Talk:Harm principle

Editors, please help a lay reader. There seems to be a considerable difference between the Libertarian principle that one person's freedom extends until it infringes on another's *freedom*, and the harm principle that a person's freedom extends until it *harms* another. The way it is it sounds as if Mill was a Libertarian. Thank you.

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—Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.109.129.200 (talk) 09:54, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

So, by the modified principle, isn't just about anythnig in violation of the principle? It seems unjust and irrational to command that all people should follow the will of the most conservative.

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Actually, you're interpreting it exactly wrong. What the Harm Principle forbids is the interference in the actions of others if their actions pose no danger to anyone other than themselves.

Uhm, can you say this in the article? It's concise & clearer than what is there now. Ileanadu (talk) 04:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

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Can the statement that 'On Liberty' is Mill's most famous book be backed up? Until someone decides that it can, I will insert the word 'arguably'.

- How about we remove this term completely? Miltonkeynes 17:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

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Mill suggests that we need some rules of conduct that regulate the actions and words of members of a political community. The limitation he places on free expression is “one very simple principle,” now usually referred to as the Harm Principle, which states 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. (1978, 9) There is a great deal of debate about what Mill had in mind when he referred to harm; for the purposes of this essay he will be taken to mean that an action has to directly and in the first instance invade the rights of a person (Mill himself uses the term rights, despite basing the arguments in the book on the principle of utility). The limits on free speech will be very narrow because it is difficult to support the claim that most speech actually causes harm to the rights of others. This is the position staked out by Mill in the first two chapters of On Liberty and it is a good starting point for a discussion of free speech because it is hard to imagine a more liberal position. It becomes very difficult to defend free speech once it can be demonstrated that its practice does actually invade the rights of others.

If we accept the argument based on the harm principle we need to ask “what types of speech, if any, cause harm?” Once we can answer this question, we have found the correct limits to free expression. Mill uses the example of speech related to corn dealers; he suggests that it is fine to claim that corn dealers are starvers of the poor if such a view is expressed through the medium of the printed page, but that it is not permissible to express the same view to an angry mob, ready to explode, that has gathered outside the house of the dealer. The difference between the two is that the latter is an expression “such as to constitute...a positive instigation to some mischievous act,” (1978, 53), namely, to place the rights, and possibly the life, of the corn dealer in danger. As Daniel Jacobson (2000) notes, it is important to remember that Mill will not sanction limits to free speech simply because someone is harmed by the statements of others. For example, the corn dealer may suffer severe financial hardship if he is accused of starving the poor. Mill distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate harm, and it is only when speech causes a direct and clear violation of rights that it can be limited. Other examples where the harm principle may apply include libel laws, blackmail, advertising blatant untruths about commercial products, advertising dangerous products to children (e.g. cigarettes), and securing truth in contracts. In most of these cases, it is possible to make an argument that harm has been committed and that rights have been violated.

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Beyond that, in debate, the Harm Principle is often used to defend some form of freedom. A simplistic, and perhaps not totally accurate summary would be: the government should restrict one's actions if said actions constitute harm to anyone but himself. The government may not stop me from punching the wall because that only hurts me. The state may prevent me from punching a person, because that harms other people as well. An underaged citizen is a ward of the state; that is, because he is considered to be intellectually immature, it becomes the government's duty to place laws restricting him so that he does not harm himself. The harm Mill talks about is direct. So you can't say that one may not punch the wall because you would injure yourself and have to be brought to the hospital, where you congest the lines and cause harm and suffering to someone with a more serious injury.

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We should include Joel Feinberg's work on this page. He wrote four volumes, one being "Harm to Others," where he reformulates (very meticulously) Mill's "one simple principle." Far better than Mill's (though not perfect by any means). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.239.169.81 (talk) 19:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

the section on harm is far more satisfying than on offence. the definition should be more succinct in the latter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.124.63.151 (talk) 16:16, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

miss something about qualified>> versus unqualified harm principle 91.16.133.222 (talk) 10:01, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I've never come across the 'offence principle' in Mill's work; it appears to me more of an inference than his actual thought. What do we think? Thedaggerz (talk) 18:38, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

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Shouldn't "harmless wrongdoing" be considered a paradox, not redundant? He sees harm and wrongdoing as the same thing, so "harmFUL wrongdoing" would be redundant.