Glenn Newey – Liberalism’s Dirty Secret: Property, Slavery and Freedom (Studium Generale)

Liberalism is conventionally taken to be an ideology of freedom. This lecture will survey some key texts in the history of modern liberalism, arguing that liberalism’s origins are more ambiguous than this conventional picture suggests. Some key liberal thinkers such as John Locke and Hugo Grotius, influenced by classical writers who took slavery for granted, were ready and willing to justify slavery. These writers also influenced American revolutionary thought (not least in the writing of the US Constitution), where an understanding of liberty as property-ownership led to a defence of slavery as promoting liberty.

The speaker
Glen Newey, Professor of Political Philosophy and Ethics, Institute for Philosophy, Leiden University

Free entrance. 
Open to all. 
No advance registration required.