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A summary of all prescribed articles for the Philosphy of Administration Studies course of Public Administration at Tilburg University.
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PHILOSOPHY OF ADMINISTRATION STUDIES – PAPERSFreedom I
Swift, A. (2014). Part 2: Liberty in Political Philosophy, 3rd ed. Polity Press, pp. 57-73
There’s two notions of liberty: positive and negative liberty. Positive liberty is often associated with
totalitarian regimes, but Isaiah Berlin uses ‘positive freedom’ to mean a number of different things,
only some of which have totalitarian tendencies. Most readers of Berlin’s essay come away with the
idea that the difference between negative and positive liberty is that between ‘freedom from’ and
‘freedom to’. Advocates of negative liberty believe that freedom is essentially being free from things
(constraints, obstacles, or interference), whereas advocates of positive liberty hold that it is rather to
do with being free to do things. This is a mistake. The way to see this is to notice that all freedoms
are both freedoms ‘from’ and freedoms ‘to’. Freedom is a triadic relation. It necessarily involves
reference to three things: x (the agent or subject of freedom), y (the constraint or interference or
obstacle) and z (the goal or end) » x is (is not) free from y to do (not do, become, not become) z.
There are different conceptions of freedom, but just negative and positive is too crude.
1) Effective freedom vs. formal freedom. The difference between effective and formal
freedom is the difference between having the power or capacity to act in a certain way and
the mere absence of interference. The fact that nobody is preventing you from doing
something does not necessarily mean that you can actually do it. Example: in Britain, people
are free to go on holiday to the Bahamas. In Totalitaria there’s a law preventing citizens from
going on holiday. However, British citizens living in poverty might have the formal freedom to
go on holiday, but they don’t have the effective freedom. The argument can then be made, that
giving people money increases their effective freedom.
2) Freedom as autonomy vs. freedom as doing what one wants. The thought behind this
distin- ction is that somebody could be doing what she wanted without really ruling (or being in
control of, or governing) herself. An educated person might be regarded as more free than
an uneducated person in two ways: a) She will have more options available to her. b) An
educated person is more able to think for themselves and is thus more autonomous, more in
charge of their life, than somebody who hasn’t been educated. Autonomy is achieved when the
‘higher self’ is in control of the ‘lower self’. If you act in accordance with mere desire or emotion,
then you are not really in control, e.g. there’s more to freedom than doing what you want. Where
this idea gets dangerous, is when somebody else claims to know better than you.
3) Freedom as political participation vs. freedom beginning where politics ends. How can
people live under law yet still be free? a) The law itself promotes freedom » self-realization
through laws. b) We can do that if we live under laws we have given to ourselves.
What system for making the laws makes it most likely that individuals will enjoy negative freedom? A
self-governing republic, in which all citizens are actively engaged in politics. There’s something
parado-xical about this view. For the better protection of their own freedom, it may be necessary for
citizens to accept that they have duties to do things that they wouldn’t otherwise choose to do: vote,
keep in touch with political affairs, be prepared to die for their country.
Morrow, D. (2017). Chapter 1 – Facts, Opinions and Knowledge in Giving Reasons.
Facts are out there with or without our knowledge of them. There are even facts that nobody knows.
A fact then, is just something that’s true, whether anyone knows it’s true or not. An opinion, on the
other hand, is simply a belief that someone has, regardless of whether that belief is true or false,
proven or unproven. In addition to being true or false, beliefs can be justified or not. Roughly, that
means that the person whose belief it is may or may not have good reasons for holding that belief. If
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,they have good reason, we say their belief is justified. Often, people reserve the term opinion (or
mere opinion) for beliefs that aren’t justified. A belief that’s both true and justified is knowledge.
Freedom II
Excerpt from Wolff, J. ‘The Place of Liberty’ in An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 3rd ed. OUP.
pp 104-114
Even if democracy is the best system we can think of, it’s not a cure-all. It’s naïve to think that the
existence of democracy rules out injustice: the tyranny of the majority. Mill suggests that the powers
of representative democracy should be severely limited.
On what grounds may the state interfere to prohibit people from acting as they wish, or force them
to act against their wishes? Mill’s Liberty Principle announces that you may justifiably limit a person’s
freedom of action only if they threaten harm to another. Mill states that this principle applies to ‘any
member of a civilized community’, excluding children and barbarians.
Mill argues we have very good reason to welcome the advocacy even of unpopular views. If we
suppress a true view (or one that is partially true), then we lose the chance to exchange error, whole
or partial, for truth. But if we suppress a false view we lose in a different way: to challenge,
reconsider, and perhaps reaffirm, our true views. Is there really harm in suppressing a false view? We
must first ask howe we can be so sure that it is false, e.g. the world is flat/round.
