Abstract

 
 
 
 Following Mill’s (1859) definition, the ‘harm principle’ came to dominate legal debates about crime and the appropriate response of the justice system, effectively replacing official talk of morality in modern secular societies. However, the harm principle has collapsed without an accepted definition of harm or a method to adjudicate between competing claims. To address this, we propose a definition of ‘good’ derived from evolutionary perspectives. From this, a universal goal for society can be recognised, specific objectives to reach that goal can be listed, and a new definition for harm can be used to repair the harm principle and restore its ability to underpin criminal law and the principles of justice in society.
 
 
 
Highlights
After John Stuart Mill (1859) defined the ‘harm principle’, it quickly came to dominate legal debates about crime and the appropriate response of the justice system
Without an accepted definition of harm or a method to adjudicate between competing claims of harm, the harm principle as the underlying justification for criminal law in liberal democracies has effectively collapsed (Harcourt 1999)
We build a case for a new definition of ‘good’, from which we can derive what harm is in a way that repairs the harm principle and restores its ability to underpin criminal law and the principles of justice in society
Summary
After John Stuart Mill (1859) defined the ‘harm principle’, it quickly came to dominate legal debates about crime and the appropriate response of the justice system. This effectively replaced all official talk of morality in modern secular societies. The problem with trying to use the harm principle to determine the laws for a society is that there is no philosophically justified summum bonum (i.e., ‘highest good’) that would enable one to choose from among complex and competing claims of harm. We begin with a brief description of the importance of the harm principle This is followed by details about its collapse, the accompanying collapse of justice, and the consequences of each downfall. We build a case for a new definition of ‘good’, from which we can derive what harm is in a way that repairs the harm principle and restores its ability to underpin criminal law and the principles of justice in society
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