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An interesting take on the idea expressed in your quote is Steven Smith's paper "The Hollowness of the Harm Principle"[0]; in it, he argues that the harm princi

An interesting take on the idea expressed in your quote is Steven Smith's paper "The Hollowness of the Harm Principle"[0]; in it, he argues that the harm principle is regarded as so powerful because it seems to be just intuition - when a teacher on the schoolyard tells us "your freedom to swing your arm stops where Billy's nose begins" seems just such obvious common sense. However this can't be used for a justification for the harm principle, because as it turns out defining harm is the real issue. Smith argues that the harm principle is "hollow" - it is used as a vessel to carry the content of our ideas no matter what they are - so long as we can say they're harmful. Smith uses the example of someone who can be said to experience "harm" simply by knowing that someone is watching pornography, for instance. Smith actually takes up J.S. Mill himself - on utilitarian conceptions, what these anti-pornography people experience really can be said to be meaningfully harm. The quote dosen't get to the point that law isn't (or usually isn't) about policing thoughts, even as the "religionists" would have it, it's about preventing action, and it is of course no secret that speech really can be harmful - assault, child pornography and threats, for instance - or to take it to the extreme, when I defraud someone's bank account online, aren't I just sending messages to the web server? Surely to stop me would infringe on my right to free speech, no? >Richard Arneson observes that “emotional reactions to what one’s neighbors and fellow citizens are doing can be powerful and can be virtually unavoidable for persons who have not detached themselves from all personal concern for the quality of life in their community.” Arneson suggests that “we should think of citizens who would be appalled at the thought of living in a community that tolerates Roman-style gladiatorial spectacles as harmed by the bareknowledge that such events are occurring...” [0] https://digital.sandiego.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=lwps_public https://digital.sandiego.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=102...

deleted 8y ago
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hprotagonist 8y ago
To pithily recapitulate personalism (and what an appropriate day for it, too), I'm fond of this exchange in Carpe Jugulum as a rough heuristic for what constitutes harm: There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats. “And what do they think? Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax. “It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.” “Nope.” “Pardon?” “There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is. “It’s a lot more complicated than that . . .” “No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.” “Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes . . .” “But they starts with thinking about people as things . . . ”
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  What a wonderfully Kantian exchange, thank you for sharing that. Even if what she says is true, though it seems that there are instance of treating people as objects which some (most?) people do not consider to be harmful, at least in this society - employing someone under a wage, for instance (covered by Frederic Lordon in his great book on Marx and Spinoza) or pornography which some commentators deem to be identical to the objectification of the people it portrays (particularly women). Ironically, though, many thins which are harmful actually depend on recognizing (thinking) of people as human, and then denying that humanity - there must be something to deny. An insult comparing someone to dirt is only ever said because they recognize firstly that the person isn't dirt - and that's why it's effective. The principle is same with objectification. In pornography, for example, it's only appealing because the viewers know on some level that the people portrayed are more than objects, and the degradation they experience is part of the show, precisely what makes it so titillating.
  - hprotagonist 8y ago
    I was thinking more of Martin Buber. What little I recall of Kant right now is probably on point, though -- as i recall, he was on board with "humans have intrinsic worth". "treating people as things" doesn't necessarily mean that you believe that people _are_ things -- as you note, a willful blurring of that line in the knowledge (even subliminal knowledge) that you're acting in bad faith is, perhaps, where "it" starts in the first place. To your examples: Employing people does not necessarily constitute treating them as things; many sharp critiques of the labor market basically center around the idea that treating your employees as things is both unnecessary and harmful. I don't necessarily agree that pornography is obligate depersonalization -- c.f. The Stranger's HUMP fest, for example, which seems pretty person-ful to me.
    - claudiawerner 8y ago
      With regards to employment, I see there being a continual trend towards making people as fungible as money when it comes to running an efficient business, this fungibility is predicted by the fact that when it comes to money, a form of wealth in capitalist society, labour is its source, and the most "rational" decisions thrift-wise are made with regard to only labour in abstract rather than concrete form. The theory of commodity fethishism plays a role in this too - but yes, in these theories the labour is objectified but the worker is not. As much as it is not necessary to treat the worker as a human as opposed to a machine you turn on during the time you are allowed to rent it, the necessity can often become quickly apparent even to the most sympathetic employer[0]. I think the point with porn is similar to the previous one, in the sense that porn which resists commodification is often the sort in which the people portrayed are doing it for their own sake as much as they are some kind of artistry. The critique of pornography is framed around porn defined as a kind of inequality while the rest could be better termed erotica. I don't personally think the distinction holds up to much scrutiny (there's half on an entry in SEP going over this issue) but it's reasonable to say that objectification is common in industrial pornography in particular - which despite its diversity of themes tend to boil down to this rather simple idea. [0] "To prevent possible misunderstanding, a word. I paint the capitalist and the landlord in no sense couleur de rose [i.e., seen through rose-tinted glasses]. But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class-relations and class-interests. My standpoint, from which the evolution of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them." (Karl Marx, preface to the first German edition of Capital)
thaumasiotes 8y ago
This is the same problem that utilitarianism has. Assigning things based on who gets more pleasure from having them is awful from a systems perspective, as the incentive it provides is to want things more and shriek more loudly when you don't have them, not to do anything useful.

