Mill's On Liberty: A Critical Guide is a collection of ten essays and a substantial introduction by editor C. L. Ten. It is an early entry into a new series of ‘Critical Guides’ by Cambridge University Press, though it is unclear in what sense this collection is intended to fulfill its titular purpose. It is not a guide to criticism of Mill's greatest work – in fact, it does not often evaluate or even recount the longstanding debates in Mill scholarship – and it is not really particularly ‘critical’ in the sense of being a careful evaluation of the enduring puzzles found in On Liberty (OL). Nonetheless, students and scholars of Mill will find much of interest in these pages.

The essays can be divided roughly into two groups – the first set addressing concerns arising from the text of OL itself, the second assessing the effectiveness of Mill's arguments in light of recent developments in political thought such as political liberalism, neo-republicanism, and multiculturalism. The first of the former is Henry West's ‘Mill's case for liberty’, which might, along with Ten's introductory chapter, serve as an instructive analytical guide to Mill's basic argument in OL. West skillfully considers several of the persistent ambiguities in Mill's argument, but the real value here is his insistence on linking Mill's account of liberty to his utilitarian desire to ‘increase human happiness and decrease misery’ (p. 37). David Brink's entry argues that Mill's defense of liberal rights extends from his defense of free expression. The two arguments against expressive paternalism developed in Chapter II of OL – what Brink calls the ‘truth-tracking rationale’ and the ‘deliberative rationale’ – direct the subsequent discussion of free action in Chapter III. The twist here is that the limits on freedom of action reflect back upon the discussion of expressive liberty. If some paternalism is justified with regard to action – here Brink points to Mill's prohibition on selling oneself into slavery (p. 56) – then, by the same logic, paternalism of the ‘deliberation-enhancing’ variety may be necessary in regards to expression. In ‘Racism, blasphemy, and free speech’, Jonathan Riley swaps the standard free-speech absolutism reading of OL for one of a ‘general policy of laissez-faire’ (p. 66) towards expression. According to Riley, Mill cannot and does not hold expression to be purely self-regarding and only therefore protected; rather, expression is best left alone because such an approach increases the general welfare to a greater extent than the opposite course. By this token, ‘discussion’ – the voluntary exchange of words – is sharply distinguished from presumably involuntary exchanges such as threats. Finally, in ‘John Stuart Mill, Ronald Dworkin, and paternalism’, Robert Young identifies and confronts four arguments against ‘hard’ paternalism developed by Mill in OL: first, that individuals typically know their interests better than others (including governments); second, that paternalistic guidelines seldom match up with on-the-ground realities; third, that interference of any sort impinges upon individual liberty; fourth, and most importantly, that paternalism robs individuals of the opportunity to make their own mistakes and thereby lead truly self-directed lives. Young extends Mill's anti-paternalist arguments by way of Ronald Dworkin's distinction between ‘additive’ and ‘constitutive’ approaches to interest – the former stressing overall interest satisfaction regardless of the agent's endorsement, the latter arguing that endorsement is necessary for true interest satisfaction (i.e. ‘unless and until an individual endorses a component it cannot contribute to making his life valuable for him’) (p. 221). Young rightly argues that by Mill's own utilitarian standard – and as revealed by Mill's position on self-enslavement – such hard anti-paternalism is undone by a concern for the autonomy of future selves. Young probably overstates Mill's anti-paternalism – no mention is made of the heavily paternalistic qualifications Mill places on liberty at the opening of OL – but the essay is interesting and timely nonetheless.

