The Advantages of Outrage

摘要

Jason Pontin has written (in "Free Speech in the Era of Its Technological Amplification," March/April) a perceptive analysis of a timeless question: what changes in law need to be adopted in order to account for technological advances? In answering that question, he takes the right approach by taking up John Stuart Mill's harm principle. Mill's principle is both profound and incomplete. It expresses a strong antipa-ternalist sentiment that no government, individual, or group should be able to reform the private preferences of other individuals. That principle is a welcome recipe for social peace: if the rule were otherwise, it would be necessary to decide which individuals or groups occupied the dominant position with respect to other groups. Any interested group would find it difficult to choose on neutral principles which group should have that preferred position.