Everyday Ethics

In our last article, we clarified the challenges that the question of gun control presents for a liberal society.  We now move to another contentious topic for proponents of liberalism:  illegal drugs.  As we evaluate how a liberal ought to address the problem of illegal drug use, we will see that not only is it difficult to apply liberal principles to questions of drug use, we are tempted to do so in a way that is not consistent with our earlier discussion of gun control.

As we’ve mentioned, a liberal is primarily concerned with promoting individual liberties.  They value equality, autonomy, and neutrality with regard to conceptions of the good life, and individual actions must be presumptively harmful in order to be banned.  Much like the issue concerning gun control, we will soon see that liberalism does not give us a very clear answer as to what we ought to do about illegal drug use.

Applying the harm principle would seem to indicate that, because illegal drug use is harmful, we can ban it.  However, two issues emerge regarding the harm principle and illegal drug use.  The first is that much of the harm associated with illegal drug use is not actually caused by drug use itself.  Most of the physical harm related to drug use is caused by ancillary crime, such as theft and robberies committed in order to obtain money for drugs, or violence committed while a person is on drugs.  The actual use of drugs causes very little harm to others.  One question we might have, then, is whether the problem is drug use, or the fact that drugs are illegal.

Further, if the only direct harm caused by drug use is inflicted upon the user, does the harm principle still apply?  After all, choosing to do drugs is an autonomous action, which a liberal highly values.  Is the liberal justified in banning drug use based on the harm inflicted upon people who freely opt to use drugs?  The worry for a proponent of liberalism is that protecting drug users from the harm that they do to themselves is paternalistic, and paternalism is in direct conflict with the liberal value of autonomy.

The liberal has two plausible replies.  First, he can argue that drug use causes a great deal of direct psychological harm to the families and friends of drug users, and we can appeal to the harm principle on the basis of this direct psychological harm.  The liberal can also argue that protecting drug users from harming themselves is not paternalistic in this case.  By preventing individuals from becoming addicted to drugs, we are protecting their autonomy.  One’s right to autonomy does not include a right to freely give it away to drug addiction.  It is not paternalism, but a defense of autonomy that motivates the liberal in this case.

The problem, however, is that the liberal then has no argument for why a single, productive individual who causes no direct harm to others, psychological or otherwise, and freely chooses to use drugs, is nonetheless disallowed from doing so.  The liberal might appeal to the cost of enforcement here.  Although there are some people who freely choose to be drug users and cause no real harm to other people, it would be expensive and time-consuming to figure out who these people are.  Most drug users don’t freely choose a drug-using lifestyle, and they do cause a great deal of harm to others because of it.

A further worry, one that we will take up again at the conclusion of this series, is that the liberal argument in favor of banning drug use seems like a good argument in favor of banning gun ownership as well.  After all, not all gun owners cause harm, but there is a definitive correlation between harm and gun ownership.  And in the case of gun ownership, the direct harm caused is not psychological, but physical.  Consistency seems to require that if illegal drugs should be banned, so should guns.  Most individuals tend to split on this issue, favoring gun ownership while wanting drugs to remain illegal, or supporting drug legalization and a full ban on firearms.  In our next segment, we will add a third social issue to the mix, pornography, in order to further demonstrate how difficult it is to consistently defend a liberal political philosophy in the face of real-life social problems.

About the Author

Elijah Weber is a graduate student at Bowling Green State University. He holds a Master's degree in philosophy from Colorado State University, and Bachelor’s degrees in sociology and philosophy from Chapman Univerity. He currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife Laura, his son Brandon, age two and a half, and two cats, both of whom are mentally deranged.