Should a liberal culture be
encouraged?
Michael Lacewing
enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk
© Michael Lacewing
Lord Devlin’s argument
• ‘An established morality is as necessary
as good government to the welfare of
society. Societies disintegrate from
within more frequently than they are
broken up by external pressures.’
Lord Devlin’s argument
• ‘There is disintegration when no
common morality is observed and
history shows that the loosening of
moral bonds is often the first stage of
disintegration, so that society is
justified in taking the same steps to
preserve its moral code as it does to
preserve its government and other
essential institutions.’
Lord Devlin’s argument
• ‘The suppression of vice is as much the
law’s business as the suppression of
subversive activities; it is no more
possible to define a sphere of private
morality than it is to define one of
private subversive activity.’
Lord Devlin’s argument
• ‘It is wrong to talk of private morality
or of the law not being concerned with
immorality as such or to try to set rigid
bounds to the part which the law may
play in the suppression of vice.
There…can be no theoretical limits to
legislation against immorality.’
Lord Devlin’s argument
• ‘You may argue that if a man’s sins
affect only himself it cannot be the
concern of society. If he chooses to get
drunk every night in the privacy of his
own home, is anyone except himself
the worse for it?’
Lord Devlin’s argument
• ‘But suppose a quarter or a half of the
population got drunk every night, what
sort of society would it be? You cannot
set a theoretical limit to the number of
people who can get drunk before
society is entitled to legislate against
drunkenness.’
Lord Devlin’s argument
outlined
• Morality is essential to the welfare of
society.
• Morality is social, not private.
• It is the business of government to look
after the welfare of society.
• So it is legitimate for government to
pass laws on the basis of preserving
moral values.
Mill’s ‘harm principle’
• ‘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. His own good, either
physical or moral, is not a
sufficient warrant.’
• Mill argues this approach is
good for individuals and
society.
Individual welfare
• ‘The only freedom which deserves the name
is that of pursuing our own good in our own
way.’
– Freedom and individuality are connected.
• ‘The free development of individuality is one
of the leading essentials of well-being.’
– Individuality and welfare are connected.
• Therefore, freedom is necessary to the
welfare of individuals.
Social welfare
• Pursuing your own good in your own
way is an ‘experiment of living’. To
limit these experiments on any grounds
other than their causing harm to others
is mistaken and will harm society as a
whole:
Social welfare
• To impose a way of life on moral grounds is
to assume infallibility about moral values.
• Bad ways of living might still have some
insight or truth to them that we would lose if
we banned them. Diversity of lifestyles
causes people to think about how to live,
which leads to better lives.
• Different people need to live different sorts
of lives.
The positions
• Devlin: enforcing an agreed moral code
is necessary to prevent the
disintegration of society.
• Mill: experiments of living will lead to
better ways of living, and so to social
welfare.
The debate: points to Mill
• Is freedom (all that) necessary for
individual welfare?
• People do not learn from their
mistakes so experiments of living will
not produce better lives.
• Mill’s response: freedom is part of the
‘permanent, progressive interests’ we
have as human beings.
The debate: points to Devlin
• Devlin is not concerned with true
morality, but agreed morality. How is
social progress possible on this model?
• Do disagreements in moral values
really lead to social disintegration?
The debate: ‘private
morality’
• Is there an area of ‘private morality’?
• Mill needs to distinguish ‘harm’ from
‘offence’
– ‘Harm’ = harm to our permanent,
progressive interests
• Are any acts so offensive, though not
harmful, as to deserve banning by law?