Justifications for Political Coercion

1
Justifications for Political Coercion

1. To prevent harm to others (harm principle)
2. To prevent offense to others (offense principle)
3. To prevent harm to oneself (legal paternalism)
4. To prevent immoral conduct (legal moralism)
5. To force people to improve their own conditions
   (extreme paternalism)
6. To force people to improve the conditions of
   others (welfare principle) (592-93)

2
Limits on Political CoercionThe Harm Principle

• 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, persuasionnot law or social
  coercionis permitted this is to prevent the
  tyranny of the majority
• But what distinguishes harm vs. offense?

J. S. Mill
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 behaviorthat is,
  unavoidable behavior, the very thought of which
  is widely and impersonally considered as
  violating deep moral sensibilities