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: Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty;
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.]
MORAL REASONING
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,
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 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
The Potential Conflict between Positive
and Negative
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 liberty.
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.