The concept of “harm” in the context of liberty is complicated, and can vary depending on cultural, legal, and philosophical perspectives. However, one of our three core principles – liberty – aims to avoid many types of harms:
- Physical Harm: This is perhaps the most straightforward type of harm, including actions like assault, murder, and theft.
- Psychological Harm: This could include emotional abuse, bullying, or other actions that cause mental distress or trauma.
- Economic Harm: This type of harm involves actions that unfairly disadvantage someone economically, such as fraud or unfair business practices.
- Social Harm: This includes actions that disadvantage individuals or groups within society, like discrimination or stigmatization based on race, gender, or other characteristics.
- Environmental Harm: Actions that have a detrimental effect on the environment, affecting not just the individual undertaking the action, but also the wider community.
- Legal Harm: This covers actions that violate laws and regulations, even if they don’t cause immediate physical or emotional harm to others. For example, driving over the speed limit is illegal largely because it increases the risk of harm to others.
- Indirect Harm: This is a more contentious category and might include actions that don’t directly harm an individual but may lead to harm through a chain of events. For example, hate speech might be considered an indirect harm because it can foster an environment conducive to hate crimes.
- Intellectual Harm: This could include actions like plagiarism or other unethical intellectual practices that might not cause immediate physical or emotional harm, but nonetheless cause damage to an individual’s reputation or work.
- Collective Harm: This refers to actions that may not directly harm an individual but could have a detrimental effect on a group or society as a whole. For example, not getting vaccinated during a pandemic could be considered a form of collective harm.
- Moral or Ethical Harm: Some might include actions that are seen as morally or ethically wrong, even if they don’t fit neatly into one of the above categories.
How This Shows Up In Practice
People are complicated, and so are the issues we address. There is nuance to all conversations, and we attempt to hold that nuance. When challenging issues and conversations arise, we are led by the principle of personal freedom and autonomy.
- We believe the government does not have the right to come between a person and their medical provider, especially when the medical care is known to be safe or helpful.
- We believe in the rights of parents to determine what they feel is appropriate for their children, while also understanding that a diversity of thoughts and opinions is important, especially in school. All groups should be represented.
- We believe children have a right to safety both in public and in private, while understanding that not all children feel safe expressing who they are to their parents.
And Like People, These Topics Are Nuanced
The idea is that one’s freedom should not infringe upon someone else’s well-being can be especially challenging when attempting to balance different kinds of freedoms and rights, such as freedom of speech vs. the right to be free from harm.
We’ll be delving deeper into many of these harms, and how the policies of certain politicians are causing them, so stay tuned.