Is Liberty Threatened by Equality?
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Museum of Northern Arizona
Facilitator: Dr. Christopher Griffin, NAU Philosophy Department Chair
5:30 p.m. Welcome and Introduction
Dr. Heidi Wayment, Director of NAU’s Compassion Project and Psychology Department Chair
Andrea Houchard, Director of Philosophy in the Public Interest
5:45:
Dr. Christopher Griffin, NAU Philosophy Department Chair
1. What is meant by ‘liberty’ and what is meant by ‘equality’ ?
2. Are all ways in which equality might limit liberty properly understood as 'threats'?
3. In what way or ways is liberty valuable? Is it intrinsically valuable? If so, is more always better? Is liberty
instrumentally valuable? If so, in the service of what?
4. In what way or ways is equality valuable? Is it intrinsically valuable? If so, is more always better? Is
equality instrumentally valuable? If so, in the service of what?
5. Would a more helpful or productive way of formulating the titular question be, "In what ways are
valuable forms of liberty threatened and/or enhanced by equality?"
6. In what ways is liberty for individuals related to the idea of a society being free? Is the freedom we
might think of for a society simply to be understood as the situation in which each of the members who
make up that society are individually free, or is there some notion of collective freedom that has
normative significance?
6:50:
Recap of discussion
Additional support provided by NAU’s College of Arts and Letters, Compassion
Project, McKenzie Endowment for Democracy and Richard Wood Fund.
Freedom
‘Freedom’ and ‘liberty’ are common and significant terms in contemporary political discourse—something that is
particularly obvious considering the characteristic rhetoric in this year’s presidential election. From the outset of the
American experience, various notions denoted by the terms ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ have regularly been invoked in
political debate. But unlike equality, whose basic meaning is essentially the same when invoked, freedom itself seems
to denote different conditions. A few of the more prominent ones are outlined below.
Freedom as Non-Interference
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Par 1, Ch. XIV, §2; Part II, Ch. XXI, §6
“By LIBERTY is understood,…the absence of external impediments, which impediments may oft take away part of a
man’s power to do what he would, but cannot hinder him from using what power left him, according to his judgment
and reason shall dictate to him.” Also, "a free man is he that in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to
do is not hindered to do what he hath the will to do."
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Ch. II, §4; §6 Ch. VI, §57
“To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally
in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they
think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.”
And, “though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of license…. The state of nature has a law of nature to
govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, …that being all equal and
independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” But a curious remark also:
“law, in its true notion, is not so much the limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper
interest, and prescribes no farther than is for the general good of those under that law…and that ill deserves the
name of confinement which hedges us in only from bogs and precipices. …where there is no law, there is no freedom:
for liberty is, to be free from restrain and violence of others.”
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Ch. 1
“The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not
attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impeded their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own
health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems
good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.”
Freedom as Non-Domination
Freedom as Personal Independence
“Being unfree does not consist in being restrained; on the
contrary, the restraint of a fair system of law—a nonarbitrary regime—does not make you unfree. Being unfree
consists rather in being subject to arbitrary sway: being
subject to the potentially capricious will or the potentially
idiosyncratic judgment of another.” And further, “The
republican conception of liberty should appeal to liberals,
in so far as it focuses on people’s individual power of
choice and thus has much in common with the negative
notion of freedom as non-interference. And it should
appeal to populists in so far as it requires, as I argue, that
non-dominating government has to track the interests and
ideas of ordinary people; this is the idea that lies behind
the positive, populist notion of freedom as democratic self
-mastery.”
“every one must see that as the bonds of servitude are
formed merely by the mutual dependence of men on one
another and the reciprocal needs that unite them, it is
impossible to make any man a slave, unless he be first
reduced to a situation in which he cannot do without the
help of others: and, since such a situation does not exist in
a state of nature, every one is there his own master, and
the law of the strongest is of no effect.”
