ABSTRACT
The kinds of instance in which ‘the public interest’ gets used can be put into two groups, and although the demarcation line is not sharp at the edges it is useful enough for the purpose of dividing up my discussion. The first class of cases I shall call negative applications of ‘the public interest’. In these cases what is said to be ‘in the public interest’ is preventing someone from doing something which will have adverse effects on an indefinite group of people. ‘Negative’ planning, which has as its aim the prevention of eyesores such as corrugated iron sheds in front gardens and flashing neon lights in the Cotswolds, is a perfect example of action of a negative kind based on ‘the public interest’. So is the operation of the criminal law, at any rate considered in prospect when ‘future victims’ are still an indefinite group. ‘Positive’ applications, on the other hand, occur when a facility is actually provided for an indefinite group of people. A local authority, for example, acts ‘positively’
1 I have already quoted A.F.Bentley and D.B.Truman in this connection (XI.2.C.). In addition see Frank J.Sorauf, ‘The Public Interest Reconsidered’, Journal of Politics, XIX (November 1957), pp. 616 ff.; Howard R.Smith, Democracy and the Public Interest (University of Georgia, 1960); and Glendon A. Schubert, The Public Interest: A Critique of a Concept (Illinois, 1961). Summaries of Schubert’s book may be found in ‘The Public Interest in Administrative Decision-Making’, American Political Science Review, LI (June 1957), pp. 346 ff. and ‘The Theory of the Public Interest in Judicial Decision-Making’, Midwest Journal of Political Science II (February 1958) pp. 1 ff.; or in C.J.Friedrich (ed.), Nomos V: The Public Interest (New York, 1962), pp. 162-176. For a similar if less extreme Anglo-Australian view to set beside these American ones see J.D.B.Miller, The Nature of Politics (London, 1962), Chapter IV; and for an explicit critique of Miller see my paper on ‘The Public Interest’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume XXXVIII (1964), pp. 1-18.
