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Analysis Of John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle

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Freedom comes with more responsibility and John Stuart Mill discusses the concept of liberty in numerous ways. However, The Harm Principle and freedom of action are two topics of Mill’s substantial opinions regarding to liberty. The Mill's Harm Principle provides individuals with the liberty to express all opinions, and act as one pleases, but unfortunately not enough to maintain a balanced society. Therefore, I disagree with the idea of Harm Principle, due to unable to implement what should be one's fundamental morals and values amongst people. Government laws were enacted for a reason in addition I will demonstrate why Mill’s principle is not acceptable for our society. Not everyone shares the same definition of Harm which could potentially …show more content…
There are countless loopholes to this ideology, such as psychological harm, and I believe people would find a way to abuse this freedom and society has tried to express power over the individual. The Harm Principle allows to pleases the individual as long as it does not cause anyone harm, seems to be common sense on the surface, but it goes in greater depth. Most laws that attempt to govern personal behavior may seem to be an overreach, but I have found that there is another layer that is not sufficiently discussed. One example, that questions Mill’s theory is the drug laws. There are arguments made that it is a person’s choice to use drugs and criminalizing drugs is an infringement on personal liberty. A person sitting in their home doing drugs does not "harm" anyone else, however problem with that argument is that the home drug use is not the end of the story. One thing leads to another therefore, many times the drug use leads to addiction, the addiction leads to crime in …show more content…
Everyone deserves to have the freedom to be who they want and live their life according to their own sets of values. Liberty now in days is how much control society has in preventing or allowing the actions of a person. However, not many people are seeing the reason behind it of “why?” they are being prevented. Unfortunately, we do not live in a utopian society where everyone’s priority is to better our society. The Harm Principle promotes a valid philosophy in the sense that every person does make mistakes and do need to learn from them, but sometimes persons’ mistake can hurt others. In a perfect world, Mill’s Harm Principle may be a little bit more applicable, but that is not the case it would not be remotely possible to have a functional society if laws were not enforced. Freedom comes with more responsibilities, but not everyone is responsible enough to own up to their own

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