On the record
Conduct must be punished or prohibited when it is harmful in itself or in the excess in which it touches society before we ought to seek access to the clumsy machinery of the law.
Said by
Harold J. Laski
Source
gutenberg.orgHarold J. Laski: “Conduct must be punished or prohibited when it is harmful in itself or in the excess in which it touches society before…”
Editor's note · Context
Laski asserts that harmful conduct should only be addressed by law when it directly impacts society.
Share
More from Harold J. Laski
To deny novelty or grievance a right of expression is a certain, if, indeed, an ultimate, validation of the truth they contain.
When attacks on liberty are political or economic, it is their motive rather than their nature that changes.
It has been the historic character of persecution always to degrade the persecutor and to strengthen the persecuted by drawing attention to their claims.
The intolerance may be Catholic, when it insists that a unity of outlook is essential for the preservation of society; or it may be Protestant when, as with Calvin and the Socinians, it holds that the blasphemous nature of the belief…
Other voices in this conversation
