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faculty curriculum student awards and projects after macalester colloquium series
Alan Fuchs Colloquium
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4:30 PM Location All are welcome, refreshments will be served. Questions? Call the Philosophy Dept. x6141
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Mill is justifiably famous for proposing "one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control." That is, he proposes to justify a single and, at the same time, simple principle that would specify the limits of any individual's freedom from legitimate social and/or governmental control. The potential value of such a guideline can neither be underestimated, but neither can the implausibility of justifying a single, simple principle to serve this purpose. Mill does accomplish his ambitious goal. But in order to appreciate his theory, we must first reject the standard interpretation of it. Mill ultimately did not defend the so-called "harm to others principle," according to which individuals are free to think and act as they will, provided that they do not cause any harm to others. Rather, Mill endorsed a "wrongful harm principle," which only proscribed conduct that caused harm to others from which they had moral or legal rights to be free. Thus, the determination of whether an individual's activity is to be protected is no longer a merely factual question as to whether5 or not someone would be harmed by that conduct, but, rather, a moral determination of whether that kind of action falls within the realm of the individual's rights or within the realm of the rights of others in the society. IN addition to defending this "wrongful harm principle" as the preferred interpretation of Mill's views, Fuchs will argue for its superiority as a practical and justifiable criterion for solving numerous social problems that our society now faces. Alan Fuchs is a Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus at the College of William & Mary. He is a recipient of the Thomas Jefferson TEaching Award and Thomas Graves Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching. He served three times as evaluator and panelist for the National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship program.
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