Qualitative Improvement of Social Welfare of Iranian Society in the Light of Conflict of Interests Management, Relying on a Comparative Study of the No-Harm Principle in Imami Jurisprudence and the Harm Principle in the Western Legal System

One of the respected principles of human societies is the freedom of will of individuals to fulfill their interests. Therefore, not only individuals but also public forces cannot prevent the freedom of will of individuals to enjoy social and economic benefits under any pretext. However, in some cases, the free will of individuals to gain the most benefit is at odds with each other, so that the absolute release of the will of individuals to gain the most benefit, in some cases, harms others. Therefore, determining the limits of freedom of the will of individuals and balancing it and the harm that may be caused to others by this freedom is very important, so that determining it can have a broad impact on the overall progress of a nation-state. Due to this necessity, many schools of thought throughout history have commented on this issue, including the Islamic and Western schools of thought. The philosophical ideas of these two schools, one of which is included in the Islamic rule of "no-harm" and the other in the western rule of "harm", have led the present article to examine the commonalities and differences between these two rules in common interaction to finally conclude that from the perspective of jurisprudence, the freedom of will of individuals to fulfill their interests is of particular importance to ensure the maximum social welfare of society, and governments, in addition to not hindering the activities of the people, but in their management of conflict of interest, must first seek to consolidate the interests of individuals with each other and if that is not possible, give priority to satisfying the interests that have the most public function for most people in society.