ABSTRACT
Effective inquiry into the causes of misery, obstacles to the reduction of misery, and the possibilities and costs of eliminating the obstacles, requires intellectual freedom as an essential means. The disinterested pursuit of truth as an end in itself necessarily implies intellectual freedom. In 'Of heresy, intellectual freedom and scholarship', Barrington Moore focuses directly upon the need to improve rationality rather than upon the task of applying reason in its existing stage of development to the assessment of potential means of reducing misery. Moore's objective is to make a start towards providing a social analysis which will enable moral objectives to be pursued through political action in the light of a rational assessment of likely costs and benefits. The liberal critique of communist society fails to demonstrate the necessity of its basic assumption that political pluralism is never oppressive whereas bureaucracy always is.
