John Mills' Harm Principle

John Mills’ Harm Principle In the essay “On Liberty”, John Stuart Mills discussed his Harm Principle. He states that, “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” (Mill 239). This means that Mills believed that the government had no right to force any person to do anything, unless it would protect others from harm. If the Harm Principle holds true, then the government has no right to make citizens do things like pay taxes or make education up to the 12th grade mandatory. Doing those two things would be better for society as a whole and for the individual, but if not done, it wouldn’t cause harm to anyone, so the government has no right to force anyone to do it. In the case of pornography, there are three reasons why the Harm Principle would say that it should be legal. First, pornography is not forced on a person. If a person wants to watch porn, they can. However if a person doesn’t want to watch porn, they don’t have to. Because of the fact that pornography is optional, it in itself is not causing harm to anyone because they are doing what they want to do. Therefore, if the Harm Principle holds true, then pornography should be legal. The second reason why the Harm Principle would say that pornography should be legal is because a person is free to harm themselves all they want to. Given that pornography is harmful to those who view it, the Harm Principle states that the government will intervene if, and only if, harm is being done to someone else. A person is allowed to harm themselves all they want, so long as it is themselves alone. This would make pornography legal, because it would only be harming those who choice to watch it, and not those who don’t. The third reason why the Harm Principle would say that pornography should be legal is because there is a little protection set up by the government to keep those under the age of 18 from watching pornography or going to strip clubs and what not. By the government putting in place certain things to keep children from seeing harmful material they are basically following the Harm Principle. Pornography may be harmful to those under the age of consent, so the government has put up certain age limits and other blockers to keep youth from viewing pornography. Since the government has already blocked children from viewing pornography, then it should be legal to everyone else, because it would only be harming those who can choice whether they want to be harmed by it or not.
Objection
One major problem with John Mills’ Harm Principle is that it does not tell what harm is. Harm can range from very apparent issues such as the psychological effects of watching porn that portrays the rape of someone, to less apparent issues like the fact that people who watch porn may be less likely to wear condoms. Most people would agree that the first scenario clearly would depict harm, but the second one is not so clear cut. Would the bad behaviors that some may pick up from watching porn be considered harm to not on themselves, but also their sexual partners? Mills’ Harm Principle did not address this at all, and that makes his principle very hard to work with. Although Mill doesn’t explain the overall spectrum of harm, there are still many aspects of pornography that would be considered harmful without much debate. As far as children are concerned, the government does set up certain blocks to help keep kids from watching pornography, meaning that watching pornography would be harmful to them. However, these blocks are far from adequate and children everyday are going onto the internet and watching porn. If the government cannot strengthen its blocks to keep children out, then pornography should be illegal. Earlier in the paper it was mentioned that pornography is not harmful because those who watch it choose to and it doesn’t harm anyone else. This, however, is not true. If a person is watching a porn that depicts the pain, rape, or dehumanization of another person then they may go out and do the same to someone else. The pornography put an idea, or further enhanced an idea, in a person’s head to carry out some sick acts. Giving the person a format in which to follow. If a person does go out and commit some of the hanus acts that they have seen on the pornography, then they porn becomes an accessory to that crime, and has aided in the harm of someone else. Now the above scenario is only a probability, but since there is a good chance that other can be hurt from pornography, it should be illegal. Lastly, earlier in the paper it mentioned that since the Harm Principle states that the government can only force a person to do something against their will if it harms others, then pornography should be legal because it could only harm those who watch it, and the government should not stop people from harming themselves. The problem with this is that the government should be able to stop people from harming themselves to a certain extent. This is why students are required to attend school up until the 12th grade, or why people in the hospitals try to kill themselves or harm themselves they put them on suicide watch. This is so they will not harm themselves. So as with pornography, the government should be able to restrict people from viewing this harmful material.