Abstract

Liberalism’s greatest success is its vindication of individual freedom, but it pays very little attention to the irreducibly social dimension of human experience, to the needs of social groups and to the vital social capital by which they elevate society. This paper proposes a concept of social freedom in an effort to balance the scales. The articulation of the concept of social freedom relies on insights from group dynamics literature within social psychology and contrasts with personal freedom, freedom of association, corporate personhood and constitutional self-government. Instrumental and intrinsic justifications are then offered as to why social freedom is worth protecting. Finally, possible avenues for the vindication of social freedom are explored. One of these is the principle of subsidiarity which is commonly implemented as a principle of comparative efficiency, but which offers greater potential if it is marshalled in the defence of social freedom.

Speaker 

Maria Cahill teaches law at University College Cork, Ireland. She is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin (LLB, 2003) and the European University Institute (LLM, 2004; PhD 2008). She lectured at the National University of Ireland, Galway, before joining the Faculty of Law at University College Cork in August 2008. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of European and Comparative Law at the University of Oxford in 2015. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the International Journal of Constitutional Law, Cambridge Law Journal, American Journal of Jurisprudence, German Law Journal, Dublin University Law Journal, Irish Jurist, and the Irish Journal of European Law. As a result, her ideas have been relied in a judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal and informed arguments in cases before the High Court and Supreme Court of Ireland as well as the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

This event is open to all members of the University of Oxford. To attend, please register here.

Aspects of Conservatism series

This event is part of the Aspects of Conservatism series exploring elements of a conservative outlook in more detail. The series is convened by Tom Simpson, Associate Professor of Philosophy & Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, and Senior Research Fellow, Wadham College, University of Oxford. Further details and a full list of the Aspects of Conservatism events are available here.