When do governments deserve our allegiance, and when should they be denied it? This course explores the main answers that have been given to this question in the modern West. We start with a survey of the major political theories of the Enlightenment: Utilitarianism, Marxism, and the social contract tradition. In each case, we begin with a look at classical formulations, locating them in historical context, but then shift to the contemporary debates as they relate to politics today. Next, we turn to the rejection of Enlightenment political thinking, again exploring both classical and contemporary formulations. The last part of the course deals with the nature of, and justifications for, democratic politics, and their relations to Enlightenment and Anti-Enlightenment political thinking. In addition to exploring theoretical differences among the various authors discussed, considerable attention is devoted to the practical implications of their competing arguments. To this end, we discuss a variety of concrete problems, including debates about economic inequality, affirmative action and the distribution of health care, the limits of state power in the regulation of speech and religion, and difficulties raised by the emerging threat of global environmental decay.
The Harm Principle in Practice
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Del curso dictado por Yale University
Moral Foundations of Politics
1268 calificaciones
De la lección
Utilitarianism: Classical and Neoclassical
Classical and neoclassical utilitarianism are examined in this module starting with the historical context. Professor Shapiro then shifts to the contemporary debates as they relate to politics today.
Conoce a los instructores
Ian ShapiroSterling Professor of Political Science and Henry R. Luce Director
The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale
Now I want to put on the table for
our discussion, some examples that might look paradoxical.
And I'm thinking here,
a couple of examples he gives in the last chapter of the book
where he starts talking about actually applying the harm principle in practice.
And he gives a couple of examples.
One is that he says, whoever succeeds in an overcrowded profession,
or in a competitive examination, whoever is preferred to another in any contest for
an object which both desire, reaps benefit from the loss of others,
from their wasted exertion and their disappointment.
But it is by common admission, better for the general interest of mankind,
that persons should pursue their objects undeterred by this sort of consequences.
So he's saying if you have competitive exams for
positions in the civil service or something like that, It's great for
the person who wins, but what about the person who loses?
The person who loses is harmed.
Isn't he?
Or isn't she?
>> I think they're certainly losing out.
>> They're losing out, yeah.
>> But- >> What would you say?
>> But then, maybe something better is awaiting this person.
[LAUGH] >> Maybe.
So, I think what Mill has in mind is we could say,well,
rather than give out the jobs in the civil service on a meritocratic basis,
we could give everybody a turn to have them.
Or we could give them out on the basis of gender or race.
There are many ways to give them out.
Then he wants to say, by common admission, it is better for
the general interest of mankind.
Here's another example he gives.
He says it was once thought to be the duty of governments in all cases Which were
considered to be important to fix prices and regulate the processes of manufacture.
But is is now recognized, it is now recognized,
though not until after a long struggle, that both the cheapness and
the quality of commodities are better delivered if we have
no government fixing of prices, the so-called doctrine of free trade.
So they're saying of course free trade harms some people.
We have free trade, we won't have big government subsidies for farmers,
it harms the farmers.
But it's now generally recognized that it's better to have free trade.
Okay, you can see why he would say that, but the reason I'm bringing these examples
up is, it seems to be a contradiction, isn't it?
After all, if you go back to the Harm Principle, where we started,
he says the object of this essay is to assert a very simple principle,
as entitled to govern people's dealings with one another.
That principle is that the sole end, for which mankind are warranted in interfering
with one another is self protection, but notice this phrase in the middle.
He says whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties,
or the moral coercion of public opinion.
So can you see why I'm starting to wonder about this?
On the one hand he's saying well, it's now generally accepted that
competitive examinations in the civil service are better.
It's now generally accepted that free trade is better.
But I thought we weren't allowed to go by what's generally accepted.
So doesn't this seem like there's a contradiction here?
He's, after all, appealing to what opponents of free
trade would call the moral coercion of public opinion.
We know Mill wasn't stupid.
How do you think he might reconcile?
It's like a pretty glaring contradiction, yeah?
>> Oh, yeah.
