The Vagueness of The Harm Principle
Most libertarians believe that there are certain things that are illegal that should be legal because they are victimless activities. Smoking weed is a perfect example of the kind of activity they normally have in mind. Libertarians usually acknowledge that weed may harm the person who is consuming it but they think it doesn’t harm anyone else. The response that can be given to this idea is that it seems that weed can harm other people because your family members may be upset about you using weed and many people may be upset to find out that they have a weed store in their neighborhood so it may create a public nuisance. Even though I do think that weed should be legal and I’m very libertarian on social issues, I don’t understand how smoking weed could be considered a victimless crime if the activity could cause a pretty significant amount of distress to others. Thus, I think that arguing for weed legalization requires a more consequentialist sort of argument.
Comments (40)
The question is complex because we live in a world which is like a web, with effects which are like ripples. Also, your particular example is also complicated because while many people use weed to relax, there is a recognised link with cannabis and psychosis, especially with skunk weed. So, potentially, it may be about seeing the potential risks of psychotic Illness for the individual and, the effects of this on a wider scale.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
That's a no-go. First, that doesn't qualify as "harm." That's unreasonable. Your family may get upset if you date someone of another race or religion. So what? "Family upset" is irrelevant and I don't think it constitutes a reasonable standard.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
That would be a zoning issue and should only be a consideration after proof that a nuisance would occur. Make a record, on evidence. Then find the least intrusive way of regulating the store(s).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
That's a no-go. I've never heard of a "significant amount of distress" standard.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I think the burden should upon those who object, not those who want to legalize weed.
But that's just me.
If any harm is derived from seeing others smoke weed, or knowing that a dispensary exists in the neighborhood, it is entirely self-inflicted. The bellyacher is both perpetrator and victim.
:100:
Well, I believe that there are many cultures that do believe that if you do something to make your family upset which may include dating someone that they don’t like that this constitutes victimizing your family. I speculate that you could only reasonably criticize those cultures from a utilitarian standpoint because it seems to me that deontological theories about what is justified or unjustified are all equally arbitrary and wrong.
Quoting James Riley
I agree. I support decriminalizing weed. I just think that it doesn’t make sense to call the act of selling or smoking weed a victimless activity if it often makes people very upset.
I would disagree. If someone spits at me then I could just be detached and not care that they spit on me. But, I think it would be strange to argue that this person isn’t a perpentrator of harm. I’m not sure what the meaningful difference is between making someone upset by spitting on them and making someone upset by smoking weed is.
These activities, and many others, can be engaged in without individual or social consequences -- or they can have substantial material personal and social consequences. Risk is inherent in many activities--ranging from low risk to high risk.
How much regulation should be in place depends, partly, on how risk tolerant or risk averse one is. For the risk averse, more regulation will seem reasonable -- quite apart from whether one is a libertarian or not.
People can be personally risk tolerant for some behaviors and risk intolerant for others. Someone might be quite tolerant about the risks of using drugs purchased on the street but be very fussy about food sanitation issues. There are people who insist on organic food for health, and who smoke (maybe organic tobacco and weed) apparently without seeing a contradiction.
We can all endorse well-thought-out intervention programs aimed at reducing known risks, and we can all object to ill-conceived programs which end up causing more problems--whether we are libertarians or regulation loving liberals.
I agree: offending other people is a consequence. I would consider it a usually tolerable consequence, but others may not.
Very few things codified into law are truly victimless activities. Being told not to do something, being stopped, and perhaps receiving a nominal fine is a world of difference from being incarcerated against one's will.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
It makes stupid, lazy, and/or forgetful people even more so. Don't do that to your fellow man. Sure most can handle it, but if you let some people do it you have to let everyone do it. Fast food orders get mixed up, traffic lights and signs get ignored, appointments and important obligations are put off if not missed altogether, entire fridges and pantries become depleted, these actions alone are permissible of course they can lead to surprisingly disproportionate conflict, injuries, and suffering. It's the net impact on society after adding up all these little things that by themselves are basically nothing.
Kind of like how a 1 cent global tax on everyone once a month for a year will create a surplus fund of a billion dollars.
Well, everyone on the planet is a victim then, because everyone gets upset about something. I just don't think the rest of the world has to walk around on egg shells because of a few thin-skinned individuals. It's better to create a society that's a little tougher, and a little more respectful of the rights of others. No one is forcing anyone to smoke pot or patronize a store. Internalize your costs and "mind your own business" is a good philosophy in my book.
I agree. This is why I think weed should be legalized. But.... It seems to me that offending someone still counts as victimization. I think Victimization can sometimes be justified though.
Some folks victimize themselves if they are offended by the mere existence of another. It's not the other that is victimizing them.
Being a rude or terrible person (while following all applicable laws) is not a crime today. Labor is labor. Organs are valuable to someone who needs them, I wouldn't want theirs but to each their own. However a pattern of long term, coordinated efforts to harass, slander, or violate another person's freedoms or rights just short of committing actual crimes however is in many jurisdictions. A threat is not assault, though it could warrant scrutiny of one's mental health and assessment of whether that person is a threat to themselves or others and if certain privileges need to be revoked or other measures deployed to prevent a crime or tragedy against a truly innocent member of society. It's 'intimidation', which is a crime.
I can flick you off, call you any name I wish, and insult anything about you or how you are and you can't call a cop or pursue legal action for that alone, but if someone is going on a profanity-ridden tirade amongst mixed company in a public place potentially including children it can be considered 'disturbing the peace'.
Life is disturbing enough. We don't need people who make it even worse. But again, labor, etc.
It wasn't too long before we heard the horns of war blaring, signalling the Y'sa troops to begin their assault. In a matter of minutes, the gates of Xasa fort were creaking and moaning under the force of the Y'sa battering rams. Our troops inside the fort did all they could to maintain the integrity of the large wooden gates but alas, luck was not on our side that day.
After but a quarter of an hour of punishment the gates finally gave way. Through the breach the Y'sa soldiers poured in like a swarm of ants - there was nothing we could do to save the day.
Amidst all this, our general Sw'e was unmoved. He stood on the highest point on the wall and ordered our archers to draw their bows and aim at the Y'sa soldiers still outside the walls. For a brief moment, even in all the confusion of firece fighting, we locked eyes - he smiled at me and I, for some reason that I can't still wrap my head around, smiled back. The fort fell, the battle was lost, and the war too.
Actually, you can, at least in some jurisdictions.
Smoking weed is not a "victimless crime".
How do you feel about being run over by a pothead and ending up in a wheelchair for the rest of your life?
I would disagree that folks who are upset about weed purely victimize themselves. For example, if someone spits at me then I could just be detached and not care that they spit on me. But, I think it would be strange to argue that I’m alone responsible for the emotional harm caused by the person spitting at me. I’m not sure what the meaningful difference is between making someone upset by spitting on them and making someone upset by smoking weed.
You don't let cancer spread, you.. neutralize it. By whatever legal and socially accepted actions of the times and society are, otherwise, if you had the opportunity to stop it but didn't, you are basically at fault for whatever further damage it causes. You were the one who knew better, not the virus. So, by ignoring it and letting it spread, you effectively become it. Tangential aiding and abetting.
Edit: Of course it's not that simple, that's why we have the law, transparency, and public scrutiny. Humans interestingly enough work like T-cells and viruses, a disease can infect a white blood cell or T-cell (or something, I'm not a medical professional) and cause a previously healthy cell that defends the body to either A.) ignore the disease or virus AND/OR B.) attack it's own body and system that supports it. That's what viruses do. The real world comparison would be a stranger telling a person a perfectly-just (which is rare, sure) government is out to get them and he, as opposition, will save them, when in fact he has no such desire. Or that said government has become tyrannical or infiltrated and must be destroyed because ignoring the fact he left where he came from to get there "everything is not quite perfect for you here so there must be an evil conspiracy against you". This is essentially exactly what happens on the cellular level in relation to viruses and blood cells.
Back to the larger world around us, accountability is important, otherwise some degenerate monstrosity could just go up to a law-abiding citizen, accuse him of a crime, or even shoot him, and claim self-defense. So it's tough today. Pick your friends wisely, and make sure they are of similar sentiment. You are who you hang out with.
The meaningful difference is this: He who spits at you is doing something to you. He who smokes weed is not. In the former case, he is doing it to you. In the latter case, you are doing it to yourself.
With the weed, he's not making you upset. You are making yourself upset.
Well smoking weed wouldn't be what caused the car accident and wheelchair harm. Pretty obviously it was something to do with the driving, possibly from the weed but not necessarily.
Running people over isn’t a victimless crime, but smoking pot is.
Also, people critical of smoking pot or its legalisation have to be critical of drinking alcohol or its legalisation first if they want to be taken seriously.
Ok, in that case, would you also say that if someone is upset at their SO for having sex with someone else that this also doesn’t constitute victimization? If you wouldn’t say that, then what would be a meaningful difference between making your SO upset by cheating on them and making someone upset by smoking weed? After all, it seems to me that you aren’t doing anything to your SO by sleeping with another person. The main recipient of your act would be the person that you’re cheating on your SO with, wouldn’t it? If that’s the case, then I would say that it strikes me as unusual to claim that the SO made themselves upset by caring about their partner’s infidelity.
By using the word "cheating" you imply an agreement. There is no agreement, implied or otherwise, that X not smoke weed.
I think that there are plenty of implied agreements that X not smoke weed. For example, when an employer requires a drug test and using weed would make you fail that drug test, doesn’t that constitute an implied agreement with your employer that you not smoke weed? In addition, suppose that you have a roommate that doesn’t want to live with someone that smokes weed and you lie about your weed smoking habits, doesn’t that also violate an agreement? If you accept this, then wouldn’t it make sense to say that there are plenty of cases where someone smoking weed victimizes another person or entity?
There are none. X has to do something to cause Y to believe that X will not smoke weed. If X has not done anything to cause Y to believe that X will not smoke weed, then if Y is upset, Y made himself upset.
Employer drug tests are not implied. They are express. As to the roommate, he would first have to make it known he did not want to live with a pot smoker (in which case it would be express). If you then smoke weed without ever having said you would not, that's on the roommate. If you said you would not smoke and then lied and did it, that is like the agreement with the SO.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I don't.
You know, it's like going to a resort: It is not the resort's job to make you happy. You have to make yourself happy. The resort need only do what it said it would do for the money you paid, and anything reasonably implied (i.e. not piss in your canteen). If you are still "upset" or angry or whatever, that's on you. If you have unreasonable expectations of life, that's on you, not on life. There are people who live in absolutely horrendous conditions who are happier than some of the richest people on earth. If you think people are entitled to be upset by other people who didn't go jack diddly squat to them, then too bad. It was you that hurt yourself, not them.
Quoting James Riley
Yes and the employee has taken the drug test which I think does count as X doing something to cause Y to believe that X will not smoke weed.
Quoting James Riley
Yes and I think that happens quite frequently. Hence why I don’t think it makes sense to call the act of smoking weed a victimless activity in a near universal sense like it is frequently argued to be by certain kinds of libertarians.
Y has made not smoking weed a condition of employment, the verification of which is the test. They have a preexisting agreement. Do you not see the difference between "doing to" and "not doing to"? It's the same distinction I drew for you between spitting on you, versus smoking weed over there without any agreement not to.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
The fact that people commit crimes or breach agreements (written or implied) quite frequently is irrelevant. Smoking weed does not transmogrify a mere observer into a victim simply because they saw it and are upset by it. There has to be a nexus showing the harm was imposed upon them by another, and was not merely the result of their own observation or agency.
Compare: You may know that I get upset seeing kids walking around with their pants down and their underwear showing. Guess what? Tough shit to me! You walking around with your pants down and your underwear showing, even if you know it upsets me, is not you upsetting me. It is me upsetting myself. How much more so if you don't know it upsets me? Because you don't know me, and you have no duty to go around asking everyone how they feel about something before you do it. The point here is, people have a duty to go feel somewhere else before their impose their unreasonable, subjective feelings on the rest of the world. Indeed, what if am upset by people with thin skin who get all upset about me smoking weed? Maybe we should outlaw their feelings and make them stay inside and not look out? Whose feels trumps whose feels? How about we keep our feels to ourselves unless and until their are actual, demonstrable, provable, palpable, damages?
The action of smoking weed does not necessarily imply harm towards others, even if some who use weed may hurt their relationships because of it, it isn’t a necessary consequence of the action of smoking weed.
However, imagine a powerful warrior’s drug that gave an urge to assault someone : the consumption of the drug would necessarily imply harm towards other, and I think the harm principle would justify banning this drug and its use.
I think that this critera of ''innateness of harm'' makes the harm principle quite clear for decriminalizing kinds of actions.
I think the question is not whether or not the harm principle is clear (according to my interpretation), I think the question is whether or not we want to consider all merely probable phenomenological harms instead of harms planned by the law, and the latter would require deliberation. The former would make the harm principle quite vague. So maybe it's the notion of harm that is vague.
Given that those kids played a causal influence in making you upset in this hypothetical case, I find it more plausible to think that those kids did contribute to your victimization. In addition, I want to point out that I think it’s completely possible for someone to victimize someone else and not realize that they have victimized someone else. So, the fact that I might not know that you would be upset by seeing me walk around in sagging pants doesn’t really seem relevant regarding questions relating to whether or not a particular activity victimizes others.
Quoting James Riley
I agree that you don’t have a duty to not smoke weed. I think it’s perfectly compatible to believe that making people upset by smoking weed victimizes the person who is upset at your actions and to believe that you just don’t have a duty not to victimize that person.
Quoting James Riley
I think pretty much any kind of law or action victimizes people constantly. It’s pretty obvious that a law prohibiting the possession of weed would also victimize people that wish to smoke weed and those weed smokers would also be victimized. The point of my OP was not to argue against weed legalization. To try to answer your questions, I do think that the victimization of weed users by the law is greater and more unnecessary than the victimization of people who are upset about living in a weed friendly society. This is why I think weed should be legal. Nonetheless, I don’t think that the fact that the victimization of the weed haters is smaller implies that they wouldn’t be victimized at all if weed was legalized.
Well, I’m not sure if any action necessarily implies harm towards others. It seems to me that even an action such as theft doesn’t necessarily produce a negative consequence towards someone. The victim of theft doesn’t always have to upset about the loss of his property and may even use his situation as a learning experience to change his life for the better. In addition, it’s possible that a thief can steal something that either has negative value or would inadvertently have negative value. For example, a thief could steal something that would end up being dangerous to the owner or would end up greatly inconveniencing the owner of the property. Another possibility involves a thief stealing property that the owner never ever realized that he had and property that he would have never really discovered that he owned or lost. So, I’m not sure why banning an act like stealing wouldn’t violate the harm principle but banning an act like smoking weed would.
If the definition of a harm was prealably deliberated as involving no phenomenological assessment ffrom the person being stolen, there is no difficulty in assessing anaction using the harm principle.
If the the mere fact that a person loses possession of a good is considered as a harm, without need to consider the individual's phenomenology, it can be considered as a harm whether or not she cares. If I break my arm doing skateboard and consider it no big deal, I am harmed whether or not I feel pain. If I get stolen without caring about it, I am harmed whether or not I care. If our definition of stealing implies that you take possession of something without permission, and consider this as a harm, the personn has less than she would have if she had not been stolen from, and thefore it is hurtful for her whether or not she cares. We don't really need to assess her phenomenology farther.
Of course most psychological harms are phenomenological (like suffering is much harder to live by than simply experiencing pain), but if we assert that certain kinds of phenomenologies are harms, it is compatible with the harm principle. For example, if you make me angry by smoking weed, and that you consider the phenomenological emotion of angriness as being a harm, it is a harm whether or not I think angriness is harmful or not. I may agree that since you are smoking weed, I am angry, but I may maintain that it is not harmful for me to be angry, since honestly, the feeling of shouting your lungs after someone kind of feels good after all.
If we have an interactionist definition of harm, preferably, one which was prealably deliberated with the community, we have no trouble applying the harm principle.
The harm principle (or my interpretation) simply says ''If X does not imply Y, decriminalize X''. The rationale being : ''if Y is not harmful, the reason we have for criminalizing X vanishes''.
The problem is when someone proposes that the definition of ''harm'' is purely and simply phenomenological (as you seem to be suggesting is the correct definition of harm) : '' i say that it is a harm, so therefore it is harm''. We cannot predict what kind of event would generate this kind of assessment, and therefore this would really make the harm principle unpredictable and vague.
Well, you are not only fundamentally wrong on the law, but you are wrong on the facts. The law will not find a crime, or even civil liability, under a scenario where X "feels" the source of his upset and his "victimization" is Y when Y has no duty to X. Further, Y is not "making" X feel.
I'll take one last stab at getting you to understand by using another case of "feeling". I don't know if you've ever been in love, but if so, the person you fell in love with did not "make you" feel love for them. That was all on you. Or lets try lust: We see a very hot chick in her Daisy Dukes. Guess what? She didn't make you hot for her. That was all on you. All of it. If you rape her, guess what? She didn't make you rape her. That was ALL on you. You not only victimized her, but you victimized yourself.
I'm done.
I got a question. Under this interactionist definition of harm, could we have some kind of coherent and unified way of explaining what all types of harmful actions have in common? For example, would we be able to provide an explanation for why taking something without someone’s permission necessarily constitutes a harm while an act like smoking weed wouldn’t necessarily constitute a harm? I’m inferring from your post that your answer would be that a particular action is harmful just in case it was considered to be harmful by a particular community(at least that’s how I understood what you were saying). My hesitations with this sort of definition of harm mostly has to do with how difficult it is to determine where a particular community starts and where the community ends. For example, do we subdivide communities into nation states or do we subdivide them into something smaller like towns or cities? On the issue of weed legalization, I think there can be huge differences regarding the opinions that different communities will have regarding how often weed causes harm to others.
