John Stuart Mill Self Harm

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Mill’s harm principle as described in the simplest of terms is when an action is only punishable if it is doing harm to others. This principal is expanded to the government by saying the government is only allowed to restrict the freedom of someone if they are/are going to harm someone else. Mill’s stance on government regulations is very loose. It is extremely hard to convince him that something is illegal, because he says there has to be almost 100 percent certainty that the action will cause harm to another. While Mill’s view on the laws and government regulations may not be a very common outlook, there is no denying that he never wavers from his beliefs that freedom is the most aspect to protect in our society. The first topic that …show more content…
So in theory Mill should be fine with self-harm because it does not limit or infringe upon someone else’s freedom or rights. Laws for drugs are a key example. By using drugs you are only affecting your own body with the substance which is completely fine by Mill, which means that he should disagree with all laws restricting the use of drugs. However your actions on some of the drugs have the potential to negatively affect those around you. This causes a problem for Mill, because he believes that nobody’s freedoms should ever be infringed upon. This leads him to split his view on drugs down the middle. He believes that the laws prohibiting the drugs that don’t cause you to harm those around you like marijuana and heroin for example should not be banned because they do not infringe upon anybody else’s freedoms or rights. While drugs like PCP where the users become extremely violent should be banned because there is an almost certain chance that someone will

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