KRYSAN

On Liberty

1.  The Harm Principle

Today, I'm looking at something called The Harm Principle as set out in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty.  ^Marian

Published in 1859, On Liberty is the classic defence of the concept of negative liberty, the main thrust of the argument being that individuals should be left free from interference, either by the state or by other citizens.  One of Mill's main targets was what he called 'the tyranny of the majority', the oppressive effects of social pressure to conform.

On Liberty provided a range of arguments as to why we should preserve a large area of individual freedom, including freedom to be eccentric and outspoken.  Not all the arguments are sound, but On Liberty has nevertheless exerted and continues to exert a profound influence on decisions about the acceptable limits of negative freedom.

Mill himself described On Liberty as 'a kind of philosophic textbook of a single truth', the aim being to assert one very simple principle which is now usually known as the Harm Principle.  He sums this up thus,

"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 good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant."  (Mill (1985 edn), p. 68

Freedom from constraint. In the first instance, Mill wants to establish an area of freedom from constraint or interference for each adult member of a civilized society.  The limit on that freedom is where the actions of one individual harm someone else.  Only when there is risk of harm to others is there any justification for intervention. 

Mill explicity rules out paternalistic intervention, intervention for the good of the individual concerned.

So, in Mill's view, 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. In the part of a person's conduct which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute.  Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. 

It is tempting to suppose that Mill believes that the kind of freedom he describes is simply a natural or fundamental human right.  However, Mill rejects outright the notion that we have any natural rights, regarding such talk as 'nonsense on stilts'.  For Mill, all meaningful talk about human rights is grounded on a more basic principle, known as the Greatest Happiness Principle. 

Maximizing happiness.  According to Mill, to say that you have a right to freedom means that a law preserving your freedom will tend to maximize happiness, or 'utility' as he calls it. In order to understand this, you need to understand Mill's utilitarianism, the moral philosophy which he thinks provides the ultimate answers to questions of how we should behave towards each other.

Mill's utiltarianism.  As a utilitarian Mill believed that the morally right action in any circumstance was the one which would bring about the greatest total (or aggregate) happiness.  This, then, is the Greatest Happiness Principle, sometimes called the Principle of Utility.  In other words, all moral questions boil down to the probable consequences of the various possible courses of action:

"Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." (Mill (1991 edn), p. 137)

Man as a progressive being.  Space does not permit more, simply to say that Mills' notion of happiness is complex but is grounded on 'the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.'  A quote to remember in relation to such self-realization is,

"Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest."  (Mill (1985 edn.), p.72)

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I leave you to 'do philosophy' by pondering (as will I) on three problematic aspects of Mill's theory.  These may be summarized as follows:

(1) What exactly Mill means by 'harm'?; (2) Are there really any actions which don't affect other people?; (3) Is the Harm Principle really utilitarian?.

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I'll be back soon with more from John Stuart Mill, this time with his arguments in favour of freedom of speech and about the value of playing devil's advocate in philosophical discussion.

Thank you for joining me,

Marian @ Krysan

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On Liberty

2.  Freedom of Speech

Assumptions.  What emerged from the above discussion on the Harm Principle is the degree of Mill's individualistic assumptions.  He believes that individuals are capable of many actions which do not seriously affect others and are not the concern of anyone else.  His opponents, however, make the assumption that just about every action an individual performs can potentially affect other members of that society adversely.

Should members of a civilized society tolerate unlimited freedom of expression?  Should everybody be allowed to say, print, publish, broadcast, or communicate electronically any view whatsoever, no matter how sexist, racist, revolutionary, offensive or pornographic?  In short, should I be allowed to say what I like? 

Very few believe that there should be no limits at all on the views people can express.  Mill's Harm Principle provides a way of discriminating between those views which should be tolerated and those that should not.  According to this Principle, any view which does not harm others should be tolerated; only views which cause harm to others may be suppressed.

