John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle and Free Speech
Expanding the Notion of Harm
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12228252 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Melina Constantine Bell (0000-0002-8345-6366, Washington and Lee University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 162-179 |
| Publication date | 2020-09-23 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Utilitas (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0953-8208 • E-ISSN: 1741-6183 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0953820820000229 |
| OpenAlex | W3088446440 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
| References cited | 8 |
This article advocates employing John Stuart Mill's harm principle to set the boundary for unregulated free speech, and his Greatest Happiness Principle to regulate speech outside that boundary because it threatens unconsented-to harm. Supplementing the harm principle with an offense principle is unnecessary and undesirable if our conception of harm integrates recent empirical evidence unavailable to Mill. For example, current research uncovers the tangible harms individuals suffer directly from bigoted speech, as well as the indirect harms generated by the systemic oppression and epistemic injustice that bigoted speech constructs and reinforces. Using Mill's ethical framework with an updated notion of harm, we can conclude that social coercion is not justified to restrict any harmless speech, no matter how offensive . Yet certain forms of speech, such as bigoted insults, are both harmful and fail to express a genuine opinion, and so do not deserve free speech protection
Economics · Free speech · Happiness · Harm · Harm principle · Injustice · Law and economics · Management · Mill · Offensive · Political science · Sociology · Engineering · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Law · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology · Social Psychology · War, Ethics, and Justification
The Math of Male Entitlement
Mill’s Pragmatism on Free Speech and Inquiry
A proposal for decriminilisation of online defamation in Indonesia
Humour as an online safety issue
Selective Dispute Avoidance, Deep Disagreements, and Pragmatic Meta-Arguments for Engagement
In defense of the jury argument
Humor That Harms? Examining Racist Audio-Visual Memetic Media on TikTok During Covid-19
Needs, harms, and liberalism
Challenging Times
John Stuart Mill's Passage on Pimps and the Limits on Free Speech
Bigoted Insults, Harm, and the Intentional Infliction of Pain
Private Censorship
Six Questions About Overcriminalization
The Harm Principle and the Nature of Harm
Refusing to Listen
Taking Humor Seriously on TikTok
| Citations per year | 3.2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |