What justifies using the law to curb person's rights and freedoms? Some believe that the law of the land should reflect the moral beliefs of the majority. But others argue that the rights of individuals should be protected fromt the tyranny of the majority. It is a matter of fact that the majority will always attempt to impose their will on the minority. The rights of the minority are of no concern to the majority until the roles switch. The majority of today could become tomorrow's minority. This is why protecting the rights of each individual ought to be important to both the majority and the minority. It is also a steady fact that wisdom is not an exclusive possession of the masses. What ought to be the ideal in the legislation of a society is a primary concern for both preventing and punishing people's harmful behavior towards others and for also protecting people's rights to do what they want if they are doing no harm to anyone else. This is essentially the harm principle that John Stuart Mill wrote about in his On Liberty, but the analogies and discrepencies between what he wrote and what I write today are of little interest to me as they are not important. What I say should be judged on its merits alone.
The most significant problem with this principle is defining harm. There is no easy way to get around it, but these problems should be the same for all involved. We should not be so quick to judge and condemn. Some people construe harm too widely; they would have us all live by their codes because our way of life offends them. Perhaps some construe it too narrowly; they would permit too much real harm. The idea is that there is a very consistent consensus of what real harm is and those laws that proscribe them are clearly justified. Harm comes in its most vicious forms as that of murder, rape, war, stealing, violence of all stripes. This is the short list of the crimes that incite decent humans to rage and there is little question why. I emphasized that harm should be construed as always being towards others. If there is one thing that we all can lay claim to it is our own bodies. Like all possesions we are free to do with them as we like, barring harming others. Everyone should be free to use drugs (even the legal ones), tattoo and pierce their flesh, refuse life-saving medicine and treatment, even end their own life. It can be fairly argued that all of these things harm others, but that is the nature of all human action. We are inseperably linked to everything around us and our actions have consequences, but this is inescapable fact.
There are countless ways to refine this principle of harm. That this can and should be debated is a prima facie truth of all ways, theories, and methods of ordering civilized society. That there are grey areas also does not detract from the utility of the principle. It is my contention that the prevention of human suffering and the maximization of humanity's prosperity are the highest goals we can aspire to. I believe that if the majority's will to legislate their morality upon others and the implementation of the harm princple to protect the rights of the individual, to have the utmost liberty available to them.....that if these opposing views were to be wayed against each other to see which better guides us towards attaining our highest goals, it is the harm principle that will win.
This is a simple, yet good idea and I think if society's institutions, as well as individuals, internalized this principle that much progress would be made towards realizing the univerally revered and mostly unattained ideal of justice.