The problem of nonsacrificeable life-quality freedom - George

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 As Allen points out, understanding life-quality freedom as both positive and nonsacrificeable challenges the traditional liberal view of positive freedoms, and thereby places a higher and more complex ethical burden on society. Her and King's understanding of life-quality freedom, however, does not change the structure of the relationship between freedoms and material goods. It simply moves those material goods necessary for life-quality freedom to the side of the equation with other nonsacrifceable freedoms such as "autonomy, association, and expression." 

Allen describes exactly how these nonsacrifeable freedoms interact: "freedom can be restricted to to expand freedom or to ensure that all have the same basic liberties." Life-quality freedom for a single person, and the provision of "basic goods" towards material well-being that it entails, can therefore be foregone to maximize the combined life-quality freedom and traditional nonsacrificeable freedoms. Those traditional nonsacrificeable freedoms can also be foregone to the same end. 

The liberal view that King challenges already entails tradeoffs. For example, society can and should restrict your freedom of expression to prevent interference in my freedom of association if the damage to the latter without the restriction is greater than the damage to the former caused by the restriction. With the addition of nonsacrificeable positive liberty, the structure of the tradeoff does not change. Society can and should restrict your freedom of association to prevent interference in the provision of material goods for life-quality freedom, for example, if the damage to the latter without the restriction is greater than the damage to the former caused by the restriction. 

King's theory of life-quality freedom admittedly makes balancing the nonsacrifceable freedoms much harder. Under his and Allen's vision, society has to determine when the provision of material goods has created a level of life-quality freedom that makes restricting a negative liberty, like autonomy, no longer expansive or equalizing of aggregate nonsacrificeable freedom. This is a difficult excercise, and one that Allen calls for political economists and utility theorists to refine. Crucially, however, balancing between nonsacrificeable liberties is an exercise familiar to the liberal ethical tradition as Allen describes it.


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