Conception of the State and the Use of Coercion

Since Hobbes wrote his Leviathan, the Western World has conceived of the state as an artificial organism that serves the end of promoting the happiness and well-being of its people. The state is order imposed on the people, by the people, for the benefit of the people.

With this view of the state, Simester and von Hirsch argue that “legitimate grounds for coercive state intervention arise only when conduct directly or indirectly affects people’s lives, such that its regulation would tend to prevent harm” (Simester and von Hirsch, 29). The state is only justified in using its coercive power when conduct negatively affects people’s lives by causing harm.

However, a different view of the state may lead to a drastically different conclusion on when the state can use coercive power. Rather than viewing the state as artificial, perhaps it is natural. The state has within it a source that explains how a group of people becomes a state: the people of the state. People are political by nature, so it is natural that a state forms out of a group of people.

If the state is natural, it does not derive its coercive power from the consent of its individuals — it has coercive power due to the natural order. Thus, preventing the harm of citizens would not be the end of the state as a coercive institution. Rather, the end of the state as a coercive power would be to enable people to live a fulfilled life.

This would free the state to use coercive power to criminalize far more than merely harmful actions. For example, the state could criminalize parents not educating their children on the grounds that education is necessary to live a fulfilled life.

One’s conception of the state will greatly affect what principle guides the criminalization of actions.

Works Cited:

Simester, A. P., and Andrew Von Hirsch. Crimes, Harms, and Wrongs: On the Principles of Criminalisation. Hart Publishing, 2014.