Political Philosophy

seems to be that legislation to ban hand-guns has some connection

with the distribution and use of dangerous weapons and some pos-

sible incidence of their harmful use. It cannot represent, simplic-

iter, a communal response to an alien ethos. But I leave readers to

think through these issues for themselves.

Offence

If we were to judge straight off that one is harmed who is offended,
offensive conduct could be considered for prohibition along the
lines suggested by the harm principle. How harmful is the offend-
ing behaviour? Does it harm few, many or most people? Remember-
ing that the harm principle is not proposed as a sufficent condition
on legitimate interference, we should consider if the harm which is
consequent upon the offence is offset by any countervailing bene-
fit, or if the costs of interference would in any case be too high. If
there is a difficulty in determining particular cases or in evaluat-
ing proposals for interference, the difficulty will be cognitive
rather than philosophical. It may be that the evidence germane to
these practical questions is hard to assess.
There is a philosophical problem here (for the proponent of a
harm principle) only if one believes that the offensiveness of
behaviour is a ground for restrictions independently of the harm
that it may cause. To examine this we need to take examples of
conduct which it is agreed is offensive and either harmless or
harmful in some attenuated fashion that would not generally serve
as a good reason for restricting liberty. Feinberg accepts that
Louis B. Schwartz has found an example.^62 Consider a law whereby
‘a rich homosexual may not not use a billboard on Times Square to
promulgate to the general populace the techniques and pleasures
of sodomy’. I cannot believe that the harm done by such a billboard
is of a trivial kind, though the description of it may require a
delicate and imaginative exercise. The nuisance of the distraction,
the embarassment of the unavoidable encounter with feelings of
shame and perhaps guilt, the shock of unanticipated self-exposure

• all these on the way to work – may be reckoned harmful enough
  and assumed to be sufficiently universal to justify prohibition. The
  burden of proof of harm which is placed on those who would

LIBERTY