John Stuart Mill's Concept Of The Harm Principle

Within Of Liberty by John Stuart Mill, the concept of the Harm Principle is explained clearly as, “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.” The concept is essentially that an individual should not have their liberties restricted unless those liberties cause harm to others. If an individual's action only affects themselves then there is nothing that society or the state should do to prevent that action. The concept places so much value on the freedom of people to pursue their own desires that it is believed to be better to allow a person to live in a perceived wrongful way than to force that person to change their way of life. For example,
if someone felt that it was in their best interest to drink in excess on a regular basis and their actions did not harm anyone else, then others may try to convince that person to change their ways through persuasion, but they could not legally force the person to change their way of life. Exercising free speech is also a liberty that Mill believes does not cause harm even if that speech is offensive.
The other concept to consider is the principle of disinterested benevolence.
This 18th century idea was widely popular amongst philosophers during that time. Moreover, John Stuart Mill was no exception writing that, “Human beings owe to each other help to distinguish the better from the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and avoid the latter.” This implies that through cooperation, people are capable of giving up some degree of self-love in order to help one another in ways that lead to establishing ideas of what is positive and negative behavior and actions. Consequently, selfless acts seem to fit this principle and Mill believed that through this practice, those who helped each other would elevate their higher faculties leading to an increase in overall
wisdom.
Thoughtfully, John Stuart Mills draws a number of lines between what actions are deemed punishable by the law and which are to be decided by opinion.
It is easier to distinguish what kind of actions are punishable by either form by understanding what Mill considers to be a violation of constituted rights, the only rights that could cause punishment through the law. This would include acts such as physically attacking someone or robbing someone of their possessions, crimes that Mill would consider to directly harm an individual. Mill writes, “The acts of an individual may be hurtful to others, or wanting in due consideration for their welfare, without going the length of violating any of their constituted rights. The offender may then be justly punished by opinion, though not by law.” What is not punishable by the law is nearly every other type of action with which people may take issue. For these, the conclusion is that there should be a form of opinion punishment. A clear example of what Mill would believe to be an action that could face opinion punishment would be speech perceived to be offensive to someone. This form of punishment falls short of harm according to Mill and is one that members of a society would be tasked with enforcing and could include actions such as ignoring the person causing offense, arguing non-violently, or simply warning others about the person’s speech. There is also an interesting perspective on the well being of someone who is punished through
opinion. Mill explains that when punishing someone through opinion, you should not go so far as to compromise their own personal development.
I believe that the distinctions made between self-actions and other-regarding actions can in some cases be effective at classifying certain behaviors into one category or the other, but have inherent challenges associated with them. For example, if we were to look at alcoholism, that act alone on the surface would appear to be a self-regarding action as it only affects the one individual. Conversely, you could argue that the specific behavior or action could entice others to join in on that habit causing a society problem. This could then be considered an other-regarding action in view of how it would impact the well-being of more than just the individual. The line between a self or other-regarding action can be incredibly blurry depending on what the issue.
The distinctions between law and opinion punishments appear to be much easier to determine in my opinion and I believe it is partially because Mill addresses some of the more challenging aspects of what constitutes harm. For instance, the issue of neglecting duty is explained as actually being harmful and punishable by law because as Mill states, “No person ought to be punished simply for being drunk; but a soldier or a policeman should be punished for being drunk on duty.” This is because by agreeing to commit to some task that requires attention, neglecting these duties could inadvertently lead to the harm of others. The distinctions over what should be covered by the two forms of punishment is detailed enough that I believe they are effective categories.