All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned for a Thing I Cannot Name

Harm

Harm is a moral and legal concept. Bernard Gert construes harms as any of the following: pain death disability loss of ability or freedom loss of pleasure.Joel Feinberg gives an account of harms as setbacks to interests. He distinguishes welfare interests from ulterior interests. Hence on his view there are two kinds of harms. Welfare interests are interests in the continuance for a foreseeable interval of one's life, and the interests in one's own physical health and vigor, the integrity and normal functioning of one's body, the absence of absorbing pain and suffering or grotesque disfigurement, minimal intellectual acuity, emotional stability, the absence of groundless anxieties and resentments, the capacity to engage normally in social intercourse and to… more »