Jean Jacques Rousseau, “Discourse on the Origins of Inequality
Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and government,
Among Men,” Part 1
p. 5; p. 11
Freedom as Democratic Self-Mastery
Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Ch. 8
“We might, over and above all this, add, to what man
acquires in the civil state, moral liberty, which alone makes
him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse of
appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we
prescribe to ourselves is liberty.”
Hot Topics Café, Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Freedom as Individual Self-Mastery
Notice the remarks from Rousseau and Plato are not attempts to characterize freedom or liberty, but rather happiness.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, “Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men”, Part II
“The simplicity and solitude of man’s life in this new condition [earliest social group life], the paucity of his wants, and
the implements he had invented to satisfy them, left him with a great deal of leisure, which he employed to furnish
himself with many conveniences unknown to his fathers: and this was the first yoke he inadvertently imposed on
himself, and the first source of the evils he imposed on his descendants. For, besides continuing thus to enervate both
body and mind, these conveniences lost with use almost all their power to please, and even degenerated into real
needs, till the want of them became far more disagreeable than the possession of them had been pleasant. Men would
have been unhappy at the loss of them, though the possession of them did not make them happy.”
Plato, Republic, Book I; but see also Book VII’s Allegory of the Cave for education as a means to self-mastery
“By God, Socrates, I’ll tell you exactly what I think. A number of us, who are more or less the same age, often get
together…. When we meet, the majority complain about the lost pleasures they remember from youth, those of sex,
drinking parties, feasts, and the other things that go with them, and they get angry as if they had been deprived of
important things and had lived well then but are hardly living at all...they repeat over and over that old age is the cause
of many evils. But I don’t think they blame the real cause, Socrates. ...Indeed, I was once present when someone asked
the poet Sophocles: “How are you as far as sex goes, Sophocles? Can you still make love with a woman? “Quiet, man,”
the poet replied, “I am very glad to have escaped from all that, like a slave who has escaped from a savage and
tyrannical master.” I thought at the time he was right, and I still do, for old age brings peace and freedom from such
things.”
Equality
Unlike the terms liberty and freedom, the basic concept of equality at play in debates about the just society does not
admit of different conceptions. Rather, there are different things that said to be properly distributed equally, and
different persons among whom the equal distribution is to be established or preserved. Equal treatment in many
domains is now uncontroversial: equal standing before the law for those who are subject to it, equal protection under
the constitution to basic rights and liberties, equal voting rights, etc. But proposals and demands for greater equality in
the distribution of other sorts of things remain controversial (wealth & income, marriage rights under the law for gays,
compensation for identical or equally valued types of productive labor, educational resources, health care, etc.).
Economic Equality
U.S. Income Distribution, 1979-2007
A 2011 Congressional Budget Office study shows that “the distribution of after-tax household income in the United
States was substantially more unequal in 1979 than in 2007.” Average income among all population quintiles rose
during this period, but at significantly different rates. The top 1% saw a 275% growth in its after-tax income between
1979 and 2007. Others in the top quintile (81%-99%) saw a 65% income growth. The middle 60% income growth
averaged just under 40%, and the lowest quintile saw an 18% growth between ‘79 and’07. While federal taxes and
transfer payments, both elements of a progressive redistributive system, reduced the degree of income inequality
throughout this period compared to the distribution of pre-tax, pre-transfer payment market income, the equalizing
effects of taxes and transfer payments was less in 2007 than in 1979. Further, the overall federal tax rate decreased
slightly over the period, and the share of persons’ federal tax liability shifted from progressive income tax to less
progressive payroll taxes.
How Progressive is the Tax Code?
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (2012) calculates that when all taxes (federal, state, local) and all income
in the nation are considered, the bottom quintile received about 3.4% of the total income in the nation in 2011 and
paid 2.1% of the total taxes in that year. The middle quintile received 11.4% of income and paid 10.3 % of the total
taxes. The top 1% received 21% of the income and paid 21.6% of the total taxes. (Notice that last figure: the top 1% of
income earners paid more than 1 in every 5 dollars paid in taxes.)
Museum of Northern Arizona
Community Committee
The “hot topics” in the Hot Topics Cafés are selected by community leaders that represent
diverse constituencies and viewpoints. We thank the committee members for their participation.
