5 ms·

It's a far stretch to say a philosopher (JS Mill) who is widely known as one of the foremost voices on "negative liberty" is a significant influence on the noti

It's a far stretch to say a philosopher (JS Mill) who is widely known as one of the foremost voices on "negative liberty" is a significant influence on the notion that governments must ensure a citizen's "right to flourish".

dcre 2y ago
You are arguing with a fact: Mill's influence on Nussbaum. Reconsider. You also clearly don't know anything about Mill, whose writing is all about what you say it's not. "Though Mill is an advocate of limited government in ways that one might expect given his defense of basic liberties in On Liberty, he is no libertarian. He emphatically rejects the idea that legitimate government is limited to the functions of affording protection against force and fraud (PPE V.i.2). Instead, he thinks that there are a variety of ways in which government can and should intervene in the lives of citizens—sometimes as coercer and other times as enabler or facilitator—in order to promote the common good." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#LibDemComGoo https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#Lib...
- scythe 2y ago
  You can't reduce philosophy to the people involved. After all, the foundations of neoconservatism drew heavily on ideas introduced by Trotskyists [1]. That's about as dramatic of a political about-face as it gets. 1: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/1995-07-01/trotskyism-anachronism https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/1995-07-...
  - dcre 2y ago
    The person I'm responding to is wrong on both the people and the substance.
    - richardanaya 2y ago
      I'm wrong that Nussbaum wants people to involuntarily serve the needs of others?
      - dcre 2y ago
        You have a very simplistic understanding of what is voluntary and what is involuntary, and taking such an understanding as the basis of your moral and political thinking can only lead to utter confusion.
        richardanaya 2y ago
        What's hard for you to understand about the word "voluntary?"
        sprucevoid 2y ago
        how the word "voluntary" is actually used by people is complex in interesting ways. People report (degrees and shades of) involuntariness and coercion in lots of different situations. For example "I hate this shitty job but I don't have a choice". So as a matter of language use there's lots of different kinds of involuntariness that doesn't cleanly map onto any libertarian-ish view. At which point libertarians tend to make the move of proposing their own, much more narrow definition of "voluntary". Which implicitly embeds normative assumptions that would need to be argued for, which libertarians fail to do.
        immibis 2y ago
        A man points a gun at me. He says: Give me the money, or die. I make the voluntary decision to give him the money.
- slibhb 2y ago
  What do you think Mill would say about Nussbaum's capabilities approach? Whether or not "Mill was a libertarian," my sense is that he would object on basically libertarian grounds (i.e. he would see CA as paternalism).
  - dcre 2y ago
    To me it is fundamentally a Millian approach to the question. "Mill thinks that the state can and should require parents to provide schooling for their children, ensuring that this kind of education is available to all, regardless of financial circumstances, by subsidizing the costs of education for the poor so that it is available free or at a nominal cost." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#LibDemComGoo https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#Lib...
    - slibhb 2y ago
      It's fundamentally not Mill's approach. As a utilitarian, Mill got to dodge questions like "what is human flourishing?" Nussbaum, I believe, refers to her interpretation of virtue ethics to answer that question and give CA ultimate grounding. I'd be wary of quoting that article like it's some authority. At a glance, it reads as skeptical of Mill. The harm principle is the basis of his thinking and he was very concerned about paternalism. I think it's quite likely he would view CA as an overreach.
      - sprucevoid 2y ago
        > As a utilitarian, Mill got to dodge questions like "what is human flourishing?" What do you mean? What is the thing that utilitarian founders like Mill wanted to promote in the world? How is that not connected to human flourishing?
        slibhb 2y ago
        Utilitarism says that we should maximize utility; it doesn't say we have to do so by focusing on "human flourishing" or that every individual must get the same capabilities as Nussbaum does. Moreover, utiliarians don't agree about what utility is, and not all of them would say "human flourishing" is a synonym.

dcre 2y ago

You are arguing with a fact: Mill's influence on Nussbaum. Reconsider. You also clearly don't know anything about Mill, whose writing is all about what you say it's not. "Though Mill is an advocate of limited government in ways that one might expect given his defense of basic liberties in On Liberty, he is no libertarian. He emphatically rejects the idea that legitimate government is limited to the functions of affording protection against force and fraud (PPE V.i.2). Instead, he thinks that there are a variety of ways in which government can and should intervene in the lives of citizens—sometimes as coercer and other times as enabler or facilitator—in order to promote the common good." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#LibDemComGoo https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#Lib...

scythe 2y ago
You can't reduce philosophy to the people involved. After all, the foundations of neoconservatism drew heavily on ideas introduced by Trotskyists [1]. That's about as dramatic of a political about-face as it gets. 1: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/1995-07-01/trotskyism-anachronism https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/1995-07-...
- dcre 2y ago
  The person I'm responding to is wrong on both the people and the substance.
  - richardanaya 2y ago
    I'm wrong that Nussbaum wants people to involuntarily serve the needs of others?
    - dcre 2y ago
      You have a very simplistic understanding of what is voluntary and what is involuntary, and taking such an understanding as the basis of your moral and political thinking can only lead to utter confusion.
      - richardanaya 2y ago
        What's hard for you to understand about the word "voluntary?"
        sprucevoid 2y ago
        how the word "voluntary" is actually used by people is complex in interesting ways. People report (degrees and shades of) involuntariness and coercion in lots of different situations. For example "I hate this shitty job but I don't have a choice". So as a matter of language use there's lots of different kinds of involuntariness that doesn't cleanly map onto any libertarian-ish view. At which point libertarians tend to make the move of proposing their own, much more narrow definition of "voluntary". Which implicitly embeds normative assumptions that would need to be argued for, which libertarians fail to do.
        immibis 2y ago
        A man points a gun at me. He says: Give me the money, or die. I make the voluntary decision to give him the money.
slibhb 2y ago
What do you think Mill would say about Nussbaum's capabilities approach? Whether or not "Mill was a libertarian," my sense is that he would object on basically libertarian grounds (i.e. he would see CA as paternalism).
- dcre 2y ago
  To me it is fundamentally a Millian approach to the question. "Mill thinks that the state can and should require parents to provide schooling for their children, ensuring that this kind of education is available to all, regardless of financial circumstances, by subsidizing the costs of education for the poor so that it is available free or at a nominal cost." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#LibDemComGoo https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#Lib...
  - slibhb 2y ago
    It's fundamentally not Mill's approach. As a utilitarian, Mill got to dodge questions like "what is human flourishing?" Nussbaum, I believe, refers to her interpretation of virtue ethics to answer that question and give CA ultimate grounding. I'd be wary of quoting that article like it's some authority. At a glance, it reads as skeptical of Mill. The harm principle is the basis of his thinking and he was very concerned about paternalism. I think it's quite likely he would view CA as an overreach.
    - sprucevoid 2y ago
      > As a utilitarian, Mill got to dodge questions like "what is human flourishing?" What do you mean? What is the thing that utilitarian founders like Mill wanted to promote in the world? How is that not connected to human flourishing?
      - slibhb 2y ago
        Utilitarism says that we should maximize utility; it doesn't say we have to do so by focusing on "human flourishing" or that every individual must get the same capabilities as Nussbaum does. Moreover, utiliarians don't agree about what utility is, and not all of them would say "human flourishing" is a synonym.