A Third Concept of Liberty: Judgment and Freedom in Kant and Adam Smith

This text explores a third definition of liberty. In Samuel Fleischacker’s view, Kant and Adam Smith think of liberty as a matter of acting on our capacity for judgement, thereby differing from those who tie it to the satisfaction of our desires and those who translate it as action in accordance with reason or “will”. Integrating the thought of Kant and Adam Smith, and developing his own stand through readings of the “Critique of Judgement” and “The Wealth of Nations” Fleischacker shows how different acting on one’s best judgement is from acting on one’s desires – how. in particular, good judgment, as opposed to mere desire, can flourish only in favourable social and political conditions. At the same time every individual must do for him or herself, hence not something that philosophers and politicians who reason better can do in everyones stead.For this reason advocates of a liberty based on judgment are likely to be more concerned than are libertarians to make sure that government provides people with conditions for the use of their liberty, such as excellent standards of education, health care and unemployment insurance, while at the same time promoting a less paternalistic view of government than most of the movements associated for the past 30 years with the political left.