In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:594 Feminist Studies 41, no. 3. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Liberty Walther Barnes and Christin L. Munsch The Paradoxical Privilege of Men and Masculinity in Institutional Review Boards In the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz, the great wizard admonishes Dorothy and her friends to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” Dorothy and company turn to see a man standing before a (...) large control panel operating the smoke, holographic image, and voice of the great wizard. Realizing he has been discovered, the man gives up manipulating the switches and the nebulous wizard vanishes.1 Hegemonic masculinity is analogous to the “all-powerful” wizard.2 In order to maintain its grandeur, power, and mystique, the mechanics of masculine ideology—as well as the social actors who participate in its reproduction —must be kept hidden.3 A crucial aim of feminist research is to 1. The Wizard of Oz, directed by Victor Fleming (Culver City, CA: Metro-Goldwyn -Mayer, 1939). 2. See R. W. Connell, Masculinities: Knowledge, Power and Social Change (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1995); R. W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept,” Gender & Society 19 (2005): 829–61; Michael Kaufman, “Me, Feminism, and Men’s Contradictory Experiences of Power,” in Theorizing Masculinities, ed. Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994), 142– 63; and Michael S. Kimmel, “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity” in Brod and Kaufman, Theorizing Masculinities, 119–42. 3. Michael Flood and Bob Pease, “Undoing Men’s Privilege and Advancing Gender Equality in Public Sector Institutions,” Policy and Society 24, no. 4 (2005): 119–38; Allan G. Johnson, The Gender Knot: Unraveling Liberty Walther Barnes and Christin L. Munsch 595 pull back the curtain on men’s lives and masculine institutions in order to demystify socially constructed masculinities, particularly in their most powerful forms. As early feminist scholars note, male privilege renders women’s lives invisible.4 But male privilege renders aspects of men’s lives invisible, too. In this article we highlight how institutional review boards (IRBs) in universities and hospitals erect barriers to research that render particular aspects of men’s lives invisible. We draw on our experiences of submitting ten applications for a series of methodologically diverse studies of masculinity to eight IRBs. First, we argue that, despite their original function of protecting subordinated groups, IRBs are gendered institutions in which members base their decisions on culturally dominant, normative images of women and men. We show how this results in the stringent protection of male research participants, the safeguarding of participants’ personal masculinity, and the shielding of men’s lives from social inquiry. Second, we argue that IRBs are gendering institutions. Our experiences reveal how the privileging and protection of masculinity results in mandatory protocol modifications that idealize hegemonic masculinity. These modifications require researcher-participant interactions that socialize men to engage in gender “appropriate” behavior and reify gendered expectations. Third, our experiences reveal the ways in which IRBs protect the institution itself and privilege the universities, hospitals, and (predominantly male) medical doctors they represent. Consequently, the ways they reproduce social inequality remain impervious to academic inquiry. IRBS AS GENDERED AND GENDERING INSTITUTIONS Every university and hospital in the United States where human research is conducted houses a human research protections program, or IRB, to oversee academic research. Universities with hospitals typically our Patriarchal Legacy (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1997); Michael Kimmel, Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men (New York: Harper Collins, 2008). 4. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. Howard M. Parshley (New York: Knopf, 1951); Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986); Dorothy E. Smith, “Women’s Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology,” in Feminist Perspectives on Social Research, ed. Sharlene N. Hesse-Biber and Michelle L. Yaiser (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 84–96. 596 Liberty Walther Barnes and Christin L. Munsch maintain two types of IRB committees: a social-behavioral committee that oversees studies in the social sciences, and a biomedical committee to supervise clinical drug trials, experimental medical treatments, and tissue and blood research. The duty of the... (shrink)

This detailed and sympathetic, but not uncritical, study of On Liberty' argues for the general consistency and coherence of Mill's defence of individual liberty, but maintains that there are significant non-utilitarian elements in his arguments.

