Beyond the harm principle — Canaan Stuart

In Beyond The Harm Principle, our author Ripstein takes a new approach to the harm principle. A bit of a flavor blast, if you will.

He tends to take a more lenient approach, rejecting the harm principle. Instead, he introduces his own idea, the sovereignty principle, which argues that each individual should have their own freedoms which should not be trampled. I personally agree more with this approach as I tend to fall under a more libertarian point of view, and it seems to me that Ripstein generally just wants to do what he wants to do without any interference except in more extreme cases. Essentially, Ripstein truly does go BEYOND the harm principle by taking it one step further. Not allowing the government to constitute what is and is not harm for individuals, but instead allowing those individuals to regulate their own freedoms to a certain extent. He is not devoid of law, as he does still believe in specific cases people should be stopped from doing legitimately terrible things, but to leave what is harmful and not harmful up to government may be a difficult task to entrust. In essence, Ripstein believes all actions should be allowed as long as they do not interfere with others freedoms. It is just like the harm principle, but instead of being based on harm it is based on freedom as a whole, which I believe is a smarter way to put things in the end.