The British state has co-opted the harm principle for its own interests

For too long, the state has justified all sorts of intrusive and illiberal measures as necessary to protect their citizens from "harm". They've co-opted the harm principle. It is time we took it back.

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In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill famously said, “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” This statement is known as Mill’s harm principle and has become a cornerstone of liberal thought worldwide. This 19th-century idea still shapes debates on law, free speech, and public health. While initially the principle seems straightforward, many issues in modern Britain challenge its clarity.

In Mill’s Victorian age, there was very limited state intervention. Paradoxically, liberalism at this time effectively asked the state to do more to protect the most vulnerable from harm while protecting fundamental rights to personal liberty. This theory assumes rational individuals and defines harm as a tangible injury.

On Liberty was first published by J.S. Mill in 1859

Today, Britain finds itself in the opposite situation. The state has become large, inefficient, and overly paternalistic. Harm is now understood as anything from a minor inconvenience to risks that may only materialise years later. While many could use the harm principle to back up laws creating a smoke-free generation or to protect minorities, does this really amount to the physical harm Mill was talking about in his time?

Mill’s original theory was both a comment on paternalism and the proper limits of state intervention. This enabled Victorians to enjoy a freer society, protected from the various dangers of the period. The harm principle allowed individuals to embrace personal freedom in any way they desired, so long as it didn’t infringe upon another person’s rights to do the same.

The harm principle gave people personal responsibility for their actions rather than a state mandate and allowed them to drink, smoke, or take drugs without the government specifying the quantities they could consume. It assumed individual rationality and promoted minimal government interference, only in the case of direct and tangible injury. This idea of personal liberty, together with Edmund Burke’s earlier theories of cultural conservatism and organic society, helped shape 19^th-century politics.

After Mill’s time, many of Britain’s laws on free speech and human rights came from his ideas. He strongly advocated for racial and gender equality, partially shaped by his wife, Harriet Taylor, a pre-eminent feminist. Mill’s ideas gave Britain a strong culture of suspicion of government and admiration for the underdog, which often framed itself as the citizenry against the government.

Public debates still rage, however, about where the harm principle should be invoked. Should harms that may manifest years later or harms affecting only oneself be prohibited by the government? My answer is a resounding no; letting the government decide what is best for you can easily encourage state tyranny. As rational actors, individuals themselves are best placed to determine what they do to their own bodies.

Britain is now a completely different society. The harm principle is sound in theory. Yet modern Britain’s problems often yield divergent policy conclusions. Mill himself was a staunch defender of free speech; however, the harm principle is too often used as an excuse to bring in laws against free speech, claiming that some speech causes psychological harm that later manifests physically. This is stretching the harm principle to its limits, reducing liberty to spare others potential offence.

Modern technology has blurred the line between public and private spaces. Lucy Connolly, recently released, served more than a year in prison for supposedly inciting violence against migrants. This was even though she had posted and subsequently deleted her social media post miles away from any kind of protest. It is flawed for the justice system to treat this as equivalent to saying the same thing in front of a baying mob. Politicians increasingly view disinformation as a “harm” to democracy. In reality, by banning some speech online, the government risks letting these views permeate the debate rather than having the general public debunk it.

In a similar way to speech, those in power now use the harm principle as a backdoor to paternalism. Ultimately, you should be able to pursue whatever lifestyle you choose, provided that it doesn’t infringe on another person’s right to freely live their lives. The government doesn’t define the harm principle like that and sees potential harm to oneself years down the line as a reason to heavily regulate drinking, gambling, and tobacco. Firstly, this policy takes accountability out of your hands and makes it a decision for the government to make, removing your freedom of choice. Secondly, it conflates Mill’s definition of direct, tangible injury with something that could potentially happen to you. The government wants to ban cigarettes because they are carcinogenic. Yet the harms of a single cigarette are not immediate; they accrue over years of heavy use. That places smoking outside Mill’s scope, which is focused on preventing direct harm to others, not risk to oneself. While Mill makes exceptions to children and those of unsound mind, he reiterates the individual’s right to make their own lifestyle choices, clarifying after his harm principle that “His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant” for the state to ban a behavioural choice that only impacts the individual.

The harm principle is also co-opted for what is known as collective harms. Some liberals believe that the government should step in to ban fossil fuels and polluting emissions. I believe that to justify this, using the harm principle is to misunderstand its point. Climate change is pressing, but Mill would likely have favoured taxes and regulations that preserved choice while discouraging harmful behaviour.

Overall, the harm principle stands today as one of the best defences of individual liberty and a small state. Leaders should be careful not to co-opt it for their own interests and instead look at what Mill truly meant by a “harm” to others. Crucially, John Stuart Mill’s theories gave individuals the right to treat people’s lives as their own, to be free to express themselves as they saw fit and to lead a life outside the remit of the state. Lawmakers should distinguish between direct harm and mere offence, whether immediate or potential.

What do you think? Has the state gone too far in trying to protect its citizens from “harm”. Is the modern world simply too complicated for the use of such a simple concept as the harm principle? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Edward Newson is a politics graduate and political commentator with Young Voices UK.

Those who have read this piece may be interested in the Rt Hon Steve Baker’s recent piece for Voices for a Free Future on what he believes an authentically conservative position would look like.