In a democratic society, it is generally considered the government's job to promote morality and justice among its citizens and to try to limit seemingly immoral and unjust acts. Therefore, if an act is to be considered immoral, it seems obvious to suggest that the government is justified in restricting it regardless of whether it is harmful to others. However, since everyone has a different conception of morality and freedom, no government could legitimately restrict an act on the basis of its being "immoral". It therefore seems more plausible to suggest that the government should limit only those actions that everyone agrees should be limited. However, it is not clear where the line should be drawn or how consensus can be reached on the issue. John Stuart Mill advanced an idea, commonly known as the "harm principle", in which he argues that government can legitimately interfere only with our actions to prevent harm, or the threat of harm, to others. For Mill it wasn't enough to simply do something that people didn't like, you had to actually cause more harm. Mill's argument seems designed to protect our individual liberties from government paternalism, through which our ability to express ourselves can be limited under the guise that we are protected from ourselves. For Mill the only time we have to justify our actions to society, or to the government, is when they affect others and, above all, cause them harm. Mill makes it clear that harm is much more than just an offense and also provides some examples, including physical ones. harm and damage to our financial interests such as the taking of property or money without our consent. Mill also accepts harm in some cases such as judicial punishment, so... halfway through the paper... he only accepts harm as a legitimate reason for the government to limit individual liberties, everyone's understanding of what constitutes a " damage" is different. Utilitarians may propose that harm is anything that is detrimental to an individual's happiness. If liberty is as important as Mill suggests, then we can regard any restriction on liberty as harmful, in which case the government must constantly consider the degree of harm necessary to justify and outweigh the harm it will undoubtedly cause by imposing restrictions on individual liberty. Considering the harm, we can conclude that not only should the government limit an individual's freedom only to prevent harm to others, but also that the level of harm must be sufficient to outweigh the harm caused by a restriction of individual liberties. . For Mill this would have been a very high threshold.