Freedom and Liberty, Misc

Does globalization serve the same function as hellenization did in the 1st century? Is globalization a threat to religion? Is there a theological ground for understanding the leveling of barriers? How does Pentecost relate to Babel and the present phenomena of globalization? These are some questions explored in this paper.

Este artículo brinda algunas respuestas y alternativas a ciertos problemas y propuestas en el área de la teoría democrática. El ensayo tiene como enfoque la cuestión de distinguir sistemas que pueden parecer democráticos sin serlo de sistemas realmente democráticos. Develando algunos actores disfrazados del discurso democrático en América Latina, el artículo argumenta que es preferible la regla de la mayoría como base para la identificación del bien común por medio del interés general, que reglas de minorías, consentimiento total o bases (...) constitucionales opuestas al gobierno de la mayoría. Esto se hace sin desestimar a las minorías ni las constituciones, ni lo ideal de la unanimidad. Simplemente las ubica. La investigación incluye una nueva respuesta al problema de la supuesta irracionalidad de la democracia identificada originalmente por Platón y después formalizada por Arrow. (shrink)

Republicans hold that people are dominated merely in virtue of others' having unconstrained abilities to frustrate their choices. They argue further that public officials may dominate citizens unless subject to popular control. Critics identify a dilemma. To maintain the possibility of popular control, republicans must attribute to the people an ability to control public officials merely in virtue of the possibility that they might coordinate their actions. But if the possibility of coordination suffices for attributing abilities to groups, then, even (...) in the best case, countless groups will be dominating because it will be possible for their members to coordinate their actions with the aim of frustrating others' choices. We argue the dilemma is apparent only. To make our argument, we present a novel interpretation of the republican concept of domination with the help of a game-theoretic model that clarifies the significance of collective action problems for republican theory. (shrink)

Recently, Margaret Gilbert has argued that it appears that the wisdom of a society impinges, greatly, on its freedom. In this article, I show that Gilbert’s “negative argument” fails to be convincing. On the other hand, there are important lessons, particularly for democratic theory, that can be by looking carefully, and critically, at her argument. This article will proceed as follows. First, I present Gilbert’s argument. Next, I criticize her understanding of freedom, and then, using arguments from Christopher McMahon, criticize (...) her understanding of a wise society. Finally, I discuss how what has been said can inform how one should think about democratic theory. (shrink)

Cualquier propuesta de alternativa a la democracia representativa, sea para mejorarla, sea para sustituirla por otro tipo de forma política, debería de tomar en cuenta dos tipos de restricciones para que la alternativa en cuestión tenga mayores probabilidades de éxito. Al primer grupo de restricciones los llamaremos factores limitantes de la conducta humana, mientras que al segundo grupo los llamaremos funciones impropias de esa forma política, es decir, las funciones que no debería tener. Tanto los factores limitantes de la conducta (...) humana como las funciones impropias de una forma política son restricciones sobre lo que realmente, es decir, no utópicamente, podríamos hacer para mejorar a la democracia y en general a la gobernabilidad de las sociedades. Esas restricciones, que a continuación señalaré, constituyen los argumentos que me llevan a plantear la siguiente tesis: la democracia representativa puede y debe ser mejorada al reducir su alcance económico, político y social, pero continúa siendo una mejor opción de gobierno que cualquier alternativa, incluyendo la demarquía. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the relationship between carefreeness and the valuable goods that constitute a good childhood. I argue that carefreeness is necessary for children to develop positive affective responses to worthwhile projects and relationships, and so is necessary for children to endorse the valuable goods in their lives. One upshot of my discussion is that a child who is allowed to play, who receives an adequate education, and who has loving parents, but who lacks the psychological disposition of (...) carefreeness leads an impoverished life, even if she might lead a good life in adulthood. (shrink)

For years now, unionization has been under vigorous attack. Membership has been steadily declining, and with it union bargaining power. As a result, unions may soon lose their ability to protect workers from economic and personal abuse, as well as their significance as a political force. In the Name of Liberty responds to this worrying state of affairs by presenting a new argument for unionization, one that derives an argument for universal unionization in both the private and public sector from (...) concepts of liberty that we already accept. In short, In the Name of Liberty reclaims the argument for liberty from the political right, and shows how liberty not only requires the unionization of every workplace as a matter of background justice, but also supports a wide variety of other progressive policies. (shrink)

Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom has been interpreted as a general warning against state intervention in the economy.1 We review this argument in conjunction with Hayek’s later work and discern an institutional thesis about which forms of state intervention and economic institutions could threaten personal and political freedom. Economic institutions pose a threat if they allow for coercive interventions, as described by Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty: by giving someone the power to force others to serve one’s will by (...) threatening to inflict harm, in the absence of general rules of conduct. According to the logic of the argument, welfare-state provisions are not coercive insofar as they do not allow the identification and discriminatory treatment of individuals. By contrast, we claim that a structure of coercion is likely to emerge from the command-and-control nature of protectionist institutions and immigration restrictions currently advocated by the radical right. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s political philosophy has enjoyed renewed attention as an egalitarian alternative to contemporary inequality since it seems to uncompromisingly reassert the primacy of the state over the economy, enabling it to defend the modern welfare state against encroaching neoliberal markets. However, I argue that, when understood as a free-standing approach to politics, Kant’s doctrine of right shares essential features with the prevailing theories that legitimate really existing economic inequality. Like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Kant understands the state’s function (...) as essentially coercive and, in justifying state coercion, he adopts a narrow conception of political freedom that formally preserves the right to choose while denying that the range of choices one actually has can be a matter of justice. As a result, Kant cannot identify various forms of social pressure as potential injustices even as he recognizes their power to create and sustain troubling inequalities. For both Kant and the neoliberals, the result is that economic relations almost never count as unjust forms of coercion, no matter how unequal they are. Views that identify coercion as the trigger for duties of justice are thus particularly ill-suited to orient us to contemporary inequality. (shrink)

According to Philip Pettit, we should understand republican liberty, freedom as ‘non-domination,’ as a ‘supreme political value.’ It is its commitment to freedom as non-domination, Pettit claims, that distinguishes republicanism from various forms of liberal egalitarianism, including the political liberalism of John Rawls. I explain that Rawlsian political liberalism is committed to a form of non-domination, namely, a ‘political’ conception, which is: (a) limited in its scope to the ‘basic structure of society,’ and (b) ‘freestanding’ in nature (that is, compatible (...) with the ‘fact of reasonable pluralism’). I show that the political conception of non-domination is an integral part of political liberalism through an exploration of the kind of citizenship education that political liberalism mandates for all students. Such an education would impart to future citizen the skills and knowledge necessary for them to realize republican freedom vis-à-vis their political institutions, their workplaces, and, by means of an enforceable ‘right of exit,’ the various associations to which they might belong. (shrink)

Evânia Reich presents the argument that the veil laws in France—the banning of the full-face coverings in public and the banning of the headscarf in public schools—are consistent with the emancipatory project of French Laïcité. According to this argument, the veils that Muslim women wear are symbols of their oppression, whereas French education seeks to liberate each individual and Laïcité serves as a bulwark against the creeping oppressive influence of religion. Unveiling Muslim women, then, is an act of emancipation. In (...) this essay, I argue that the view of French secularism as an emancipatory project to free women of the oppressive mechanism of the veil is an example of what Marilyn Frye calls the “arrogant eye.” In this essay, I offer an alternative approach on the veil following Frye’s notion of the “loving eye.”. (shrink)

Wie können Freiheit und Widerstand innerhalb von Foucaults Theorie der Macht und Subjektivierung konzipiert werden? Karsten Schubert liefert die erste systematische Rekonstruktion der sozialphilosophischen Debatte um Freiheit bei Foucault und eine neue Lösung für das Freiheitsproblem: Freiheit als die Fähigkeit zur reflexiven Kritik der eigenen Subjektivierung – kurz: Freiheit als Kritik – ist das Resultat von freiheitlicher Subjektivierung in politischen Institutionen. Der Band zeigt so die Konsequenzen von Foucaults Freiheitsdenken für die Demokratietheorie und die allgemeine sozialphilosophische Freiheitsdiskussion auf.

