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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    Mill understands the harm principle in terms of harm prev... — Carmelics
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    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Mill understands the harm principle in terms of harm prevention (HP2) rather than harm causation (HP1).

    Justice & PunishmentRights & Liberty
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.It is hard to justify Good Samaritan laws if the harm principle is understood solely as HP1.
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    • 2.Mill holds that Good Samaritan laws can be squared with the harm principle.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Mill's explicit formulations in On Liberty consistently frame the harm principle as restricting interference to prevent one person from harming others, not from failing to aid them.
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    • 2.Mill treats duties of omission (like Good Samaritan duties) as grounded in utility, not the harm principle, keeping the two normative frameworks distinct.
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    • 3.Collapsing harm prevention and harm causation conflates Mill's liberty principle with his broader utilitarian calculus, obscuring the principle's distinctive libertarian function.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Feinberg's influential taxonomy distinguishes causing harm from failing to prevent harm as categorically different bases for coercive intervention, a distinction HP2 erases.
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    • 2.If HP2 is correct, the harm principle loses its character as a side-constraint on state power and becomes an open-ended license for paternalistic and moralistic legislation.
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    Topics

    Justice & PunishmentRights & Liberty

    Connections

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    Consequentialism1 linked

    Related

    Collapsing harm prevention and harm causation conflates Mill's liberty principle...Feinberg's influential taxonomy distinguishes causing harm from failing to preve...If HP2 is correct, the harm principle loses its character as a side-constraint o...It is hard to justify Good Samaritan laws if the harm principle is understood so...
    +3 moreShow less
    Mill holds that Good Samaritan laws can be squared with the harm principle.Mill treats duties of omission (like Good Samaritan duties) as grounded in utili...Mill's explicit formulations in On Liberty consistently frame the harm principle...

    Similar

    Mill's statement of the harm principle mentions both preventing one fr...92%Mill's harm principle must rely on the broader harm-prevention rationa...92%HP1 (harm causation principle) is narrower than HP2 (harm prevention p...91%The harm principle can be applied prospectively to prevent actions tha...89%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: mill-moral-political
    View source passageHide passage
    Because every case of preventing one person from harming another is a case of harm prevention, but not vice versa, HP1 is narrower than HP2. Indeed, HP1 is a proper part of HP2. Whereas HP1 justifies intervention only when the target herself would be the cause of harm to others, HP2 would justify intervention to prevent harm to others, whether that harm would be caused by the target or in some other way. Clearly, HP2 will justify more intervention than HP1. As we have seen, it is hard to justify
    Extraction notes

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

    Details

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