In Chapter 4 of On Liberty Mill entertains an objection to his Harm to Others Principle and rejection of paternalistic laws. According to the objection, the distinction between actions which are primarily self-regarding and actions that primarily affect the interests of others is untenable. After all, many actions that we think are only about ourselves can lead to the harm and suffering of others. A backcountry skier who dies in an avalanche causes her parents and girlfriend grief and suffering. A successful baker runs his competitors out of business causing them financial worries. What is Mill's response to this objection? Is it successful? If not, is there another way around the problem? Or does Mill's position rest on a mistake?
Mill’s objection to the idea that all actions have consequences to others is that any punishment in response to one’s actions must be derived from the breach of responsibility of the action, not the action itself. For example, Mill says, “No person ought to be punished simply for being drunk; but a soldier or a policeman should be punished for being drunk on duty” (80). Essentially, a policeman has a duty to the community to be attentive during hours, and being drunk impairs his attentiveness, so he must be punished for the breach in responsibility to his community. Mill furthers, “Whenever…there is a definite damage, or a definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the public, the case is taken out of the province of liberty and placed in that of morality or law” (80). Even if the policeman is an alcoholic, his only responsibility is to be attentive to work hours, so insofar as he does not drink during hours, he cannot be punished for being an alcoholic. While the response is successful in general terms, the definition of damage and the scope of damage of the action needed to justify an incursion on individual liberty is unclear. For example, coming out of the closet to an ultra-religious family might cause disownment and psychological damage to both the family and the child; can society intervene on the basis of a child’s responsibility for the health of their parents? Secondly, sometimes the damage itself is disputed and thus not definite. Can society punish a business for CO2 emissions, when both the existence and effect of climate change is disputed in society? Per Mill, in those circumstances, the damage is not definite, and thus not punishable. I think the only way out of this ambiguity is to define the damage needed to justify an incursion on liberty, and in no way will that definition be perfect.
ReplyDeleteMill’s qualification of paternalism is successful in that it establishes a clear bright-line for self-harm that governments can regulate; however, in the process of justifying this secondary concept, Mill undermines the harm to others principle at the heart of utilitarianism. Mill clearly establishes “when… a person is led to violate a distinct and assignable obligation… the case is taken out of the self-regarding class” (79). He provides the example that because a police officer gains moral and contractual obligations to fulfill that job lucidly and steadily, they cannot engage in drunkenness while on duty. So long as Mill defines obligations as opt-in duties, rather than natural ones, they are relatively objective, making his rebuttal internally consistent. However, the problem with this argument lies in its inconsistency with his other points in earlier chapters. Unfortunately, Mill’s relatively extreme defense of liberalism indicts the more central tenant of his philosophy, which is that the government can violate rights to prevent harm to others. From the beginning, Mill establishes that coercion can be used against a member of the community “against [their] will, to prevent harms to others” (9). The following question therefore arises: if obligations must be respected so much that they justify the paternalism that Mill deems a great evil, why do obligations and protection of contracts, entered into freely, suddenly lose importance, even if they harm others? It seems Mill wants to have his cake and eat it too. Logically, if we assume Mill’s argument that paternalism is justified to fulfill agents’ obligations (his harm-to-self argument), it cannot be true that the government can then violate the very obligations that just before direly needed protection in the name of societal welfare (his harm-to-others argument). In a misguided attempt to justify paternalism, Mill gives value to the very concepts of personal rights his harm-to-others principle devalues; though this contradiction poses quite a big issue, his harm-to-self rule maintains internal clarity and consistency.
ReplyDelete