John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle

Physically a child could be harmed by: beatings, burning, scalding, poisoning, starvation or any other physical way of hurting or injuring a child. A child could be neglected by not receiving their essential needs such as: food, water, shelter, warmth and protection.

The causes of harm to children and young people are numerous. These can have a detrimental effect on a child or young person's physical or emotional health, development and wellbeing.

Utilitarianism defined, is the contention that a man should judge everything based on the ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. In other words Utilitarianism states that good is what brings the most happiness to the most people. John Stuart Mill based his utilitarian principle on the decisions that we make. He says the decisions should always benefit the most people as much as possible no matter what the consequences might be. Mill says that we should weigh the outcomes and make our decisions based on the outcome that benefits the majority of the people. This leads to him stating that pleasure is the only desirable consequence of our decision or actions. Mill believes that human

If our secondary principles are prone to revision and even deletion then either Mill is an act-utilitarian who allows use of rules that tend to maximize utility to guide our action on simple, or at least morally commonplace, decisions but holds the ultimate test of moral rightness to be the application of the Utilitarian Principle to actions; or he is a rule-utilitarian that says the criteria for determining rightness of action may be wrong, revised, or discarded.

The Section 31 of the Children Act 1989 describes ‘Significant Harm’ as ill-treatment (including sexual abuse and physical abuse); impairment of health (physical and mental); impairment of development (physical, intellectual,

In Chapter 3 of Kenneth A. Strike’s The Ethics of Teaching, Kenneth Strike mentions how parents protect their children from consequences that can cause harm. In The Ethics of Teaching, Kenneth Strike states “In the passage quoted, Mill notes that children need to be protected from the consequences of their own actions. Children presumably differ from adults in the degree to which they appreciate the consequences and the significance of their actions” (Strike, pg. 43). This statement means that children require protection from any harmful consequences due to their behavior. Most parents follow this aspect within the society. It is considered a norm in the society for parents to protect their child from harm any way that they can. Parents

Mill’s harm principle of ““One should not interfere with other people’s lives unless those people are doing harm to others” (p.G3), is in other words, if a person do not cause harm to others, there is no reason to prevent his/her actions. Mill’s belives that an individual is the supreme sovereign of his/her own acts. Even when the decisions taken may be some harm upon him/her, the responsibility of these actions is only on the individual.

The Harm Principle is one of the central core of liberalism which was first introduced by the English Philosopher, John Stuart Mill, who believed that “people should be free to act however they wish unless their actions cause harm to somebody else." Such concept is a typical libertarian policy who promote comportment such as freedom of choices, individualism or again individual judgments. An example of a libertarian policy would be about hate speech prohibition, public cigarettes bans or again legalized prostitution. While authoritarian policies are those that prevent people from harming themselves.As an example, it could be about banning suicide, marijuana prohibitions, abortion prohibition,

In his work On Liberty, Mill placed much emphasis on individual liberty and its vital role in political society. To Mill, this phrase may be defined as the liberty of the individual to be the final judge over his actions; to decide what is right and wrong and to act upon that standard. On a secondary level, it also implies one's freedom to pursue one's own individuality. Mill believed in a society in which each individual leads his own distinctive life according to his own unique talents; unfettered by regulations upon thought, opinion, actions etc.

This paper will discuss John Stuart Mill’s argument about the freedom of expression of opinion, and how Mill justified that freedom. I will also discuss how strong his argument was and whether or not I agree with it. John Stuart Mill was a political economist, civil servant, and most importantly an English philosopher from the nineteenth century. Throughout his writing, John Stuart Mill touched on the issues of liberty, freedom and other human rights. In his philosophical work, On Liberty, he discussed the relationship between authority and liberty, as well as the importance of individuality in society. In chapter two of On Liberty, Mill examined the freedom of expression in more detail, examining arguments for and against his own.

     I don’t believe so. I must begin my argument with two definitions and one assumption. First, Rule Utilitarianism states that right action is defined by whether or not a given action is an instance of a moral rule that tends to maximize utility. Second, Act Utilitarianism states that right action is defined by whether or not a given action maximizes utility. Finally, the Utilitarian Principle holds that right actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. I hope that my assumption will be granted as it is taken verbatim from the text. With these notions as a starting point I believe that I can now

Freedom is a necessary principle to abide by in order for the human race to function. On the other hand, freedom can be taken advantage of, thus resulting in harmful consequences to those directly and indirectly involved. The article, “On Liberty” by John S. Mills, places emphasis on the functioning of individual liberty and its co-existence with society. Mills stresses the limits of individual liberty through what is famously known as his Harm Principle: "the only purpose for which power may be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant" (Cahn). With special consideration placed on drug use and free

John Stuart Mill discusses the conception of liberty in many ways. I’d like to focus of his ideas of the harm principle and a touch a little on his thoughts about the freedom of action. The harm principle and freedom on action are just two subtopics of Mill’s extensive thoughts about the conception on liberty. Not only do I plan to discuss and explain each of these parts on the conception of liberty, but I also plan to discuss my thoughts and feelings. I have a few disagreements with Mill on the harm principle; they will be stated and explained. My thoughts and feelings on Mill vary but I’d like to share my negative opinion towards the principle and hope to put it in a different perspective.

John Stuart Mills “Harm principle” states that the only actions that can be prevented are ones that create harm. In other words, a person can do whatever he wants as long as his actions do not harm others. If a person's actions only affect himself, then society, which includes the government, should not be able to stop a person from doing what he wants. This even includes actions that a person may do that would harm the person himself. A example that I can provide to support this principle is murder, if a person murders another person then they're harming the other person. Since it's the governments job to not let citizens harm each other there's a law against murder. You can go down a ample amount of incidents that will fall under to break the “Harm principle” such as assault, rape, robbery, etc. Relating back to what Mills states as his principle a big example I can think of is the riots that have been occurring all over the United States. I say this because, Mills principle justifies that power can only be taken when another person is at harm, this is what the police of states all over have been doing to take action. You are allowed to protest in a peaceful manner at your will, but when it turns into the result of a “riot” or a non peaceful protest then this is where officers do have to take action with the power they are given. A question that has brought many thoughts to myself is, according to Mills principle what would be the circumstances considering the fact if you

A central belief of the liberal atmosphere on which western legal systems are fundamentally based is that of negative freedom, to do as one wills, provided that it causes no harm to others. But a question which goes to the heart of the ethics of allowing total individual freedom with minimal intervention from society can be characterized like so; where to draw the line between freedom and condemnation?  When is interference with individuals and their private morality justified? The harm principle, which seeks to introduce personal liberty and its coexistence with society, appears in John Stuart Mill's “On Liberty”, first published in 1859. However, the idea is not black and white - the harm principle can be criticized for its excessive paternalism, lack of clarity, and incomplete handling of certain situations. In this essay, I will argue that Mill thoroughly justifies his theory for the harm principle. To make this argument, I will examine the harm principle, evaluate possible counterarguments, then apply the Harm Principle to a real-life scenario.