The Harm Principle: Law Basics.
The harm principle is a foundational concept in legal and moral philosophy. It was most famously articulated by philosopher John Stuart Mill in his work ‘On Liberty’, written in 1859. The principle's core is an assertion that individuals should be free to act as they wish unless their actions cause harm to others. Mill's aim with this principle was to strike a balance between personal liberty and social responsibility. However, as simple as the principle may seem, it has been central to much debate; in particular, what does 'harm' refer to in the principle and thus how does one define it.
Key Points of the Harm Principle:
The stance that individuals should have autonomy over their own actions, even if those actions are risky, unpopular, or could lead to self-harm. This autonomy is part of personal freedom.
The state (or society) should only interfere with an individual's actions if those actions cause harm to others. Coercion or restrictions are justified when an action directly impacts the rights or well-being of others.
If someone harms themselves, it may be seen as a personal choice; however, if their actions harm another person, intervention may be justified.
The principle acts as a general framework, also leaving room for debate about what constitutes "harm," as well as how extensively the state should intervene.
Where the contention lies:
The definition of harm and what it constitutes is the key to understanding the principle at hand. Does harm mean physical harm done to another party, or does it include the mental harm another experiences as a result of one's actions? Furthermore, Mill mentioned how the principle seeks to allow individuals to carry out actions of any sort provided others are not harmed. Then for instance, wouldn’t all non purely positive actions be deemed unjustifiable and prevented? If that were the case, then in both society and hence the law, one can surely presume that a lot of limitations would be put into place, curtailing our general human rights to freedom and choice.
Imagine the scenario where you were selected over other competitors during a cooking competition. As other competitors have been eliminated in favour of you winning, would this count as harming them?
To answer the above question we must unpack the underlying assumptions in which Mill wrote the principle. He referenced how the harm enacted on others is only counted as harm, should the parties involved have rights to the subject in question. No person has a right to win a cooking competition or any competition at that; a person chosen as the winner is dependent of a variation of factors, for instance performance under stress. As no one has an explicit right to win (and logically so: if everyone had a right to win a competition they participated in, then no one would end up winning as everyone placed in the same top spot), no harm can be done to another party if you were to win, unlike them.
The other issue regarding the principle:
Whether or not your actions harm someone can hence be concluded to depend on the extent of rights the affected party has with regard to the subject at hand. However, how those rights are awarded to individuals, or how they apply, is completely dependent on other philosophical principles that need to be questioned elsewhere, should it be a contentious issue. A good reference to this would be the scenario raised by The Ethics Centre [1]. In their blog post, they stated that “Mill believed the harm principle only applied to people who are able to exercise their freedom responsibly. For instance, paternalism over children was acceptable since children are not fully capable of responsibly exercising freedom, but paternalism over fully autonomous adults was not. He also thought these measures were appropriate to use against “barbarians”, by which he meant non-Europeans in British colonies like India.”
The last sentence posits the potential issue of the principle and how it is utilised in both the law and society. It uncovers a key consideration about the harm principle: how various biases will affect who the principle is applied to and how. Be it political or cultural biases, they all affect rights afforded to individuals one way or another, and hence can be implied to affect how different people are subjected to the harm principle differently. Therefore, to conclude, we must ensure that whenever rights are being given to people, it must be done with utmost consideration of all potential nuances and their effects on the people in question.
[1] The Ethics Centre, ‘Ethics Explainer, The Harm Principle’
<https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-the-harm-principle/> (accessed on 16 November 2024)
Written by: Wesley Harrison