This incisive book deals with the use of the criminal law to enforce morality, in particular sexual morality, a subject of particular interest and importance since the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957. Professor Hart first considers John Stuart Mill's famous declaration: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community is to prevent harm to others." During the last hundred years this doctrine has twice been sharply challenged by two great (...) lawyers: Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, the great Victorian judge and historian of the common law, and Lord Devlin, who both argue that the use of the criminal law to enforce morality is justified. The author examines their arguments in some detail, and sets out to demonstrate that they fail to recognize distinction of vital importance for legal and political theory, and that they espouse a conception of the function of legal punishment that few would now share. (shrink)

Questions of religious liberty have become flashpoints of controversy in virtually every area of life around the world. Despite protection of religious liberty at both supranational and individual state levels, there is an increasing number of conflicts concerning the proper way to recognize it, both in modern secular states, and in countries with an established religion or theocratic mode of government. This book provides an analysis of the general concept of religious liberty with a close study of (...) important cases that serve as a test bed for proposals. It combines the insights of both pure academics and experienced practitioners in law to take a fresh look at the nature, scope and limits of religious liberty. Divided into two parts, the collection presents a blend of legal and philosophical approaches, and draws on cases from a wide range of jurisdictions, including Brazil, India, Australia, USA, Netherlands, and Canada. Presenting a broad range of views, this often provocative volume makes fascinating reading for academics and researchers working in the areas of law and religion, legal philosophy and human rights. (shrink)

I want to begin this paper by recalling a once-lively school of English political and legal thinking which has fallen undeservedly into neglect. I refer to the pluralists, notably the lawyer F. W. Maitland, the religious scholar J. N. Figgis, and, early in their careers, the political theorists Harold Laski and G. D. H. Cole. All were influenced by the writings of the German legal scholar Otto von Gierke, which Maitland as editor and translator had first introduced into England. The (...) pluralists' concerns were at once political and legal; virtually alone among English writers in this century until the 1970s, their work avoided the barrenness that comes of treating political theory and jurisprudence as unrelated enterprises. I shall describe the problems that preoccupied them and some of their resultant theories, and also the way in which specifically legal doctrine was both a target of their criticism and an important element in their thinking. (shrink)

This paper discusses the nature of liberty from the point of view of value. Liberty is the highest value for liberals. The root of this liberal view is their particular conception of self. Rawls says 'the self is prior to the ends which are affirmed by it.' This is also the Kantian view of the self: the self is prior to its socially given roles and relationships. Therefore, no end is exempt from possible revision by the self. There (...) is nothing wrong with this basic idea. In fact, all theories agree on free choice of life plan or self-determination. But they disagree about what package of rights and resources best enables people to pursue their own conceptions of the good. However, the liberal view of liberty is based on a metaphysically reasoned idealism. This results in a conception of liberty that is absolute, supreme, and has infinite value compared with other things. Communitarians have several arguments against the liberal view. I consider the following two points to be of utmost import: The liberal view of the self is empty; The liberal view ignores our embeddedness in communal practices. My reasoning is not exactly that of the communitarians. I view 'emptiness' as freedom associated with the substance of an action, which has a value that does not lie in itself. (shrink)

Se negli ultimi anni sempre di più si è posta l’emergenza per l’estetica di stabilire interazioni con altri ambiti di ricerca scientifica, è pur vero che rari sono i casi di autori capaci di sviluppare la propria indagine su terreni eterogenei. Tra questi c’è Jean Petitot che con originalità conduce il proprio lavoro incrociando le due linee sulle quali si è formato: Thom e Greimas. Proseguendo nella direzione di Morfogenesi del Senso e Fisica del Senso, Morphologie et Estbétique, che rielabo...

John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty, published in 1859, has had a powerful impact on philosophical and political debates ever since its first appearance. This volume of essays covers the whole range of problems raised in and by the essay, including the concept of liberty, the toleration of diversity, freedom of expression, the value of allowing 'experiments in living', the basis of individual liberty, multiculturalism and the claims of minority cultural groups. Mill's views have been fiercely contested, (...) and they are at the centre of many contemporary debates. The essays are by leading scholars, who systematically and eloquently explore Mill's views from various perspectives. The volume will appeal to a wide range of readers including those interested in political philosophy and the history of ideas. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether standards-based school reform is an acceptable strategy for achieving a politically legitimate school system according to a principle of personal liberty. First, it briefly describes the purpose and implementation of standards-based school reform in the U.S. It then considers the ramifications of the principle of personal liberty for the conduct of public schooling, arguing that it requires children’s access to and appreciation of a variety of liberty-consistent cultures in (...) their society coupled with the development of children’s ability to think critically about those cultures and their meaning as possibilities for their own lives. Third, it considers whether some standards for public education might be consistent with this purpose of education and finds that certain outcome and process standards may be appropriate. Finally, it considers whether these kinds of standards are included in standards-based reform as it is currently practiced or proposed in the U.S. and concludes that they are not. (shrink)

Pornographic speech harms women by playing a key role in sustaining the social conditions through which women's liberty and equality are undercut. Though there is a principled moral and constitutional basis for pursuing a legal strategy in fighting pornography, we should not overestimate the effectiveness of the law or underestimate its potential dangers. The struggle against pornography must be waged through education, expressive exploration, and protest, not through the law.

