Abstract

Nearly a quarter century ago, the publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice prompted a widespread reconsideration of Western liberalism. In its historical sense, liberalism means a regime that pays equal respect to all people and which, in many accounts, remains neutral toward each person's good. The implications of these concepts have led many thinkers to oppose liberalism on the grounds that it impedes many people from participating in public deliberation, establishes dominant hierarchies, exalts individual rights above a common good, and subverts community--or, alternatively, that it extols social conformity and stifling regulations at the cost of individual opportunity. ;This work suggests that many of the attacks have misunderstood the strength and limitations of liberal regimes because they have ignored or failed adequately to examine the Harm Principle, most famously argued for by John Stuart Mill as the sole ground of state power. In this neglect they are not alone: the concept of harm in political theory has largely been assumed to be self-evident or as grist for lawyers and politicians, not philosophers. The only modern in-depth philosophic study of harm is the four-volume work of Joel Feinberg, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, published during 1984-1988. But Mill did not confine the Harm Principle to criminal law, nor are the ways by which the state affects each of us limited to prohibiting crimes. ;Building on Feinberg's understanding of harm, this work broadens the inquiry to all state activities and investigates whether a state restricted to acting under the Harm Principle can solve the problems of our age. It concludes that the Harm Principle neither confines the state to a parsimonious laissez-faire libertarianism nor permits it to overstep generally-recognized constitutional bounds in the name of a general social good. Properly understood, the Harm Principle provides the appropriate means of solving the fundamental human dilemma of how to escape from the jungle without landing in the zoo.