El primer grupo de artículos intenta dar una idea de cómo nos comportamos que está razonablemente libre de delirios teóricos. En los siguientes tres grupos, comento tres de las principales ilusiones que impiden un mundo sostenible: la tecnología, la religión y la política (grupos cooperativos). La gente cree que la sociedad puede ser salvada por ellos, por lo que ofrezco algunas sugerencias en el resto del libro en cuanto a por qué esto es poco probable a través de artículos cortos (...) y reseñas de libros recientes de escritores conocidos. -/- América y el mundo están en proceso de colapso debido al crecimiento excesivo de la población, la mayor parte durante el último siglo y ahora todo debido a las personas del tercer mundo. El consumo de recursos y la adición de 4 mil millones más de ca. 2100 colapsará la civilización industrial y provocará el hambre, la enfermedad, la violencia y la guerra en una escala asombrosa. Miles de millones morirán y la guerra nuclear es casi segura. En Estados Unidos esto se está acelerando enormemente por la inmigración masiva y la reproducción de los inmigrantes, combinada con los abusos que la democracia ha hecho posibles. La naturaleza humana depravada convierte inexorablemente el sueño de democracia y diversidad en una pesadilla del crimen y la pobreza. La causa fundamental del colapso es la incapacidad de nuestra psicología innata para adaptarse al mundo moderno, lo que lleva a las personas a tratar a las personas no relacionadas como si tuvieran intereses comunes. Esto, más la ignorancia de la biología básica y la psicología, lleva a los delirios de ingeniería social de los educados parcialmente que controlan las sociedades democráticas. Pocos entienden que si ayudas a una persona, le haces daño a otra persona, no hay almuerzo gratis y cada artículo que alguien consume destruye la tierra sin posibilidad de reparación. En consecuencia, las políticas sociales en todas partes son insostenibles y una por una todas las sociedades sin controles estrictos sobre el egoísmo colapsarán en anarquía o dictadura. Sin cambios dramáticos e inmediatos, no hay esperanza de prevenir el colapso de Estados Unidos o cualquier país que siga un sistema democrático. De ahí mi ensayo final "El suicidio por la democracia". (shrink)

Despite the lack of evidence for their effectiveness, the use of physical restraints for patients is widespread. The best ethical justification for restraining patients is that it prevents them from harming themselves. We argue that even if the empirical evidence supported their effectiveness in achieving this aim, their use would nevertheless be unethical, so long as well known exceptions to informed consent fail to apply. Specifically, we argue that ethically justifiable restraint use demands certain necessary and sufficient conditions. These conditions (...) are that the physician obtain informed consent for their application, that their application be medically appropriate, and that restraints be the least liberty-restricting way of achieving the intended benefit. It is a further question whether their application is ever medically appropriate, given the dearth of evidence for their effectiveness. (shrink)

In the 1980s and 1990s, a series of attempts were made to put into U.S. law a civil rights ordinance that would make it possible to sue the makers and distributors of pornography for doing so (under certain conditions). One defence of such legislation has come to be called "the free speech argument against pornography." Philosophers Rae Langton, Jennifer Hornsby and Caroline West have supposed that this defence of the legislation can function as a liberal defence of the legislation: in (...) particular, a defence of the legislation based on the value of women's liberty. This would be somewhat unexpected given MacKinnon's own antipathy toward liberalism. In this paper, I argue that the free speech argument against pornography cannot be used as a liberal defence of the ordinances. The legislation is, to some extent, self-defeating insofar as it understood in terms acceptable to a fairly standard kind of liberal. This becomes apparent when we consider the value pornography can have for women, which we can see if we consider what female makers, distributors and consumers of pornography have to say about why they make, distribute and consume it. (shrink)

Globalization today is at a dangerous crossroads. Although many alleged it has provided enormous benefits, but the systemic risks and growing inequality it causes necessitate urgent action. The myth of a borderless world is crashing down. Traditional pillars of open markets; the United Kingdom and United States are wobbling. This is evident in the Brexit vote which stunned European Union and the world at large, couple with the recent policies of the American government towards its fellow western allies and immigrants. (...) Many people are beginning to feel so troubled about our economic future. The failure to arrest these global developments is likely to lead to growing nationalist policies, protectionism and xenophobia, which the world is already witnessing. Globalization has created growth, no doubt. But what kind of growth? And for who? This crisis posed by globalization has forced many to question the motive behind this phenomenon. Could this be renewed imperialism? This paper adopts rational and analytic methods in exposing this argument. (shrink)

The free will theodicy places significant value on free will: free will is of such substantial value, that God’s gift of free will to humans was justified, even though this gift foreseeably results in the most monstrous of evils. I will argue that when a state criminalizes sin, it can restrict or eliminate citizens’ exercise of metaphysical free will with respect to choosing to partake in or refrain from these activities. Given the value placed on free will in the free (...) will theodicy, theists who endorse this theodicy should thus oppose the criminalization of what I will call Millian sins —that is, actions which are immoral, but which do not directly harm another person. In other words, such theists should oppose legal moralism. (shrink)

Sarah Conly's One Child is a substantive treatment of the extent to which procreative freedom is curtailed by rising global population and the environmental problems to which it contributes. This review provides an overview of the book's content and closes with a few critical remarks. The book is highly recommended for those interested in the intersection between environmental ethics and the ethics of procreation.