Religion and Community: Adam Smith on the Virtues of Liberty CHARLES L. GRISWOLD, JR. The good temper and moderation of con- tending factions seems to be the most es- gential circumstance in the publick morals of a free people. Adam Smith' THE ARCHITECTS of what one might call "classical" or "Enlightenment" liberal- ism saw themselves as committed to refuting the claims to political sovereignty by organized religion. ~ The arguments against the legitimacy of a state- supported religion, and, in (...) the extreme case, of a religious monopoly, are so integral a part of the Enlightenment's effort to put politics on a stable and just foundation as to constitute one of the controlling themes of the period. Lib- eral politics requires toleration, or better, liberty of religious belief. And this in turn requires that religious institutions be privatized, as it were, and that just politics be secularized in that legitimate rule is to lie in the consent of the ruled rather than in the laws of God as interpreted by his ministers on earth. Differ- ' Wealth of Nations V.i.f.4o. My references to The Wealth of Nations are to the two-volume R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner edition . 2 The list of thinkers in the "classical liberal" tradition simply reads as the list of key Enlighten- ment figures: Bayle, Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, Hume, Smith, Voltaire, and Kant, to name a few. Consider the role that religious freedom plays in Kant's. (shrink)

Hegel presents significant accounts of “conscience” (Gewissen) at decisive moments both in the early Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Right. In spite of some important similarities between these accounts, they present deeply different, perhaps even inconsistent, understandings of the nature and value of individual conscience. Roughly, on the Philosophy of Right account, conscience is fundamentally something inward and individualizing, requiring transformation if it is to be integrated into the social institutions and practices that constitute modern “ethical life.” By (...) contrast, in the Phenomenology of Spirit, conscience is always already fundamentally social, entailing demands that individuals both realize their convictions in actions that are, in principle at least, available to others, and that they be able discursively to articulate, justify, and, in some cases, modify their convictions in relation to others. Drawing on this contrast between two understandings of the nature and value of conscience, I consider two models of the liberty of conscience. On the first model, the liberty of conscience fundamentally entails the need for the protection of an inward sphere over which institutions ought not to attempt to exercise coercive influence. On the second, the liberty of conscience entails acknowledging the discursive and social character of conscience, so that, while individuals should be entitled to a sort of moral autonomy, that autonomy entails an equal demand to be able to justify their convictions to others, and to respond reasonably to the claims that others make on them. I argue that Hegel’s concept of “spirit,” which suggests that selfhood is fundamentally a product of concrete relations among individuals, provides stronger support for the second model of the liberty of conscience. (shrink)

Pucelle tries to show how the idea of personal liberty is central to Green's ethics. Green's criticisms of other philosophers and the historical context of his philosophy are especially well handled. --W. L. M.

Vinit Haksar has written a fairly lengthy book in order to establish a rather simple point : that it is impossible to arrive at an adequate account of justice without judging the objective merit of alternative ways of life. The main target of his argument is John Rawls, whose influential A Theory of Justice purports to sever considerations of justice from those of the human good in precisely this way. Haksar’s argument is also intended, however, as a criticism of the (...) views of such other contemporary liberal theorists as Ronald Dworkin and Robert Nozick. (shrink)

In the face of the new and radically different type of public order that seems to be emerging on the contemporary scene, Catholics have sought to secure the legal and social space necessary for themselves and their institutions to live in accordance with their beliefs by appealing to America’s historic commitment to religious freedom. The difficulty we confront is that the vision of man and society animating this order, a vision that emerges from Enlightenment Liberalism issues in an impoverished understanding (...) of religious freedom that fails to secure this legal and social space. (shrink)

