In this paper, I criticize two recent and influential arguments for no-platforming advanced by Robert Simpson and Amia Srinivasan and by Neil Levy, respectively. What both arguments have in common is their attempt to reconcile no-platforming with liberal values. For Simpson and Srinivasan, no-platforming does not contradict liberalism if grounded on the distinction between norms of free speech and norms of academic freedom; for Levy, those who defend the practice need not be accused of promoting paternalism. I argue that neither (...) view succeeds: these authors’ views are in strong tension with core tenets of liberalism. I proceed as follows: after introducing some basic liberal principles, I explain Simpson and Srinivasan’s argument in more detail and argue that it is too strong for some their stated purposes; then I proceed to show that both Simpson and Srinivasan and Levy’s arguments would justify extremely closed universities; finally, after arguing that Levy’s stance does not circumvent paternalism, I present some evidence that no-platforming would be captured by censors and probably threaten the very academic freedom that the authors want to protect. (shrink)

I argue that there are liberal reasons to reject what I call “Global Individualism”, which is the conjunction of two views strongly associated with liberalism: moral individualism and social individualism. According to the first view, all moral properties are reducible to individual moral properties. The second holds that the social world is composed only of individual agents. My argument has the following structure: after suggesting that Global Individualism does not misrepresent liberalism, I draw on some recent insights in social ontology (...) to show that it is inconsistent with the satisfaction of an important liberal principle related to the protection of individual rights over time. As I hold, to solve this problem we need to accept group agents acting as moral agents, which in turn commits us to the weaker notion of normative individualism (a view that is consistent with the existence of some group moral properties). I conclude with the suggestion that even this solution is costly for liberalism, for the conjunction of group moral agency and normative individualism makes the latter unstable and compels liberals to a much less individualistic stance than expected. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to show a tension in the nozickian entitlement theory. The tension is between the enforcement of the rectification principle in ideal epistemic conditions and the first two clauses of the theory. In order to do that, I argue that the principle of rectification in the above conditions entails a weird theoretical result: it is better applied under relative ignorance than under ideal conditions, which suggests that Nozick’s theory is too rigid. The underlying point is (...) that Nozick neglects some important aspects concerning the effects of time in property claims. I finish the paper suggesting that we can face this problem in two ways and that both imply costs. The first one is to keep the theory as it was conceived, accepting the objection that it is, in a way, implausible. Or we can change the theory and weaken its purely historical character. And it is not clear how this can be done without raising difficulties. (shrink)

Minha intenção neste artigo é mostrar uma tensão na teoria da titularidade nozickiana. A tensão é entre a aplicação do princípio de retificação em condições epistêmicas ideais e as duas primeiras cláusulas da teoria. Para tanto, mostro que a aplicação do princípio nas condições acima descritas acarreta um resultado teoricamente estranho: ele é mais bem aplicado sob relativa ignorância do que em condições ideais, o que provavelmente indica que a teoria de Nozick é exageradamente rígida. A sugestão de fundo é (...) a de que Nozick ignora certos aspectos importantes a respeito do modo como encaramos os efeitos do tempo nas reivindicações de propriedade. Finalizo com a sugestão de que há dois modos de encarar o problema e que ambos implicam custos. O primeiro é manter a teoria tal como foi concebida e arcar com a objeção de que ela é, de certa maneira, implausível. Ou podemos alterar a teoria de modo a enfraquecer seu caráter puramente histórico. E não é claro como isso pode ser feito sem suscitar dificuldades. (shrink)

Desde que Nozick publicou, em 1974, o clássico Anarquia, Estado e Utopia, muita tinta tem sido gasta na tarefa de discutir o que ficou conhecido como Teoria da Titularidade. Em linhas gerais, essa teoria busca estabelecer as condições de apropriação inicial, transferência e retificação de propriedade. Os filósofos ficaram especialmente interessados nas implicações anti-redistributivistas da argumentação de Nozick. Menos atenção, contudo, é dada à estrutura prévia de direitos individuais que Nozick ofereceu na primeira parte do livro. Será que ela pode (...) ser plausivelmente defendida? Neste artigo, defendo que ela sofre de tensões internas que a tornam uma base frágil para o projeto nozickiano. (shrink)