Marginal Revolution: The Liberty not to be Subordinate

November
S	M	T	W	Th	F	St
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30

« Assorted links | Main | European secularism »

The Liberty not to be Subordinate

I once asked a wise professor of mine what the best thing about being a professor was. He replied, "The fact that I can go into the office of the department chair, tell him he's an #*$!%! and there's not a damn thing he can do about it." Shocked, I said, "but you're a level headed, nice guy, you would never want to do that." He replied "yeah, I never would, but the thought that I could if wanted to is worth a huge amount."

The lesson? Liberty is not always an instrumental value subordinate to positive capabilities.

Posted by Alex Tabarrok on March 24, 2007 at 07:20 AM in Education, Philosophy, Political Science | Permalink

Comments

No, it's an instrumental value subordinate to doing what you want or may want to do in the future. I assume your point is that liberty is on this account somehow intrinsically valuable but you've failed to make that point. Simply because the end to which liberty is a means is not specific, it does not make it intrinsic. It is simply non-specifically instrumentally valuable. (See Carter "A Measure of Freedom" or Kramer "The Quality of Freedom" for detailed discussion of this.

Posted by: jdsm at Mar 24, 2007 8:41:14 AM

Alex,

Does this mean that you are weighing in on the side of
Tyler and Mankiw and against Levitt and Arnold Kling in
the great tenure kerfuffle? Needless to say, it is tenure
that gives an academic, at least a tenured one, the "right"
to do that. One has the right to do the same thing in any
job. One will not get thrown in jail after all (First Amendment
and all that). It is just that one is very likely to get
fired from one's job if one does so.

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Mar 24, 2007 9:01:10 AM

Perhaps Cafe Hayek should weigh in here.

Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Mar 24, 2007 10:01:12 AM

jdsm your point is well taken but rather than an expected value calculation I think the point expressed by the speaker was more an existential value.

Barkley, I think tenure works well when the inflation rate is at least 2-4%! You will know why!

Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Mar 24, 2007 11:45:37 AM

Alex when I read the first part of your story I thought you were referring to me, but then I saw the "level headed nice guy" bit and realized it must have been some OTHER wise professor.

Posted by: kevin at Mar 24, 2007 2:30:00 PM

Kevin - haven't you already taken advantage of that liberty? More than once! :)

Alex

Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Mar 24, 2007 3:14:22 PM

I bet the professor would stop getting satisfaction if he were unable to speak.

Posted by: Steven Schreiber at Mar 24, 2007 5:21:44 PM

LOL, Yes (and as an aside to Barkley, before I was tenured)!!!

Posted by: kevin at Mar 24, 2007 5:37:47 PM

kevin,

Some are in better positions to get away with it
than others...

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Mar 24, 2007 6:06:44 PM

Alex, you realize that this is precisely one of the great benefits of unions -- they make it possible for an ordinary worker to talk to the boss as an equal without worrying about being fired for it?

Posted by: K. Williams at Mar 24, 2007 8:23:22 PM

The wise professor apparently has not heard the mantra of administrators: "Don't get mad, get even!"

Posted by: mike at Mar 26, 2007 1:46:02 PM

liqingchao 07年8月14日

google排名
 google排名
 wow gold
wow gold
powerleveling
powerleveling
wow gold
wow gold
powerleveling
powerleveling
wow powerleveling
wow powerleveling
wow power leveling
wow power leveling
wow power level
wow power level
world of warcraft powerleveling
world of warcraft powerleveling
world of warcraft power leveling
world of warcraft power leveling