Note: Below I review Chapter 4 (pp. 24-35) of Philip K. Howard’s new book, Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society, available here (Amazon).

In my previous post, I restated Philip Howard’s tautological definition of freedom (“People must have ‘everyday freedom’, by which I mean the individual authority … to act as they feel appropriate, constrained only by the boundaries of law and by norms …“), and I then posed the following key question: where should such boundaries be drawn? For his part, Mr Howard finally gets around to addressing the line-drawing problem in Chapter 4 of his book, so without further ado, here, in his own words, is Howard’s three-part answer:

1. Law should define boundaries safeguarding against unreasonable acts and enclosing an open field of freedom on which people can interact without fear of abuse or legal ramifications;
2. The legal boundaries should be defined mainly using broad principles, not detailed rules;
3. Law should restore clear lines of authority to interpret and enforce these legal principles. When norms are in flux, someone in authority must draw the line.

Howard 2024, p. 27

Alas, this supposed framework, to borrow a British idiom, is too clever by half, for instead of actually answering my line-drawing question, Mr Howard merely restates it! Simply put, he pulls out another rhetorical rabbit from his grab-bag of sophistic tricks. Take, for instance, item #1: “law should define boundaries …” (p. 27). Yes, but where? Specifically, what is “unreasonable”? Or item #3: “someone in authority must draw the line” (ibid.). Again, same reply: yes, but where? Circular reasoning, anyone?

Worse yet, putting aside Mr Howard’s tautological attempt to sidestep or avoid the all-important line-drawing problem, a strong case can be made that the remaining item on his list — item #2 — is flat-out wrong. In his excellent book Simple Rules for a Complex World, for example, Richard A. Epstein explains why simple rules are better than general standards. Alas, Mr Howard not only fails to cite Professor Epstein’s work; he also fails to engage with Epstein’s “simple rules” argument, let alone refute it, in any meaningful way.

Despite these glaring weaknesses, Howard does make some excellent points in the next chapter of his book, Chapter 5, which I shall review in my next post…