Essay --

David Kim (djk2) 12/18/13 Phil 316 – Philosophy of Law Final Exam A.) Legislator facing a religious challenge 1.) Your society in general tolerates free public expression of opinions. What are the possible justifications for making this exception? Which is the best or are none of them acceptable? (20 points) The most obvious reason for which we may be justified in limiting the free expression of religious ideas in society is by utilizing Mill’s Harm Principle. The principle states that the only reason for which a society may be justified in limiting the liberty of individuals is to prevent harm to others. The question under these circumstances then becomes whether those proselytizing for the minority religion really are causing harm in the relevant sense to others. It clear that the majority of people in this society would be outraged at the actions of those practicing the minority religion, however it is not clear that those in the majority religion really are being harmed. There does not seem to be any imminent threat of physical harm, and property is not being destroyed. We might want to make the argument that those in the majority religion are being psychologically/mentally harmed, however this is philosophically difficult to prove, and the fact remains that intrinsic human ri ghts to one’s body or property are not being violated. According to the Harm Principle, we are only justified in imposing sanctions when a direct harm is made against a person or their human rights, and since this is not the case – we are not justified in banning the minority religion on a strict interpretation of this principle. An alternative possibility is to claim that the harm principle sets the bar too high for imposing sanctions and that a more... ... It is less clear however, the degree to which this man ought to be punished given the fact that he had an underlying mental condition, and also was provoked by the other man. The existence of these two mitigating factors could be cited in order to reduce this actor’s sentence. Contrasting this case with another example (taken from the movie A Beautiful Mind) of a schizophrenic father who unknowingly leaves his child in a bathtub with the water running to attend to a hallucination, thereby drowning the child – makes it clear that in this scenario, a charge of murder does not seem appropriate. The difference seems to be that in this case, there was no malicious intent to kill, and the blame for the death of a child can more fully be attributed to the schizophrenic mental condition than the actor himself. Intuitively, this does in fact seem to be a legitimate excuse.