Many legal theorists have argued that the only morally legitimate goal in imposing criminal penalties against certain behaviors is to prevent people from harming others. Clearly, such theorists would oppose laws that force people to act purely for their own good or to refrain from certain harmless acts purely to ensure conformity to some social norm. But the goal of preventing harm to others would also justify legal sanctions against some forms of nonconforming behavior to which this goal might at first seem not to apply.

In many situations it is in the interest of each member of a group to agree to behave in a certain way on the condition that the others similarly agree. In the simplest cases, a mere coordination of activities is itself the good that results. For example, it is in no one's interest to lack a convention about which side of the road to drive on, and each person can agree to drive on one side assuming the others do too. Any fair rule, then, would be better than no rule at all. On the assumption that all people would voluntarily agree to be subject to a coordination rule backed by criminal sanctions, if people could be assured that others would also agree, it is argued to be legitimate for a legislature to impose such a rule. This is because prevention of harm underlies the rationale for the rule, though it applies to the problem of coordination less directly than to other problems, for the act that is forbidden (driving on the other side of the road) is not inherently harm-producing, as are burglary and assault; instead, it is the lack of a coordinating rule that would be harmful.

In some other situations involving a need for legally enforced coordination, the harm to be averted goes beyond the simple lack of coordination itself. This can be illustrated by an example of a coordination rule—instituted by a private athletic organization—which has analogies in criminal law. At issue is whether the use of anabolic steroids, which build muscular strength but have serious negative side effects, should be prohibited. Each athlete has at stake both an interest in having a fair opportunity to win and an interest in good health. If some competitors use steroids, others have the option of either endangering their health or losing their fair opportunity to win. Thus they would be harmed either way. A compulsory rule could prevent that harm and thus would be in the interest of all competitors. If they understand its function and trust the techniques for its enforcement, they will gladly consent to it. So while it might appear that such a rule merely forces people to act for their own good, the deeper rationale for coercion here—as in the above example—is a somewhat complex appeal to the legitimacy of enforcing a rule with the goal of preventing harm.