Does the good trump freedom, or is it the other way around? The question is raised, once again, by what the Wall Street Journal on March 3 dubbed a “classroom sex show.” During a class held the week of Feb. 21, a tenured Northwestern University professor, John Michael Bailey, arranged for a married couple to stage an unorthodox sex act as part of a classroom demonstration on unconventional sexuality. Initially, the university supported Bailey’s decision, but more recently it has reversed its position.

The university’s ambivalence is indicative of more than a concern over alumni funding or sexual puritanism. It is also, and more substantially, symbolic of our general muddle over first principles. Should the right to choose outweigh the choiceworthiness of the item chosen, or should the goodness of the item trump the right to choose? In short, which comes first: Freedom or goodness?

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In reply to the WSJ article and to my remarks above, my friend Tony wrote,

Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. I’m all in favor of goodness ruling over freedom because goodness helps ‘tame’ freedom. Freedom, without goodness, can run amuck and be very destructive- Hitler, no? Goodness gives freedom a boundary. Good post Andrew!

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Hi Tony,

“Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.” Granted. “Goodness ruling over freedom”: Complicated. There are two common replies. Afterward, I stake out my position.

(1) “Good according to whom.” This “according to whom” can then go in 1 of 2 directions. In 1 direction, it refers to relativism: what may be good for John may not be good for Jane. So, the relativist would challenge the proposal that goodness applies to more than 1 person (of, if she is a cultural relativist, to more than 1 culture.). I disagree with relativism. See, e.g., this piece.

In the 2nd direction, “good according to whom” is a statement about legitimate authority. The concern is that, say, the Bolshevik Party may dictate how everyone lives and so not permit a space for personal freedom. The claim to virtue may quickly turn into a reign of terror.

(2) “Good for all of us.” The 2nd common reply is concerned with what’s “good for all of us.” Perhaps, the interlocutor might say, the claim that P is good for us is simply too demanding. Take perfection. Conceivably, it would be good for all of us to be perfect, yet such is impossible. Hence, the claim is overly demanding and in that sense self-defeating.

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I’m generally in agreement with you that the claim to freedom has, in most cases, won out over the claim to goodness. And this for two reasons: 1) We don’t have a shared understanding of the common good. In an uncertain world, skepticism, therefore, has become the rule. 2) In light of this, we have “retreated” to the claim of “negative freedom”: If institutions don’t work, then keep them out of our lives. Accordingly, we can be free.

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Now, in the present case, I’m not sure that a public demonstration of unconventional sexuality constitutes a public good–which is not the same thing as saying that unconventional sexuality shouldn’t be permitted.

Andrew