'Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign'. This title includes an essay that dedicated to this 'one very simple principle'. It records responses to the author's books and comments on his fear of 'the tyranny of the majority'.

This expanded edition of John Stuart Mill's 'Utilitarianism' includes the text of his 1868 speech to the British House of Commons defending the use of capital punishment in cases of aggravated murder. The speech is significant both because its topic remains timely and because its arguments illustrate the applicability of the principle of utility to questions of large-scale social policy.

The focus of the book is the application of ethics to difficult and controversial social questions.

When did Rembrandt get old? Such questions eventually lead us to the problem of vagueness. Williamson traces its history, questions conventional theories and defends the realist view that vagueness is a kind of ignorance.