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| Ayesha
Speaking
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 I like to
remind people of the Oxford philosopher T. H. Green. Green was one of the early proponents of what was called British Idealism. He once gave a famous lecture on the freedom of contract. Green argued that the purpose of the state was to provide the conditions under which each citizen could make the best of himself or herself. Another way of saying this was that the state should "maintain the conditions without which a free exercise of the human faculties is impossible."
He had a concept of the common good, and his views on the proper role of the state and the basis of individual rights was derived from that concept.He concluded that the state was justified in not allowing "freedom of contract" to keep it from preventing low wage bargains. He appealed to what he called "the public interest" to justify regulation. Green argued that the state could intervene in a variety of cases: for the public good, when one party to a contract is effectively helpless, when the contract undermines the purpose of enforcing contracts in general, and when the contract undermines the purpose of society -- that is, to allow each person to develop his or her faculties. |
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