The second set of essays looks back on OL through the lens of several prominent contemporary movements in political theory. Entries from Gerald F. Gaus and Robert Amdur attempt to narrow the conceptual gap between Mill's liberalism and the political liberalism of contemporary liberals like Rawls. Gaus's ‘State neutrality and controversial values in On Liberty’ does so by considering the extent to which OL complies with Charles Larmore's ‘second-level neutrality’ requirement – the extent to which Mill's justification of state neutrality is itself neutral with regard to competing conceptions of the good (p. 83). Through a clever and altogether original process of identifying and classifying the myriad arguments of OL, Gaus argues that Mill's steady consideration of objections to his theory points to an essentially neutralist foundation. Gaus reminds us, not so obviously, that ‘On Liberty is filled with arguments’ (p. 104), most of which aim to justify his admittedly controversial view to a wide variety of competing comprehensive doctrines. While Gaus narrows the conceptual gap between Mill and contemporary liberals by pulling Mill closer to neutralist liberalism, Amdur pushes contemporary liberals – in this case, Rawls – back to Mill. In ‘Rawls's critique of On Liberty’, Amdur considers two lines of criticism running from Rawls to Mill: first, that for all the force of Mill's arguments for liberty, it ultimately fails to ensure equal distribution of liberty; second, that liberty in Mill's scheme is fatally contingent upon the satisfaction of certain teleological requirements. In contrast, Rawls holds up a conception of liberties that are both basic in terms of priority and equally distributed. According to Amdur, however, while Mill's arguments for liberty in Section II of OL may be susceptible to Rawls’ critique, the more Kantian approach in Section III – in which liberty is seen as necessary for the development of individuality – is considerably less so. In fact, as Amdur shows, Rawls himself ultimately grounds the priority of the basic liberties in the need for ‘the adequate development and the full and informed exercise of their two moral powers’ (p. 114, quoting Rawls), the second of which – the capacity to develop and pursue a conception of the good – greatly resembles Mill's description of individuality. Ultimately, Amdur argues, Rawls is closer to Mill on these matters than he likely recognized.

In ‘Mill on consensual domination’, Frank Lovett examines Mill's positions on self-enslavement and marital domination through the lens of the recent neo-republican move to liberty as non-domination. When it comes to consensual domination, Lovett argues, Mill's non-interference approach to liberty serves him ill – in fact, at critical junctures in OL and The Subjection of Women, he is forced to ‘set aside’ (p. 124) his own view of liberty in order to arrive at positions he desires. Ultimately, Lovett argues, Mill would have been better served by a conception of liberty as non-domination. Lovett's conclusion is, on the one hand, unsurprising, since liberty as non-domination was developed precisely in order to get around the thornier limitations of non-interference. On the other hand, Lovett's thesis is undermined by the fact that Mill's view of liberty, dependent as it is on a notoriously tricky idea of ‘harm’, is, in fact, not the simplified negative liberty of Paley, Bentham, or, for that matter, Hobbes – a complication implied by several of the accompanying essays in this volume. In Wendy Donner's ‘Autonomy, tradition, and the enforcement of morality’ and Jeremy Waldron's ‘Mill and multiculturalism’, the question of consensual domination is continued by way of the multiculturalism debates. At issue for Donner is Mill's defense of Mormon polygamy, which he articulates on pluralist grounds, and in particular how one squares the defense of such an illiberal practice with the critique of nineteenth-century marriage found in Subjection of Women. Donner's answer is unequivocal: Mill's stance on polygamy is a misapplication of his theory, a ‘failure of his sympathetic and empathetic imagination’ (p. 147). The theory of individuality developed in OL requires the protection of individual liberty against illiberal minority subcultures in the same way it requires such protection from the state and majority culture. Waldron weighs in by emphasizing that any case for multiculturalism on Millian grounds – and he thinks there is a case – is heavily constrained by the priority of individual (as opposed to group) liberties. Cultural diversity can be justified to the extent that it promotes an atmosphere of open and potentially antagonistic discussion – the atmosphere in which individuality may thrive. A multiculturalism compatible with OL is one in which the distinction ‘between the inviolability of persons and the vulnerability of their beliefs’ (p. 173) is maintained.

The final entry, Justine Burley's ‘Mill, liberty, and (genetic) “experiments in living” ’, asks how Mill might approach the question of cloning. Its engagement with Mill, unfortunately, does not extend far beyond its title, and on balance Burley tells us much about current cloning debates and little about OL.

Those interested in contemporary debates will find much of interest in the entries by Young, Gaus, Amdur, Lovett, Donner, and Waldron; those more concerned with historical issues will appreciate the essays by Ten, West, and Brink. Those in search of a refresher course on Mill's seminal work would do well to consult the first two chapters (Ten, West). While Ten's volume is ultimately little more than the sum of its parts, scholars of Mill will be happy to discover that the parts are frequently quite good.