ABSTRACT
But, as even Plamenatz (hardly a defender of liberal utilitarianism) suspected, any such sweeping objection to the practicality of the liberty principle is unpersuasive. There may not be any acts which are always and everywhere defined as self-regarding in kind, he seems to suggest, because the same act may have consequences which are harmless to others in some circumstances, yet harmful to them in other circumstances. Getting drunk at home with the cat can be purely self-regarding, for example, whereas getting drunk on duty as a police officer poses a risk of perceptible injury to others against their wishes, since the officer may fail to perform his duties. ‘But this in no way invalidates Mill’s criterion’, he points out, anticipating a central argument of Ten’s, ‘nor does it make it less easy to apply than any other’ (1965, p. 130).