deleted 8y ago

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hprotagonist 8y ago

To pithily recapitulate personalism (and what an appropriate day for it, too), I'm fond of this exchange in Carpe Jugulum as a rough heuristic for what constitutes harm: There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats. “And what do they think? Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax. “It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.” “Nope.” “Pardon?” “There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is. “It’s a lot more complicated than that . . .” “No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.” “Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes . . .” “But they starts with thinking about people as things . . . ”

claudiawerner 8y ago
What a wonderfully Kantian exchange, thank you for sharing that. Even if what she says is true, though it seems that there are instance of treating people as objects which some (most?) people do not consider to be harmful, at least in this society - employing someone under a wage, for instance (covered by Frederic Lordon in his great book on Marx and Spinoza) or pornography which some commentators deem to be identical to the objectification of the people it portrays (particularly women). Ironically, though, many thins which are harmful actually depend on recognizing (thinking) of people as human, and then denying that humanity - there must be something to deny. An insult comparing someone to dirt is only ever said because they recognize firstly that the person isn't dirt - and that's why it's effective. The principle is same with objectification. In pornography, for example, it's only appealing because the viewers know on some level that the people portrayed are more than objects, and the degradation they experience is part of the show, precisely what makes it so titillating.
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  I was thinking more of Martin Buber. What little I recall of Kant right now is probably on point, though -- as i recall, he was on board with "humans have intrinsic worth". "treating people as things" doesn't necessarily mean that you believe that people _are_ things -- as you note, a willful blurring of that line in the knowledge (even subliminal knowledge) that you're acting in bad faith is, perhaps, where "it" starts in the first place. To your examples: Employing people does not necessarily constitute treating them as things; many sharp critiques of the labor market basically center around the idea that treating your employees as things is both unnecessary and harmful. I don't necessarily agree that pornography is obligate depersonalization -- c.f. The Stranger's HUMP fest, for example, which seems pretty person-ful to me.
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    With regards to employment, I see there being a continual trend towards making people as fungible as money when it comes to running an efficient business, this fungibility is predicted by the fact that when it comes to money, a form of wealth in capitalist society, labour is its source, and the most "rational" decisions thrift-wise are made with regard to only labour in abstract rather than concrete form. The theory of commodity fethishism plays a role in this too - but yes, in these theories the labour is objectified but the worker is not. As much as it is not necessary to treat the worker as a human as opposed to a machine you turn on during the time you are allowed to rent it, the necessity can often become quickly apparent even to the most sympathetic employer[0]. I think the point with porn is similar to the previous one, in the sense that porn which resists commodification is often the sort in which the people portrayed are doing it for their own sake as much as they are some kind of artistry. The critique of pornography is framed around porn defined as a kind of inequality while the rest could be better termed erotica. I don't personally think the distinction holds up to much scrutiny (there's half on an entry in SEP going over this issue) but it's reasonable to say that objectification is common in industrial pornography in particular - which despite its diversity of themes tend to boil down to this rather simple idea. [0] "To prevent possible misunderstanding, a word. I paint the capitalist and the landlord in no sense couleur de rose [i.e., seen through rose-tinted glasses]. But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class-relations and class-interests. My standpoint, from which the evolution of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them." (Karl Marx, preface to the first German edition of Capital)

thaumasiotes 8y ago

This is the same problem that utilitarianism has. Assigning things based on who gets more pleasure from having them is awful from a systems perspective, as the incentive it provides is to want things more and shriek more loudly when you don't have them, not to do anything useful.