1 Sample Syllabus 1 Freedom and the Limits of State Intervention

Sample Syllabus 1

Freedom and the Limits of State Intervention

Suzie Kim Fall 2020

In this course, we examine the conceptual question of what limits, if any, the state could impose on individuals’ freedom of choice for their own good. Many of our current laws, which few would wish to repeal, are grounded in the state’s concern to prevent harm to ourselves. Consider, for example, laws invalidating consent as a defense to mutilation and killing for reasons other than terminal illness, laws aimed at ensuring food and drug safety, and laws prohibiting consensual transactions deemed dangerous or excessively disadvantageous to one of the contracting parties.

Yet, allowing the state to pass laws aimed at preventing harm to the actors themselves is often equated with endorsing the “nanny state” – an overprotective state that interferes unduly with personal choices at the cost of individual freedom. In light of these conflicting views, how should we decide when (if ever) the state may legitimately restrict the liberty of its citizens to prevent physical, psychological, or economic harm to themselves?

This course examines this question from the standpoint of various different conceptions of individual freedom. First, we will start by examining different conceptions of individual freedom throughout the history of Western political thought, and then transition to contemporary discussions of the legitimate limits on individual freedom in self-regarding matters. During the last week of the course, we will consider the question of whether the state could legitimately restrict individuals’ choices to prevent harm to themselves in a more applied context. The following is the schedule of readings for each week.

1 Week 1: Mill’s Harm Principle 1. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, chs. 1-5. 2. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. 5. 3. Daniel Jacobson, “Mill on Liberty, Speech, and the Free Society,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 29 (2000), 276-309. 4. Piers Norris Turner, “Harm and Mill’s Harm Principle,” Ethics (2014). 5. John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, “Lectures on Mill.”

Week 2: Individuality 1. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, chs. 1-5. 2. Anthony Appiah, “The Ethics of Individuality,” ch. 1 of The Ethics of Identity. 3. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance. 4. John Gray, “Mill’s Conception of Happiness, and the Theory of Individuality,” in John Gray and G.W. Smith (eds.), J.S. Mill On Liberty.

Week 3: Rousseau on Freedom 1. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. , On the Social Contract, Books 1-2 (entire); Book 3 chs. 1-7, 10-18; Book 4 chs. 1-2; 7-8. 2. Joshua Cohen, “Reflections on Rousseau: Autonomy and Democracy,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 15:3 (1986), 275-297. 3. Frederick Neuhouser, “Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Origins of Autonomy,” Inquiry 54:5 (2011), 478-493; “Freedom, Dependence, and the General Will,” Philosophical Review, 102 (1993), 363-395.

Week 4: Constant and Berlin on Liberty

1. Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty, Henry Hardy (ed.) 2. Benjamin Constant, “The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns”, in: Benjamin Constant, Political Writings (CUP edition, editor B. Fontana) 3. Quentin Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism. Ch. 2; “The idea of negative liberty: Philosophical and Historical perspectives,” in Richard Rorty, J.B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner (eds.) Philosophy in History.

Week 5. Questioning Negative Liberty

1. Charles Taylor, “What’s Wrong with Negative Liberty,” in Philosophy and the Human Sciences, Philosophical Papers, vol. 2. 2. Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom, 1-19; 148-157; 288-313 (stop at Section 6); 340-345; 367-429.

Suggested reading: Michael Sandel. Liberalism and the Limits of Justice.

2 Rainer Forst. Contexts of Justice. chs. 1,2, 4

Week 6. On the Priority of Liberty

1. H.L.A. Hart, “Rawls on Liberty and its Priority,” in Reading Rawls, Daniels, N. (ed.) pp. 230-252. 2. John Rawls, “The Basic Liberties and Their Priority,” in Political Liberalism, 289- 340. 3. T.M. Scanlon, “A Theory of Freedom of Expression,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1:2 (1972), 204-226.

Week 7. Habermas’s Discourse Ethics: Realizing a Free Community of Equals

1. Habermas, Jürgen. The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol 1., pp. 1-43, 102-143; Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, 43-115. 2. Forst, Rainer. “Discourse Ethics,” in The Habermas Handbook. Brunkhorst H., Kreide R., Lafont C. (eds.), (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018).

Suggested readings: Forst, Rainer. Normativity and Power: Analyzing Social Orders of Justification, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), chs. 1, 2, pp. 121-131.

Week 8. Paternalism

1. Feinberg, Joel. Harm to Self. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). 2. Jonathan Quong, Liberalism Without Perfection, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), ch. 3. 3. Seana Shiffrin, “Paternalism, Unconscionability Doctrine, and Accommodation,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 29:3 (2000), 205-250.

Week 9. Applications: For or Against Legalization of Drugs?

1. Peter DeMarneffe and Douglas Husak. Legalization of Drugs: For and Against. 2. Pickard, Hanna. “The Puzzle of Addiction”, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Science of Addiction. Ahmed S. and Pickard H. (eds.) 3. Elster, Jon. Strong Feelings. (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1999), Chs. 3, 4, 5. 4. Nagel, Thomas. “Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy,” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 16 (1987): 215-240.

Suggested readings: Husak, Douglas. “Liberal Neutrality, Autonomy, and Drug Prohibitions”, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 29 (2000): 43-80. De Marneffe, Peter. “Vice Laws and Self-Sovereignty,” Criminal Law and Philosophy, 7 (2013): 29-41.