Freedom of Association: It’s Not What You Think

This paper shows that associative freedom is not what we tend to think it is. Contrary to standard liberal thinking, it is neither a general moral permission to choose the society most acceptable to us nor a content-insensitive claim-right akin to the other personal freedoms with which it is usually lumped such as freedom of expression and freedom of religion. It is at most 1) a highly restricted moral permission to associate subject to constraints of consent, necessity, and burdensomeness, 2) a conditional moral permission not to associate provided our associative contributions are not required, and 3) a highly constrained, content-sensitive moral claim-right that protects only those wrongful associations that honour other legitimate concerns such as consent, need, harm, and respect. This paper also shows that associative freedom is not as valuable as we tend to think it is. It is secondary to positive associative claim-rights that protect our fundamental social needs and are pre-conditions for any associative control worth the name.