In the Pledge of Allegiance we pledge our loyalty, not to the United States as it may exist at any particular moment, but to the flag and what it represents: an ideal United States that maintains "liberty and justice for all." When we say the Pledge we commit ourselves to this ideal, and to the ongoing struggle of bringing our actual nation into alignment with it.

In Axel Honneths Recht der Freiheit (RF) dienen persönliche Beziehungen, zu welchen Honneth neben Familien- und Liebesbeziehungen auch die Freundschaft zählt, der Verwirklichung einer „besondere[n], schwer zu charakterisierende[n] Form von Freiheit“ (RF 233). Diese Behauptung fügt sich ein in die Kernthese des Rechts der Freiheit. Demnach vermochte es die „Freiheit im Sinne der Autonomie des Einzelnen“ innerhalb unzähliger „Vorstellung[en] vom Guten“ als einzige, die moderne Gesellschaft nachhaltig zu prägen, wohingegen alle anderen Werte, die in der Moderne wirkmächtig geworden sind, als (...) „Facette[n] der konstitutive[n] Idee der individuellen Autonomie“ (RF 35) verstanden werden müssen. Wir argumentieren, dass Honneths Erörterung des Werts von Freundschaft in dreierlei Hinsicht sein Ziel verfehlt: Erstens zwingt sie Honneth zu einer radikalen Beschneidung des Freundschaftsbegriffs, indem er einen überzogenen Kontrast zwischen antiken und modernen Konzeptionen von Freundschaft zeichnet. Zweitens marginalisiert Honneth mit seiner Betrachtung andere Axiologien der Freundschaft, welche dieser gewichtige instrumentelle, konstitutive und finale Werte zuweisen. Drittens scheint selbst eine schwächer angelegte These, die den Wert, den Freundschaften für die individuelle Freiheit haben, auf die Stellung eines primus inter pares zurückstuft, immer noch den zentralen Wert, den Freundschaften für uns haben sollten, zu verfehlen. Dadurch wird Honneths Kernthese von der Exklusivität des Wertes der Freiheit für unsere Gesellschaft in Frage gestellt. (shrink)

For Alexis de Tocqueville, a faithful son of the Enlightenment, the priority given to the individual in the pursuit of truth represents the starting point of an inexorable march of equality towards individual autonomy. In other words, in agreement with the historicist movements of the 19th Century, Tocqueville interprets history as a dialectical progress: History understood as progress in the Hegelian sense, whose becoming unfolds in virtue of a steady and unalterable progress towards a better society-civilization as a creation of (...) the illustrated man. However, while for Hegel progress obeys a reason understood as self-knowledge, Tocqueville understands it as a balance between antagonisms: liberty-individual-democracy. In other words, the Tocquevillian dualism, expressed in the permanent tension between antagonisms equality vs. freedom, the individual vs the citizen–, leads towards a new class of dialectics of liberty. In this sense, the aforementioned triad represents, precisely, the tension that reveals itself as problematic, given that, ultimately, the elements that compose it arise antithetically. (shrink)

Democracy simply put, is the government of “the people”. There is no doubt that the rise of “the people” is now a principal political force in our contemporary world. Though democracy is largely celebrated today, Ortega y Gasset, in his book Revolt of the Masses thinks that it is an unfortunate incident. For him, the masses, regrettably, are vulgar. The masses are drunken by the possibilities that contemporary science has made feasible on one hand. Then again, their obscenity keeps them (...) from realizing what to do with the conceivable outcomes. So, the masses float. The masses don't comprehend the past. This absence of knowledge endangers the masses’ progress with negative potential outcomes, but they want to lead, rule and involve in government. The “revolt of the masses” is simply a rebellion of hysteria against reason in human activities. This paper attempts to look critically at Otega’s Revolt of the Masses and democracy. It then agrees that the rise of the people has caused lot of problems, and against democracy, Plato’s philosopher king should be advocated for. (shrink)

