Journal Article•
The Nature and Importance of Liberty
22 Sep 2005-Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (Harvard Society for Law and Public Policy, Inc.)-Vol. 29, Iss: 1, pp 3
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that what is important about us, what makes us moral human beings, is our individual capacities to think, reason, choose, and value, which is what Kant called our freedom and rationality.
Abstract: What is liberty, and why is it important? Why do we care about it? The first premise that I offer here is that liberty is an expression of what is valuable about us as human beings. It is a natural law idea; that is to say, it is a moral imperative based on what is fundamental (another moral idea) about our human nature. (1) I would say that what is important about us, what makes us moral human beings, is our individual capacities to think, reason, choose, and value. It is what Kant called our freedom and rationality. (2) Individuals, therefore, are the elementary particles of moral discourse. Our value is our taking individual responsibility for our lives, and our choices. And if a person is to count as a person--and here we have the difficult questions about the beginning and the end of life--then we are all equally valuable in this same way. It is from that base of our equal responsibility for ourselves that we choose our goods: that we choose what to make of the only life we will ever have. My liberty, then, is my ability to choose that life. No one has the right to interfere with that choice, except as it is to further his own good. But that good of the other is worth no more than mine because he is not worth any more than I am. There is, therefore, a right of mutual noninterference: an equal right. By the same token, nobody can interfere with or draft another person to help him achieve his own good if the other person has not chosen voluntarily to enlist in that campaign. There are conclusions to be drawn from these postulates; for example, that liberty is a relation among persons. Liberty is violated when someone else interferes with it. Gravity, tigers, and disease do not interfere with my liberty; other people do. In addition, I can make your good, that which you choose, part of my good. But then I must work through you, through your liberty, and not upon you, not in spite of your liberty. And what is interference? It can be hindering you for your sake, for your good. Or hindering you for my sake, for my good. When do I hinder you in that second sense; when do I hinder you for my sake? There are two ways. First, when I disregard you. Second, when I use you, as when I trick you or threaten you or force you in some way or another. The issue of hindering others by disregard is, in fact, conceptually the most difficult. It is pretty easy to tell when I hinder you in the second sense: when I use you, when I trick you, when I force you. These are clear-cut violations of liberty. But, how can we tell when I am hindering you by, for instance, just failing to help you, by just disregarding you? The picture I have is of my driving down the middle of the highway at eighty miles per hour, disregarding that you are coming the other way. Am I hindering your liberty, or does your demand that I regard you hinder mine? It is out of this dilemma--this dilemma of when do we hinder each other by disregarding each other, just going our way, running over each other--that we derive, in a very general sense, the concept of property. Which is why property is so closely related to liberty. (3) Property describes the whole--I will call it the n-dimensional space, as it is much more than three-dimensional--n-dimensional space in which I may operate as a free person without being hindered by you as you go about in pursuit of your goods. You may not violate my property, you may not enter my n-dimensional space. But that n-dimensional space must be defined somehow. Is it defined by liberty itself, or is it conventional, or is it a little bit of each? If it is conventional, if our property in ourselves and our property in the outside world which we have assimilated to ourselves is wholly conventional, then of course its boundaries are established by convention. If it is the creature of convention, it is the creature of others. And that is a serious problem for liberty and one which the friends of liberty have sought many ways to solve--the social contract tradition is such an attempt--and the enemies of liberty have sought to exploit from the very beginning. …
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01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this article, the authors outline a specific legal harm principle that is derived from John Stuart Mill's harm principle in On Liberty and compare it to what he says in chapter V of Utilitarianism.
Abstract: My goal in this work is to outline a specifically legal harm principle that is derived from John Stuart Mill’s harm principle in On Liberty. I will do this by providing a close reading of On Liberty and comparing it to what he says in chapter V of Utilitarianism. I believe that these two works provide a foundation for a harm principle that defines the domain and limits of the law. While this goal is not new, I focus on Mill’s general harm principle and the two maxims that he believes make it up in order to construct a relatively clear legal harm principle which becomes a part of his general principle. I believe that this may also make clearer what Mill’s view of the limitations of speech are and that he would allow that certain sorts of hate speech are not only within the domain of the law but that they could legitimately be prevented through the law. Table of
5 citations
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: The relationship between media freedom and the individual right to free speech is a complex and nuanced one, such that the former should not simply be conflated with the latter as mentioned in this paper, and the danger of using the harm principle, the caretaker and the utopia principles to issue laws which may appear ostensibly to protect people but curtail the important freedom of expression instead.
