Self-study
P1
Many legal theorists have argued that the only morally legitimate goal in imposing criminal penalties against certain behaviors is to prevent people from harming others. ████████ ████ █████████ █████ ██████ ████ ████ █████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ █████ ███ ████ ██ ██ ███████ ████ ███████ ████████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██████ █████ ███
Legal theorists' perspective ·
The only morally legitimate goal in criminal penalties is to prevent harm
Under this theory, we shouldn't have laws that force people to act only in order to conform to some social norm.
Main point ·
Harm prevention goal justifies punishing some non-conforming behavior that it initially might not seem to justify
P2
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Example 1 ·
Lack of coordination can be harmful, so harm-prevention goal can justify coordination
Example: Conventions about which side of the road to drive on. Having a rule that everyone follows is better than no rule, because coordination will prevent harm.
P3
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Example 2 ·
Harm-prevention goal can also justify coordination in cases where harm goes beyond lack of coordination
Example: Rule against athletes using steroids. If this rule didn't exist, some athletes would use steroids and get an advantage. This forces other athletes to use steroids or lose competitions. So some people's freedom to use steroids ends up harming other athletes. Rule against steroids is in everyone's interest.
Passage Style
Single position
22.
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ ██████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ███ ████████
a
In order to ██ ███████ ████████████ ████ ███████████ ██████████ ████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██████████████ ████ █████ █████████ ██ █████████
The passage isn’t about what’s necessary to justify laws. Rather, it’s about how the general principle of preventing harm to others could justify certain kinds of laws.
b
It is justifiable ██ ███████ ██████ ██████████ █████ █████████████ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████ ███ █████████████ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████
The author doesn’t take a position on what’s actually justifiable, but rather explores what the goal of preventing harm, if taken to its logical conclusion, would justify. Even then, her justification is driven only by what would be harmful to the larger group; whether a rule prevents people from harming their own selves is coincidental.
c
Achieving coordination can ██ ██████ ██ ██ █ ███████ ██████████ █████████████ ███ █████ ████ ███████ ████████ ███████ ███████ ███ ██████ ████ ███████ ██████████ ███████ ████████
The author never argues that achieving coordination can be a morally legitimate justification for rules that prevent harm. Rather, preventing harm can be a morally legitimate justification for rules that enforce coordination. In other words, coordination itself isn't the potential justification, but a way of preventing harm. Another reason to eliminate (C) is that the passage focuses on rules that prevent indirectly harmful actions. The second and third paragraphs do not discuss preventing actions that are directly harmful.
d
It is reasonable ██ ████ ████ ███████████ ██████████ ███████ ██ ██████ █████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ███████████ █████████ ██████████
The author talks about what people can be assumed to agree upon, but she doesn’t suggest that any such “community standards” actually exist, or that they would always justify restricting liberty.
e
The principle of ██████████ ████ ██ ██████ ███ ██ ████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ██ █████ ██████ ██████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ ████ █████
The author makes