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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Thomas Reid On Character And Freedom, Kenneth L. Pearce
Thomas Reid On Character And Freedom, Kenneth L. Pearce
Kenneth L Pearce
According to Thomas Reid, an agent cannot be free unless she has the power to do otherwise. This claim is usually interpreted as a version of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. Against this interpretation, I argue that Reid is committed to the seemingly paradoxical position that an agent may have the power to do otherwise despite the fact that it is impossible that she do otherwise. Reid's claim about the power to do otherwise does not, therefore, entail the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. When it is an agent's character that deprives her of alternate possibilities, she is not thereby deprived …
The Clockwork Commune, Bright B. Simons
The Clockwork Commune, Bright B. Simons
Bright B Simons
This paper accepts the thesis that technology is not value-free. It then focuses on technology’s form as being institutional in nature and characteristic. On that basis, it argues that technology “absorbs the surrounding ethos and regurgitate pieces of the normative pattern back into the social kaleidoscope of choices, and by thus doing influence the thrust of liberty.” Hence, rather than the real danger lying in runaway technologies that deepen the process of surveillance and control, and thus curtail liberty, it resides, instead, in the possibility that technology’s role could be usurped to justify otherwise unjustifiable redefinitions of the rights of …
Libertarianism, Karl Widerquist
Libertarianism, Karl Widerquist
Karl Widerquist
This is an encyclopedia entry on libertarianism covering right-libertarianism, left-libertarianism, and libertarian socialism.
Libertarian Natural Rights, Siegfried Van Duffel
Libertarian Natural Rights, Siegfried Van Duffel
Siegfried Van Duffel
Libertarianism relies on a natural rights theory, which takes the idea of individual sovereignty as basic. The theory is flawed because it cannot ground an obligation for different sovereigns to respect each other's sovereignty.