Mill's Harm Principle
The work of John Stuart Mill is so filled with fallacies and falsehoods that it is difficult to believe that it gained such a wide audience on the basis of its intellectual merits.[1] When I attended university some time ago, we were set a textbook of logic which used numerous extracts from Mill’s writings to illustrate logical fallacies. (It is not the only one that I have seen that does so.)[2] Although almost all of his moral and political theories are completely without merit, there is one idea of his that always struck me as particularly objectionable, precisely because it is so popular, yet so unexamined: the “harm principle”.
The harm principle, expressed in Mill’s book On Liberty, is as follows:
[T]he 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.[3]
Like any other principle, the harm principle can be questioned on the basis of its justification (or lack thereof), its ambiguity, or difficulties raised by its practical application. Since there is nothing to be said in its favour, I shall critique it, respectively, from the three sides just mentioned.
1. Justification
The harm principle is based upon a presumption in favour of liberty, as though liberty were the natural state of man, and one must justify restricting or interfering with it. The reality is quite the reverse. An acquaintance with the history of the human species will show that “liberty”, in its negative sense[4] as defined by people such as Mill, is a recent political concept, and human beings, for almost all of their history in almost every part of the world, have lived in social organisations bound by custom, religion, and law. Positing liberty as the natural state of man cannot be justified on the basis of the facts. I disregard “state of nature” theories such as those of Hobbes and Locke, as well as Rawls’ “Original Position”, because they represent neither actual nor possible scenarios, tell us nothing about human nature that could not be discovered without using them, and therefore are not appropriate means of justifying anything. Liberty, because it is the unnatural state of human beings, and can only be created artificially by strong state power, should itself be justified.
So what is Mill’s justification for liberty itself? Mill was a utilitarian. On this he says:
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.[5]
Utility is equated with happiness in Mill’s ethics. He defines happiness as “the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain”.[6] Since it is not always possible to calculate what will maximise happiness in each individual case, Mill advocates formulating and following rules that will tend to maximise happiness. Hence, his system is called rule utilitarianism. In his political philosophy, liberty is not seen as an intrinsic good, but an extrinsic one, i.e., it is not justified on the basis of self-evident rights. Mill states clearly:
I forgo any advantage which could be derived to my argument from the idea of abstract right, as a thing independent of utility. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.
Liberty, according to Mill, must be justified on the basis that instituting it will tend to maximise utility throughout society by permitting the development of individuals, their character, tastes, and intellectual faculties. His “harm principle”, since it assumes his utilitarianism, stands or falls with it.
1.1 Utilitarianism
Therefore, let us investigate utilitarianism to see whether it is sound.
We have seen that Mill defines happiness as “the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain”. This definition is inadequate. Happiness is not dependent on the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain, and certainly cannot be seen as identical to it. One may have a life filled with poverty and gruelling work, yet be happy because one has a family and religious faith, and therefore a sense of meaning in life. Happiness is better seen as consisting in having a fulfilling life, rather than a life of pleasure. There is precedent for this: Aristotle, for instance, had a more comprehensive conception of happiness, which incorporated the cultivation of virtue. Indeed, the centrality of pleasure to Mill’s project might make one think that it is incompatible with the spirit of human improvement that is at the centre for his case for liberty. Where is the sense of anything higher in life?
Mill did attempt to counter this objection by distinguishing between two classes of pleasures, which he called “lower” and “higher” pleasures. “Lower” pleasures are such things as playing trivial games, or eating unhealthy food. “Higher” pleasures include listening to the opera, or playing chess. In making this distinction, Mill hoped to render his utilitarianism consistent with the desire to improve human beings, mentally and physically. Mill claimed that higher pleasures are those that people would invariably prefer if they had partaken in both. This is quite absurd, as anyone should know that there are many people who will never enjoy such “higher pleasures” as chess, or classical music, no matter how much they are exposed to them. Furthermore, even if people did prefer one class of pleasures to another, it would not follow that that class of pleasures is morally preferable. Thus, Mill, if he was consistent, would have to take the line of his mentor, Jeremy Bentham, who said that “Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry.”[7]
So much for the nature of happiness in his system. But what of his justification for utilitarianism as a whole? Mill’s central argument can be simplified as follows:
P1. Pleasure is desirable for individuals.
