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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Mill understands the harm principle in terms of harm prevention (HP2) rather than harm causation (HP1).

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 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 for 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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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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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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