Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T12:15:05.578Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Liberal Ethics of Non-Interference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2017

Marco Mariotti  and
Roberto Veneziani
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article analyses the liberal ethics of non-interference in social choice. It examines a liberal principle that captures non-interfering views of society and is inspired by John Stuart Mill’s conception of liberty. The principle expresses the idea that society should not penalize individuals after changes in their situation that do not affect others. The article highlights an impossibility for liberal approaches: every social decision rule that satisfies unanimity and a general principle of non-interference must be dictatorial. This raises some important issues for liberal approaches in social choice and political philosophy.

Keywords

liberalismnon-interferenceharm principlesocial choiceimpossibility
Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 567 - 584
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

School of Economics and Finance, Queen Mary University of London (emails: [email protected], [email protected]). Special thanks go to Costanze Binder, Richard Bradley, Ben Ferguson, Mark Fey, Martin van Hees and John Roemer for detailed comments on an earlier draft. We thank José Carlos Rodriguez Alcantud, Elizabeth Anderson, Roland Bénabou, Ken Binmore, Matthew Braham, Marc Fleurbaey, Wulf Gaertner, Conrad Heilmann, Ted Honderich, Michele Lombardi, Tibor Machan, François Maniquet, Paola Manzini, Juan Moreno-Ternero, Jan Narveson, Ariel Rubinstein, Itai Sher, Robert Sugden, two anonymous referees, the Editor of this journal and audiences at the London School of Economics, Columbia University, the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), University of Bayreuth, VU Amsterdam, Hitotsubashi University, the University of Padova, the Midwest Political Science Association Conference (Chicago), the New Directions in Welfare Conference (Oxford) and the Formal Ethics Conference (Rotterdam) for comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies. Online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123417000576.

References

Anderson, Elizabeth S. 1991. J. S. Mill’s Experiments in Living. Ethics 102:4–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berger, Fred R. 1984. Happiness, Justice, and Freedom. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Braham, Matthew, and van Hees, Martin. 2014. The Impossibility of Pure Libertarianism. Journal of Philosophy 111:420–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Danley, John R. 1979. Robert Nozick and the Libertarian Paradox. Mind 88:419–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinberg, Joel. 1984–8. The Moral Limits to the Criminal Law, 4 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, Allan M., and Serrano, Roberto. 2008. Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem: Two Simple Single-Profile Versions. Mimeo: Brown University.Google Scholar
Fleurbaey, Marc, and Mongin, Philippe. 2005. The News of the Death of Welfare Economics is Greatly Exaggerated. Social Choice and Welfare 25:381–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Daniel. 2000. Mill on Liberty, Speech and the Free Society. Philosophy and Public Affairs 29:276–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lombardi, Michele, Miyagishima, Kaname, and Veneziani, Roberto. 2016. Liberal Egalitarianism and the Harm Principle. The Economic Journal 126:2173–2196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mariotti, Marco, and Veneziani, Roberto. 2009. Non-Interference Implies Equality. Social Choice and Welfare 32:123–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mariotti, Marco, and Veneziani, Roberto. 2013. The Impossibility of Non-Interference in Paretian Social Judgements. Journal of Economic Theory 148:1689–1699.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mariotti, Marco, and Veneziani, Roberto. 2014. The Liberal Ethics of Non-Interference and the Pareto Principle, DP 1404, University of St Andrews.Google Scholar
McCloskey, Henry J. 1963. Mill’s Liberalism. The Philosophical Quarterly 13:143–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McQuillin, Ben, and Sugden, Robert. 2011. The Representation of Alienable and Inalienable Rights: Games in Transition Function Form. Social Choice and Welfare 37:683–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, John S. 1859. On Liberty. London: J. W. Parker.Google Scholar
Rees, John C. 1991. A Re-Reading of Mill On Liberty. In J.S. Mill’s ‘On Liberty’ in Focus, edited by John Gray and G. W. Smith, 169–189. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Riley, Jonathan. 1985. On the Possibility of Liberal Democracy. The American Political Science Review 79:1135–1151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riley, Jonathan. 1998. Mill on Liberty. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ripstein, Arthur. 2006. Beyond the Harm Principle. Philosophy and Public Affairs 34:215–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roemer, John E. 1996. Theories of Distributive Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya K. 1970. The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal. Journal of Political Economy 78:152–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Amartya K.. 1976. Liberty, Unanimity and Rights. Economica 43:217–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Amartya K.. 1981. Plural Utility. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81:193–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Amartya K.. 1983. Liberty and Social Choice. Journal of Philosophy 80:5–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Amartya K.. 1992. Minimal Liberty. Economica 59:139–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Amartya K.. 1999. The Possibility of Social Choice. American Economic Review 89:349–378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, Robert. 1993. Rights: Why Do They Matter, and To Whom? Constitutional Political Economy 4:127–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ten, Chin L. 1980. Mill on Liberty. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Vernon, Richard. 1996. John Stuart Mill and Pornography: Beyond the Harm Principle. Ethics 106:621–632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wellman, Christopher H. 1996. Liberalism, Samaritanism, and Political Legitimacy. Philosophy and Public Affairs 25:211–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Mariotti and Veneziani supplementary material

Mariotti and Veneziani supplementary material 1

Download Mariotti and Veneziani supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 96.6 KB