The Society of Jesus sprang from the devout faith of a sidelined soldier who traded in his weapons to form a militant order of Catholic Reformers sworn to serve the Papacy as missionary soldiers of Christ. Specialization in education led Jesuits to roles as theologians of the 16th Century, including as members of the School of Salamanca, whose Jesuit members mostly took pro-market positions on free enterprise. One learned Jesuit in particular deviated from his order’s default position of papal dirigisme (...) to become an enemy of the state. (shrink)

This essay explores the impact of the ancient principle of the freedom of the Church—identified by the Second Vatican Council as “the fundamental principle” governing “the relations between the Church and governments and the whole civil order”—on both Western civilization and the development of modern Catholic social thought. Arguing that this principle requires the articulation and institutionalization of a new understanding of society and government, it contends this principle revolutionized the structure of Western political life and helped lay the groundwork (...) for Western liberty. At the same time, it maintains that the development in contemporary Catholic social teaching that crystallizes in Dignitatis Humanae must be seen in the context of the ongoing effort of Catholic thought to understand the nature and role of the state towards which the idea of the freedom of the Church points. (shrink)

En 1789, la Révolution française met la liberté à l'ordre du jour. C'est un événement pour la philosophie qui, au siècle des Lumières, a activement participé à la critique du despotisme. C'est aussi un événement philosophique qui délivre à la pensée de nouveaux horizons où les maîtres-mots sont souveraineté politique du peuple et autonomie morale du sujet. De Rousseau, qui fait de la liberté le fondement de toute légitimité, à Hegel pour qui "l'esprit est liberté", en passant par Kant qui (...) consacre le droit inaliénable des peuples à disposer d'eux-mêmes, Michaël Foessel revient sur cette période philosophique si intense. Au cours de ces bouleversements historiques s'élabore une définition de la liberté irréductible au libéralisme. C'est parce que notre époque est incertaine sur le sens de la liberté qu'il vaut la peine d'entendre à nouveau l'exigence d'autonomie portée par la philosophie, de Rousseau à Hegel. (shrink)

"This very important book is original, sweeping, and wise about the relation between education and liberal democracy in the United States. The Pangles reconsider superior ideas from the founding period in a way that illuminates any serious thinking on American education, whether policy-oriented or historical". -- American Political Science Review. "An important and thoughtful book, stimulating for citizens as well as scholars". -- Journal of American History.

The struggle over legal abortion access in the United States is a religious controversy, not a scientific debate. Religious activists who believe that meaningful individual life (i.e., “personhood”) begins at a specific “moment-of-conception” are attempting to pass laws that force this view upon all pregnant persons, irrespective of their medical circumstances, individual preferences, or personal religious beliefs. This paper argues that such actions promote a constitutionally prohibited “establishment of religion.” Abortion policy in a secular state must be based upon scientifically (...) accurate biology, not unprovable theological presuppositions. The scientific facts regarding human pregnancy do not support the position that personhood begins with fertilization—at which point a pregnancy does not yet even exist. Abortion policy should regard the embryo/fetus as part of the pregnant individual’s body until delivery. We argue that individual “personhood” only begins when the _latent_ potentialities of the fetal nervous system are _actualized_ in the newborn after delivery. The paper argues that instantiating non-scientific beliefs concerning embryonic/fetal “personhood” into the law as the basis for abortion policy establishes a state-sponsored religion. The protection of religious liberty requires that abortion be decriminalized. Abortion should be treated like any other medical procedure and regulated similarly. To protect both religious freedom and sound medical practice, individual legal personhood should be recognized as beginning only at birth. (shrink)

In this paper the authors argue that research ethics committees should not be paternalistic by rejecting research that poses risk to people competent to decide for themselves. However it is important they help to ensure valid consent is sought from potential recruits and protect vulnerable people who cannot look after their own best interests. The authors first describe the tragic deaths of Jesse Gelsinger and Ellen Roche. They then discuss the following claims to support their case: competent individuals are epistemologically (...) and ethically in the best position to say which risks are reasonable for them, so RECs should be no more restrictive than the “normal” constraints on people taking risks with themselves; RECs do not judge individual competence ; individual liberty is mostly limited by what serves the public interest, and RECs do not determine public interest; RECs may have a paternalistic role in preventing exploitation of competent people vulnerable to the use of incentives, and in protecting the interests of incompetent people; however, the moral and political authority of RECs has not been established in this respect. (shrink)

Background: Locke's Conception of Freedom For how can we think any one freer than to have the power to do what we will. — John Locke n his chapter on power ...

