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legitimately within the purview of social authority. At the same time, Mill
emphasizes, general expediency is commonly held to dictate a continuing reliance
on capitalistic firms and free markets, at least for the foreseeable future. Private
ownership of the means of production ought to be conjoined with a general
presumption in favour of laissez-faire. (For further discussion and caveats
relating to these points, see Riley, 1996.)
When applying Mill s doctrine, then, we must not suppose that there is
a neat correspondence between the expedient scope of individual liberty (or
private conduct) and the liberty maxim on the one hand, and between the
expedient scope of public coercion and the authority maxim on the other. The
laissez-faire doctrine implies that some liberty of other-regarding acts is
utilitarian, whereas the liberty maxim says the same of complete liberty of
purely self-regarding acts.
Why draw the distinction?
The question arises whether there is really much point in distinguishing between
the liberty maxim and a laissez-faire principle. In both cases, it might be said,
the value of individuality or self-development outweighs competing
considerations, even if harm to others is involved in the one case and not in the
other.
Nevertheless, there are crucial differences. The liberty maxim prescribes
equal rights to complete liberty of self-regarding actions. Equal rights of this
sort can be enjoyed in harmony, since one person s exercise of his right does not
directly affect other people against their wishes. The laissez-faire doctrine
says, in contrast, that individuals have no moral obligations to each other with
respect to some other-regarding activities. Rather, individuals have moral
permission (and perhaps legal rights founded on that permission) to compete
under certain terms and conditions. But an equal permission to compete is a
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much weaker moral claim than an equal right to do as one likes. Indeed, it is
impossible to guarantee self-interested producers and sellers an equal right to
choose as they wish in a competitive scramble for scarce resources. Some
competitors can succeed only at the expense of others. Thus, society needs
good reasons the efficient production and allocation of resources, for example
for permitting the individualities of some to flourish at the expense of others
under laissez-faire. The form of reasoning that justifies the liberty maxim,
namely, that it affords an equal opportunity for the cultivation of individuality
without harm to others, is simply not available.
The extraordinary case of expression
Before considering a second sort of practical insight offered by Mill, we should
return briefly to the ambiguity which has been lingering around his treatment of
expression. The ambiguity must be resolved, it seems, by saying that expression
is an extraordinary case.
In general, unlike expression, self-regarding acts are truly harmless to
others. Such acts are not really other-regarding acts which, because interference
with them is calculated to be generally inexpedient, are treated as if they are
harmless to others, when in fact they are harmful (or carry a significant risk of
harm) to others.
Expression is extraordinary because, although truly other-regarding, it is
virtually never the object of expedient coercion: the risks and perils to others
(to their reputations and the like) are almost always outweighed by the
expected benefits of self-development. Thus, expression can be seen as a peculiar
element of the other-regarding class. Since it is almost self-regarding, it may
conveniently be treated in general as if it were self-regarding, and practically
inseparable from thought.
The proper limits of society s police authority (V.5 6)
Mill next turns to another practical issue, opened up, as he says, by the
example of the sale of poisons touched on in his treatment of the laissez-faire
doctrine. The new question is the proper limits of what may be called the
functions of police; how far liberty may legitimately be invaded for the
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prevention of crime, or of accident (V.5, pp. 293 4). It is indisputable, he says,
that social authority is legitimately employed to prevent crimes, understood as
acts involving serious harms to others, and accidents, including unintentional
self-injury. Public officials may interfere with any one evidently preparing to
commit a crime , for example, and may also prohibit the manufacture and sale [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]