… is from page 108 of the hot-of-the-press (2020) splendid work by Deirdre McCloskey and Alberto Mingardi, The Myth of the Entrepreneurial State:
[F]ree will is meaningless unless it is free. Freedom means the freedom to sin, too.
DBx: Note – as Deirdre and Alberto repeatedly and rightly do – that freedom does not include the freedom to harm the persons or property of non-consenting others. But it does include the freedom to harm yourself and consenting others, as well as to discombobulate the sensibilities of officious, pretentious, arrogant, and haughty third parties. And heaven knows that humanity has no shortage of officious, pretentious, arrogant, and haughty third parties. Some are on the political left, some in the political middle, and some on the political right. All peddle ideas and ideals that threaten freedom and prosperity.