This study steps beyond the traditional arguments of feminism and examines homebirth from a libertarian perspective. It addresses the debate over homebirth and midwifery, which includes the use of direct-entry midwives as well as the philosophical implications of individual autonomy expressed through consumer choice. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates that the medical establishment gains economic and political control primarily through medical licensing, and uses the state to undermine personal freedom as it advances a government-enforced monopoly on birth. At the same time, (...) empirical studies have established a substantial record of high safety and low medical complication rates for homebirth as compared to hospital births. Ultimately, the state’s restriction on medical choices is incompatible with the nonaggression principle and voluntarism, and therefore, with libertarianism. (shrink)

In contemporary positive law there are legal institutions, such as conscientious objection in the context of military service or “conscience clauses” in medical law, which for the sake of respect for judgments of conscience aim at restricting legal obligations. Such restrictions are postulated to protect human freedom in general. On the basis of Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy, it shall be argued that human dignity, understood as the existential perfection of a human being based on special unity, provides a foundation for imposing (...) limitations on the scope of legal obligations in general. Human freedom plays a crucial role in understanding dignity as perfection based on the special individuality of a personal being, which in turn is based on the free choice to pursue a unique way of life. Therefore, Aquinas’ argumentation is, at its core, liberal – the perfection rather than the imperfection of a human being underlies the requirement to limit legal obligations. Dignity understood as the special unity of a person also provides the basis for limiting obligations in the case of conscientious objection; however, in that case, such limitations aim at safeguarding internal integrity rather than the individualisation of a given way of life. _This project was financed with funds from the National Science Centre allocated on the basis of the decision number DEC-2013/09/B/HS5/04232._. (shrink)

"Introduzione" alla raccolta di articoli di Rahel Jaeggi "Forme di vita e capitalismo", curata e tradotta da Marco Solinas, e uscita per Rosenberg & Sellier nel 20016.

Neste artigo são brevemente discutidas as origens e o significado da propriedade a partir dos conceitos de bem e Mal em Nietzsche e do Temer e da Angústia em Heidegger. No tocante à origem da Propriedade, foca-se não em seu significado posterior, mas em seu anterior, ou seja, naquilo que pode subjazer ao desejo de apropriar-se, o qual parece relacionar-se com a liberdade, ao mesmo tempo desejada e temida: desejada para si e temida para o outro. Por fim então se (...) abordam propostas do que significa para a sociedade atual a propriedade em termos de sua organização social, com base nas conclusões da análise realizada neste artigo. (shrink)

There are two rival images often offered of the state. In one the state serves like a nanny to provide for the welfare of its members; in the other it requires people to look after themselves, providing only the service of a night-watchman. But this dichotomy, which is routinely invoked in debates about public health and welfare provision in general, is misleading. What the rival images turn on is not competing pictures of how the state should function in people's lives (...) but competing pictures of what it is to guard the freedom of its people. On the neo-liberal theory, which has been dominant over the last century or so, providing for people's freedom means leaving them to their own devices and fortunes. On the neo-republican theory, which answers to a much longer tradition, it means democratically identifying a common set of basic liberties in the exercise of which everyone should be protected by law and, if necessary, resourced. This older way of thinking about freedom has important merits missing in the newer and argues strongly against the nightwatchman state. (shrink)

People commonly believe that any form of deception, no matter how innocuous it is and no matter whether the deceiving person intended it otherwise, is always morally wrong. In this paper, I will argue that deceiving in real-time is morally distinguishable from deceiving on-line because online actions aren’t as fine-grained as actions occurring in real-time. Our failure to detect the fine-grained characteristics of another avatar leads us to believe that that avatar intended to do a moral harm. Openly deceiving someone (...) on Facebook or Twitter is not a way to build wholesome virtual friendships but to destroy them. This paper will show how the traditional understanding of the doing / allowing distinction fails to apply in cyberspace. (shrink)

This paper sketches a framework for the separation of church and state and, with the framework in view, indicates why a government’s maintaining such separation poses challenges for balancing two major democratic ideals: preserving equality before the law and protecting liberty, including religious liberty. The challenge is particularly complex where healthcare is either provided or regulated by government. The contemporary problem in question here is the contraception coverage requirement in the Obama Administration’s healthcare mandate. Many institutions have mounted legal challenges (...) to the mandate on grounds of religious freedom. The paper proposes a number of interconnected principles toward a resolution of the problem: for the institutional realm, specific principles for church-state separation and a principle concerning the protection of citizens’sense of identity; and for the ethics of citizenship in the conduct individuals, principles that provide an adequate place for natural (thus secular) reason in lawmaking and political decisions. (shrink)

