Freedom, Rights And Pornography

In the essays that follow, Fred Berger argues for freedom of expression, civil disobedience, affirmative action and what he calls liberal judicial activism and against sex-role stereotyping, paternalism and the censorship of pornography. Underlying his liberalism is a unified theory. That theory consists of a conception of rights, a theory of value and a theory of government. The conception of a right that Berger defends derives from J ohn Stuart Mill and is captured by what he calls &quote;the rights- formula&quote;: to have a right is to have important interests that society ought to protect as a matter of general rule (pp. 2, 7, 17-18, 19, 95). Since rights are to be protected by general rule, case-by-case consideration of consequences is ruled out (pp. 3, 18, 96) and neither modest increases in the general welfare, nor majority opinion, can justify the violation of a right (pp. 14-15; 17-18). Berger combines this view of the nature of a right with an objective theory of value according to which the important interests that ought to be protected are ones that people have &quote;whether they know them or not, whether they desire that in which they have an interest or not&quote; (p.