But society may stop me from smoking indoors and harming others through secondhand smoke. For example, if I desire to smoke cigarettes, I must be allowed to do so, even if it ruins my health or if others find the habit disgusting. However, once the individual’s action starts affecting others in such a way that those others are harmed, then society may step in and prohibit the action. It doesn’t matter how much a society dislikes what the person does or whether the society thinks another course of action would be more prudent. That is, before taking into account the impact on others, an individual must always be allowed to act on their desires if they chose to do so. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. 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. He takes the impulse described about and puts it forward as the harm principle: Nevertheless, Mill sees the solution as being the same for these more complex situations. When a person has beliefs that are at odds with the dominant views of society, or when they want to do something the rest of society abhors, it is not as simple as picking a better location. This situation is straightforward, since no one approves of spontaneous impalement and Oliver’s problem is easily solved-he just needs to find another place to practice (after he gets out of jail)-but the issue of conflicting desires can be much more complex. If he had found an empty field, it would not have been problematic. On the flipside, it seems that Oliver should be allowed to follow his desires if no harm results. It was a problem for Oliver to act on his desire to practice immediately, because his action resulted in harm to someone else. In its most extreme form, this conflict goes by the name “the tyranny of the majority,” because the desires of the members of a society can act like an oppressive tyrant upon a dissenting individual in the minority. ![]() In some societies a polygamist may be stopped from having multiple wives, or an atheist may be disallowed from teaching her views. A marijuana enthusiast may be prevented from smoking in a conservative one. A Christian may be forbidden from practicing her religion in an Islamic or communist society. There are many ways that this sort of conflict can take place. (I have the physique of a cheesecake-eater.) Conflicts between people are more complicated, and in this post I am going to focus on a particular instance of this conflict: when an individual in the minority has desires that conflict with those of the rest of society. These conflicts are relatively easy to solve, since I just have to prioritize for myself. ![]() Now, I can have conflicts between my own desires, such as when I want to eat cheesecake for breakfast and I also want the physique of The Mighty Thor. One way to think about desires, then, is to see desires themselves as unproblematic. We have conflicts in desires all the time.
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