Slaves, Prisoners, and Republican Freedom

Res Publica 17 (2):175-192 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Philip Pettit’s republican conception of freedom is presented as an alternative both to negative and positive conceptions of freedom. The basic idea is to conceptualize freedom as non-domination, not as non-interference or self-mastery. When compared to negative freedom, Pettit’s republican conception comprises two controversial claims: the claim that we are unfree if we are dominated without actual interference, and the claim that we are free if we face interference without domination. Because the slave is a widely accepted paradigm of the unfree person, the case of a slave with a non-interfering master is often cited as providing a good argument for the first republican claim and against a negative conception of freedom. One aim of this article is to raise doubts about whether this is true. The other aim of the article is to show that the prisoner—also a paradigm of the unfree person—presents a good argument against the second republican claim and in favour of a negative conception of freedom. This is called the ‘prisoner-argument’. It will be argued that neither Pettit’s distinction between free persons and free choices nor his distinction between compromising and conditioning factors of freedom can help to rebut the charge of the prisoner-argument

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Republican freedom, rights, and the coalition problem.Keith Dowding - 2011 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 10 (3):301-322.
Impunity and domination: A puzzle for republicanism.Robert B. Talisse - 2014 - European Journal of Political Theory 13 (2):121-131.
Reconstructing republican freedom.Michael J. Thompson - 2013 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 39 (3):277-298.
Republican freedom and the rule of law.Christian List - 2006 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 5 (2):201-220.
A Note on List's Modal Logic of Republican Freedom.Boudewijn de Bruin - 2008 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 7 (3):341-349.
Non-domination and pure negative liberty.Michael David Harbour - 2012 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 11 (2):186-205.
Freedom in the market.Philip Pettit - 2006 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 5 (2):131-149.
Discourse theory and republican freedom.Philip Pettit - 2003 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 6 (1):72-95.
Invigilating Republican Liberty.Gerald Lang - 2012 - Philosophical Quarterly 62 (247):273-293.
Market Freedom as Antipower.Robert S. Taylor - 2013 - American Political Science Review 107 (3):593-602.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-04-18

Downloads
142 (#121,545)

6 months
6 (#202,901)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Fabian Wendt
Virginia Tech

Citations of this work

Freedom as Independence.Christian List & Laura Valentini - 2016 - Ethics 126 (4):1043–1074.
Freedom and its unavoidable trade‐off.Lars J. K. Moen - 2024 - Analytic Philosophy 65 (1):22–36.
Freedom and Viruses.Kieran Oberman - 2022 - Ethics 132 (4):817-850.
When to defer to supermajority testimony — and when not.Christian List - 2014 - In Jennifer Lackey (ed.), Essays in Collective Epistemology. Oxford University Press. pp. 240-249.
Unfreedom or Mere Inability? The Case of Biomedical Enhancement.Ji Young Lee - forthcoming - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy.

View all 17 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

The Morality of Freedom.Joseph Raz - 1986 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Republicanism: a theory of freedom and government.Philip Pettit (ed.) - 1997 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The morality of freedom.J. Raz - 1988 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (1):108-109.
An essay on rights.Hillel Steiner - 1994 - Oxford, UK ;: Blackwell.

View all 45 references / Add more references