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.
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.
Perhaps Cafe Hayek should weigh in here.
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.
I bet the professor would stop getting satisfaction if he were unable to speak.
kevin,
Some are in better positions to get away with it
than others…
The wise professor apparently has not heard the mantra of administrators: “Don’t get mad, get even!”
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