scholarly journals The ‘Harm Principle’ and Information Disorder Online

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uyiosa Omoregie
Keyword(s):  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
False Information ◽  
Current Form ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cass Sunstein ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Definition Of Information ◽  
British Philosopher ◽  
The Harm Principle

Misinformation propagation in its current form is a global problem that requires urgent solutions. Historically, instances of misinformation publicly propagated can be found as far back as the sixth century AD.Scholars and researchers have generally settled for a definition of ‘information disorder’ that reveals three variants: misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. What should be of paramount importance, in the fight against information disorders, is the potential of false information to cause harm. The ‘harm principle’ was proposed by the British philosopher John Stuart Mill in 1859 and needs an upgrade for the social media age. One such upgrade is proposed by Cass Sunstein.

scholarly journals Making the ‘Harm Principle’ Central to Approaches Against Information Disorder

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uyiosa Omoregie
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Global Challenge ◽  
Cass Sunstein ◽  
Definition Of Information ◽  
Complex Phenomena ◽  
The Harm Principle

Misinformation online is an urgent global challenge. Such is the gravity of the challenge, and its effect on global collective behaviour, there are calls for social media/information disorder to be designated a “crisis discipline” along with medicine, conservation biology and climate science. Scholars have generally settled for a definition of ‘information disorder’ that reveals three variants: misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. What should be of paramount importance, in the fight against information disorder, is the potential of falsehood to cause harm. This potential for harm must be the litmus test distinguishing free speech and speech that should not be free. The ‘harm principle’ proposed by John Stuart Mill is more than 150 years old and needs an upgrade for the social media age. One such upgrade is proposed by Cass Sunstein. We summarize different approaches to analysing online information disorder. We conclude that approaches which emphasize analytical and critical thinking are important but have shortcomings. When analysing complex phenomena like conspiracy theories a ‘systems’ approach is more effective to reveal root causes of information disorder, provide actionable insight and long-term solutions.

Kymlicka’s Alignment of Mill and Engels: Nationality, Civilization, and Coercive Assimilation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Tim Beaumont
Keyword(s):  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Will Kymlicka ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
Friedrich Engels ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract John Stuart Mill claims that free institutions are next to impossible in a multinational state. According to Will Kymlicka, this leads him to embrace policies kindred to those of Friedrich Engels, aimed at promoting mononational states in Europe through coercive assimilation. Given Mill’s harm principle, such coercive assimilation would have to be justified either paternalistically, in terms of its civilizing effects upon the would-be assimilated, or non-paternalistically, with reference to the danger that their non-assimilation would pose to others. However, neither possible interpretation is plausible; Mill takes Europe’s civilized status to shield Europeans from paternalistic coercion, and he opposes coercive assimilation where it could conceivably be justified in the name of defense. Although this much suggests that Kymlicka misinterprets Mill by ignoring his definition of nationality, it leaves scope for Kymlicka to argue that Mill favors policies that promote mononationality through neglecting the languages and cultures of national minorities.

scholarly journals Rebuilding the Harm Principle: Using an Evolutionary Perspective to Provide a New Foundation for Justice

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 100-115
Author(s):  
Ed Gibney ◽  
Tanya Wyatt
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Evolutionary Perspectives ◽  
The Harm Principle

Following Mill’s (1859) definition, the ‘harm principle’ came to dominate legal debates about crime and the appropriate response of the justice system, effectively replacing official talk of morality in modern secular societies. However, the harm principle has collapsed without an accepted definition of harm or a method to adjudicate between competing claims. To address this, we propose a definition of ‘good’ derived from evolutionary perspectives. From this, a universal goal for society can be recognised, specific objectives to reach that goal can be listed, and a new definition for harm can be used to repair the harm principle and restore its ability to underpin criminal law and the principles of justice in society.

scholarly journals What is Information? Toward a Theory of Information as Objective and Veridical

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Mingers ◽  
Craig Standing
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
False Information ◽  
Subjective Information ◽  
Correct Information ◽  
Theory Of Information ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Definition Of Information ◽  
Practical Implications

Information systems are a strong and ever-growing discipline of enormous relevance to today's informated world, and yet, as recent reviews have shown, there is still not an agreed and explicit conceptualization or definition of information. After an evaluative review of a range of theories of information, this paper develops and defends a particular theory, one that sees information as both objective and veridical. By objective, we mean that the information carried by signs and messages exists independently of its receivers or observers. The information carried by a sign exists even if the sign is not actually observed. By veridical, we mean that information must be true or correct in order to be information – information is truth-constituted. False information is not information, but misinformation or disinformation. The paper develops this theory and then discusses four contentious issues – information as objective rather than subjective; information as true or correct; information and knowledge; and information and the ambiguity of meaning. It concludes with a discussion of the practical implications of the theory.

scholarly journals The Harm Principle and the Nature of Harm

Utilitas ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Anna Folland
Keyword(s):  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
The Harm Principle

Abstract This article defends the Harm Principle, commonly attributed to John Stuart Mill, against recent criticism. Some philosophers think that this principle should be rejected, because of severe difficulties with finding an account of harm to plug into it. I examine the criticism and find it unforceful. Finally, I identify a faulty assumption behind this type of criticism, namely that the Harm Principle is plausible only if there is a full-blown, and problem-free, account of harm, which proponents of the principle can refer to.

Contesting Conformity through Individuality in Mill’s On Liberty

2020 ◽  
pp. 71-112
Author(s):  
Jennie C. Ikuta
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Society ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Harm Principle

This chapter argues that for Mill, individuality is a solution to a problem in democratic society: conformity. Conformity is a form of social tyranny in this analysis; seeing it in this way enables us to understand its dual nature and grasp what resistance to it demands. Mill’s conception of conformity as social tyranny has both external and internal dimensions. Conformists in the social majority tyrannize others by leveraging social penalties for nonconformity in order to coerce them into publicly adhering to custom. The damage, however, is also to the conformists, who internally tyrannize themselves by undercutting their own capacity for autonomy. Resistance must be both internal and external for Mill. First, by adhering to the Harm Principle, conformists must cease tyrannizing others into conforming; second, conformists must also cease tyrannizing themselves by cultivating individuality.

John Stuart Mill and Pornography: Beyond the Harm Principle

Ethics ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 106 (3) ◽  
pp. 621-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Vernon
Keyword(s):  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
The Harm Principle

Ways and Voices in the Psychoanalysis of Links According to Enrique Pichon-Rivière

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa Jaitin
Keyword(s):  
Couple Therapy ◽  
Clinical Observation ◽  
Clinical Work ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Different Levels

This article covers several stages of the work of Pichon-Rivière. In the 1950s he introduced the hypothesis of "the link as a four way relationship" (of reciprocal love and hate) between the baby and the mother. Clinical work with psychosis and psychosomatic disorders prompted him to examine how mental illness arises; its areas of expression, the degree of symbolisation, and the different fields of clinical observation. From the 1960s onwards, his experience with groups and families led him to explore a second path leading to "the voices of the link"—the voice of the internal family sub-group, and the place of the social and cultural voice where the link develops. This brought him to the definition of the link as a "bi-corporal and tri-personal structure". The author brings together the different levels of the analysis of the link, using as a clinical example the process of a psychoanalytic couple therapy with second generation descendants of a genocide within the limits of the transferential and countertransferential field. Body language (the core of the transgenerational link) and the couple's absences and presence during sessions create a rhythm that gives rise to an illusion, ultimately transforming the intersubjective link between the partners in the couple and with the analyst.

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