Freedom for Sale: The body between choice and market // Valentina Pazé

January 2023, Bollati, 192 pages

Original title: Libertà in vendita. Il corpo fra scelta e mercato

#bedenpolitikaları #özgürlük

From the freedom to sell oneself – prostitution out of necessity or choice – to the freedom to donate oneself – surrogate motherhood – from the freedom to die – suicide terrorists – to the freedom to submit – the wearing of the burqa. Our freedom has lost the characteristics of the modern tradition by conforming to the market and consumerism. Only bonds of social solidarity can lay the bases for a new conception of “being free”.

The much-vaunted freedom that is at the base of our democracies assumes new and subtle forms of self-exploitation in the present market system. From the world of Homer, at the mercy of the gods and destiny, to classical Greece, which counted murder committed in a state of anger as an involuntary – unpunishable – act, to the remote debate between Grotius and Rousseau on the lawfulness of voluntary slavery, the assumptions and limitations of “freedom of will” and its ethical and political implications never cease to raise difficult questions. According to whether, with Plato, we portray ourselves as free and responsible subjects, or, with Spinoza, we believe that our actions are shaped to a large extent by the circumstances in which we are born and live, our ideas of blame, merit and responsibility change. The reflection is more typical than ever today and this short pamphlet explores, critically and without prejudice, the most relevant contemporary political debates on the subject.

Contents

Chapter 1. What freedom? Between physics and metaphysics

Chapter 2. The freedom to sell oneself? Prostitution

Chapter 3. The freedom to donate oneself (and donate)? Surrogate motherhood

Chapter 4. The freedom to submit? The mystery of veiled women

Chapter 5. What freedom? Between law and politics