This article is relevant for AQA A2 Unit 4: Concepts of Law. It also deepens understanding of AQA AS Unit 2: Introduction to Criminal Liability and WJEC AS Unit 1: Understanding Legal Structures and Processes (on morality), and informs studies in criminal law more generally (see OCR A2 Unit 3/G153 Criminal Law and the WJEC A2 Criminal Law and Justice option).
First of all, let’s establish why this debate is so important today, more than 50 years after it took place. Its importance lies in the fact that it focuses on one of the most fundamental issues within a democratic society. Should the criminal law be limited, as Mill and Hart argued, by the harm principle, which holds that criminal law is only justified when preventing one citizen from violating the rights of another citizen, or should criminal law be able to be used to enforce any important moral conviction of the community, even if that targeted conduct was not in any way harmful to others?
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