Should we then accept limitations on freedom of thought? The usefulness of an opinion is itself
matter of opinions. If we don’t consider challenges to our opinion, then ‘however true it may be, if it
isn’t fully, frequently and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth’.
We can divide actions into two classes: purely self-regarding actions and other-regarding actions.
Other-regarding actions affect or involve at least one person. Purely self-regarding actions concern
only the agent, or if they do involve others it is with their free consent. Mill’s Liberty Principle, then,
comes down to the claim that, while we may regulate and supervise other-regarding actions, we
have no business interfering in self-regarding actions.
Le Gard, J. & New, B. (2015). ‘Paternalism and Policy’ in Government Paternalism, pp. 147-166
For any paternalistic policy designed to affect individual behaviour, there are four groups of people
engaging in that behaviour whose well-being and autonomy are likely to be affected. 1) Those who,
prior to the policy being introduced, do engage in the behaviour concerned, who suffer from
reasoning failure, and who are influenced by the policy. Example: smokers suffering from reasoning
failure who stop smoking as a result of a smoking ban. Since they suffer from reasoning failure, if the
state inter-venes in an appropriate fashion, then these individuals should have a net benefit from the
policy in terms of their well-being. 2) Those who engage in the behaviour, who don’t suffer from
reasoning failure, but who are nonetheless affected by the policy. Example: smokers without
reasoning failure who fully understand and properly take account of the long-term health risks and
yet have to stop smoking because of the regulation. These will suffer harm to their well-being from
the policy. 3) Those who engage in the behaviour, who suffer from reasoning failure, but who don’t
change their behaviour from the policy. Example: smokers with reasoning failure who defy the law
and don’t stop smoking. 4) Those who engage in the behaviour, who don’t suffer from reasoning
failure, and who also don’t change their behaviour. Example: smokers without reasoning failure who
also defy the law and don’t stop smoking. There would be no change in either of these groups’ well-
being as a result of the policy – unless the transgressors were caught and punished for not changing
their behaviour. The justification for a paternalistic policy in terms of well-being will depend on the
size of these four groups and how much each member is affected. More specifically a paternalistic
policy is more likely to be justified in the following cases: 1) The average benefits in terms of well-
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,being to individuals in the first group is large. 2) The average cost to individuals in the second group is
small. 3) The number of those in the first group is large relative to those in the second group. 4) The
number of those in the third group is small relative to the number in the fourth group. Well-being is
traded off against autonomy. Almost all the individuals affected by the policy are likely to suffer a loss
of perceived autonomy and, in many cases, also a loss of actual autonomy. There are four principal
types of policy intervention that are potentially paternalistic: interventions involving a) legal
restrictions, b) taxation or negative financial incentives, c) subsidy or positive financial incentives, d)
those arising from libertarian paternalism, including nudging or framing interventions. In all cases, if
autonomy is viewed as simply requiring the existence of choice, there will be relatively little loss in
autonomy (as compared with a legal restriction) since the choice of whether to undertake the activity
(or how much to undertake) remains open. If the degree of autonomy is dependent on the amount
and the nature of the choices available (the choice set) autonomy in this case will be reduced. There
are four categories of reasoning failure: a) limited technical ability, b) limited imagination, c) limited
willpower, d) limited objectivity.
Suffer from reasoning failure Don’t suffer from reasoning failure
Group 1: smokers suffering from Group 2: smokers without reasoning failure who fully
Stop the
reasoning failure who stop understand and properly take account of the long-
(harmful)
smoking as a result of a smoking term health risks and yet have to stop smoking
behaviour
ban. because of the regulation.
Continue the Group 3: smokers with reasoning
Group 4: smokers without reasoning failure who also
(harmful) failure who defy the law and
defy the law and don’t stop smoking
behaviour don’t stop smoking.
Morrow, D. (2017). ‘Chapter 2 – Justification’ in Giving Reasons
Occasionally, we’re justified in believing something because it’s true by definition (e.g. blue is a
colour): justification by definition. Sometimes, we’re justified in believing something because we’ve
seen it to be true with our own eyes: justification by perception. You could also rely on other people
telling you about what they perceived: justification by testimony. Here we have a problem similar to
the problem with justification by perception: to rely on justification by testimony, we have to be
confident that the people giving the testimony are telling us the truth – and that they are right about
what they perceived. Sometimes we learn things from people who know what they’re talking about,
even though they didn’t perceive it themselves: justification by authority. The difference between
justification by testimony and justification by authority is that someone can be an authority on
something without having directly perceived that thing. Sources of justification by authority must be:
a) well-informed about the particular topic, b) impartial – that is, unbiased. Note that both of these
qualities can be easy to fake on the internet. Sometimes is happens that experts don’t agree.
