought of John Stuart Mill cannot be adequately grasped either within the reductive framework of classical liberalism or through a simplified utilitarianism. Mill's conception of liberty rests on a multilayered normative structure in which the utilitarian understanding of long-term human development, epistemological fallibilism, and the social-ontological definition of the human being as an entity shaped by the plurality of social relations are systematically interconnected. Liberty thus for Mill does not represent an isolated individual entitlement, but a normative mechanism enabling both individual and social progress.

The analysis has also shown that Mill's utilitarianism cannot be reduced to the maximization of immediate utility. It is a perfectionistically structured understanding of the good, in which liberty, individuality, and the development of higher human capacities acquire a qualitative priority. Epistemological fallibilism plays a key role by depriving both individuals and the collective of any claim to definitive knowledge of the truth, thereby establishing the normative need for freedom of speech, open discussion, and pluralism of life forms as conditions of social learning and the correction of errors.

It has also been shown that Mill's understanding of individuality is not atomistic. The individual is always situated within a social framework that both enables and limits his liberty. The tension between individual and collective autonomy therefore does not represent a theoretical deficit, but an immanent feature of social liberalism that reflects the structural ambivalence of modern pluralist societies. Mill's philosophy of liberty thus transcends the framework of classical liberalism and offers a normative model in which individual autonomy and social responsibility mutually condition one another. It is precisely this integration that makes Mill's thought a permanently relevant conceptual resource for reflecting on contemporary disputes over the boundaries of personal liberty and the legitimacy of public interventions in democratic societies.

Author: Mgr. Jakub Švec, PhD. Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Department of Research on Normativity and Human Rights

Project dedication: The article was created within the project VEGA2/0118/24 – The Social Nature of Normativity as a Starting Point for Explaining the Relationship between Individual and Collective Autonomy.

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