This essay discusses Jorge Portilla’s phenomenological analysis of values and freedom in his essay, “The Phenomenology of Relajo.” Portilla argues that genuine freedom requires seriousness and sincerity; it requires wholehearted participation in cultural practices that one finds truly valuable. To support his argument, Portilla examines the ways that values and freedom are undermined when cultural practices are disrupted and break down as a result of the antics of the so-called "relajiento," a kind of “class clown” figure in Mexican culture who (...) refuses to take anything seriously. Carlos Sánchez has criticized Portilla's rejection of the relajiento, suggesting that the relajiento’s disruptive behavior may be a liberatory act of defiance against the legacy of colonialism. I argue, however, that Portilla was right to see the relajiento’s behavior as counterproductive in the fight for liberation from oppression. (shrink)

Historically, republicans were of different minds about markets: some, such as Rousseau, reviled them, while others, like Adam Smith, praised them. The recent republican resurgence has revived this issue. Classical liberals such as Gerald Gaus contend that neo-republicanism is inherently hostile to markets, while neo-republicans like Richard Dagger and Philip Pettit reject this characterization—though with less enthusiasm than one might expect. I argue here that the right republican attitude toward competitive markets is celebratory rather than acquiescent and that republicanism demands (...) such markets for the same reason it requires the rule of law: because both are essential institutions for protecting individuals from arbitrary interference. I reveal how competition restrains—and in the limit, even eradicates—market power and thereby helps us realize “market freedom,” i.e., freedom as non-domination in the context of economic exchange. Finally, I show that such freedom necessitates “Anglo-Nordic” economic policies. (shrink)

Rawls offers three arguments for the priority of liberty in Theory, two of which share a common error: the belief that once we have shown the instrumental value of the basic liberties for some essential purpose (e.g., securing self-respect), we have automatically shown the reason for their lexical priority. The third argument, however, does not share this error and can be reconstructed along Kantian lines: beginning with the Kantian conception of autonomy endorsed by Rawls in section 40 of Theory, we (...) can explain our highest-order interest in rationality, justify the lexical priority of all basic liberties, and reinterpret Rawls’ threshold condition for the application of the priority of liberty. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this Kantian reconstruction will not work within the radically different framework of Political Liberalism. (shrink)

Freedom can be seen as individual’s capacity to choose between alternatives. As such, it stands in a dialectical relationship to its environment that both imposes constraints on freedom and allows carrying it out. Yet if we see liberty as freedom’s social accommodation, how would freedom shape liberty, and how would liberty accommodate freedom? As a capacity for choice, freedom is formal. Negative liberty, or freedom from, protects this capacity yet does not give it content. To make freedom meaningful, its societal (...) accommodation has ensure that the choice can be carried out – in terms of accessing alternatives, understand them, and making informed choices. The paper, using the tools provided by the Hegelian philosophy and by information theory, explores the concept of liberty as an enabler of freedom and the role of knowledge in its enablement. This exploration leads us to specific positive rights that are necessary to make freedom meaningful. (shrink)

Kant’s account of the freedom gained through virtue builds on the Socratic tradition. On the Socratic view, when morality is our end, nothing can hinder us from attaining satisfaction: we are self-sufficient and free since moral goodness is (as Kant says) “created by us, hence is in our power.” But when our end is the fulfillment of sensible desires, our satisfaction requires luck as well as the cooperation of others. For Kant, this means that happiness requires that we get other (...) people to work for our ends; and this requires, in turn, that we gain control over the things other people value so as to have influence over them. If this plan for happiness is not subordinated to morality, then what is most valuable to us will be precisely what others value. This is the root of the “passions” that make us evil and make us slaves whose satisfaction depends on others. But, significantly, this dependence is a moral slavery and hence does not signal a loss, or even diminishment of the kind of freedom required for moral responsibility. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose to look closely at certain crucial aspects of the logic of Rawls' argument in Political Liberalism and related subsequent writings. Rawls' argument builds on the notion of comprehensiveness, whereby a doctrine encompasses the full spectrum of the life of its adherents. In order to show the mutual conflict and irreconcilability of comprehensive doctrines, Rawls needs to emphasise the comprehensiveness of doctrines, as their irreconcilability to a large extent emanates from that comprehensiveness. On the other hand, (...) in order to show the possibility and plausibility of the political liberal solution he needs to emphasise that most of these doctrines are reasonable: i.e., they are willing to cede a portion of their authority to political liberalism for the right reasons. Yet, if they are willing to cede a portion of their authority to a political conception they cannot be as comprehensive as we initially thought they were. All these elements highlight the tension in the argument itself. I suggest that many of these tensions can be removed by making Rawls' account more flexible. In this context I propose certain amendments to Rawls' account, which may overcome some of the tensions mentioned above. (shrink)

A review of Arthur Ripstein, Force and Freedom: Kant's Legal and Political Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 2009).

