Leslie Green asks What is Freedom for? Answer:
- Two conceptions of the value of political freedom are popular. According to one, freedom serves autonomy, creating one's own path through life. According to the other, freedom serves authenticity, keeping faith with an identity one did not choose. This paper bridges the gap between these views in several ways. It shows that autonomy embraces some of the unchosen aspects of life that authenticity stresses, and that authenticity is consistent with scope for choice within an unchosen identity. It is also shows that both views share a stake in a neglected value, self-knowledge. Partisans of authenticity cannot keep faith with their identity if they do not know what it truly is. Partisans of autonomy cannot choose a path in life without knowing what the options are for them, and these options can be affected instrumentally and constitutively by their identity, which they therefore have a stake in knowing. Of course, there can be more than one sound argument in favor of freedom. But contrary to what many suppose, autonomy and authenticity are complementary, not competing, in making that case. The differences between them are matters of nuance and degree.
I saw the following quotes on Murphy's blog from David Cameron. Below:
ReplyDeleteThe Prime Minister said he intended to put the issue at the heart of the agenda when the heads of G8 group of leading nations meet in the UK this summer
“It’s simply not fair and not right what some of them are doing by saying: ‘I’ve got lots of sales here in the UK but I’m going to pay a sort of royalty fee to another company that I own in another country that has some special tax dispensation.’
“That is not right, and so we are looking at it.
“I’m chairing the G8 this year so I’m going to be getting the Americans and the French and the Germans and the Italians and the Japanese all to look at this together at how can we try and stop unfair tax farming practices.”
So one has to notice one or perhaps two countries "missing" depending on whether you look at this as a G7 or G8(One missing country is Russia I leave it the reader to figure out the other). Is this just an oversight or does Cameron know something we don't that that missing country is going to play a "spoiler" role in Cameron big tax evasion crackdown.