Is The Need To Prevent Individuals Harming Other Human Beings The Only Sound Justification For Government Action?

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Is The Need To Prevent Individuals Harming Other Human Beings The Only Sound Justification For Government Action?

Modern society invariably involves a system of laws that sets out the rights and duties bestowed upon the individuals that make up the society. By its nature a system of laws is restrictive, as it puts limits on what people are allowed to do and / or gives guidelines laying out what an individual must do. Individual liberty is therefore compromised but the question is - how far can individual liberty be compromised? This essay will explore the liberal answers to this question, a view championed by John Stuart Mill, and evaluate the effectiveness of the harm principle when applied to both practical situations and ethical theory and will attempt to show that government intervention can stretch beyond the harm principle.

This Liberal idea of the harm principle is put best by J. S. Mill who believes that the state should not prevent people from exercising their individual liberties so long as they do not harm other individuals. “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 civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.” [J.S. Mill, On Liberty – introduction p.14] For Mill and other liberal thinkers like him there is no need to restrict the actions of an individual in any way so long as those actions do not impede on any other individual’s liberties. For example if you don’t like drinking don’t drink and avoid drinking but it is not right to ban it. This view lays down limits to the level of government action that is permitted but most modern governments do have some aspects of prohibition that are motivated by benevolence.

Mill and other liberals who would wish to limit government action to the harm principle, do so in order to protect the individual. For Mill individuality is an important element of well-being. Personal sovereignty has a great deal of significance when evaluating the rightness or wrongness of any coercion placed upon an individual. From the liberal point of view, diversity and progress originates from individuality. “Mankind are not infallible; that their truths, for the most part, are only half truths; that unity unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite opinions is not desirable, and diversity not an evil but a good” [J. S. Mill, On Liberty – Of Individuality, As One of the Elements of Well-Being p. 63] If individual freedom was suppressed by the state people would act in a more uniform way, cutting out inspiration, diversity and originality. For Mill this is a greater evil than allowing the individual to suffer his own costs from his actions.

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However, Mill, in making this judgment, seems to have overlooked the empirical evidence that has shown throughout history creative and diverse cultures and figures have emerged from situations where there exists a regime that oppresses individuality. Despite the military discipline placed over the German and Russian peoples during the twentieth century, individuality and creativity still managed to survive.

Mill goes on to add that suppression of the individual damages more than human diversity. The well-being of a person depends, at least partly on how he is empowered to exercise his choices. If somebody is forced to do something for their ...

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