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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    Good Samaritan laws cannot straightforwardly be justified... — Carmelics
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    Good Samaritan laws cannot straightforwardly be justified by appeal to the harm principle.

    Justice & PunishmentRights & Liberty
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.The harm principle justifies restricting liberty only to prevent harm to others.
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    • 2.It is not clear that failing to rescue a drowning child harms the child in the counterfactual sense.
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    • 3.If the failure to rescue does not constitute harm, the harm principle provides no direct justification for compelling rescue.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Omissions can constitute harm when a person's pre-existing vulnerability is causally deepened by another's inaction.
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    • 2.Joel Feinberg's 'harm as setback to interests' includes worsening a victim's condition relative to their baseline, encompassing preventable death.
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    • 3.If failing to rescue deepens harm by foreclosing recovery, the harm principle's counterfactual framing is satisfied without requiring the rescuer to be the original cause.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Mill himself treats liberty-limiting obligations as legitimate when the cost to the agent is negligible and the benefit to another is substantial, as in his bridge example.
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    • 2.The harm principle was never restricted by Mill to acts of commission; he explicitly acknowledges compellable positive duties in cases of obvious public benefit.
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    • 3.Good Samaritan obligations, when minimally burdensome, fall within the Millian category of enforceable social duties rather than constituting a separate justificatory problem.
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    Related

    Good Samaritan obligations, when minimally burdensome, fall within the Millian c...If failing to rescue deepens harm by foreclosing recovery, the harm principle's ...If the failure to rescue does not constitute harm, the harm principle provides n...It is not clear that failing to rescue a drowning child harms the child in the c...
    +5 moreShow less
    Joel Feinberg's 'harm as setback to interests' includes worsening a victim's con...Mill himself treats liberty-limiting obligations as legitimate when the cost to ...Omissions can constitute harm when a person's pre-existing vulnerability is caus...The harm principle justifies restricting liberty only to prevent harm to others.The harm principle was never restricted by Mill to acts of commission; he explic...

    Similar

    It is hard to justify Good Samaritan laws if the harm principle is und...92%Conflating the two produces ambiguity about whether Good Samaritan law...87%Mill's harm principle does not straightforwardly settle all questions ...85%The harm principle is complex and does not operate as an absolute rule84%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: mill-moral-political
    View source passageHide passage
    In discussing enforceable duties to give evidence or Samaritan aid, Mill claims that the failure to confer benefits constitutes harm. But it is not in general true that the failure to provide benefits always counts as a harm. In many cases it seems not to. You would benefit me by transferring all your savings to my bank account (let us assume); it doesn’t follow that your failure to do so harms me. Why not? Presumably, because we assess harms counterfactually: if x harms me, it makes me signific
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit