Saturday, August 6, 2011

Contra Mundum: Consenting Adults and Harm | MandM

Dr Matt Flannagan has posted an article about the often touted argument that morality of an action should only be couched by the question of who that action harms and why. Unfortunately, people really think the graphic at the right is enough. Flannagan writes:

In debates over abortion, homosexual conduct, euthanasia, prostitution, drugs, those who call themselves liberals often mount the same basic argument; a socially or morally permissive stance is necessitated towards such practices because people have a right to choose do what ever they like with their own bodies.As John Stuart Mill put it in his book On Liberty:
“The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” [Emphasis added]
Here Mill articulates the harm principle.

Read Flannagan's article at the following link!

Contra Mundum: Consenting Adults and Harm | MandM
Enhanced by Zemanta

No comments:

Post a Comment