The Wolfenden Report

1266 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Basic principles of democracy essay

In an article posted by Anup Shah on democracy, he defines democracy as a “…system of governance that is supposed to allow extensive representation and inclusiveness of as many people and views as possible to feed into the functioning of a fair and just society” (Shah, 2012, p. 1). Shah’s definition of democracy reminded me somewhat of J.S. Mill’s “harm principle” that stated that an individual is basically free to do as they please as long as they are not harming others, and that society and or the government should not have the right to limit an individual to what is considered morally acceptable and what is not. The Wolfenden Report viewed the function of the criminal law “to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from …show more content…

1) . J.S. Mill’s believed that people have the right to free speech, but there is a time and place. Therefore, according to Mill’s harm principle, the protestors are indeed wrong for protesting in the streets, but why? Why are the protestors not allowed to protest on the roads? Some may argue it is their right to do whatever they are doing to make them “acquire happiness” as Mills’ said was very important. And as long as they are not harming anyone, they have the right to protest. Wolfenden Reports claim that the function of the criminal law is to protect the citizens and safeguard against corruption of others, so then does that mean that the minimum wage should be raised to fifteen dollars to stop the protest? Or does the law pick and choose based on the society, who is safeguarded against corruption? Does only a certain type of social class, race, or gender have the right to be safeguarded? To my understanding, it is unfair that individuals are being underpaid to the extent that they can barley pay to keep their roof over their heads and barely provide the basic necessities of survival for their families. With that said, it brings me to the question, if a law does not seem fair to all and we are the ones being affected, do we not express our freedom of …show more content…

130). And according to his harm principle, if freedom of speech is seen as harmful to society because it must be occurring at the wrong time and or place, what is considered harmful? Is harm “… restricted to real tangible damage of the type that can be measured or does ‘giving offence ’or‘causing distress’ count as harm” (Tebbit, 2005, p. 131) Although, Mill never really provided a clear definition of what is “harm” he does say “…he insists, in the long-term interests of society as a whole to encourage the flourishing of the individual. Society should refrain from using the law to repress either criticism or non-conformity, because individual freedom of expression and lifestyle, and the conflict that these engender, are the real sources of dynamic development in any society.” Mill, after being critique, seems to realize that the reason for law is to maintain a society that is organized and that no individual, after all really is able to do as they please in order to make themselves happy. When laws are created, it accepts morals that majority of the society abide to such as drinking and driving is illegal. Drinking alcohol could make an individual happy, but

Show More
Related

  • James Baldwin's Words Like Freedom, Justice, And Democracy

    643 Words  | 2 Pages

    From my understanding, justice is the essence of being fair, reasonable, and moral. Realistically, justice, is a romanticized impossibility. This is primarily because there is a weak consensus concerning what is fair and what is moral. Most would define democracy as a system of government which, directly or indirectly, grants the people of a society ultimate power. Direct democracy might seem ideal, but it often leads to mob rule where the minority parties are vastly underrepresented.

    Read More

  • Education in Colonial History

    805 Words  | 2 Pages

    Before that can be established, I think a definition of democracy should be stated so that it may be called upon later in this essay. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, democracy is stated as "the principle of social equality and respect for the individual within a community" .

    Read More

  • Affirmative Action Case Study

    1133 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mill begins “On Liberty” by asserting the principle that we should never regulate the actions of others, except if those actions harm others. He goes on to suggest that we should not restrict speech, even when we find it false. What seems odd about this is that Mill is a utilitarian, which means that the rightness or wrongness of a policy or action depends on its consequences. Clearly, some speech does an awful lot of harm and not much good, so how can Mill hold the view that we should never censor? (Your answer should include Mill’s discussion of why censorship “robs the human race” and you should cover both cases in which the minority view is false and when it’s

    Read More

  • Civil Disobedience And Letter From Birmingham Jail By Martin Luther King Jr.

