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The International Defense of Liberty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

Baruch A. Brody
Baruch A. Brody
Affiliation:
Philosophy, Rice University and Center for Ethics, Baylor College of Medicine
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Extract

It seems to me that those who place great value on the right to human freedom can be badly divided on the question of the use of force by states to defend the liberties of those who are not citizens of that particular state. Concerned about the liberties to be defended, they might be enthusiastic supporters of the use of such force by liberty-loving countries throughout the world. Concerned about the liberties that might be violated when the state marshals its forces for use internationally, they might adopt a more isolationist approach to this issue. This paper is an attempt to help clarify this conflict by looking at some of the philosophical issues it raises. Because I wish to avoid factual debates about current conflicts, I will give no real-life examples. However, they are on my mind, and I hope the reader will keep them in mind as well.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Autumn 1985 , pp. 27 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1985

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References

1 This claim will be defended more fully in chapters 4–6 of a book on which I am currently working, tentatively entitled Beyond Paternalism and Autonomy.

2 The debate on this topic is usefully surveyed in Martin, R. and Nickel, J., “Recent Work on the Concept of Rights” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 17 (1980)Google Scholar, and in Simmons, A.J., “Inalienable Rights and Locke's Treatises,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 12 (1983).Google Scholar

3 Provided, of course, that one holds a non-deterrent theory of punishment. A believer in the deterrent theory might say that punishment involves no loss of rights but, rather, an overriding of rights to avoid the greater evil of continued crime.

4 On this point, see Brody, B., Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1975), pp.6–12.Google Scholar

5 It is not entirely clear that this view has actually been held by anyone. Close analogues to it are found in Nozick, R.Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974)Google Scholar; Fried, C.Rights and Wrong (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dworkin, R.Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978).Google Scholar But remarks by Nozick in his footnote on p.30, by Fried on pp.9–13, and by Dworkin on pp.90–94 suggest that they don't really hold the view in question.

6 On the difference between necessity and coercion, see Fletcher, G.Rethinking Criminal Law (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1978), pp.774–834.Google Scholar

7 The classic cases making this point are Ploof v. Putnam 71 A. 188 (1908) and Vincent v. Lake Erie Transportation Co. 124 N.W. 221 (1910).

8 E.g., J. Locke, Second Treatise, Chapters 2 and 8.

9 For example, M. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah IX 5, 1, 9–14.

10 I take this to be clearly true. Recent research, summarized in Simpson's, A.W.B.Cannibalism and the Common Law (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984)Google Scholar, has shown, however, that many eighteenth and nineteenth century jurists held the opposite view.

11 As did the judges in the infamous drowning cases Osterlind v. Hill 160 N.E. 301 (1928); Yania v. Bigin 155 A. 2nd 343 (1959); and Handiboe v. McCarthy 151 S.E. 2nd 905 (1966).

12 All those, particularly Marxists and other socialists, who have talked about economic coercion.