Abstract

IntroductionHarm is a fundamental concept featuring in many normative claims. In the political context, it is sometimes argued that the only justification for state coercion is the prevention of harm to others, or that it is impermissible to forcibly prevent someone harming themselves. In ethics, many philosophers endorse weighty constraints against harming others. Finally, remedial duties in the civil law are usually conceptualised as responses to harm. Given its broad significance, the recent increase in attention to the philosophical foundations of harm is understandable, but there is still no consensus on even the broad outlines of a theory.Most theories of harm are ‘state-based’. They analyse harm with reference to the state in which a victim is placed as a result of some event: to be harmed is to be placed in a bad state. Events usually feature in state-based views as causes of harm, although the harm is not identified with this event or any further event. The event-based view (h