display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 18649 | If everyone owned himself, that would prevent slavery [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The best way to prevent enslavement of one person to another is to give each person ownership over himself. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 4.2.c) | |
| A reaction: [The idea comes from Nozick, but Kymlicka is assessing how it should be understood] The best way to block any social evil like slavery is to make it unthinkable. Legislation is second best. Presumably I could sell myself into slavery (like Faust)? |
| 18640 | Libertarians like the free market, but they also think that the free market is just [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Not everyone who favours the free market is a libertarian, for they do not all share the libertarian view that the free market is inherently just. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 4.1.a) | |
| A reaction: Illuminating. It would appear that exploitation is possible within a strictly free market, so it seems unlikely that free markets are inherently just (unless you don't acknowledge that 'exploitation' is wrong). |
| 18651 | The most valuable liberties to us need not be the ones with the most freedom [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Different liberties promote different interests for many different reasons, and there is no reason to assume that the liberties which are most valuable to us are the ones with the most freedom. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.4.a.iii) | |
| A reaction: As I grow older I come more and more to think that freedom is overvalued. But have you tried the other thing? We complacently take huge freedoms for granted. Be passionate about fundamental freedoms, and relaxed about the rest. |
| 18661 | Ancient freedom was free participation in politics, not private independence of life [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The liberty of the ancients was their active participation in the exercise of political power, not the peaceful enjoyment of personal independence. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 7.2.a) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. It takes a feat of imagination to grasp a world where the desire for freedom to sit at home and compile a database of philosophical ideas never even crossed anyone's mind. |