This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (14)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Russel H. Patterson, Jr, MD

JAMA. 1986;255(18):2481-2482.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

SHOULD a sport as brutal as boxing be allowed to exist in civilized society? Is a ban on boxing an excessive restraint of individual freedom? We perhaps could all agree that there should exist a certain minimal area of personal freedom that must not be violated or else the individual will be so confined that he is unable to develop his individuality even to the slightest degree. This means that a boundary or frontier must be defined between private life and public authority. The debate is on where that line should be drawn.¹

John Stuart Mill wrote in his essay, "On Liberty," that there was only one circumstance under which society was entitled to use physical force, legal penalties, or moral coercion. He wrote:

That the only principle that is the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, New York.

Footnotes
Reprint requests to the Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, 525 E 68th St, New York, NY 10021 (Dr Patterson).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?