Sexuality in America and the probability of harm

16. September 2009 by admin.

John Stuart Mill, in his famous book On Liberty, laid the foundation for Western libertarian law when he introduced his harm principle.  In short, he believed that the state should only be able to restrict someone’s liberties when that person is harming someone else, and that paternalistic legislation for the perceived good of that person (based upon another’s moral stances) should be prohibited at all costs in order to defend individual liberty.  According to Mill and modern libertarians, the state should let others alone when dealing with seatbelts or usury or drug usage or consensual sex.  Liberals agree that the last three of these should be allowed under the same reasoning.

Because of Mill’s influence, as far as “modern” ethical allowances go, the individual can observe an interesting pattern in respect to practices forbidden by law.  In short, behaviors that directly and negatively impact an involved person 100% of the time are outlawed. In cases like these, the inflicted harm is commonly and unanimously understood to exist, and also cannot exist independently of the behavior that caused it. As such, rape, theft, murder, fraud, and assault are the types of behaviors that few people argue about legalizing, strictly because a case cannot be made for a lack of harm.  Someone directly suffers every time one of these acts is committed. Read the rest of this entry »

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