Without liberty and justice, what extremes to expect? Two contemporary perspectives (original) (raw)
Assuring the Fair Value of the Political Liberties: The Need for an Ethos of Justice
Readings in Philosophy, 2013
In this article I explored the co-tenability of John Rawls’ two principles of justice by framing the problem in terms of the alleged compatibility of the equality of the political liberties vis-à-vis inequalities in income and wealth. I contend that historical considerations, as well as aspects internal to Rawls theory, present formidable difficulties for Rawls if he wants to maintain the lexical ordering of the first principle over the second. I questioned whether there are suitable institutions that could actually implement his principles. I then discussed and appled the insights of G.A. Cohen to resolve the objections articulated in the first half of this paper. While his insights do not specifically address my concern, they can be suitably modified to help illuminate and explain why Rawls’ assumption regarding the compatibility of political equality and socioeconomic inequality is untenable, given the conflicting demands of his two principles. I argued, ultimately, that a well-ordered society regulated by justice as fairness requires its citizens to affirm an ethos of justice within their everyday individual transactions if such a society is to be considered truly just in the Rawlsian sense.
Ever since reading one of Isaiah Berlin’s most popular essays “Two Concepts of Liberty” (1958) I am impressed by his way of analyzing a controversial and complex topic such as liberty with such depth and finesse. Berlin attempts to categorize the broad idea of liberty in two distinct concepts. He divides freedom into a ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ concept. Negative freedom describes the area under which an individual is prevented from any form of interference. Positive freedom is concerned with the source of control. It is automatically institutional depended. Negative and positive freedom, both such valuable concepts should be adequately secured in society. Is it possible, and if so should both concepts coexist in society? By this essay, I would like to elaborate how we have to weigh these two absolute concepts to satisfy human needs and will try to examine if we can find a way how these two concepts can coexists in society or if they are, as Berlin contends, rival and opposed concepts.
Conceptions Of Liberty Deprivation
Modern Law Review, 2006
This article adopts a theoretical and comparative perspective on the prisoner's legal status in England and Wales. Applying the principles of human rights, legality and proportionality, it argues that the prisoner's legal status must rest on a divisible conception of liberty. Such a conception must distinguish clearly between the liberty lost, and the rights restricted, by the imposition of the custodial sentence as opposed to the administration of prisons (the key distinction). In order for this to be achieved, the conception of the prisoner's legal status must also establish the purpose or purposes of the custodial sanction as distinct from the purpose of prison administration. Through comparison with Germany, the article demonstrates that the common law concept of the prisoner's legal status is unstable. Vacillating between a divisible and indivisible conception of the prisoner's liberty, the English conception of the prisoner's legal status lacks a foundation firm enough to satisfy the principles of human rights, legality and proportionality.
Political Liberties and Social Equality (Law & Philosophy, 2018)
This paper examines the link between political liberties and social equality, and contends that the former are constitutive of, i.e. necessary to secure, the latter. Although this constitutive link is often assumed in the literature on political liberties, the reasons why it holds true remain largely unexplored. Three such reasons are examined here. First, political liberties are constitutive of social equality because they bestow political power on their holders, leaving disenfran-chised individuals excluded from decisions that are particularly pervasive, coer-cively enforced, hard to avoid, monopolistic, and final. Second, they are constitutive of social equality due to their positional value, such that those who are denied such liberties are socially downgraded because and to the extent that others enjoy them. Third, they are constitutive of social equality due to their expressive value, in the sense that, by disenfranchising some individuals, the state publicly fails to recognize their equal moral agency. While unpacking these reasons, we address some criticisms of this constitutive link recently raised by Steven Wall and Jason Brennan.
The Road to Unfreedom: A Review Essay
Population and Development Review, 2019
This is a book of profound pessimism, presented with a straw-grasping element of hope. Imagine that you have spent your professional life chronicling the recurrent triumph of fascist and communist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe. While intimately familiar with the pathways by which republican aspirations are snuffed out and authoritarian regimes triumph, you have been fortunate to live and work in America and Europe during their period of peak prosperity and freedom, in the last decades before the Great Recession. Yet in the wake of that event, you see personalities and politics in Europe and America increasingly resemble the stories you have told of democracy crumbling. You see the same strategies deliberately employed to disparage and disable a free press, to suppress voting and turn politics into an emotional spectacle rather than evidence-based debate. You see the authoritarian victor in Russia successfully exporting his political strategies, and-through mastery of cyber assaults and manipulating social media-develop new and ever more powerful methods of influence. The result is outcomes you never expected: British voters choosing to withdraw from and fragment the EU; American voters choosing as their president a supporter of Russian policies and practitioner of Russian-style corruption, fake news, bombast, and crude polarization; Poland and Hungary actively tilting their courts and legislatures to enfeeble democracy; and a resurgence of virulent anti-Semitism and aggressive ethno-nationalist parties all across the West. Snyder's book chronicles not just the decay, but the vigorous assaults on democracy and freedom in the West. Is there any hope that the world will avoid a recapitulation of the 1930s, when after a major economic debacle, democracies collapsed and were replaced by fascist regimes in Europe? Not on current trends. Not based on the inherent strength of democratic institutions, which have proven weak when challenged. Not in the wisdom of liberal elites, whose self-delusions are putting them on the road to extinguishing democracy. The only hope that Snyder holds out lies in the courageous efforts of investigative journalists. Only they are still concerned with holding politicians accountable for corruption and lies; only they are determined to expose the truth; only they might show the way to recovering the free and informed debate essential to democracy. Snyder dedicates his book to "the reporters, the heroes of our time." He is right that reporters are heroes. The problem is that they are too often dead, repressed, or betrayed.