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    Justice is often misconceived as injustice, and thus some essential matters that require more legal attention than the others are neglected; ergo, some individuals aim to change that. The principles of civil disobedience, which are advocated in both “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. to the society, are present up to this time in the U.S. for that purpose. To begin with, Thoreau expresses that civil disobedience should be more implemented when the just resistance of the minority is seen legally unjust to the structure conformed by the majority. Supporting his position, Thoreau utilizes the role of the national tax in his time; its use which demoralizes the foreign relationship of the U.S.; its use which “enables the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood”; its use which supports “the present Mexican War” (Thoreau 948, 940).

    Read More

  • Canadian Morality and the Law

    3028 Words  | 7 Pages

    In legal theory, there is a great debate over whether or not law should be used to enforce morality.  The sides of the debate can be presented as a continuum.  At one end, there is the libertarian view, which holds that morality is an individual belief and that the state should not interfere in the affairs of the individual.  According to this view, a democracy cannot limit or enforce morality.   At the other end, there is the communitarian position, which justifies the community as a whole deciding what moral values are, and hence justifies using the law to enforce community values.  For libertarians, judges should play a prominent role in limiting the state, while for communitarians, judges should have as small a role as possible.  In between these two extremes sit the liberal egalitarians, who attempt to reconcile democratic decision-making about moral values with liberalism.  The problem is made more complex when one considers that both law and morality are contested concepts.  Two recent cases where this continuum can be illustrated are Canada [Attorney-General] vs. Mossap, and Egan vs. Canada.  In this essay, I will attempt to explore some of the issues produced in these two cases.  I will begin with a summary each case, followed by an analysis of the major themes involved.  I will then place the issues in a larger, democratic framework, and explore the role of law in enforcing morality in a democracy.  I will then prove how the communitarian position - as articulated by Patrick Devlin - supports the decisions given in Mossap and Egan, and how even the great proponents of libertarianism - Mill and von Hayek - would agree that the decisions were just.  A conclusion will then follow.

    Read More

  • Comparing John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau

    2030 Words  | 5 Pages

    ...Mill does not implicitly trust or distrust man and therefore does not explicitly limit freedom, in fact he does define freedom in very liberal terms, however he does leave the potential for unlimited intervention into the personal freedoms of the individual by the state. This nullifies any freedoms or rights individuals are said to have because they subject to the whims and fancy of the state. All three beliefs regarding the nature of man and the purpose of the state are bound to their respective views regarding freedom, because one position perpetuates and demands a conclusion regarding another.

    Read More

  • Evaluation of Dworkin's and Habermas's Approach to Civil Disobedience

    1619 Words  | 4 Pages

    The following essay will attempt to evaluate the approach taken by Dworkin and Habermas on their views of civil disobedience. The two main pieces of literature referred to will be Dworkin?s paper on 'Civil Disobedience and Nuclear Protest?' and Habermas's paper on 'Civil Disobedience: Litmus Test for the Democratic Constitutional State.' An outline of both Dworkin's and Habermas's approach will be given , further discussion will then focus on a reflective evaluation of these approaches. Firstly though, it is worth commenting on civil disobedience in a more general context. Most would agree that civil disobedience is a 'vital and protected form of political communication in modern constitutional democracies' and further the 'civil disobedience has a legitimate if informal place in the political culture of the community.' Civil disobedience can basically be broken down into two methods, either intentionally violating the law and thus incurring arrest (persuasive), or using the power of the masses to make prosecution too costly to pursue (non persuasive).

    Read More

  • Rawls and King on Civil Disobedience

    773 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many features of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience according to Rawls must be political in nature; agents engaged in civil disobedience must be appealing to a “common conception of justice”. It is aimed at changing the law, thus, it is a method requiring political engagement. The goal of this is to bring the law into conformity with the theory of justice. In order to make it a particularly clear case of rejecting the ou...

    Read More

  • The Wolfenden Report

    1930 Words  | 4 Pages

    The report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution, also known as the Wolfenden Report, was published in Britain on 4 September 1957. It was established as a response to the number of previously reputable men who had been convicted of homosexual offences, as well as the growing number of men being sent to prison for acts of homosexuality. By the end of 1954 alone, more than one thousand men in England and Wales had been sent to prison for specifically that reason. It was the intention of the committee, therefore, to decriminalize private homosexual acts, as it was beginning to come into light that “homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects” (The Wolfenden Report, 1957). Homosexuality aside, there was also much focus on “cleaning up the streets” of Britain by enforcing the privatization of prostitution by increasing fines and incarceration periods for those caught in the public display of such acts. Based on these and other recommendations made by the committee however, it is evident that, although a need to decrease the number of men being criminalized for homosexual acts was necessary, the committee, as well as the public, was not yet ready to fully decriminalize homosexuality or prostitution themselves. However, in bringing such subjects to light, they themselves also manage to break the barriers dividing their own specified definitions.

