Kant and “Can’t”: Practical Necessity and the Diminution of Options

Kant and “Can’t”: Practical Necessity and the Diminution of Options

Description

States and institutions in both conventionally authoritarian and formally democratic societies overtly circumscribe freedom in any number of ways. Yet there are also subtler forms by which authorities and cultural forces compromise the choices of individuals in ways that do not seem, at first glance, to be coercive. This book brings together a distinguished set of scholars to examine covert constraints on academic, political, and economic freedom from a variety of angles, developing surprising and timely new insights. Ranging across philosophy, economics, law, health, science, art, and the media, luminaries from different fields expose threats to freedom within avowedly liberal and democratic institutions and cultures. Their incisive essays, both analytical and historical, emphasize how economic inequality, academic orthodoxy, media control, racism, and gender roles undermine the potential for human flourishing. By considering such multifarious noncoercive threats, they illuminate the vexed notion of freedom. Lively and learned, this book offers a provocative and urgent understanding of the often-unacknowledged forces that restrict our choices.

First Page

15

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7312/bilg21855-003

Source Publication

Noncoercive Threats to Academic, Political, and Economic Freedom

Source Editors/Authors

Akeel Bilgrami, Jonathan R. Cole

Publication Date

12-2-2025

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Kant and “Can’t”: Practical Necessity and the Diminution of Options

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