The paper focuses on Anthony de Jasay's "anarcho-liberalism" as based oon his game-theoretic approach to the problem of public goods provision.

There have been two distinctive aspects to James Tully’s approach to the study of imperialism over the years, and both are put to work in these remarkable volumes. The first is his belief in two seemingly contradictory claims: (i) that imperialism is much more pervasive than usually thought (conceptually, historically and practically); and yet (ii) that there are many more forms of resistance to it than usually appreciated. (Part of a symposium in Political Theory on James Tully's 'Public Philosophy in (...) a New Key'). (shrink)

This article questions the use of immigration as a tool to counter global poverty. It argues that poor people have a human right to stay in their home state, which entitles them to receive development assistance without the necessity of migrating abroad. The article thus rejects a popular view in the philosophical literature on immigration which holds that rich states are free to choose between assisting poor people in their home states and admitting them as immigrants when fulfilling duties to (...) assist the global poor. Since the human right to stay is entailed by values that feature prominently in the philosophical debate on immigration, the article further contends that participants in that debate have particular reason to reject the popular ‘choice view’ and endorse the alternative position presented in the article. (shrink)

Hate groups are often thought to reveal a paradox in liberal thinking. On the one hand, such groups challenge the very foundations of liberal thought, including core values of equality and freedom. On the other hand, these same values underlie the rights such as freedom of expression and association that protect hate groups. Thus a liberal democratic state that extends those protections to such groups in the name of value neutrality and freedom of expression may be thought to be undermining (...) the values on which its legitimacy rests. In this paper, I suggest how this apparent paradox might be resolved. I argue that the state should protect the expression of illiberal beliefs, but that the state (along with its citizens) is also obligated to criticize publicly those beliefs. Distinguishing between two kinds of state action—coercive and expressive—I contend that such criticism should be pursued through the state’s expressive capacities in its roles as speaker, educator, and spender. Here I extend the familiar idea that law, to be legitimate, must be widely publicized; I contend that a proper theory of the freedom of expression obligates the legitimate state to publicize the reasons that underlie rights, in particular reasons that appeal to the entitlement of each citizen subject to coercion to be treated as free and equal. My theory of freedom of expression is thus “expressive” in two senses: it protects the entitlement of citizens to express any political viewpoint, and it emphasizes a role for the state in explaining these free-speech protections and persuading its citizens of the value of the entitlements that underlie them. (shrink)

The problem of self-governing of a community (more precisely, the involvement of its members in collective actions directed towards achieving a common goal) is extremely important. In our opinion, it is necessary to give honest answers to the following questions: (a) What are the constituents of collective actions meant to help obtaining public goods and how should they be determined? (b) How useful, rational and legitimate are civic actions (in general) and the measures of self-government of a community (in particular)? (...) (c) What are the resources, rights and duties in a self-governing community? (d) What parts can professional communicators play, in order to stimulate their fellow citizens’ participation in the art of self-governing? Civic participation in realizing the common good has several aspects, starting with voting participation and ending with the community’s self-mobilization. Professional communicators (in this case, public relations specialists) may contribute to building a self-governing society by playing six parts: the town crier, the steward, the traffic manager, the conductor, the creator and the facilitator. (shrink)

Reeder’s article offers a new and intriguing approach to the study of people’s ordinary understanding of freedom and constraint. On this approach, people use information about freedom and constraint as part of a quasi-scientific effort to make accurate inferences about an agent’s motives. Their beliefs about the agent’s motives then affect a wide variety of further psychological processes, including the process whereby they arrive at moral judgments. In illustrating this new approach, Reeder cites an elegant study he conducted a number (...) of years ago (Reeder & Spores, 1983). All subjects were given a vignette about a man who goes with his date to a pizza parlor and happens to come across a box that has been designated for charitable donations. In one condition, the man’s date then requests that he make a donation; in the other, she requests that he steal the money that is already in the box. In both conditions, the man chooses to comply with this request. The key question is how subjects will use his behavior to make inferences about whether he is a morally good or morally bad person. The results revealed a marked difference between conditions. When the man donated to charity, subjects were generally disinclined to conclude that he must have been a morally good person. It is as though they were thinking: ‘He didn’t just do this out of the goodness of his heart. (shrink)