"Margaret L. King has put together a highly representative selection of readings from most of the more significant—but by no means the most obvious—texts by the authors who made up the movement we have come to call the 'Enlightenment.' They range across much of Europe and the Americas, and from the early seventeenth century until the end of the eighteenth. In the originality of the choice of texts, in its range and depth, this collection offers both wide coverage and striking (...) insights into the intellectual transformation which has done more than any other to shape the world in which we live today. It is _simply the best introduction to the subject now available_."_ —Anthony Pagden, UCLA, and author of _The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters_ Contents:_ Chronology, Introduction _Chapter One - Casting Out Idols: 1620–1697_ _Idols, or false notions: _Francis Bacon, _The New Instrument_ _I think, therefore I am: _René Descartes, Discourse on Method _God, or Nature: _Baruch Spinoza, _Ethics_ _The system of the world: _Isaac Newton, _Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy_ _He searched for truth throughout his life: _Pierre Bayle, _Historical and Critical Dictionary_ _Chapter Two - _The Learned Maid: 1638–1740 _A face raised toward heaven:_ Anna Maria van Schurman, _Whether the Study of Letters Befits a Christian Woman_ _The worlds I have made:_ Margaret Cavendish, _The Blazing World_ _A finer sort of cattle:_ Bathsua Makin, _An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen_ _I warn you of the world:_ Madame de Maintenon, _Letter: On the Education of the Demoiselles of Saint-Cyr_, and _Instruction: On the World_ _The daybreak of your reason:_ Émilie Du Châtelet, _Fundamentals of Physics_ _Chapter Three - _A State of Perfect Freedom: 1689–1695 _The chief criterion of the True Church:_ John Locke, _Letter on Toleration_ _Freedom from any superior power on earth:_ John Locke, _Second Treatise on Civil Government_ _A white paper, with nothing written on it:_ John Locke, _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_ _Let your rules be as few as possible:_ John Locke, _Some Thoughts Concerning Education_ _From death, Jesus Christ restores all to life:_ John Locke, _The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures_ _Chapter Four - All Things Made New: 1725–1784_ _In the wilderness, they are reborn:_ Giambattista Vico, _The New Science_ _Without these Names, nothing can be known,_ Carl Linnaeus, _System of Nature_ _All the clouds at last are lifted:_ Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, _The Successive Advancement of the Human Mind_ _A genealogical or encyclopedic tree of knowledge:_ Jean le Rond d’Alembert, _Preliminary Discourse_ _Dare to know! :_ Immanuel Kant, _What Is Enlightenment?_ _Chapter Five - Mind, Soul, and God: 1740–1779_ _The narrow limits of human understanding:_ David Hume, _Anof a Book Lately Published_ _The soul is but an empty word:_ Julien Offray de La Mettrie, _Man a Machine_ _All is reduced to sensation:_ Claude Adrien Helvétius, _On the Mind_ _An endless web of fantasies and falsehoods:_ Paul-Henri Thiry, baron d’Holbach, _Common Sense_ _Let each believe that his own ring is real:_ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, _Nathan the Wise_ _Chapter Six - Crush That Infamous Thing: 1733–1764_ _This is the country of sects:_ Voltaire, _Philosophical Letters_ _Disfigured by myth, until enlightenment comes:_ Voltaire, _The Culture and Spirit of Nations_ _The best of all possible worlds:_ Voltaire, _Candide_ _Are we not all children of the same God?:_ Voltaire, _Treatise on Tolerance_ _If a book displeases you, refute it! :_ Voltaire, _Philosophical Dictionary_ _Chapter Seven - Toward the Greater Good: 1748–1776_ _Things must be so ordered that power checks power,_ Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, _The Spirit of the Laws_ _Complete freedom of trade must be ensured:_ François Quesnay, _General Maxims for the Economic Management of an Agricultural Kingdom_ _The nation's war against the citizen: Cesare_ Beccaria, _On Crimes and Punishments_ _There is no peace in the absence of justice:_ Adam Ferguson, _An Essay on the History of Civil Society_ _Led by an invisible hand:_ Adam Smith, _An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_ _Chapter Eight - Encountering Others: 1688–1785_ _Thus died this great man:_ Aphra Behn, _Oroonoko: or The Royal Slave_ _Not one sins the less for not being Christian: _Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, _Embassy Letters_ _Do you not restore to them their liberty?:_ Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, _Philosophical and Political History of European Colonies and Commerce in the Two Indies_ _Some things which are rather interesting:_ Captain James Cook, _Voyage