ABSTRACT
Liberalism has emerged as the world’s dominant ideology, and much political debate takes place within liberal parameters. For liberals, freedom (liberty) is a fundamental value, and although a person’s freedom can be limited – because it clashes with the freedom of others or with other values – what defines liberalism is the presumption that freedom is a good thing, meaning that limitations on freedom must be justified. Clarification is sometimes provided by a qualifying adjective: economic liberalism or social liberalism. Occasionally, the term classical liberalism is employed to denote support for free trade and the free market. A defender of rights-based liberalism might accept that prostitutes cannot consent, and so buying their services is a form of harm and should be illegal, but motivating people – that is, changing their attitudes – even if it were successful, would be incompatible with moral autonomy.