Mill is explicit in saying that mere offence to others doesn't amount to harm.  The harm principle requires more tangible harm than mere offence in order to justify suppressing an individual's freedom to express his or her opinion.  For instance, a speech which incited racial violence would be the sort of expression of opinion which a follower of Mill might be prepared to ban. 

Mill puts it this way,

"Even opinions lose their immunity when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act."

Nevertheless, for Mill, freedom of speech is a mark of a civilized society and provides a valuable safeguard against stagnation and decay (Dead Dogma). 

Mill's  four main arguments for preserving freedom of expression are outlined below:

1.  The Infallibility Argument

If you assume that you are infallible, you assume that you never make a mistake.  Mill maintains that anyone who suppresses a view assumes that their own views on the subject cannot be mistaken.  The effects of the suppression of ideas through the assumption of infallibility can be devasting to society in (a) the loss of a multitude of promising intellects; and (b) loss of opportunities to develop intellectually through freedom of expression.

2.  The Dead Dogma Argument - truth by authority

The main thrust of this argument is that ideas stay alive when they are challenged, but become fossilized when left unquestioned and unexamined.  Mill, like any philosopher worthy of his name, was fundamentally opposed to the idea that the views held by authority (truth by authority) should not be challenged. 

3.  The Partly True Argument - conventional wisdom

Mill points out that received opinion is rarely the whole truth on any matter, and that views which are, when taken as a whole, false, may contain important elements which are true.

4.  The Link with Action Argument.

Mill's fourth argument for freedom of thought and expression, the claim that unchallenged views lose their power to stir people to act, is closely linked with his Dead Dogma Argument.  When a belief isn't challenged it ends up being held as simply a verbal formula incapable of stirring anyone to action.. 

7.  Pornography: a case for restricting freedom of expression.   

Finally, it would be interesting to think what Mill might have said about the issue of whether pornography should be banned.  He certainly did not discuss the issue of whether or not his Harm Principle would justify state censorship of pornography.  However, this is one of the commonest areas in which principles of freedom of speech and expression have been challenged in recent years. 

A number of people have argued that there are good grounds for restricting individuals' negative freedom to create, purchase and consume various kinds of pornography, and that a civilized society should censor a wide range of pornographic publications.  Grounds are: Harm to User, Harm to Children, Harm to Women. 

Indeed, On Liberty is frequently cited in the pornography debate today and this was so, for example, in the Williams Report on Obscenity and Film Censorship (1979) when several of those who presented submissions to the committee cited Mill's book in their support. 

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The present-day debates about the censorship of pornography bring out some of the difficulties of applying Mill's Harm Principle.  Here's another question of relevance in today's world,

What would Mill's (1) Harm Principle, (2) Infallibility Argument and (3) Dead Dogma Argument each imply about the circulation of the views expressed by those who deny that the Holocaust took place?

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Tomorrow, I'll be back with Mill on 'Experiments of Living' where I will look at his arguments in favour of allowing people to live as they please within the limits set by the Harm Principle.  

And, by the way, in relation to playing devil's advocate in philosophy (something Mill himself did) there's a lot of truth in the following,

"Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post as soon as there is no enemy in the field."  MILL 

Thank you for joining me today, 

Marian

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On Liberty

3.  Experiments of Living

What follows is a brief analysis of the value of negative freedom in a particular context, that is, in choice of lifestyles.

The four principle arguments that Mill used to defend the negative freedom of expression also apply to the choice of how we live our lives.  For instance, Mill suggests that to impose a particular way of life on others reveals your assumption of infallibility on the matter of how life should be lived. 

Mill goes to great pains to outline the benefits he thinks result from toleration of diversity within a society.  The only limit he wants to set on how people choose to live is that they shouldn't be permitted to harm other people.  Indeed, there are likely to be tangible benefits to society if many difference approaches to life are tolerated.  However, at the point at which your way of living causes or is likely to cause harm to other people, your activities can justifiably be curtailed. 

The gist of the argument in relation to happiness (utility) is that if you get your way of life 'off the peg', simply accepting the traditions and customs of the society in which you happens to find yourself, you miss out on the possibility of an important kind of fulfilment, that is, the fulfilment that comes from designing your own life for yourself.

