The “No-Harm Without Consent” Principle: A Defence of Individual Autonomy
Consent is the key to relationships, transactions, and a truly free society.
The bedrock of a free society is not as a result of some benevolent act of the state, but is grounded in the autonomy of the individual. This foundational idea is elegantly captured by the “no-harm without consent” principle, a concept better known as the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). At its heart, this principle asserts that it is illegitimate to initiate or threaten force or fraud against another individual, their property, or their agreements. It is a simple yet profound moral axiom: your liberty to use force ends where my right to live my life as I choose begins (if I do not hurt others in doing so).
Defining the Boundary of Freedom
The “no-harm without consent” principle draws a bright line around individual rights. It insists that every adult is the sovereign owner of their own body and mind. The only justifiable use of force is in self-defence against an aggressor who has already violated this line.
Perhaps the most potent illustration of this boundary is the classic maxim concerning smoking: “My freedom to smoke ends where your nose begins.” The moment my smoke, a physical intrusion, invades your airspace and your lungs without your permission, I am initiating a low-level aggression. This is harm without consent, and it is rightly prohibited. The current trend in tobacco legislation, such as South Africa’s draft Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Bill, in theory attempts to address this by moving to make most indoor public places 100% smoke-free, protecting the non-consenting public from involuntary exposure to second-hand smoke. This is where the caveat should enter the argument.
The Power of Consent: A Critique of the Nanny State
However, the state often goes a crucial step further, moving from protecting non-consenting third parties to attempting to protect individuals from the consequences of their own, consensual decisions. This is where the application of the principle becomes a powerful tool against the practical encroachment of the nanny state in our lives.
If I, as an adult, knowingly and freely choose to engage in an activity that might carry a risk, or that others might judge as “bad,” why should the state intervene? Or even, does it have the right to intervene? Consider the scenario of a designated smoking room in a private restaurant. If a restaurant employee voluntarily accepts a job that includes entering that smoking room for brief periods, and they have been fully informed and have consented to that condition, the “no-harm without consent” principle dictates that this arrangement should be perfectly acceptable. The harm (exposure to smoke) is present, but the consent transforms the interaction from aggression into a mutually agreed-upon transaction.
The underlying argument for government prohibition is often paternalistic: that the employee is not truly consenting due to a perceived imbalance of power with the employer, or that their decision is not “good” for them. This perspective treats adults as children, incapable of weighing complex trade-offs.
The Superiority of Individual Decision-Making
Individuals operate not on the blunt, binary logic of law, but on what can be called “fuzzy logic”—a continuous spectrum of pros, cons, personal values, and risk assessments. An employee may value the higher wage, the short commute, or the specific working hours of that job more than they fear the minimal, consented-to exposure in a designated smoking area. Their decision, though perhaps judged harshly by an outsider (like a minister of health), makes perfect sense for the person concerned, based on their unique set of preferences and circumstances.
Laws, by contrast, are yes/no rules, they are rigid, universal prohibitions that fail to capture the nuance of human relationships and negotiations. When the state steps in to legislate away all possible risks in a consensual exchange, it is not securing freedom; it is eroding autonomy in a free society. It denies individuals the dignity of self-ownership and the right to make choices that affect their own well-being, even choices that appear foolish to others.
Consent is Key, Government Must “Butt Out”
The state’s role should be limited to enforcing the “no-harm without consent” principle: prosecuting actual aggression, fraud, and violations of property rights. Where two or more adults, acting without coercion and with full information, voluntarily enter into an agreement (be it a contract, a risky activity, or a lifestyle choice) the government should “butt out.”
Consent is the key to relationships, transactions, and a truly free society. If we continue to allow the state to prohibit consensual arrangements under the guise of “protection,” we risk building a society that is safe, perhaps, but ultimately devoid of genuine liberty and individual responsibility. Adults are capable; the time to dismantle the nanny state is now.
Stop using state force to prevent me doing something that I voluntarily consent to.
Charl Heydenrych is a retired human resources practitioner and a libertarian.
I agree, but "If I, as an adult..." means that we better have a non-arbitrary definition of "adult". But this is not insurmountable, anyone who can prove that they are responsible for their own lives is an adult.
The real problem is secular libertarianism which has been a dead end, it has lost us ground to conservatives when we should be louder about the Christian roots of some of our best ideas (natural law, the rule of law, even the HCR or NAP can be traced back to the golden rule). The Christian God is a God of consent "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.", abolition was largely a Christian movement, the early classical liberals were driven by their faith.
But modern libertarians are materialists for no good reason. This makes it much harder to win over people and allows leftists to claim to represent Christian values when the communists and socialists have always been hostile to Christianity, they do this because they know the value of the religious space modern libertarians have vacated, so do conservatives. There is even the absurd suggestion from some libertarians that faith is incompatible with libertarianism, talk about not knowing your own history.
Abandon objectivists, they don't want to be associated with libertarians anyway. Claim the religious ground that rightfully belongs to us, that way we can show people that consent is based on God's love, property rights are based on humanity's God-given stewardship of the Earth and human/natural rights on our being made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). Or just keep being an irrelevant social club that gradually drifts towards progressivism in a desperate attempt to recapture some relevance.
Yebo, Trevor Watkins' Harm Consent Rule, the HCR, is a practical real world option to the otherwise nebulous Non Aggression Principle, the NAP, that libertarians and like minded mostly refer to.
Your smoking example is excellent, and it shows why the prevailing idea in academia that a genuine free market has "market failures" is a myth.
Coupled to the Nature of Us, the NoU, a genuine free market protected by a minimalist government (Night Watchman or whatever other name describes the same rose) is a solution to any form of initiation of physical force (aka violence) against individuals.
Using your smoking example or the asbestos example in the NoU article linked below, any form of physical harm without consent, from smoking to asbestos to conscription to the Apartheid Pass Law or its Immorality Act or Putin droning civilians or the Maoist "one child only per family" genocide in China, whatever, the HCR + NoU can address these explicitly and at maximal resolution.
For the NoU see: https://thetaooffreedom.substack.com/p/the-nature-of-us-nou?utm_source=publication-search