Abstract: The relationship between media freedom and the individual right to free speech is a complex and nuanced one, such that the former should not simply be conflated with the latter. A number of high profile cases have demonstrated that expressing opinion on social media can be subject to criminal prosecution. Before shedding the light on the Kuwaiti courts’ approach to penalizing political opinions published on twitter and comparing the Kuwaiti court decisions to British court decisions in similar cases, this paper will begin with understanding the concept of liberty, the difference between liberty and human rights, the source of liberty and the danger of using the harm principle, the caretaker and the utopia principles to issue laws which may appear ostensibly to protect people but curtail the important freedom of expression instead.
4 citations
Cites background from "The Nature and Importance of Libert..."
...This is why it is important that civil liberties be valid, so we do not have to rely on politicians‟ own discretion to allow us and deprive us from our liberties (Fried, 2005)....
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01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: The authors argue that the ability to choose between options brings with it certain goods that we cherish, but even having many options taken from us does not prevent us from achieving those goods, and that this loss of freedom is not a valuable loss.
Abstract: I will argue here that, at least in the short run, we need less freedom and more manipulation, and that this loss of freedom is not a valuable loss. Not all freedoms are equal. It is true that the ability to choose between options brings with it certain goods that we cherish, but even having many options taken from us does not prevent our achieving those goods. We need to have areas where we exercise choice, but we do not need to exercise choice in all areas. Being subject to constraints, and losing, in some quantifiable sense, more choices, can result in the possibility of choices that are more meaningful for ourselves and for those around us.
2 citations
Cites background from "The Nature and Importance of Libert..."
...[23] For example, Charles Fried, “The Nature and Importance of Liberty,” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol....
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Dissertation•
17 Jun 2015
TL;DR: This research examines the relationship between public opinion and policy, and the decision-making process in the context of a large-scale survey.
Abstract: 2 Chapter 1: Introduction 3 Chapter 2: Forming Policy Stances 6 The Relationship Between Public Opinion and Policy 6 Decision Making Process 7 Specific Determinants 9 Public Opinion on the Public Health 15 Summary 16 Chapter 3: The Issues 18 Smoking 18 Obesity 29 Alcohol Abuse 32 Seatbelt Usage 35 Summary 36 Chapter 4: Survey Methodology / Hypotheses 38 Hypotheses 38 Developing the Survey 38 Shortcomings 42 Chapter 5: Data 43 Demographics 43 Correlation Coefficients 44 Chapter 6: Data Analysis 50 Hypothesis One 50 Hypothesis Two 52 Hypothesis Three 53 Hypothesis Four 54 Hypothesis Five 55 Hypothesis Six 56 Chapter 7: Conclusion 58 Personal Behavior 58 Perception of Liberty 59 Public Consciousness 60 Ideology 60 Party Identification 61 Risk Perception 62 Appendix A: The Survey 73
2 citations
Cites background from "The Nature and Importance of Libert..."
...That broad definition is a popular theme among scholars regardless (Fried 2005), and while it is rather useful, it is by no means universal....
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...Further research along this line of inquiry ought to focus on reconciling competing interests that arise under the broad definition of liberty asserted by Jefferson (1819) and accepted by many scholars (Fried 2005)....
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Dissertation•
01 May 2016
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the application of the Value Creation Wheel (VCW), a dynamic tool that enables companies to solve problems and create value while encouraging the participation of multiple stakeholders, both internal and external.
Abstract: This thesis focuses on the application of the Value Creation Wheel (VCW), a dynamic tool that enables companies to solve problems and create value while encouraging the participation of multiple stakeholders, both internal and external (Lages, 2016). First, literature is revisited to gain insight about the concepts being explored in this thesis. Then, it is introduced DIANA, VCW’s theoretical framework, and its main contributions to the fields of strategic management, innovation management, and value creation. Finally, are presented the findings from the application of TIAGO VCW’s practical tool at Jerónimo Martins Distribuição de Produtos de Consumo (JMD) and Whymob.
1 citations
Cites background from "The Nature and Importance of Libert..."
...Fried (2005) and Drucker (1985) also associate the two concepts by stating that “innovation can be defined as the application of new ideas to the products, processes, or other aspects of the activities of a firm that lead to increased value” (Fried, 2005: 4)....
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