PHIL
410A SOCIAL
PHILOSOPHY (5 Credits)
Talbott
[W-Course]
The
central focus of the course will be on liberty, especially on the question of
whether the preservation of some sort of liberty rights has or ought to have
priority over other social values. The
course will begin with a review of three different theories of liberty
rights: a natural rights account (Judith
Jarvis Thomson), a utilitarian account (J.S. Mill), and a social contract
account (John Rawls). The course will
then consider questions concerning the justification of restrictions,
especially paternalist restrictions, on individual liberty. Among the issues to be discussed are: limits on freedom of expression; laws
prohibiting suicide and assisted suicide; laws prohibiting
contracts of indentured servitude (temporary or permanent slavery); and laws
prohibiting use of certain drugs.
Requirements: In-class assignments; one 5-7 page paper, a
midterm exam, and a 10-15 page term paper.
Students are required to submit drafts of their papers for peer review,
and to make written comments on other students' drafts. Prerequisites: One previous course in philosophy or the
permission of the instructor. The course
is suitable for non-majors. [W-Course] Meets I&S
Requirement. No freshmen.
TEXTS: J. S. Mill, On Liberty; John Rawls, Political
Liberalism; J.J. Thomson, The Realm of Rights; and photocopied
materials.
IMPORTANT
TERMINOLOGY
A particular use of a term is NORMATIVE
when the term is used in a way that has ACTION-GUIDING [PRESCRIPTIVE/
PROSCRIPTIVE] force. Some terms commonly
used normatively are: ought; duty;
obligation; right; wrong; permissible; and forbidden. When applied to actions, appropriate
and inappropriate are typically normative. [Note that not all NORMATIVE uses are MORAL
uses. For example, ought
can be used in a NON-MORAL, PRUDENTIAL sense, as in: One ought to eat nutritious foods.]
When a term is used
normatively, we will call it (in that particular use) a NORMATIVE TERM.
NORMATIVE
MORAL TERMS are NORMATIVE TERMS with MORAL ACTION-GUIDING force.
A
use of a term is EVALUATIVE when the term is used to express approval or
disapproval. Some terms commonly used evaluatively are: good;
bad; excellent; and awful.
When a term is used evaluatively, we will call
it (in that particular use) an EVALUATIVE TERM.
[Note
that EVALUATIVE TERMS can express moral approval or disapproval, but can also
express other types of non-moral approval or disapproval (e.g., The statement that apples taste good is a non-moral
evaluative statement).]
PURELY
DESCRIPTIVE TERMS are terms that are used in a way that is NOT NORMATIVE and
NOT EVALUATIVE. [Note that almost any
term CAN be used normatively or evaluatively, but
many terms typically are not. Can you
think of an example?]
PURELY
DESCRIPTIVE STATEMENTS are statements that contain only PURELY DESCRIPTIVE
terms (no NORMATIVE or EVALUATIVE terms).
[Normative/Evaluative statements can contain SOME Purely Descriptive
terms, but Purely Descriptive statements cannot contain ANY
Normative/Evaluative terms.]
NORMATIVE/EVALUATIVE
STATEMENTS are statements that include at least one NORMATIVE/EVALUATIVE
TERM. For example, moral statements
about what one ought or ought not to do (e.g., the statement that one ought not
to steal or the statement that one ought to tell the truth) are NORMATIVE,
because they contain the NORMATIVE term ought. [Note that not all normative statements are
moral. See above, for an example of a
normative prudential statement.]
TWO PARADIGMS FOR MORAL REASONING
1. TOP-DOWN REASONING:
Reasoning from Moral Norms or Principles
and other Acceptable Premises to a Moral Judgment about a Particular Case (a
Particular Moral Judgment).
For religious traditions with an infallible moral authority,
all moral reasoning is Top-Down.
Enlightenment philosophers assumed that all reasoning was Top-Down, from
infallible premises. I refer to this
model of reasoning as the Proof Paradigm.
2. BOTTOM-UP REASONING:
Begin with judgments about particular cases. Find the moral norms or principles that best
explain our particular moral judgments about actual and hypothetical
cases.