P2. The total pleasure is desirable for all.
P3. Nothing except pleasure is ultimately desirable.
C. Therefore, the greatest pleasure for the greatest number is the only desirable thing, and one ought to promote that end.
We will take each of these premises in turn. Mill says, regarding premise one that, “the only proof that something is desirable, is that it is capable of being desired”.[8] This is a classic case of equivocation, using the same word in different senses in an argument and acting as though they mean the same thing. “Desirable” can mean “capable of being desired”, but it can also mean that something is valuable and should be desired. It is this second meaning of the word “desirable” that is important for his argument, and one cannot reason validly from the first to the second. The fact that something is capable of being desired does not mean that it should be. We could even show that pain is capable of being desired, either for oneself or for others, but it would clearly contradict the Greatest Happiness Principle if this proved that it was desirable in our second sense.
Further, to defend his important notion that the maximisation of happiness is a worthy goal, Mill says argues because personal happiness is sought by every person, the happiness of all men is sought by all. This employs the fallacy of composition, i.e. assuming that what can be predicated of parts (individual men) can be predicated of the whole (all men). Every man desiring his own happiness does not mean that every man desires the happiness of all men, just because the sum of all individual men’s desires adds up to the desires of all men.
Mill’s third premise is similarly contentious, not on account of any particular fallacy he employs, but simply because it is wildly implausible. Pleasure as such is not universally desirable, as pleasure could be taken in various activities—torturing people, for instance—according to the character of the individual concerned. Neither could we say that only pleasure is ultimately desirable. Things such as friendship are desirable, but aren’t to be measured solely in terms of the pleasure they provide for us (although this is thankfully generally associated with friendship).
Mill’s argument for utilitarianism can safely be put to bed; but there are two final points of criticism that I have for his ethics.
One conspicuous feature of Mill’s utilitarianism is its impartiality. He assumes that since happiness is ultimately desirable, it doesn’t matter whose happiness it is. We must will the happiness of all as desirable. This is at odds with human nature. People generally would prefer the happiness of their own family and friends over others. One could object, that this in itself doesn’t disprove impartiality in ethics—it could just be that it is very difficult to be good—but at minimum it does put a dent in the practicability of utilitarianism. Not only this, but I reject the view that the appeal to human nature or to moral intuition is not useful in refuting Mill’s utilitarianism. Human nature is such that people set a higher value on the happiness of friends and relatives than strangers. This impartiality is integral to both friendship and family. Without them they could not exist. Both friendship and kinship should be seen as good things, even if one wants to maximise happiness, because they undoubtedly provide happiness to people; but this happiness could only come from knowing that your friends or relations care specifically about you. Therefore, if we wish to maximise happiness, we must affirm the partiality that people have for friends and relatives. A similar argument can be made if one sees friendship and kinship as intrinsically good, because they are incompatible with moral impartiality. I conclude that we have to reject utilitarianism as Mill formulates it.
Secondly, this doctrine as Mill formulates it devalues human beings. The focus on pleasure degrades people to the status of mere receptacles of pleasure, in which the only the content (pleasure), and not the form (the human being), is valuable. It is as though Mill viewed humanity as a species of mechanical bean counters, adding and subtracting utils. It was not for nothing that Carlyle described him as “a man stuffed with sawdust”. The real human being and the value of his personality seems to be left out of the equation here.
Altogether, there is not much to be said in favour of Mill’s formulation of utilitarianism. Since his doctrine of liberty rests upon it, there is nothing to be said for that either; and because the presumption of the value of liberty is contained in the formulation of the harm principle, we must conclude that at the very least Mill did not make a convincing case for it, even if others may do so.
2. Ambiguity
The lack of sound justification for the principle notwithstanding, one of the most obvious issues raised by this principle is the ambiguity of the word “harm”. Since the coherence of the principle, as well as its implications for action, turn on the meaning of “harm”, this ambiguity has to be resolved if at all possible. Settling on a definition of a word is not at all a straightforward matter, because, as with many words, “harm” may be used in very different senses, and debate can arise over its “true” meaning. Two people might agree to Mill’s principle, and yet the implementation of this principle by these two people would look quite different, due to their differing conceptions of “harm”. Thus, it is not very useful unless a single definite meaning to “harm” can be set.
It is obvious that such things as physically attacking another person constitute harm. Yet the class of harmful acts could be extended or restricted according to our definition of harm; and since the harm principle is supposed to be the limiting principle to liberty, it seems that liberty could be completely overridden. (Note that I do not care for liberty, and am only pointing out the incoherence of the principle within Mill’s system.) Some may restrict “harm” to instances of physical damage done to other people, or theft or destruction of property; others may see so-called “microaggressions” as harmful. But merely listing the things that are considered to be harmful does not define “harm”. I will leave the question—as to what “harm” really is—open. However, I will say that if harm is considered to be morally objectionable, on the grounds that it involves causing unhappiness, displeasure, or disutility, this will only be compelling for the utilitarian, and utilitarianism has already been rejected here, for the reasons stated above. Additionally, one can plausibly argue that some people ought to come to harm, due to their reprehensible moral character. Certain theories of punishment require that causing harm can be, not just morally permissible, but morally imperative.
3. Practical Implementation
Leaving these former two issues aside, there is still the matter of whether the harm principle can be put into practice. Suppose, for a moment, that we are clear on the meaning of “harm”. An argument can be made that there are many ways in which we “harm” other people in our daily lives, and yet Mill would not sanction intervention in these cases. Such actions are designated as “self-regarding”, a label which is generally seen as covering sexual habits (homosexuality, porn addiction, fetishes), consumption (say, of alcohol or unhealthy food), among other things.
Examples of acts which are not really self-regarding can be supplied with ease. The heroin addict typically ends up turning to crime to fund their addiction; an alcoholic can fail to perform his function as a husband and a father; becoming obese or diabetic can impose costs on others in a system with state-funded healthcare; involving oneself in a gay or trans community can increase its influence, undermining public morals, or contribute to the spread of STDs; your choice to not abort a defective child can impose costs on others who have to support it; your choice of partner, said to be a “private” matter can similarly impose costs on society if it is dysgenic.
In addition to these more straightforward cases of supposedly private actions harming others, there is the concept of potential benefits lost to society. For a utilitarian such as Mill, this should have been a major consideration. Certain forms of behaviour prevent one from becoming what one could otherwise be, thus depriving oneself and society as a whole of the potential benefits of that development. We can include drug and alcohol abuse, or simple laziness under this heading.
But suppose that there were self-regarding actions i.e. actions that do not directly impinge upon the wellbeing or liberty of others. In such a case, one can argue, we still have a duty to step in and ensure that members of our community or polity don’t do irreversible harm to themselves. This applies both on an individual level and on the level of the state: as a person has duties to friends, family, and members of their folk, so the state has a duty to all members of the folk. A father who did nothing to interfere with his son’s drug habit on the grounds that he was harming nobody but himself would be contemptible, and so would a state that justified its inaction in the same way.
Close
On the basis of the foregoing investigation, I conclude that the harm principle must be abandoned. It cannot be justified except on dubious liberal grounds, its ambiguity leaves it open to numerous interpretations (some of which may completely negate it), and there are reasons for thinking that its practical implementation would not just be difficult, but morally objectionable.
[1] In addition to being a pioneer of the pig-philosophy of “rule utilitarianism”, and the political philosophy of “classical liberalism”, Mill also produced an infamous empiricist philosophy of mathematics, which we will not go into here.
[2] For another example, see Sylvester J. Hartman (1949), Fundamentals of Logic, London: B. Herder, pg. 233-34.
[3] J. S. Mill, On Liberty and other Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 13-14.
[4] We should distinguish between “negative” and “positive” liberty. Negative liberty is freedom from, i.e. a state of not being impeded in one’s action; positive liberty consists in freedom to, the ability to achieve some ideal state of being, to realise one’s “true self”, or to live as one ought to.
[5] J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pg. 55.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Jeremy Bentham (1830). The Rationale of Reward (1 ed.). London: Robert Heward, pg. 206.
[8] J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pg. 88.