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Course: Wireless Philosophy > Unit 10
Lesson 8: Liberty and the harm principleLiberty and the harm principle
In this Wireless Philosophy video, Geoff Pynn (Elgin Community College) discusses liberalism, the idea that the protection and promotion of liberty is the state’s fundamental job. According to John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle, this means that the only basis for state coercion is the prevention of harm to others. But do modern liberal states respect the Harm Principle?
View our Democracy learning module and other videos in this series here: https://www.wi-phi.com. Created by Gaurav Vazirani.
Video transcript
Hi, I’m Geoff Pynn, and I teach
philosophy at Elgin Community College. In this video, I’m going to talk about
the idea of Liberalism. At least since the French Revolution,
politics has been seen as a fight between liberals on the left and conservatives
on the right. But in most modern states, all mainstream political parties agree
that the protection and promotion of liberty is one of the state’s fundamental
jobs. This idea is known as liberalism. The US Declaration of Independence lists
liberty as one of the three “inalienable rights” all of us share. The French
Declaration of the Rights of Man asserts that “human beings are and remain born
free and equal in rights.” And the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights echoes
the French Declaration almost verbatim. Liberals think that any legitimate
state must respect its citizens' liberty. Since most laws restrict people’s freedom
in some way, in a liberal state, laws have to meet a high standard to be
justified. What gives the state the right to infringe people’s liberty, when
everybody has the moral right to be free? The English liberal John Stuart
Mill thought that the only thing that can justify forcibly coercing
someone was preventing harm to others. Harming others violates their
liberty, so a liberal state would have an interest in preventing you from doing
so, and generally speaking, your freedom doesn’t include the freedom to harm
others. So laws that prevent you from harming others can advance the cause
of liberty without violating your own. But imagine what a state would be like if
its laws really respected the Harm Principle. Many existing laws
would be very difficult to justify this way. For
example, in most places it’s illegal to walk around
naked in public. But does this really
prevent harm to others? Or consider laws against
gambling, sex work, or drug possession.These
activities do carry some risk of harm to others,but so
do many activities that liberal states generally permit,
such as making a risky investment, driving
to work, or drinking alcohol. Far more people die every
year from alcohol-related causes than from all other
drugs combined. But few liberals would argue
for a return to prohibition. Or consider taxation.
When the state imposes a tax, it takes your money, by force if necessary,
whether you like it or not, in order to pay for other things.
Some government spending prevents harm. But a lot of it
doesn’t seem to -- or, at least, it doesn’t seem like
harm prevention is what justifies it. Public schools,
government research, national parks, mail delivery… Few people
would defend these expensive government functions simply
by saying that they prevent harm. Rather, many laws are about decency,
morality, and the common good, -- not about preventing harm. It’s
indecent to walk around naked in public -- that’s
why it’s illegal. Gambling, paying for sex, and using hard drugs are
widely regarded as immoral -- and that’s the main reason there is
so much support for keeping them illegal. Education, science, and art advance
the common good -- and that’s why states use tax dollars
to fund them. Strict adherence to the Harm Principle would undermine any
law justified on these grounds. Some liberal philosophers, known as
libertarians, embrace this radical idea. They argue that the
state shouldn’t be in the business of promoting
decency, morality, or the common good. They think public health, city parks, and universal education are probably
illegitimate uses for our tax dollars. Some libertarians
compare taxation itself to forced labor, a profound
violation of liberty. And without tax revenue, government
would grind to a halt. Most liberals aren’t that radical.
In fact, in contemporary politics, the word “liberal” is often used to refer to
someone who favors more government intervention, for example to protect
the environment, improve literacy, or promote equality. Isn’t it conservatives
who want less government intervention? If liberals are really all about protecting
and promoting liberty it's hard to see how these
initiatives are truly liberal. But there are different ways of thinking
about what liberty means. Consider education.
It may not be quite true to say that knowledge is power.
But it’s plausible that ignorance limits your liberty. Someone
who doesn’t know which mushrooms are poisonous doesn’t have the freedom
to enjoy mushrooms they’ve gathered themselves. Someone who
does know this has a freedom her ignorant friend lacks.
If you want to promote liberty, making sure people are
educated seems like a good way to do it. So maybe the cause
of promoting liberty is about more than just
protecting the freedoms you already have. Maybe
it’s also about expanding the freedoms available
to you. Could a law that infringes your
liberty but increases the liberty of others be
justified? Or does the Harm Principle mark
out the inviolable boundary of the liberal state? What do you think?