CORE
🇺🇦
make metadata, not war
Services
Services overview
Explore all CORE services
Access to raw data
API
Dataset
FastSync
Content discovery
Recommender
Discovery
OAI identifiers
OAI Resolver
Managing content
Dashboard
Bespoke contracts
Consultancy services
Support us
Support us
Membership
Sponsorship
Community governance
Advisory Board
Board of supporters
Research network
About
About us
Our mission
Team
Blog
FAQs
Contact us
research
William Godwin on the morality of freedom
Authors
Robert Lamb
Publication date
20 March 2013
Publisher
Imprint Academic Ltd
Abstract
© 2007 Imprint Academic. Published version reproduced with the permission of the publisher.This article argues that a commitment to individual freedom plays a crucial role in William Godwin's utilitarian political theory. In his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Godwin argues that morality is grounded not in rights but rather in duties and that each individual has a constant obligation to act in the way most conducive to the general good. Yet, despite this apparently strict act-utilitarianism, he does defend one key individual entitlement: the right to a sphere of discretion in which agents can exercise their own private judgment, a right that directly informs Godwin's critique of various social and political institutions. I argue that though his defence of individual freedom is an ultimately utilitarian one, its value is not contingent on consequentialist calculations
Similar works
Full text
Open in the Core reader
Download PDF
Available Versions
Supporting member
Open Research Exeter
See this paper in CORE
Go to the repository landing page
Download from data provider
oai:ore.exeter.ac.uk:10036/718...
Last time updated on 06/08/2013