The Online Library of Liberty

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• Literature of Liberty a Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought
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• Bibliographical Essay: Henry B. Veatch, Natural Law: Dead Or Alive?
• I: Natural Law
• “nature” and “law” In Natural Law
• The Anatomy of Natural Rights
• Egoism and Rights
• The Is/ought Chimera
• Deriving “ought” From “is”
• Facts Vs. Value-laden Whims
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• Why Be Moral?
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• Natural Law and State of Nature
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• Dworkin On Rights
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• The Natural Law Right to Work
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• II: Autonomy, Privacy, and Authority
• Bureaucracy and “the Organization Man”
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• Schooling For Conformity
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• Obedience to Authority
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• III: The Ambiguities of Liberty
• Clarifying Freedom
• Rehabilitating Mill's “harm Principle”
• Experiencing Freedom
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• The Danger of “dangerousness”
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• IV: Slavery
• Slavery, Ideology, and Subordination
• Slavery and Imperialist Ideology
• Enlightenment Liberalism Vs. Slavery
• The Anatomy of a Slave Revolt
• Colonial American Slave Law
• Jefferson On Slavery
• Slavery and the Poor
• V: Planning
• Regulation and the Warfare State
• Mail, Privacy, and Social Control
• Corporate State Capitalism: Coal
• French War “planification”: Chlorates
• Bureaucracy and British Regulation
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• Black Markets Vs. Regulation
• Regulation Vs. Academic Autonomy
• Government Schools and Social Control
• The Economics of Charity
• International State Planning and Inflation
• Competition and Individual Knowledge

Rehabilitating Mill's “Harm Principle”

Dudley R. Knowles

• University of Glasgow, Scotland

“A Reformulation of the Harm Principle.” Political Theory 6 (May 1978): 233–246.

John Stuart Mill's famous “harm principle” enunciated in On Liberty (1859) states that we can justify government restraint over an individual's freedom only to prevent harm to others: That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. 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. Mill's harm principle was attacked, beginning with Justice Fitzjames Stephen, on the grounds that we can devise no clear distinction between actions which harm and actions which do not harm others. Do not most human actions affect others. Do not most human actions affect others to some degree? We can, however, resurrect and rehabilitate the harm principle by providing it with an adequate theory. Such a theory would differentiate self-regarding activities (which would be immune to government interference) from those actions which do harm others.

We can reformulate the harm principle once we realize a vital distinction. Although almost all actions affect others, not all actions harm others. The revised formulation would then read as follows: “Prohibitations are legitimate if and only if, necessarily, token actions of the type described in the prohibition cause harm to others.” For example, the prohibition of theft would be legitimate if harm means the invasion of an individual's interest. Legislators must simply provide a list of actions which fall under this principle. For example, in the case of pollution, the law might set standards for clean air so that government would enforce prohibition against the burning of coal only if noxious emissions exceeded a legally defined threshold.