Needs, harms, and liberalism

Abstract

The harm principle entails the subprinciple that harm to others provides a pro tanto moral reason for legal or social coercion. We address a ‘scope problem’ for that subprinciple: how can what counts as harm be restricted sufficiently, without sacrificing extensional adequacy, to protect the harm principle’s liberal credentials? While recognizing the centrality of such basic liberties as freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of movement to any liberalism worthy of the name, a satisfactory solution to the scope problem must secure a distinction between conduct that harms others and conduct that, while it might negatively affect others (casually or relationally), does not harm them. We ground such a distinction in a further distinction between needs and attitudes.