John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle and Free Speech: Expanding the Notion of Harm

Authors

Melina Constantine Bell, Washington and Lee University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Utilitas

Publication Date

2021

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820820000229

Abstract

This article advocates employing John Stuart Mill’s harm principle to set the boundary for unregulated free speech, and his Greatest Happiness Principle to regulate speech outside that boundary because it threatens unconsented-to harm. Supplementing the harm principle with an offense principle is unnecessary and undesirable if our conception of harm integrates recent empirical evidence unavailable to Mill. For example, current research uncovers the tangible harms individuals suffer directly from bigoted speech, as well as the indirect harms generated by the systemic oppression and epistemic injustice that bigoted speech constructs and reinforces. Using Mill’s ethical framework with an updated notion of harm, we can conclude that social coercion is not justified to restrict any harmless speech, no matter how offensive. Yet certain forms of speech, such as bigoted insults, are both harmful and fail to express a genuine opinion, and so do not deserve free speech protection.

Recommended Citation

Melina Constantine Bell, John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle and Free Speech: Expanding the Notion of Harm, 33 Utilitas 162 (2021).