The right to free expression is of special importance for any discussion of the legal and social enforcement of morality. This is true for two main sets of reasons. First, the free expression and communication of ideas in a political society profoundly affects its ethical environment. The right to free expression, or more precisely the social condition that is brought about by the adequate recognition and protection of the right, is itself a public good. Second, the free expression and communication of ideas, especially ideas relevant to politics, is widely considered to be a condition of government legitimacy. Governments that wrongly deny their subjects the right to freely express their ideas forfeit a claim to rule over them. This chapter engages with both sets of reasons, which are referred to as the public good consideration and the legitimacy consideration, respectively, with an eye toward clarifying the grounds of the right to free expression and the limits to its scope. The chapter pays special attention to the issue of whether the right to free expression extends to so-called dangerous speech; that is, speech that advocates for violence against the government and/or certain targeted groups.

This chapter explores the entanglement of the process to inaugurate the Casa de Correção with the political crisis that culminated in the suppression of the slave trade after 1850. I argue that the inauguration of the penitentiary in 1850 belongs to the articulation of policies to restructure slavery geographically in Brazil as the country moved decisively, under considerable British pressure, to suppress the contraband slave trade. The chapter probes the July 1850 decree that regulated the Casa de Correção as Brazil’s first penitentiary. It contends that the continued utilization of unfree labor proved to be a crucial part of the campaign to repress the slave trade and the entangled processes through which authorities deployed the prison to administer the ripple effects of the ending of human trafficking. I also interrogate how administrators of the Casa de Correção struggled to implement the congregate regime for prisoners sentenced to “prison with work” while overseeing its other dependencies. This demonstrates how penitentiary labor was deeply shaped by larger societal and economic forces of the Atlantic World.

The chapter provides an overview of the infrastucture concept and argues that it is both an economic and a political concept. It provides an overview of the interdisciplinary literature on infrastructure since the 1990s and situates the book in the debate about laissez-faire and the literature on the American state, taking the side of those who have argued in favor of deeper roots of the American state in the nineteenth century. It also provides chapter summaries and overviews.

In an ideal world, our research efforts would be omnific in nature, pursuing every conceivable scientific trajectory to understand the world with near-perfect precision. But limited by resources, this world does not exist. While we are nowhere near this state of omniscience, our understanding of the mechanisms by which medical science progresses have increased substantially over time. In fact, this knowledge is only likely to grow. The question is, given our knowledge of what influences the rate and direction, are we morally obligated to act upon this knowledge and adjust the trajectory? Chapter 23 reflects on whether medical science is truly morally neutral, the social role of science more broadly, and how we should define "true" progress in medical science going forward.

Chapter 9 is about how public institutions contribute to the trajectory of progress. The most common methods for public involvement are through creating institutions (universities, research facilities, etc.) and through distributing grants. There are any number of combinations by which governments and public institutions can give out grants, with each country having their own unique variation. These mechanisms are crucial in determining the rate and direction of progress. By supporting certain research areas, we commit to making progress in one area while potentially reducing it in others. The chapter is also concerned with how public funding differs from private funding, how important public funding is in steering the direction of research towards areas directly relevant to the common person, and how public funding has become more commercialized.

The goal of the final chapter is to examine the central role of necessities in the epistemological, moral and political theory of An Essay of Human Understanding and of the Two Treatises of Government. A study of the former shows Locke’s preoccupation with classical moral questions such as happiness and the ‘good objects of desires’ and how necessities helped him to strike a balance between tradition and the new science. As a rule of thumb of proper conduct, knowledge of necessities leads to the preservation of life, a human being’s most important duty to God. His doctrine of necessities is what made it possible for Locke to develop the theory of the public good with which, it is argued, he attempted to defeat the egoist theory of self-interest. Examination of his conception of property and money through the lens of human necessities shows a certain ambiguity in Locke’s normative ideals. Nevertheless, my conclusion is that above other considerations underlying the capital-oriented ideals of the period, the last word of Locke’s political theory is the public good represented by preservation and convenience for the commonwealth and, when possible, for the whole of humanity.

The scepticism of the period from roughly 1645 to 1680 prompted philosophers’ attempts to rethink theology and moral and civil philosophy in their search for ideas concerning the common and the public good. Ralph Cudworth’s effort to overcome the challenges posed by fragmentation in religion and politics and to develop a philosophy helpful in uniting society, but not at the expense of liberty, demonstrate that Neoplatonism was an important force during that period. In a sceptical era, John Selden contributed to particularism in natural law. A discussion of Sir Robert Filmer’s life and key political ideas together with the principles of political economy he espoused follows. Given the disintegration of moral theology in that period, the commercialization of societal ties seems to have been unstoppable. Against the Macphersonian critique of possessive individualism, the chapter puts forward the opening argument that both Hobbes and Locke sought to tame the harsh society characterized by the use of credit they saw before them and that they chose to do so by means of political philosophy and natural law.

In the conclusion to the book I offer an appeal to the distilled principles of the tradition of public humanism as associated with Plutarch reception and developed in the opening chapters of the book. I argue that the tradition of public humanism can inspire resistance to excessive cynicism towards the possibilities of public life and to renew some faith in contemporary democratic life.

Government’s task is to achieve the common good. If it takes a long time markets will not do it: banks do not lend beyond the payback time horizon. For better and worse, government acts as the risk taker of last resort. Laissez-faire arose out of the Victorian fossil fuel windfall. But rich societies see beyond the private horizons of business. After WW1 they set to safeguard security by means of infrastructure, healthcare, education, housing, and social insurance. Government authority, alone or in partnership with business, is prone to corruption. The antidote is an independent, expert, and honest civil service. In 1980 politics moved in the opposite direction, imposing business norms and seeking to impose a corporate model on government activity. An opportunistic public–private partnership is no match for pressing social challenges, nor is the academic delusion of self-sufficient free markets. In the face of private impatience, government acts as a commitment agent for society.

This chapter engages with ‘legacy’ in two respects. It argues that Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the so-called right to science, has no legacy. It has achieved only marginal real-world impact and remains largely aspirational – all potential. By contrast, Graeme Laurie’s legacy, grounded in the public good and a strong sense of humanism, is significant and informative. Through multiple strands and projects, he has engaged deeply with the social contract between actors in the health setting, developing and refining the tools that could be used to help shape science and science governance in positive ways. Through an exploration of Article 15 ICESCR and select examples of Graeme’s scholarship, this chapter argues that the manifestation of Graeme’s legacy – the calling upon of his legacy – is what we need to generate some positive legacy for the sadly fallow ‘right to science’ articulated in Article 15 ICESCR. If we do this, it might one day have a legacy of its own.