Huemer's Paper

This paper brings out the intuition and further solidifies that the Harm Principle is rather weak, that is to say that the Harm Principle details a necessary but not sufficient condition. The Harm Principle states that the only case in which someone’s liberty may be restricted is to prevent harm to others, not to prevent that person from harming others.  It is very implausible to view the Harm Principle as a necessary and sufficient condition. The reason is that among ourselves we harm each other in many ways. For some harms (e.g. rape, murder, theft, etc.) , we justify the restriction of liberty. For other harms (e.g. name calling, telling someone a hurtful truth, rudeness, gossip, etc. ), we do not justify the restriction of liberty.  Not all harms “deserve” or are such to restrict someone’s liberty.  The paper also goes on to describe something that the Harm Principle doesn’t really go into.  The Harm Principle describes harm to others, but not really harm to oneself. Although, it actually might. The Harm Principle was designed to rule out paternalism or legal moralism, which justify restricting an individual’s liberty for that individual’s own good. Thus if someone harms themselves but does not harm others, would this satisfy or would not satisfy the Harm Principle? It seems it would not justify the harm principle. Although,  one could argue that if someone harms themselves, then they would also harm those who are dependent on that person in any way (financially, mentally, psychologically, or emotionally). I guess the main question in drug legalization, similar to the suicide case, is how much should the government intervene to prevent people from harming themselves or emotionally harming others? Do drugs directly or indirectly harm others? I guess it depends on the type of drug. Say a person dies due to a drug overdose. This person will in fact have harmed others, namely those who depended in this person in some way. However, if this person died from a natural cause or a car accident or some other bad decision that led to the death, he/she would still harm others indirectly. Drugs are illegal, but it would seem ridiculous to illegalize death or car accidents. It seems plausible, though, to say that each individual has a right to do as they wish with their own life and body, even if it harms their self and ultimately results in their death, as long as they do not harm anyone else. Although, this raises issues of whether one can have a right to death also. A right to end one’s life if one desires to do so.  The issue here would be if the person is rational and completely understands what ending one’s life signifies.

Does criminalizing drugs satisfy the Harm Principle? In other words,can drugs be criminalized, can there be government intervention because drugs harm others and by intervening the government would be preventing harm to others. Presumably, the drugs would only harm the person who consumes them. However, we can imagine scenarios in which drugs can incapacitate or provoke someone to act out in ways that may harm others (e.g. impaired cognition that leads to car accidents thus harming others, violent behavior, etc. ). However, not all drugs are recorded to cause violent behavior or impaired cognition so it seems that generalizing against all drugs is not a justified intervention. A more justified intervention seems to be one that intervenes or criminalizes those drugs that cause violent behavior or impaired cognition that may pose harm to others. However, there are also prescription drugs that may cause impaired cognition and those are not criminalized. Then, again, they do have some kind of intervention due to the fact that they are not over the counter but have to be prescribed by a physician. I guess the main question in drug legalization, similar to the suicide case, is how much should the government intervene to prevent people from harming themselves or emotionally harming others? It seems that only those drugs that cause cognitive impairment (e.g. distorted vision, difficulty completing basic tasks, difficulty with motor functions etc.) or that cause violent behavior should be made illegal.Drugs that do not cause either of the two, seem to cause no harm to anyone else other than the person consuming them. Then, it seems the government should not intervene. However, the main problem I see with the argument for legalization of drugs, is the fact a person consuming drugs may not actually be fully informed or rational about their decisions. This actually may not be a problem, though, because this reasoning can easily be used to justifying intervention by simply stating that people are not well informed or do not know what is best. The real problem for this argument lies in the premise that drugs do not harm others. There are drugs recorded to cause violent behavior in which case they do pose harm to others and in these cases there should be interference. This is a very complicated case, because we see that alcohol (distorts cognition,motor functions, produces violent behavior) classifies as causing harm to others but it is legal. There are certain restrictions such as age limits and laws that prohibit drunk driving. According to the author’s argument in the paper, drugs should be legalized. However, alcohol is a drug that is legal but considering the Harm Principle, one would think it should be illegal.