What is the harm principle? It shows up in different places but probably the most famous is from John Stuart Mill:
That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.The second part is usually left out but it is important. Mill intended this principle to apply to government only but a lot of people also want to apply this to any moral teachings at all. They want to say that no moral teaching should consist of anything but preventing me from doing harm to others. Under this way of thinking it would follow that if it isn't hurting anyone else then it should be strictly between me and my conscience.
Perhaps the tritest version of this is the "Wiccan Rede":
"An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will"This was made up out of whole cloth by a con artist named Gerald Gardner who, as you can see from the above, was fond of fake archaic language along the lines of "Ye Olde Fudge Shoppe", and about as authentic. (What he was most interested in was exploiting women sexually and he made up the entire Wiccan religion as a way to help him do that but that is another story.)
Anyway, this can rendered in real English as something like, "Do whatever you want so long as it doesn't hurt anybody else."
Okay, but aren't use supposed to be a libertine Jules? Isn't this the sort of thing you should believe in? I believe that sensual pleasures are a positive good that God gave us. I believe we should enjoy food, sex and leisure. I don't believe that translates into anything like do whatever you want so long as nobody else gets hurt.
Jesus didn't teach us to not hurt one another, he taught us to love one another. This may seem a trivial point but we have to love ourselves before we can love others. To love myself is to want what is best for myself. It means that I have to do some things because they are good for me. And as imperfect as it is, I believe the Catholic church has a not just a right but also a duty to teach us what is best for us (and this remains true even though the church will inevitably get things wrong now and then). Any interpretation of the Golden Rule that suggests otherwise is just wrong.
I think the Golden Rule assumes that a reasonable person would not do harm to themselves. But I agree with you that Mill was wrong because the law recongnizes that there are people who are not reasonable who need to be protected from themselves. The criteria for civil committment to a psychiatric facility against a person's will is that he will do physical harm to himself or others. Shooting heroin into one's veins is illegal, as is suicide in most places. So civil law recognizes that people do not have carte blanche to bring intentional harm to themselves.
ReplyDeleteYes, Jesus taught us to love one another as we love ourselves. While the Catholic Church--or any church--might have a duty to suggest to people that certain things might be harmful to them, the ultimate decision, after thoughtful consideration, is between the individual and his informed conscience (unless they are breaking a civil law), which the Church recognizes. The problem with the Catholic Church is that it codified what should have been recommendations made in the name of Love in keeping with Jesus' Love command, into punitive legal mandates carrying with them the threat of eternal damnation in Hell. Prior to Vatican II, this included eating meat on Friday. The problem today is that the Church has a major credibility problem and has lost the moral authority to even teach anyone--much less mandate--what is best for them. Given what we now know, the obvious response by a reasonable and intelligent person to any Church teaching on say Sexuality, for example, would be "Well, if it didn't hurt you Father, why will it hurt me, at least I haven't taken a vow of celibacy?"
But as you accurately pointed out in your earlier post on Humanae Vitae, even before the sexual activities of priests, bishops, and Cardinals were widely known, the Faithful--which is the real Church, the Mystical Body of Christ--were already making their own thoughtful and informed decisions on contraception in spite of what the institutional Church was teaching.