Perversion of Autonomy: The Proper Uses of Coercion and Constraints in a Liberal Society

by Willard Gaylin, Bruce Jennings

Civilization depends on the community's right to insist on certain conduct from its citizens. But today, our misguided reverence for individual freedom has denied the community its right, to the detriment of everyone. In this elegant and trenchant attack on all the "individual rights" laws that are increasingly endangering America, Gaylin and Jennings use tragic and all-too-familiar examples to show the extent to which the individual rights movement has run amok.

270 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1996

Reviews

[Josh Fogelson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read a lot of academic books but this one was written in an especially convuluted and boring style. Seemed like I would read page after page waiting for the author's ideas and insights to emerge, but they never really did. Maybe the book is outdated or because I live in an urban city their big conclusions, such as mentally ill people don't deserve full autonomy, are ones that seem intuitive and simple. Not ideas that need 30 pages to arrive at.