What Counts as Harm
A Functional Definition Grounded in Agency and Value
Harm is a foundational concept in ethics, politics, and law. We invoke it when describing injury, offense, injustice, and coercion. But most people use the term without a precise definition, leading to confusion and moral inflation. This post defines harm rigorously within a subjectivist, agent-centered framework.
Definition:
Harm is the non-consensual degradation of an agent's capacity to pursue or maintain their valued goals.
This definition preserves moral clarity while filtering out misuse. It focuses on functional impact, not mere emotional reaction, and is consistent with our prior definitions of coercion and consent.
Key Components
Agent
Harm can only occur to an agent—a being capable of valuing, choosing, and acting toward goals. No agent, no harm.Valued Goals
The agent must have identifiable goals that they care about pursuing or maintaining. Harm degrades the capacity to pursue those goals, not merely the chance of success.Capacity Degradation
Harm occurs when an agent's ability to act effectively toward their goals is impaired—physically, cognitively, socially, or structurally.Non-Consensual
If the agent knowingly accepted the risk or outcome (e.g., surgery, contact sports, challenge), then it is not harm in this framework.
Examples That Count as Harm
Physical assault: Impairs bodily function and induces non-consensual risk.
Gaslighting: Undermines cognitive trust and functional decision-making.
Public humiliation with reputational consequences: Interferes with future relational or professional opportunities.
Destruction of critical property (e.g., tools, intellectual work): Obstructs agent's goals.
Discrimination that blocks access to opportunity: Systematically degrades the agent's ability to pursue livelihood or recognition.
Examples That Do Not Count as Harm
Feeling offended by someone else's lawful expression: No degradation of your functional capacity.
Romantic rejection: Disappointment, not impairment.
Someone else's success causing envy: No one obstructed your goals.
Being disagreed with or not mirrored: Your goals remain untouched.
Unreciprocated emotional investment: No capacity was degraded by another agent.
Why This Definition Works
This framing of harm avoids moral inflation. It:
Captures physical, psychological, social, and structural harms.
Excludes purely symbolic, ideological, or narcissistic distress.
Grounds harm in agency and functional impairment.
Cleanly separates harm (a factual impact) from injustice (a normative judgment).
You can be harmed by nature, by chance, or by another agent. But not all harms are wrong. To evaluate wrongness, we first need to identify what harm is—and what it is not.
This definition does that with precision and generality. It gives us a clean foundation to discuss responsibility, rights, and justice—without smuggling in moral assumptions.