Foundations of Freedom

• Autores: David J. Garren
• Localización: Analysis, ISSN-e 1467-8284, Vol. 73, Nº. 4, 2013, págs. 797-801
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • People use their freedom in all sorts of ways. Some choose to devote their lives to philosophy, diligently pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees, often foregoing money, marriage, children and numerous other opportunities in the process, all in hopes of overcoming the odds and landing a tenure-track position on the faculty of a college or university; a position which will enable them to teach obscure subjects to often indifferent students, and write articles and books which almost no one, save perhaps a handful of other professors of philosophy, will ever read, all the while consigning themselves, with few exceptions, to a life if not of penury and ill-repute certainly modest wealth and meagre social status, and that is if they are lucky enough to be awarded tenure and not be dismissed after 6 or 7 years of conscientious effort, having nothing to show for it but staggering amounts of student-loan debt and a dearth of marketable skills. Others elect to undergo numerous plastic surgeries in order to have their breasts and buttocks enhanced or, in some cases, to have their faces permanently altered to look like feral animals (Douglas 2012). Suffice it to say the uses adult individuals make of their freedom are various and diverse, and uses that some would deride as laughably absurd (perhaps none more so than pursuing a career in philosophy), others would defend as profoundly meaningful. Given that difference, is it ever permissible to prevent adult individuals from doing as they wish? In his essay On Liberty John Stuart Mill argues that it is not; that so long as the individual is not harming others (and is a competent adult living in a liberal democratic state) he must not be constrained, either by law or custom, from doing as he wishes. As Mill says, �The only �