![]() This article rejects the first assumption, thereby showing that defenders of the harm principle need not be troubled by well-known problems with identifying a purely self-regarding sphere of action. It is commonly supposed, first, that this principle rests upon a distinction between self- and other-regarding actions and, second, that this distinction is problematic. Mill’s so-called ‘harm principle’ has, despite its ambiguities, proved an enduring and influential contribution to debates over the limits of legitimate state or social action. It is argued that the harm principle, thus reformulated, both captures Mill’s intentions and is a substantively plausible position. That is, interference can be justified in order to prevent non-consensual harms, but not to prevent consensual harms. Thus, the more important distinction appears to be that between consensual and non-consensual harm, rather than that between the self-regarding and non-self-regarding action. On the other hand, the occasional permissibility of interfering with self-regarding conduct can plausibly be explained by reference to the agent’s consent. The sphere of protected liberty includes not only (most) self-regarding conduct, but also actions that affect only consenting others. This article proposes that the self-regarding/other-regarding distinction is not in fact fundamental to Mill’s harm principle. Furthermore, some of Mill’s own applications of the principle, such as his forbidding of slavery contracts, do not appear to fit with it. As critics have noted, this distinction is difficult to draw. Mill’s harm principle is commonly supposed to rest on a distinction between self-regarding conduct, which is not liable to interference, and other-regarding conduct, which is.
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