Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. (Mill, On Liberty, Chapter 1) Implications of the Harm Principle: This principle is the primary source of Mill's theory of rights. That is to say, according to Mill, the reason that we have the rights that we do is because they are derived from the harm principle, which is justified by utilitarianism. It turns out that according to Mill we have a right to do anything at all that does not involve harm to others.
This winds up allowing us to have a vast amount of negative rights, which tends to limit the amount of positive rights that can be granted. What rights we should have: If you give people strong negative rights that usually includes the right not to be deprived of their money. Positive rights require the mandatory allocation of resources (usually money) to some people, and this money must come from somewhere (i. e., it must come from other citizens, usually in the form of taxes).
But if those citizens have the negative right to their money, then you cannot take their money away to ensure other people their positive rights, so you cannot grant those positive rights in the first place. Of course, the government will be allowed to take money from citizen to provide the basic services of society such as civil protection, national defense, and other essential services - and the government will be allowed to compel people to do other jobs necessary in civil society (e. g. , jury duty, military service).
This is justified, not because there was any tacit consent by the citizens to give up their negative rights, but instead simply because such sacrifices are necessary for the very existence of civil society. Remember, according to Mill's theory of rights, people don't have any rights aside from those granted by society, so people never give up their right to the money taken in taxes, they never had the right to it in the first place. Postponing two questions: There are two questions that I am going to explicitly put to the side temporarily.
They are: 1) What does it mean to say that something involves a harm to others? (i. e. , how much do I have to harm them for it to count? ) [See part 7 below]; and, 2) Why shouldn't we allow government to keep people from harming themselves? [See part 6 below] I will deal with these issue below. 4) Exceptions to the Harm Principle: Mill does have some exceptions to the harm principle which help to make it a reasonable and plausible principle. It is clear that Mill would allow for all of these exceptions, and his theory should be understood as including them.
I state them here for two reasons, so that you will have a greater understanding of Mill's theory, and so that no one can try to object to Mill by raising a counter-example that falls under one of these exceptions. a) Children and the mentally underdeveloped:
The harm principle is not intended to apply to children (the ages included under the term "child" are not clearly defined, nor are they of particular interest philosophically or in debate) nor does the principle apply to others who require substantial care (e. g. , the elderly, the mentally ill, or anyone whom we have objective evidence to believe is incapable of rational judgment). Children are the primary case, and Mill maintains that we are justified in compelling children in paternalistic ways. b) Necessary social duties: A second exception is that a government may compel its citizens to perform certain tasks that are essential to the preservation of itself as an ordered society.
For example, the government must be allowed to draft people for the common defense of the nation, and must be allowed to compel people to testify in court - since both of these are essential to social well-being. c) Intervention in emergencies where the agent is ignorant: The third exception is that an individual may forcibly intervene and prevent some action if it is evident that the agent does not know the consequences of her action and there is not time to inform her of those consequences and allow her to make a free choice.
For example, if I am talking to a friend while waiting for an elevator and then I begin to walk when the doors open, even though there is no elevator in the shaft, then you should feel free to use physical force to prevent my walking into the shaft and falling to my death. I suppose that if there were time it would be best for you to simply ask me if I wanted to walk into the empty shaft and if I knew that this would surely cause my death, this would allow me to make my own decision and to choose to continue if I really wanted to.
