The Importance of Independence II: Freedom and Integrity

  • Karl Widerquist
Part of the Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee book series (BIG)

Abstract

This chapter makes six first-best ethical arguments for respecting personal independence, arguing that individual consent is a constituent part of what makes most social interaction and economic interaction just. The final section responds to a potential criticism.

Keywords

Joint Project Social Cooperation Trade Model Reasonable People Mutual Obligation 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. 3.
    John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 4.Google Scholar
  2. 4.
    As in Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 184.Google Scholar
  3. 5.
    Agreement is present in some way in nearly every theory of justice, but chapter 8 argues that literal agreement is underemphasized in Elizabeth S. Anderson, “What Is the Point of Equality?, Ethics 109, no. 2 (January 1999): 287–337CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia; Rawls, A Theory of Justice; John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001)Google Scholar
  5. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005)Google Scholar
  6. Stuart White, The Civic Minimum (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Agreement is more important in Brian Barry, A Treatise on Social Justice, Volume 2: Justice as Impartiality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989)Google Scholar
  8. A. Gibbard, “Natural Property Rights, in Left-Libertarianism and Its Critics, ed. P. Vallentyne and H. Steiner (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000) pp. 23–30Google Scholar
  9. G.A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. John Christman, The Myth of Property: Toward an Egalitarian Theory of Ownership (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar
  11. Michael Otsuka, Libertarianism without Inequality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997)Google Scholar
  13. Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). Van Parijs argues for maximizing the least advantaged individuals’ freedom to do whatever they might want to do, but the agreement of the least advantaged individuals to the projects they end up participating in has little or nothing to do with the motivation for the theoryGoogle Scholar
  14. Philippe Van Parijs, Real Freedom for All: What (If Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).Google Scholar
  15. 6.
    Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality, Philosophy & Public Affairs 1, no. 3 (Spring 1972): 229–43.Google Scholar
  16. 7.
    C. Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Cambridge: Polity, 1988)Google Scholar
  17. G.D.H. Cole, Self-Government in Industry (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1919), p. 34.Google Scholar
  18. 8.
    Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), pp. 266–70.Google Scholar
  19. 9.
    Ronald Dworkin, Life’s Dominion: An Argument about Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom. (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), pp. 201–02.Google Scholar
  20. 16.
    R. Plant, Politics, Theology and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. S. Caney, “Liberal Legitimacy, Reasonable Disagreement and Justice, in Pluralism and Liberal Neutrality, ed. R. Bellamy and M. Hollis (Illford: Frank Cass, 1999), pp. 19–36.Google Scholar
  22. 17.
    Fabienne Peter. “Choice, Consent, and the Legitimacy of Market Transactions, Economics and Philosophy 20, no. 1 (2004): 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. 18.
    G.A. Cohen, History, Labour, and Freedom: Themes from Marx (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 239–54.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Karl Widerquist 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • Karl Widerquist
    • 1
  1. 1.SFS-QatarGeorgetown UniversityUSA

Personalised recommendations