A liberal antinomy of parenting exists: strong liberal intuitions militate in favor of both denying special resources to parenting projects (on grounds of project-neutrality) and granting them (on grounds of respect for personhood). I show that we can reconcile these two claims by rejecting a premise common to both--viz. that liberalism is necessarily committed to extensive procreative liberties--and limiting procreation and subsequent parenting to adults who meet certain psychological and especially financial criteria. I also defend this argument, which provides a (...) Kantian complement to utilitarian arguments for restricting procreation, against a variety of objections. (shrink)

In a recent article in Respublica, Jesper Ryberg argues that CCTV can be compared to a little old lady gazing out onto the street below. This article takes issue with the claim that government surveillance can be justified in this manner. Governments have powers and responsibilities that little old ladies lack. Even if CCTV is effective at preventing crime, there may be less intrusive ways of doing so. People have a variety of legitimate interests in privacy, and protection for these (...) is important to their status as free and equal citizens. Consequently, though necessary, effectiveness is insufficient to justify CCTV in a democracy. (shrink)

In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argues that free speech possesses value because listening is valuable: it can advance one’s own thinking and action. However, listening becomes difficult when one finds the views of a speaker to be wrong, repellant, or even simply naïve. Everyday wisdom would have it that such cases present the greatest opportunities for growth. Is there substance to this claim? In particular, is there radical political value to be found in listening to others at the very (...) times one is most disinclined to do so? I contend that there is. This paper explores the political potential of what I call “radical listening.” What characterizes radical listening? How can it serve politically transformative purposes? To what extent are the powers of radical listening strategic, and to what extent is it valuablefor more conceptual reasons? Under what circumstances is it appropriate? What are the limits to, and dangers of, radical listening? (shrink)

Susan Okin read Robert Nozick as taking it to be fundamental to his Libertarianism that people own themselves, and that they can acquire entitlement to other things by making them. But she thinks that, since mothers make people, all people must then be owned by their mothers, a consequence Okin finds absurd. She sees no way for Nozick to make a principled exception to the idea that people own what they make when what they make is people, concluding that Nozick’s (...) theory of entitlement must be false, and that entitlement must instead be rooted in people’s needs. I say Okin misreads Nozick’s Libertarianism. In fact, its fundamental principle is that, simply by being persons, people are entitled to the maximum negative liberty compatible with a like liberty for all persons. Further, Nozick, and Jan Narveson, who has taken on the advocacy of Libertarian ideas, analyze liberty as freedom to interact with things, and analyze being entitled to or having property in something, as freedom to interact with it, to determine what may be done with it. People therefore have such freedom to do what they want with themselves, and such freedom to do what they want with other things, as is compatible with all persons having similar freedom. The former is what self-ownership amounts to, the latter, ownership of other things. Libertarianism’s fundamental principle therefore both grounds and delimits entitlements in ways entailing that mothers don’t own persons by dint of making them. Otherwise, since it would then be the prerogative of mothers to determine what shall be done with the persons they made, the persons made would lack equal liberty, this violating the fundamental principle. (shrink)

In his essay On Liberty, John Stuart Mill presents the famous harm principle in the following manner: “[…] the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. […] The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. […] Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” Hence, there is a (...) distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding acts, and only the latter are subject to moral criticism. However, while all acts are in some way selfregarding, it is not clear if there are any which are exclusively so. There are two additional difficulties. First, the “individual” may not be an individual person; self-determining communities, at least when they have the ability to decide for themselves, are also “individuals” in this sense. Second, it is claimed that groups of acts (activities and practices) have a different kind of justification from single acts. So what are the limits which “others” have in order to protect themselves from what “individuals” (personal or not) do, and what are their rights to do and to protect? If, in the final analysis, protection or defense is a source of justification, what should or must be protected, and why? Where does the demarcation line between self-regarding and other-regarding acts lie? In our age, as in Mill’s, we encounter many situations where such a line is needed, yet is hard to determine or establish. One such example, the case of same-sex marriages, is further explored in this paper. (shrink)