How to parse 'do more harm than good'?

Question

This Oxford dictionary defines "do more harm than good" as:

Inadvertently make a situation worse rather than better.

‘hasty legislation does more harm than good’

So I think this example means the same thing as

hasty legislation does harm rather than good

Does 'more harm than good' in the expression constitute a noun phrase and does 'more' function as a determiner?

hasty legislation does [more harm than good]

Or should this expression be parsed differently?

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A reminder: Please note that the question is specifically about syntax. Your answer must provide a suggestion as to how to parse the expression.

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Cambridge Dictionary defines the expression as follows:

to be damaging and not helpful

Macmillan Dictionary's definition is:

to make a situation worse instead of better

Wikitionary's definition is:

To make a situation worse, usually while trying to make it better.

These are all in line with the definition of the Oxford dictionary in that the expression isn't about a quantitative comparison of harm and good. So those who argue that the expression is about such a comparison should provide some authoritative source.

Answer 1

Is "more harm than good" a noun phrase?

hasty legislation does [more harm than good]

hasty legislation does [things]

hasty legislation does [stuff]

"things" is a countable noun and "stuff" is an uncountable noun. Both work in place of the phrase without changing the meaning or grammar of "hasty legislation does", so I would say yes, "more harm than good" is a noun phrase. It doesn't need a determiner any more than "stuff" does.

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The meaning you suggest is almost right:

hasty legislation does harm overall rather than good

The intention is to do good, but the good it does do is overshadowed by the bad, which is most likely unintentional.

I agree with the Oxford Dictionary's definition, and also Wikipedia's. I think Cambridge Dictionary's and Macmillan Dictionary's definitions are correct but too narrow.

For example, Macmillan gives the following sentence:

Strenuous exercise can often do more harm than good.

Strenuous exercise can reduce fat and cause muscle injury. It can do both good and bad, but if an injury occurs the bad outweighs the good.

Answer 2

In this context, you should take it to mean that legislation will have a number of effects. Some effects are good, some effects are bad.

You can then instead parse the phrase as:

hasty legislation does more harm[ful things] than good [things].

Answer 3

When you use the syntax "more X than Y", X and Y need to be comparable to each other. Therefore, they should both be interpreted as nouns, or both adjectives, or both adverbs. And "more" means that they need to be quantifiable in some way. This means you're comparing the quantities, not describing an either/or alternative.

"harm" and "good" are both being used as quantifiable nouns in this context. It's comparing the amount of harm with the amount of good being done, and stating that the amount of harm is larger.

Sometimes the phrase is used when an action has both good and bad effects, but the bad outweighs the good. It can also be used when the action is intended or hoped to have good effects, but they turn out to be negligible compared to the bad effects, which might have been unintended (this would probably only be discovered after the fact). In the latter case, your first interpretation would be pretty close to the actual result, but it's not usually the intent of the speaker.

Answer 4

While I agree with the answers from a literal interpretation, I think it's helpful to understand that this phrase is idiomatic in usage and understanding. I initially said 'nearly idiomatic' because (for native English speakers, at least) the literal meaning is so near to the idiomatic meaning that it's hard to even realize it is idiomatic. The context is basically always that a solution is intended to improve a situation and the speaker (or writer) is claiming is actually going to make the problem worse. It really isn't important whether the solution actually does any specific good, it's that the overall result is bad.

The reason you would use this phrase instead of "harm rather than good" is:

1. To acknowledge that the solution is based on good intentions.

2. To acknowledge that there may be some benefits to the solution.

But mainly it's about 1. Basically: a way to soften criticism of a solution within a debate or discussion. If you simply said, "your solution does harm", it can come across as an attack on the originators or supporters of that solution. The use of this phrase implies that intentions behind the solution are good even if the result is bad.

You write in your addendum:

These are all in line with the definition of the Oxford dictionary in that the expression isn't about a quantitative comparison of harm and good. So those who argue that the expression is about such a comparison should provide some authoritative source.

I think you are a little confused about this in general. The reason these sources don't refer to the literal meaning of the words is that this is an idiomatic expression as listed in Merriam-Webster.

An idiom is a phrase or an expression that has a figurative, or sometimes literal, meaning. Categorized as formulaic language, an idiom's figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning.

That's why there's an entry for the phrase is the first place. If you search for other phrases on the the Lexico (Oxford) site you've linked to, you won't find any grammatically correct phrase you type. It's only those phrases that have some other connotation apart from what the literal words say.

You cannot be fluent in English without becoming familiar with common idioms. From the wikipedia article above: "In the English language alone, it is estimated that there are at least twenty-five thousand idiomatic expressions." Most native English speakers use so many idioms in their speech and writing that they are not even aware they are idiomatic.

The phrase makes sense literally but that's not the what the idiom means. For example, if I say someone is "high as a kite" it has a literal meaning: 'positioned at an altitude where a kite would fly' but that's not what it means. It means the person is intoxicated.

So trying to figure out how to 'parse' this semantically to come to the definitions you are finding doesn't make sense. Those definitions are for the phrase as an idiom, not what the words mean semantically.

Answer 5

The phrase is literal. In an expanded form it means that the speaker believes that contemplated action will have both harmful and beneficial effects but that the harmful effects outweigh or overcome the beneficial ones so that the end result is a net negative.

I know some might suggest that it is idiomatic, but I must respectfully disagree. It means literally what it says, though perhaps it is a bit terse. It is most often and most properly used used when the contemplated action involves both positive and negative results. Some people might occasionally use it even when there are only negative effects when dealing with an action someone else proposed, but in that case they are committing a white lie for social purposes rather than relying on an established idiom.

This statement makes perfect sense in the context of legislation incidentally. Virtually all legislation has unintended consequences. Virtually all legislation has both good and bad effects. The question is whether the good outweighs the bad and it is common to say that a particular piece of legislation is likely to do more harm than good. While its hard to prove, many people do believe that in general hasty legislation does more harm than good for the country.

Answer 6

In this sentence, both "harm" and "good" are nouns. As Barmar says, they are comparable and are being compared. "More" is an adjective modifying "harm", saying that the amount of harm is greater than something. "Than" is a conjunction (I had to check m-w online for this). It connects the noun phrase "more harm" with the noun "good", indicating that the comparison is between "good" and "harm". And "does" is of course the main verb. So I think the parsing is

[does [[more harm] than [good]]]

Structurally, this phrase is no different than "eats more meat than grain".

Answer 7

There is a parallel structure to the phrase "more harm than good."

First, when legislation does something bad, it does harm.

Legislation also might do something good, that is, it might do good.

But although hasty legislation possibly does some good, in the end it does more harm.

Hence hasty legislation does more harm than it does good.

This is a parallel construction with the subject "legislation" in both parts (represented by "it" in the second part) and the verb "to do" as the predicate verb in both parts, so we can drop "it does" from the second part:

Hasty legislation does more harm than it does good.

Hasty legislation does more harm than good.

And I think the dictionary definition fails to explain all the connotations of the phrase, as dictionary definitions often do. The idea is not that hasty legislation does not do any good; it is literally that whatever good is in it is less than the harm that is in it, so on the whole it makes things worse.

Answer 8

You have a balance scale: Pile all the good on one side and the harm on the other. Which way does the scale lean?