Difference between revisions of "What Is Liberty?"
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
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* [[Jan Narveson]], in ''[[The Libertarian Idea]]'', writes 9 pages of philosophical handwaving to get to (paraphrased) "A is free to do S if A can choose, but there is possible interference." (pp.13-21.) | * [[Jan Narveson]], in ''[[The Libertarian Idea]]'', writes 9 pages of philosophical handwaving to get to (paraphrased) "A is free to do S if A can choose, but there is possible interference." (pp.13-21.) | ||
* [[Jason Brennan]], in ''[[Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know]]'', arbitrarily selects one of the many definitions of "positive" and "negative" liberty, which he defines simplistically in terms of "power to do what one chooses" and "absence of obstacles". (p.26) | * [[Jason Brennan]], in ''[[Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know]]'', arbitrarily selects one of the many definitions of "positive" and "negative" liberty, which he defines simplistically in terms of "power to do what one chooses" and "absence of obstacles". (p.26) | ||
| − | * [[David Schmidtz]] and [[Jason Brennan]], in ''[[A Brief History of Liberty]], write "Here we categorize forms of liberty as much as our present purpose requires. We don't assume that there is any essence awaiiting our discovery; neither do we assume otherwise." They gloss over [[Gerald MacCallum]]'s [[Freedom as a Triadic Relation]] in a footnote, despite the fact the he unifies liberty with a model and dismisses the positive and negative distinctions the authors prefer. There is no mention of [[Hohfeld’s typology of rights]], and thus they conflate power, rights and liberty. | + | * [[David Schmidtz]] and [[Jason Brennan]], in ''[[A Brief History of Liberty]]'', write "Here we categorize forms of liberty as much as our present purpose requires. We don't assume that there is any essence awaiiting our discovery; neither do we assume otherwise." They gloss over [[Gerald MacCallum]]'s [[Freedom as a Triadic Relation]] in a footnote, despite the fact the he unifies liberty with a model and dismisses the positive and negative distinctions the authors prefer. There is no mention of [[Hohfeld’s typology of rights]], and thus they conflate power, rights and liberty. |
This absence of satisfactory definitions of liberty or freedom is typical of libertarian literature. | This absence of satisfactory definitions of liberty or freedom is typical of libertarian literature. | ||