There are certain parts of his rhetoric where there's a lot of emphasis on it.
And there's different parts of his rhetoric where there aren't.
And I'm sure he's got to find a way to navigate between those two.
>> Okay, he does, and it's not easy to see it until it's spelled out,
so let me just spell it out.
His way out involves a two step inquiry.
So for any proposed action, the first question is does it harm some third party?
Does it harm somebody else?
If the answer is no, then it's protected by the harm principle.
So, whether it's drinking alcohol or freedom of speech,
there's no harm to anybody from any of these things.
If the answer is yes, then
Mill doesn't say we should bar the action.
Then he says, do the utilitarian thing.
In other words, what Mill would say if he were sitting here, I think,
about these two examples that we've been discussing, he'd say any system
of giving out a scarce resource harms somebody, like a job, any system.
If we give it out on the basis of races it harms the people who
are of the disfavored race.
If we give it out on the basis of merit it harms of the people who are not smart.
If we give it out on the basis of- >> Preferential
treatment maybe >> Preferential treatment you were gonna
ask a question?
>> Yeah we came back to it.
If in the case of something like a job a scarce resource,
if its given to somebody and not somebody else,
is the person that it's not given to really harmed or are they just left alone?
And if the case is that they're just left alone,
can you harm somebody by doing nothing?
>> Okay. So that is a very good question that we're
gonna deal with next time.
And that is the question of whether externalities,
what economists call externalities on an action count as harms, right?
So, for instance, if a physician operating on you leaves the scissors
in your stomach, he wasn't trying to leave the scissors in your stomach.
He made a mistake, right?
He was trying to remove the tumor, right?
So that would be an externality of his action.
So what externality should be counted,
is a very tricky subject and we'll dig into that next time.
Yeah.
>> Just one question does this mean,
then we should only look at the intention of harm?
>> Whether it's intentional is a good question as well.
And indeed we'll see that certain kinds of harms,
to count as harms, have to be intentional and others do not.
We're also gonna talk about that next time.
So and I just push it off to one side.
But, it's a very good question to ask.
So, but the short answer to your question right now is
Mill's not getting to the externalities point.
He says with giving away the jobs, I'm conceding that it harms somebody.
And he's just saying, the point I,
John Stuart Mill want to make, is that any way of giving out jobs harms somebody.
Therefore, you can't call it self-regarding,
therefore we have to do the best utilitarian thing, and that is,
we now think, giving them out meritocratically is the best way to do it.
So once the harm principle is triggered, because we're not in the realm of
self-regarding action, then we do the utilitarian thing informed by science,
public policy, studies, and so on.
Always, of course,
helped along by freedom of speech which criticizes received opinion and so on.
Okay, and it's exactly the way he would talk about the free trade issue as well.
It's, of course, free trade harms some people, but
any trade regime is gonna harm some people, because any trade regime also
is about how scarce benefits get distributed in the society.
And because any trade regime harms somebody,
it's not in the realm of self-regarding action, we do the utilitarian thing, okay?
So it's a two-step inquiry, as I said.
If there's no harm, it's self-regarding, the harm principle applies.
If there is harm, inevitably gonna be harm,
it's either regarding and then you do the utilitarian thing.
So that's the way in which he tries to put it all together.
Which is not to say that it's without problems.
And we're gonna talk about some of the problems next time.
And in preparation for that, I want you to think about these two questions.
The first, actually,
is implicit in the questions you just brought up about externalities and
about the issue of intentionality you'll see.
So the first is in what respects if any, we've now already started to
indicate there are some respects, in what respects is the harm principle ambiguous?
And try and crystallize those in your mind before we pick things up next time.
And the second question I want to ask you is,
is there a sense in which the harm principle is inherently conservative?
And for that, I want you to start, in your own mind,
trying to make the link between what we've discussing today and
what might seem to be something a long way away named the Pareto principle.
Because it turns out that it's an important underlying architectural
symmetry between Mill's harm principle and the Pareto principle.
And we'll get into that next time.
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