    Read More

  • John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle

    974 Words  | 2 Pages

    My thoughts and feelings on Mill vary, but I’d like to share my negative opinion towards the principle and hope to put it in a different perspective. The harm principle was published in Mill’s work, Of Liberty, in 1859. He states, “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 a sufficient warrant (978).” This means that government is not able to control peoples’ actions unless they are causing harm to other individuals.

    Read More

  • Death Of General Wolfe Analysis

    889 Words  | 2 Pages

    The title of the painting is Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West and is figure 11-10 on page 221. It was created in 1771 and gifted to National Gallery of Art in Ottowa, Canada in 1918. After reviewing the title, it is reasonable to assume that the painting is about a high ranking military officer. By looking at the painting, it appears that a British General, who resembles many previous paintings of Christ's’ death, is surrounded by high ranking officers while a large battle, most likely during the French and Indian war, is going on in the background both on land and by sea.

    Read More

  • A Marxist Critique Of Karl Marx And John Mill's On Liberty

    2262 Words  | 5 Pages

    In Mill’s view, his goal is not only to achieve liberty for all citizens but the truth as well. The problem with truth is that it does not always make itself apparent. Also, human opinion is fallible which is why Mill thinks society should not impose its values on anyone. By society encouraging and rewarding conformity, there is less room for liberty and methods to find the truth. Mill believes in achieving liberty, the government would have to work as a tool, a representative of the people’s will. It is in society’s best interest to protect and maintain personal liberty rather than to fixate over

    Read More

  • Minority Opinion In John Stuart Mill's On Liberty

    592 Words  | 2 Pages

    After a thorough analysis of a portion of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, one can explore Mill’s argument that people should not limit the dissenting opinion. He uses his ideas about liberty, authority, and morality in the text to argue that opinions should not be limited. Mill would argue that because people are fallible, people should attentively listen to what their peers have to say. Mill believes people should not be allowed to limit someone’s opinion because of three arguments. The minority opinion could be true, the majority opinion could be true and the minority false, or the majority and minority opinion could be partially true and partially false. It is wrong for the majority to suppress the opinion of a single person because of the overall harming effect.

    Read More

  • What is harm?

    1801 Words  | 4 Pages

    In On Liberty, Mill presents and argues “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. ” (9). Society has the right to use the law to regulate the conduct that consists in of “ injuring the interest of one another, or rather certain interest which, either by express legal provision or tacit understanding, ought to be considered as rights’ (chp 4; 73). Society may use public opinion to monitor conduct that “may be hurtful to others or wanting in due consideration for their welfare, without going to the length of violating any of their constituted rights’ (chp 4; 73). Needless to say that, “as soon as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interest of others, society has jurisdiction over it” (chp 4; 73). Mill obviously is implying that harming someone means injuring his or her interests. Everyone has interests they consider important and ought to be protected by law as rights. Being that Mill is a utilitarian, utility imposes that it is the “permanent interest of man as a progressive being” (10) that should be protected by law. Unfortunately, morality and immorality play a roll within the harm principle; many actions may be interpreted as immoral harming others interest but not being protected by rights.

    Read More

  • A Critical Analysis of John Stuart Mill’s "On Liberty"

    1403 Words  | 3 Pages

    middle of paper ... ... Philosophers, such as John Stuart Mill, have debated the role and the extension of government in the people’s lives for centuries. Mill presents a clear and insightful argument, claiming that the government should not be concerned with the free will of the people unless explicit harm has been done to an individual. However, such ideals do not build a strong and lasting community. It is the role of the government to act in the best interests at all times through the prevention of harm and the encouragement of free thought.

    Read More

More about The Wolfenden Report

Open Document