towards the South Pole, and Round the World_ _The inner genius of my being:_ Johann Gottfried von Herder, _Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Humankind_ _Chapter - Nine Citizen of Geneva: 1755–1782_ _The most cunning project ever to enter the human mind: _Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Human Inequality_ _The supreme direction of the General Will:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract _Two lovers from a small town at the foot of the Alps,_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Julie, or the New Heloise_ _Build a fence around your child’s soul:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Emile, or On Education_ _This man will be myself:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Confessions_ _Chapter Ten - Vindications of Women: 1685–1792_ _No higher design than to get her a husband:_ Mary Astell, _Reflections on Marriage_ _The days of my bondage begin:_ Anna Stanisławska, _Orphan Girl_ _A dying victim dragged to the altar:_ Denis Diderot, _The Nun_ _Created to be the toy of man:_ Mary Wollstonecraft, _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ _Man, are you capable of being just?:_ Olympe de Gouges, _Declaration of the Rights of Woman as Citizen_ _Chapter Eleven - American Reverberations: 1771–1792_ _I took upon me to assert my freedom:_ Benjamin Franklin, _Autobiography_ _Freedom has been hunted round the globe:_ Thomas Paine, _Common Sense_ _Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights:_ Thomas Jefferson and Others, _Declaration of Independence_ _A safeguard against faction and insurrection:_ James Madison, _Federalist No. 10_ _An end to government by force and fraud:_ Thomas Paine, _The Rights of Man_ _Chapter Twelve - Enlightenment's End: 1790–1794_ _A partnership of the living, the dead, and those unborn:_ Edmund Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ _The future destiny of the human species:_ Nicolas de Condorcet, _A Sketch of a Historical Portrait of the Progress of the Human Mind_ Texts and Studies, Index. 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Citizens of liberal, affluent societies are regularly encouraged to support reforms meant to improve conditions for badly-off people in the developing world. Our economic and political support is solicited for causes such as: banning child labor, implementing universal primary education, closing down sweatshops and brothels, etc. But what if the relevant populations or individuals in the developing world do not support these particular reforms or aid programs? What if they would strongly prefer other reforms and programs, or would rank the (...) various benefits that might be offered differently than seems reasonable to the Western, liberal supporters of these campaigns and organizations? What is the proper liberal response here? I argue that the proper liberal response is to support those programs and reforms that the global poor most value. The bulk of the paper is devoted to arguing against the popular liberal argument which states that we can safely disregard the preferences of the oppressed when they seem very unreasonable because these individuals suffer from “adaptive preferences.” This typically is taken to mean that their preferences are “not their own” in an important sense. I put forward various different proposals for why adaptive preferences can be safely dismissed, but ultimately argue that they are not persuasive. And if it is no longer legitimate to appeal to adaptive preferences as a basis for disregarding what oppressed people want, then I argue that to do so is straightforward paternalism, and so is unjustifiable in all but the most extreme cases. Finally, I argue for the following concrete recommendations: Given that resources are not infinite, we should (1) Support programs that give oppressed people increased access to information, such as access to technology, (2) support those reforms and aid programs that the oppressed themselves regard as most important, with special emphasis on those opportunities for education that they deem valuable, and (3) refrain from supporting coercive policies intended to thwart adaptive preferences. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous analysons les textes de G. W. Leibniz qui portent sur la censure et la liberté d’expression, notamment par rapport aux auteurs qu’il qualifie de « libertins » ou d’« athées ». Nous explorons le dispositif théorique qu’il propose pour déterminer les limites justes entre la censure et la liberté de pensée; dispositif qui permet, dans chaque cas, de choisir entre la réfutation savante et la suppression autoritaire des textes estimés pernicieux pour la morale ou la piété.

This chapter contains section titled: Rights and Goals Rules, Rights, and Utility Rights and Liberty.