An example from the U.S. DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE:
"We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life,
AN EXAMPLE TO ILLUSTRATE THE CONTRAST BETWEEN TOP-DOWN
AND BOTTOM-UP REASONING
PREMISES: P1. It
is always wrong to kill another person. (This is a Moral Norm.)
P2. I am a person.
P3. If you shoot me, I
will (probably) die.
CONCLUSION: PMJ1.
It is wrong for you to shoot me now (This is a Particular Moral
Judgment).
A SECOND EXAMPLE
PREMISES: P1. It
is always wrong to kill another person.
(Moral Norm)
P2. I am a person.
P3. If you shoot me, I
will (probably) die.
P4. I am trying to
kill you.
CONCLUSION: PMJ2.
It is wrong for you to shoot me now (even though I am trying to kill
you). (Particular Moral Judgment)
Let PMJ2' be the judgment
that it is not wrong for you to shoot me now if I am trying to kill you. If you accept PMJ2', you must reject one of
the premises of the above derivation.
The premise that seems to need revision is the moral norm P1.
EQUILIBRIUM REASONING: Allows for reasoning to go in both
directions, top-down and bottom-up.
1. Negative
2. Positive
Be careful. Do not confuse
The model of freedom from
irrationality: Mathematical truth
Comte:
“If we do not allow free thinking in chemistry or biology, why should we allow
it in morals or politics?”
Negative freedom is the freedom of the
empirical self to act on its desires without interference from others. Positive freedom is the freedom of the
Rationally Autonomous Self to act in accordance with Reason.
A PRIORI vs. A
POSTERIORI
Historically, the advocates of liberty
as Rational Autonomy typically assumed a Rationalist epistemology (e.g.,
Rousseau and Kant) and the advocates of liberty as negative freedom typically assumed
an Empiricist epistemology (e.g., Locke and Hume). Rationalists tend to answer philosophical
questions a priori (using direct
rational insight with no need to learn from experience) and Empiricists tend to
answer such questions a posteriori
(i.e., on the basis of experience).
One of the themes of this course will be
the advantages of the a posteriori approach
over the a priori approach for
understanding the importance of negative liberty. We will not assume that this approach
requires us to give up the conception of morality as objective.
The Subject of
This Course: Theories of (Moral) Rights
as Rights to Negative Liberty = Rights to NON-INTERFERENCE (by other people) in
one's PROTECTED SPHERE.
Hobbesian
Libertarianism
A.
Hobbesian Negative Liberty:
Everyone has a right to maximal negative liberty. Result:
the "war of all against all" (no PROTECTED SPHERE)
Main Insight: It is necessary to limit negative freedom in
order to guarantee to everyone some less than maximal but more than minimal
sphere of equal negative freedom (i.e., a PROTECTED SPHERE OF EQUAL LIBERTY).
THEORIES OF
NEGATIVE
A.
A theory of this kind must tell us two things:
(1)
What is inside the PROTECTED SPHERE?
(2)
What counts as INTERFERENCE (or what counts as impermissible interference) in
one's protected sphere?
B.
In addition, we also would like the theory to EXPLAIN the source of such
rights--that is, to answer the question:
What is the basis for rights to negative liberty? This question will become clearer as the
course proceeds. But note that we
distinguish this from attempting to give an a priori PROOF that we have such
rights.
C.
Finally, can a theory of negative liberty distinguish between justified
and unjustified paternalism? Corresponding
to the difference between negative and positive liberty, is there a kind of
negative autonomy that can substitute for Rational Autonomy in determinations
of justifiable paternalism?
Rights to negative liberty are not
knowable a priori. Theories of negative liberty are the result
of lots of experience and bottom-up rather than top-down reasoning.
THREE TYPES OF
THEORIES OF THE NATURE AND EXPLANATION/JUSTIFICATION OF RIGHTS TO A PROTECTED
SPHERE OF EQUAL NEGATIVE
I.
Thomson as Representative of NATURAL RIGHTS (including LIBERTARIAN)
Theories
II. Mill and Feinberg
as Representative of UTILITARIAN (and thus CONSEQUENTIALIST) Theories.
III. Rawls and Scanlon
as Representative of SOCIAL CONTRACT Theories.