Justifications for Political Coercion

1. Justifications for Political Coercion • To prevent harm to others (harm principle) • To prevent offense to others (offense principle) • To prevent harm to oneself (legal paternalism) • To prevent immoral conduct (legal moralism) • To force people to improve their own conditions (extreme paternalism) • To force people to improve the conditions of others (welfare principle) (592-93)

2. Limits on Political Coercion:The Harm Principle J. S. Mill • Governments are justified in restricting liberty only to prevent harm to others • Where behavior is merely offensive, or where self-improvement, preferences, or conscience is concerned, persuasion—not law or social coercion—is permitted: this is to prevent the tyranny of the majority • But what distinguishes harm vs. offense?

3. Limits on Political Coercion: The Offense Principle Joel Feinberg • Profound offenses differ from mere nuisances in virtue of their intensity, duration, extent, and avoidability • Governments are justified in prohibiting by law profoundly offensive behavior—that is, unavoidable behavior, the very thought of which is widely and impersonally considered as violating deep moral sensibilities