*Voted to select “hot topics” for the Fall of 2012.
Flagstaff
Sedona
*Allan Affeldt Owner, La Posada; Founder, Winslow Arts Trust; Former Mayor,
City of Winslow; Museum of Northern Arizona Board Member, Arizona Town Hall
Board Member, Arizona Citizens for the Arts Board Member
Diana Arendt, County Chairwoman, Coconino County Republican Committee
Joseph Boles, NAU Professor Emeritus
*Scott Deasy, Deacon of Epiphany Episcopal Church, semi-retired
OB/GYN
Coral Evans, Flagstaff City Council
Jean Friedland, Compassion Project, Northern Arizona University
*Patty Garcia Coconino Community College District Governing Board, Nuestras
Raices, Raymond Educational Foundation Board
Ken Lamm, Flagstaff Community Foundation
*Stephanie McKinney, Chair, Flagstaff 40
*Marj McClanahan, Arizona Community Foundation, Flagstaff Community
Foundation, Flagstaff Medical Center Certificate Holder, NAU Social and
Behavioral Sciences Advisory Council, Museum of Northern Arizona Committee,
Phi Beta Phi Financial Advisor, Arizona Society of CPAs
*Jerry Nabours, Flagstaff Mayor
*Wayne Ranney, Geologist, Author, Museum of Northern Arizona Board
Member, Grand Canyon Historical Society, Flagstaff Festival of Science Board
of Directors
Craig Van Slyke, Dean, NAU Franke College of Business
John Stark, General Manager, KNAU
*Michael Vincent, Dean, NAU College of Arts and Letters
*Harriet Young, First Vice Chair of the Arizona Democratic Party,
Arizona Town Hall Member, Member of the Museum of Northern Arizona,
Member of the Arboretum at Flagstaff, President of American Association of
University Women Flagstaff Branch, NAU Department of Politics and
International Affairs since 1992
Rob Adams, Mayor of Sedona
Carol Gandolfo, President, Verde Valley Republican Women
*Jane Hausner, Executive Director, Verde Valley Sanctuary
*Tom O’Halleran, Arizona Republican Senator 2007-2009; President, Keep
Sedona Beautiful; Chair, Verde River Basin Parntership; Citizens Advisory
Board, PBS
Alicia Magal, Rabbi of the Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley
John Neville, President, Sustainable Arizona, Lead, SEDI Sustainability in
Education & Green Business Network
*Judy Reddington, Northern Arizona University College of Arts and Letters
Advisory Council; Museum of Northern Arizona Board Member, Philosophy in
the Public Interest Advisory Board, Sedona Community Plan, Sedona
International Film Festival Board Member
Steve Williamson, President, Democrats of the Red Rocks
Ex officio
Robert Breunig, Museum of Northern Arizona
Kathy Farretta, Museum of Northern Arizona
Andrea Houchard, Philosophy in the Public Interest
Jerome Thailing, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Yavapai College
Julie Piering, Philosophy Department
Scott Sanicki, Sedona Public Library
John Tannous, Coconino Center for the Arts
Heidi Wayment, Compassion Project
Next Flagstaff Hot Topics Café
Date: Wednesday, February 6, 2012 5:30 p.m.
Location: Museum of Northern Arizona
You are also invited to attend Hot Topics Cafés in
Sedona and at NAU’s Green Scene Café.
Visit nau.edu/ppi for a schedule.
For links to sources cited in this handout, see:
http://oak.ucc.nau.edu/cgg/Hot%20Topics%20December%202012.htm
Comments and inquiries welcome by e-mail: [email protected]
This informational handout was prepared by Kyle Beloin and Coren Frankel, NAU Hot
Topics Café Student Research Directors. Both Kyle and Coren have double majors in
philosophy and political science at Northern Arizona University.
NAU's Philosophy in the Public
Interest is non partisan, and
does not endorse any position
with respect to the issues we
discuss. Philosophy in the Public
Interest is a neutral convener
for civil discourse.