A flourishing society depends on the negative freedom of its members to invent and put into practice their own experiments of living.  Only when there is a risk of injuring other people in the process should the state or anyone else intervene and forcibly restrain you from expressing your individuality through the choices you make for yourself. 

 "He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation.  He who chooses his plan for himself employs all his faculties."  Mill, p. 123

Geniuses. 

One reason Mill gives for permitting individuals to organize their own lives as they see fit is that without this sort of freedom those highly original individuals we label 'geniuses' would not be likely to develop.  The great originality of geniuses prevents society sliding into complacent dogmatism - 'without them life would become a stagnant pool'.

According to Mill, geniuses, by their originality (even, presumably, when their views are misguided), keep a society's central beliefs alive by challenging them.  Even though they are always a small minority of any population, geniuses help a society and its members flourish. 

"But in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.  Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom."   Mill

Mill's argument about genius can be simply stated as follows:

Premise 1          Only in an atmosphere of freedom can genius breathe freely.

Premise 2          Societies which restrict negative freedom don't provide an atmosphere of freedom.

Conclusion         Such societies won't permit genius to breathe freely.

Presumably, his view is that in a society in which a range of negative freedoms are protected there is a better chance of geniuses emerging and developing than in a more oppressive society in which individuals' behaviour is restricted either by the law or by social pressures to conform.  He hints that such societies are likely to breed medocrity to the detriment of societies and thus to humanity in general.

Yet, even though the above has some initial plausibility, it is a generalization easily contradicted by historical evidence.  Note this quotation from Graham Green's film, The Third Man,

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.  In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce ...?  The cuckoo clock."  (Quoted in Sherry (1994), p. 254)

I could go on ... but what is clear is that some societies have preserved a wide range of negative liberties without being blessed with many geniuses as a result.  It is not obviously true that genius requires a range of negative liberties; some people even argue that censoring views is the surest way of giving them life!  Think on that.

Human diversity as an argument for liberty.

One of Mill's strongest arguments in defence of preserving an area of freedom for each individual is that we differ considerably in what we desire and in what makes us happy.

"'Imposing a single way of life on all members of a society would be like treating an orchid, a cactus, a lettuce and a sunflower all in the same way.  The conditions in which orchids thrive would very soon kill most cacti, and most lettuces would turn limp and shirivel in the optimum conditions for a sunflower." Warburton, 2007 

Human beings differ too much for there to be any sense in attempting to make all members of a society conform to one model of the good life.

Implications for changing criminal law. 

The influence of On Liberty is most apparent today in debates about changes to the criminal law.  The publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957, which recommended decriminalizing male homosexual activity in England and Wales (provided that it occurred in private between consenting adults), ignited a public exchange of view about the philosophical justification for the criminal law.

The main participants in the debate were Lord Devlin (a judge) and H. L. A. Hart (an Oxford professor).  Devlin opposed the principle on which the Wolfenden Report was based, ie, that there should be a realm of private morality (and immorality) which is none of the law's business. 

Finally, it remains only to say that the underlying principle of the Wolfenden Report differs very little from Mill's Harm Principle.  Both see the prime function of restrictions on liberty as being to prevent harm to others. 

It remains only to mention that Lord Devlin's attack on the principles of the Wolfenden Report might just as well have been focused directly on Mill's Harm Principle.  In essence, it was based on his belief that society needs a single public morality, and this morality should be enforced on all, for the good of all. 

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There is more, of course - much more. 

But, here I must conclude with a reminder that Mill's approach through On Liberty emphasizes the importance of being rational in human affairs.  We should hold our views, not as prejudices, but on the basis of reason and evidence.  We should be able to provide arguments in defence of what we believe. 

As Nigel Warburton points out in Arguments for Freedom,

"Toleration in most matters is the best policy, since we are all fallible creatures."  Warburton, 2007

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And who can argue with that ... 

Marian

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