John Stuart Mill
On Liberty
The question
Under what circumstances is it morally
legitimate for the state to intervene in a
person’s life?
Paternalism: The state is justified in
intervening when intervention is needed to
benefit or prevent harm to people.
Anarchism: the state is never morally
legitimate in compelling people to act in
any way.
The Harm Principle
Mill: The state is justified in intervening in
a person’s life, but only when that person
is acting in a way that is harmful to others.
Harm to self does not justify Governmental
intervention.
Necessary vs. Sufficient Conditions
If A then B. A is the sufficient condition, B is the
necessary condition.
Being decapitated is a sufficient condition for
death. But its not a necessary condition. There
are other ways you can die
Oxygen is a necessary condition for animal life. If
there are animals, oxygen is present. But
Oxygen is not sufficient. You can have Oxygen
w/o there also being animals.
The harm principle is a necessary
condition for intervention
Mill does not think every time there is
harm, the gov’t needs to intervene. Its not
H, therefore I.
Rather, if the government intervenes, there
has to be harm . I, therefore H.
Sometimes intervention might be
impractical, or have unpleasant side
effects.
Action and Inaction
Harm includes both harm by action and
harm by inaction. A person who refuses to
serve on a jury or testify in court is
harming by inaction. So too someone who
fails to serve in the army when needed.
The state has a right to compel when a
person is causing harm either by action or
by inaction.
What constitutes producing harm?
Actually producing Harm
Probably producing harm
Increasing the probability of harm
Example: Drunk driving.
Most people think it is legitimate for the state
to prevent people from driving drunk, even
though driving drunk is not actually
harming anyone. It is rather increasing the
probability of harm.
What is harm?
Physical harm
Property damage
Psychological harm?
Should the state intervene when a person’s
mental state is harmed or if they are
offended? Example: death threats, sexual
harassment.
But what about offense? Public sex or
nudity. Garish lawn ornaments?
Is there a slippery slope?
IF we do not allow psychological harm to
count, then the state cannot intervene in
cases in which most people think they
should.
But does this open the floodgates to
considering any act that someone might
find offensive to be harmful
Does this make the Harm Principle
useless as a defense of liberty?
Freedom of Thought and
Discussion.
(1) human fallibity. The repressed belief might be
true.
(2) Even if it is false, it is still better to express it.
This encourages people to come up with
arguments for their views, instead of just
accepting a belief dogmatically.
(3) The free expression of dissent encourages
people to think about what their belief means.
(4) Even if a belief is mostly false, it may have a
grain of truth. The best way to discover this is to
allow for free and open discussion.