In addition, I think some communities, especially more religious ones, may conceptualize harm as something that could be impersonal and victimless. For example, they might say that smoking weed causes harm because it upsets God or because it violates the sanctity of the community even if done completely privately. I think this consideration also could potentially pose another big challenge to the harm principle if we were to reject my phenomenological definition of harm.
What are you saying? That the driver was a poor driver anyway, and smoking weed was only the final straw in their driving ineptitude?
People who smoke pot hurt themselves, so they are the victims, so smoking pot isn't "a victimless crime".
I'm critical of all substances and activities that in any way diminish a person's ability to drive safely.
What I meant by that was that he was driving while high, as opposed to just being high. The problem, maybe, is driving while high. The fact that people might be getting hurt by high drivers doesnt mean getting high is wrong, it would mean getting high and driving is wrong.
Quoting baker
Victims of what?
Also, alcohol. Any criticisms you have about pot use also apply to alcohol, plus more since alcohol is clearly worse on every level. Do you think alcohol should be illegal?
Quoting baker
You seemed to be using the supposed accidents caused by weed as a reason people shouldn't smoke it or it should be illegal, did I misunderstand you?
Also, many things diminish driving, lack of sleep, fighting with your girlfriend, fussing with the radio, yelling at some guy who cut you off etc, none of which are activities you shouldn't do, they are things you should be careful about when driving.
And that's IF you could show that weed affects driving with significant diminished safety which the data doesnt indicate.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
The fact that the harm was interactionally derived guaranteed previsibility which is necessary for a principle to work. The harm must not be phenomenologically open in order for the principle to work, it must be phenomenologically closed.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Your problem is with the harm, or more precisely, with actions that truly concern only the self and more specifically, whether or not actions really can be private because of the social embeddedness of human actions. Two problems emerge with assessing the significance of harms : which harms are relevant and the privacy of the action that caused the harm.
The relevance of harm is hardly a settled matter. Are harms instigated by false beliefs real harms? Is a harm a mental state or are there other relevant matters for assessing harm? Furthermore, does the way in which the harm was brought about relevant? Should we think that merely allowing a bad thing to happen is sufficient in order to consider constraining it? Or should we in fact think that only doing harm is relevant? Maybe we should criminalize willful doing of harm. But does willfully allowing harm essentially equate to willfully doing harm?
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
If privacy matters, even if it hurts your values, you can be against criminalization of that act but be morally against the commission of the particular act. See for example the prime minister of Canada, P-E Trudeau in 1969 when he decriminalized homosexual intercourse :
Quoting Pierre E. Trudeau
Another commentator, Thérèse Casgrain, commented on a case where people were imprisoned :
Quoting Thérèse Casgrain
Maybe Trudeau and Casgrain were against homosexual intercourse, but privacy did matter when assessing the significance of the harm committed. It seemed clear, in that case, that actions between two consenting individual were not a public affair, because homosexual intercourse is conceptualized as a singular event which did not concern public law, even though it shocked more than the two persons involved in the action.
Thus said, I hardly see how these matters actually affect our agreement over the the harm principle. We can agree with the harm principle without agreeing to a common theory of the significance of harm. We can agree that 1) an action which only hurts me 2) jand does not impact someone else 3) in a significant manner in order to constitute it as harm, should not be criminalized. We can agree on the principle (albeit a very reinterpreted one) without agreeing with what precisely is a significant harm comprised in condition 3. Therefore, the harm principle isn’t in any way vague about what conditions are relevant for prohibition, but it is quite harder for it the be specific about what it prohibits.
That’s a pretty good point. I think I was wrong to call my thread “The Vagueness of The Harm Principle” as this doesn’t actually seem to properly describe the issue that I have with certain kinds of libertarians applying the harm principle. The problem doesn’t seem to lie with the principle itself as it really doesn’t seem to be vague per se —rather I think that the assumption that weed doesn’t cause harm to others is what really seems suspect to me.
If you end up in a wheelchair after being run over by a pot smoking driver, we can then have a discussion about the relevance of "significant enough" probabilities.
If thats your situation then I’m sorry that happened to you but it doesnt mean smoking pot is bad, it would at best mean smoking pot and driving is bad. At best, because you would have to show that the pot is what caused the accident. The data doesnt usually back that up, in all the recorded cases I’ve seen where a person was high and got into a car accident they were also drunk.
Ok, well you are clearly not interested in discussion. You have no rational reason for your claims and have a clear bias against pot.