Harm principles

Many philosophers and legal theorists have spent time arguing for or against ‘the harm principle’. Their arguments can be evaluated only once we know what that principle is. But the literature in question contains no single harm principle; it contains many harm principles. And many objections pressed against ‘the harm principle’ are objections to only some of these principles. To make progress with the question of whether any harm principle is sound, we must thus distinguish between the different harm principles on offer. We must also remember that each harm principle is compatible with many other principles: in addition to endorsing a harm principle, one may consistently endorse other principles that impose limits on the law, including, but not limited to, other harm principles. The first half of this paper seeks to vindicate these claims. Sections I-IV distinguish between different candidate harm principles. Section V argues that each candidate can be endorsed alongside many other principles. The second half of the paper applies the lessons of the first to a number of prominent objections to ‘the harm principle’. That principle has been accused of a) being under-inclusive; b) misrepresenting the reasons why many act-types ought to be legally proscribed; c) permitting law-makers to treat people as mere means of achieving their ends, and d) being over-inclusive. Sections VII-X argue that one harm principle survives all four objections. This does not, of course, show that the principle in question is sound. Most obviously, we need a positive case for signing up to any harm principle at all. That is a task for another day. The task here is to get clear about which harm principles one might sign up to, what is and is not compatible with signing up, and what objections one is really exposed to if one chooses to do so