I've read some of Mill's writing and found it worthwhile. Especially when taken in the context of his era, the surrounding culture of the day, and other factors. However, that bold statement is capable of meaning vastly different things to different people and so, could easily result in conflict or the undermining of what most would consider the author's intent. [quote]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. [/quote] The term and point on which all things could "pivot" is based on how a reader, or a society, defines and determines "harm to others". I will use an example of his era and one that is still being used (in various forms today). What if the sovereign individual is engaged in non-coercive bigamy? Within the walls of their own home and within the fences of their own property, the fact that one person is simultaneously married to multiple other people has no physical impact and on its face, it brings no harm to anyone else. But, there are those in the community who would suggest, maintain, or even claim with certainty that the practice of bigamy "brings harm to the community as a whole by its disregard for core cultural standards and its existence undermines a specific tradition at the root of all surrounding society", that the harm done is to destabilize a social foundation that is seen as mutual and fundamental by the rest of the community. Even more-so, while the union may be only fully known and understood within the walls of the practitioner, its existence is known throughout the community and there are unavoidable occurrences where this "non-standard practice" would be observable and disruptive to the rest of the community. That was one argument made back when Mill first authored his works, and it still remains a point today. While it is possible for people to consider and accept the idea of personal-autonomy and unbridled human liberty extending as far as the individual wants with the border and limit of it being the harming of another (or a group of anothers), what about the unspoken, unwritten, and rarely explored matters of everyday human interaction and social contact? To be sure, it's a prime example of a slippery slope argument, but what harm is done to others if an individual decides to wear revealing clothes in public? How about none at all? How about if they engage in mutual unclothed contact with a consenting fellow sovereign individual in a location that is owned by no one, but is visible by all? At what point does the community decide that the line between an individual's liberty and the risk of harm to the community is drawn or when is it being approached? We're still arguing the same thing today, but with details that folks in the mid-19th Century couldn't have imagined, much less verbalized or had opinions about. They, just like many of us today, have an acceptance of "unspoken rules and limits for civilized people" where society puts limits and pressures on the individual, regardless of whether the individual consents or not.