Demolition Man, John Stuart Mill, and the "Nanny State"

Who remembers that 1993 movie Demolition Man? Most people (including me) probably remember it for the explosions and action scenes, and maybe that "three seashells" scene; but there's another part that was probably overshadowed by the rest of the movie.  Early-ish in the movie, John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone) asks for a cigarette after waking up from cryogenic prison in the future city of San Angeles.  Here's the dialogue from that scene:

Spartan: "Yo, gimme a Marlboro."
Cop 1: "Yes, of course.  Right away. What's a Marlboro?"
Spartan: "It's a cigarette! Any cigarette."
Lenina Huxley: "Uh, smoking is not good for you, and it's been deemed that anything not good for you is bad; hence, illegal. Alcohol, caffeine, contact sports, meat..."
Spartan: "Are you shitting me?"
Computer: "John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the Verbal Morality Statute."
Spartan: "What the hell is that?"  
Computer: "John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the Verbal Morality Statute."
Huxley: "Bad language, chocolate, gasoline, un-educational toys, and anything spicy.  Abortion is also illegal, but then again so is pregnancy if you don't have a license."

What's going on, right? Anything and everything harmful - including things that people use to harm themselves - is illegal. That would never happen, right? And what does it have to do with political theory? 

We'll get to the first question in a bit, but to answer the second question, I'm going to introduce you to John Stuart Mill.  (Not literally, of course - he's been dead for almost 150 years.  That would be creepy and awkward.) Mill lived in England in the 1800s, and he was pretty big into utilitarianism.  He also formed a concept called the Harm Principle, which connects back to the Demolition Man quote above.  The Harm Principle works like this: any actions a person takes to harm themselves are legally acceptable (AKA, the government shouldn't interfere), but it's okay to outlaw any actions which harm others, and punish people who do so.  Here are a couple quotes directly from Mill, to help drive the point home.

"The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self protection.  That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

"There is a sphere of action in which society . . .  has, if any, only an indirect interest; comprehending all that portion of a person’s life and conduct which affects only himself, or if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary and undeceived consent and participation . . .  This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty."

There's a well-known quote (usually attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes) that does a good job of capturing what Mill's Harm Principle is all about in a single sentence: "The right to swing my fist ends where another person's nose begins." That leads me to the first question from earlier - whether the prohibition of all those things in Demolition Man could ever happen in real life.  Well. . .it's not nearly as universal as it is in the movie, but if you think about it, there are a handful of things that generally hurt oneself that come with legal penalties.  Here are a few examples: riding a bicycle without a helmet, driving without a seat belt, taking drugs, and buying sugary drinks.  Laws like these are part of what some derisively call the "nanny state."

Now, obviously these prohibitions aren't a march to some dystopian future where people can't go skydiving or drink Mountain Dew anymore, but it's worth wondering how we got this far.  The answer, which you might have guessed, is money.  Not always, but a lot of the time; cultural norms and morals play a part too.  There's a podcaster named Dan Carlin (he's awesome, you should check him out) who sometimes talks about "wallet rights", which came about because the definition of what's considered a person's "nose" in that apocryphal Holmes quote gradually expanded to include things that cost people and the government money.  Taking drugs? You might hurt someone or damage someone's property while in an altered state, and society can't have that.  Ride a bicycle without a helmet? You might wreck, and ambulances cost money. On the surface, that seems fair, until you consider that just about everybody does something that potentially costs society money.  Eat too much red meat? You'll probably require more expensive medical care someday.  Like to go whitewater rafting? The odds are that you'll have an accident someday. Okay, so maybe you play it safe and stay home playing video games.  Unfortunately, a sedentary lifestyle contributes to early mortality.  Oops.  Even a healthy lifestyle backfires in the long run, because older people have higher medical costs.  It's simply a consequence of aging.

So where do the limits to our individual rights exist? Have we moved too far away from Mill's standard? Or, to consider it from the other side of the issue, should society have to bear the costs of that person exercising their rights? Resources are finite and things like ambulances do cost money, so is using legal penalties to disincentivize behaviors that eat up those resources justified? These questions are part of a long-running debate about individual rights (which are a cornerstone upon which the US was founded), and to hear some sources, the erosion of personal freedom due to things like "wallet rights" has never been worse than right now.  Are they right, or is it overblown? And can people be trusted to make sound decisions without state coercion? The answers depends on one's point of view, but whatever answer you come up with, these are questions worth debating.