Especially when we aren’t qualified to decide for ourselves, we’re often justified in relying on the
(majority) consensus of experts. The most important way to justify a belief is by giving convincing
reasons for it: justification by reasoning.
Kuczerawy, A. (2019). ‘Fighting Online Disinformation Did the EU Code of Practice Forget about
Freedom of Expression?’ in Disinformation and Digital Media as a Challenge for Democracy
The problem of disinformation online is a source of growing concern for EU policy makers. The
purpose of the Code of Practice is to identify actions that the signatories could put in place in order
to address the challenges posed by disinformation online. The EU policy makers define
‘disinformation’ as ‘verifiably false or misleading information’ which is both ‘created, presented and
disseminated for economic gain or to intentionally deceive the public’ and may cause public harm,
intended as ‘threats to democratic political and policymaking processes as well as public goods such
as the protection of EU citizens’ health, the environment or security’. This essay doesn’t dispute the
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, position that disinfor-mation may have a negative impact on democracy, nor that the problem needs
to be addressed. However, enlisting private platforms to suppress dissemination of online content
that isn’t illegal may have unintended consequences. In particular, this essay focuses on two
questions: 1) What are the policy implications of co-opting private entities to regulate speech? 2)
What safeguards could be intro-duced into the Code to help mitigate the risks to freedom of
expression? The Code proposes actions and describes commitments in five areas: 1) Scrutiny of ad
placements. 2) Political advertising and issue-based advertising. 3) Integrity of services. 4)
Empowering consumers. 5) Empowering the research community. The Code also contains a plan for
monitoring its effectiveness and implementa-tion. The Code on disinformation, doesn’t require
removals of content but merely its demotion. After all, users only spend a certain amount of time
looking for information. If something ends up at the bottom of the search, less people will look at it.
Effectively, the instrument co-opts private companies to regulate online speech – a public policy
objective. Safeguarding the right to freedom of expression requires introduction of procedural
measures that would improve fairness and proportionality and install elements of due process in the
Code. This essay proposes a handful of measures that might be considered, namely: 1) Introducing
notifications to the content provider. The notification should inform the content provider that a
complaint has been filed against their content and about the nature of the complaint. 2) Counter
notification. The ability to file a counter-notification would allow content providers to file an
objection to the complaints made against their content, and therefore, operationa-lize the rights to a
fair hearing, adversarial proceedings and equality of arms. 3) Appeal mechanisms. The procedure
that enlists platforms to make decisions about content should include a step allowing for correction
of any initial decision. 4) Improved monitoring of the functioning of the Code.
Justice I
Tuckness, A., & Wolf, C. (2016). ‘Chapter 4 Justice’ in This is Political Philosophy: An Introduction, pp.
81-101 (omit Communitarian Critique, pg. 96)
Obligations of justice are based on the rights of others: when people fail to meet these obligations,
the people whose rights have been violated become their victims or complaints. Physical actions can
be forced, but the internal actions of conscience and passion and thought are beyond the reach of
others. Most people already have views about which obligations should be enforced by the states.
Rawl’s theory of justice: the principles of justice are those people would choose as the terms of a
contract about the basic structure of society. Unfair circumstances detract from the power of mutual
agreement. Ignorance of an outcome (e.g. cutting up a cake in equal slices) leads to a fairer choice.
What Rawls calls ‘the original position’ is a variation on this. Rawls tries to describe circumstances
that would remove all possible distorting factors that might make a contract unfair. Even if
agreements in the real world often occur under unfair circumstances, we can imagine conditions that
would generate a fair agreement. 1) No one knows the details of their or others’ particular place in
society or of the particular philosophy, religion, or concept of ‘the good life’ that they hold. 2) Each
person does know that there are certain things everyone typically wants, regardless of their beliefs;
such as economic resources and civil liberties. 3) The people making the agreement think of
themselves as representing others, whose identities are also hidden, who will live under the
principles of justice so chosen. 4) The decision must be unanimous and must involve rules that
people will be willing to follow even after they know more about themselves and those they
represent. According to Rawls, the veil of ignorance (if we had one) would deprive us of any
knowledge we might use to make the social contract unfair. If you don’t know who you are in society,
then you can’t rig the system to advantage yourself. It also guarantees that agreement will be
unanimous: unanimity would be impossible if each person insisted that justice should match their
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