My Freedom, My Rights, and the End of the Social Contract

Deeper Dive - DSU's podcast

In the last two years we have seen an explosion in assertion of “absolute freedom” and “absolute rights” in the social and political crisis surrounding vaccines and the government’s authority to mandate vaccines.

Throughout the country, people have asserted an irreducible freedom and an unconditional right to “decide” whether to accept the vaccination.

This is understanding and assertion of freedom and rights are yet another example of an extraordinary confusion about the core philosophical and political ideas that animate the American Political experiment.

In this episode we explore historical and philosophical story surrounding the Modern, and the Modern Liberal notion of Freedom and Natural Rights and, we identify the difference between original and political Freedom, and between Natural Rights and Civil Rights.