Should people be allowed to do anything they want, as long as...?

I think this is a very difficult question.

It's a point often used to defend use of illegal drugs. If you take, say, heroin, then you should be allowed to because hey, you're not hurting anyone.

But is that even true? If I bought that heroin from a dealer and I took it home and injected it, I would be harming nobody but myself. But I would be funding a trade which has its roots in organised crime, and the money I gave that dealer could be used to fund human trafficking or buy guns for street gangs or hire a hitman.

The question is, where does your responsibility for how that money is used start and where does it end? Can you be considered responsible for what the money you put into the organised crime group is used for? I think that yes, yes you can. If you suspect that the money you give someone will be used for "evil", and yet you still give them the money, you are morally responsible. I am responsible because I know that there is a possibility my money will be used to do something which is much more morally questionable than me getting high on Class A drugs.

I don't eat meat. The reason I don't eat meat is because the money I give the supermarket or the butcher will be used to kill more animals, and I don't want to be directly responsible for killing animals. I consider myself responsible for what my money does, and I'm in the fortunate position of being able to decide what my money does and who it goes to. If my money can be kept out of the hands of people who will use it for wrong, I have a moral duty to keep it out of their hands.

I'll use another example, Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A were a company who's management supported anti-same-sex marriage organisations, and sponsored those organisation's events. Now, we don't have Chick-fil-A in the UK, but if we did I would refuse to eat there. I am in the position to be able to decide whether or not I eat at Chick-fil-A and whether or not they get their hands on my money, and I think it's immoral for my money to go into the pockets of homophobic executives when I can decide for it not to go there.

I'm fighting back the urge to give more and more examples of things I hate, but I have digressed too far. I think that yes, you should be able to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't hurt other people. But you have to define what it means to hurt other people, and realise that things you might think hurt nobody hurt people indirectly, using the money you give to certain people, and that it is your responsibility to be educated about that.

EDIT: Then again, what is morally right and what is pragmatic and will produce the best results for a real world society are two different things.

Long as they not hurting anyone who cares.

I think yes. Excluding ourselves.
People should be allowed to cause harm to themselves if they wish to. I despise living in a society where I don't have sovereignty over my own body.

The idea of having laws to protect people from themselves is patronising, at best.

This is an age-old philosophy. Have you ever thought about your being created? If you were, you must have a creator. That being true, your creator must have created you with a purpose in mind; so perhaps your "doing whatever you want" hurts him/her when you miss the mark of doing that for which you were created....

Within reason, you would have to define harm. Some people might think that viewing a naked body is harmful.

Yes, I agree. And remember, when you hurt yourself, you hurt others too.

Not really, because if they dont harm people around they harm themself, which is not good at all either.

Sounds good to me. That is why I do it.

Do you mean harm in a physical way or financial way?