How Should We Act? Liberty and Society

Martin Coleman and Akiva Quinn will explore key ideas about personal liberty and social responsibility drawing mainly on Locke, Paine, Rousseau, Mill, Nozick and Rawls, which should provoke many questions.

Martin will discuss the ideas behind the essential libertarian and sovereign values of individuals, how we yearn to protect those values through community, and the motivation behind social and political parties to help govern and protect those rights. Through a study of the foundations of Locke, Paine and Mill, he will look at what rights we have, the actions we perform for ourselves and towards others and the obligations potentially implied through those connections.

Akiva will discuss the social contract tradition from Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau to political philosophers today and consider how individual liberty may relate to rights and responsibilities along with social wellbeing. The core liberal notions of 'self-ownership' and property rights will be considered and he will contrast libertarian principles of Nozick's minimal state with concerns via Rawls over not only liberty but also fairness, economic and social outcomes.