Saturday, April 3, 2010

Is liberty an inherently social concept?

So I've been enjoying the Cato Unbound blog lately. It's basically just a forum for debate between conservatives but they really hash out issues I care about. There's been a good one on Ayn Rand recently (here) and a neat one on whether or not college is worth it (here).

Today, I've been reading the current issue for debate, the nature of Freedom/Liberty. I particularly like a sub-debate going on about whether or not Liberty is a social construct. I.E. you don't have liberty if you live alone because liberty depends on your relationship to other people. (Ok, I'm kind of taking my own interpretation of it - call it a straw man if you want).

I'd argue that you have absolute liberty in that situation, but that it is largely meaningless as a value without a society present. Lots of things would be meaningless on an isolated desert island - gold bars, i-pad, lifetime supply of toner. The hypothetical doesn't really help us figure out the concept much.

If you're up for some good old intellectual procrastination, give it a read.

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