Slaves to Passion

Published: April 26, 2011, 11 p.m.

Article 7 of the Rome Statute (the governing document of the International Criminal Court) identifies "severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law" as a crime against humanity. In last week's show, we explored the extent to which slavery may NOT involve a "severe deprivation of physical liberty." Can one to be a slave to one's passions? If so, does this imply that others have a duty to help us guard against such "affective slavery"? To focus our discussion, we will concentrate on some passages from Sartre, Hume, Plato and Aristotle that are available in the "show resources" section of our website.