Theories of Freedom

Strong notions of free will are closely connected to the possibility to do otherwise as well as to an agent's ability to causally influence her environment via her decisions controlling her actions. In this paper we employ techniques from the causal modeling literature to investigate whether a notion of free will subscribing to one or both of these requirements is compatible with naturalistic views of the world such as non-reductive physicalism to the background of determinism and indeterminism. We argue that (...) from a causal modeler’s perspective the only possibility to get both requirements consists in subscribing to reductive physicalism and indeterminism. (shrink)

Wie können Freiheit und Widerstand innerhalb von Foucaults Theorie der Macht und Subjektivierung konzipiert werden? Karsten Schubert liefert die erste systematische Rekonstruktion der sozialphilosophischen Debatte um Freiheit bei Foucault und eine neue Lösung für das Freiheitsproblem: Freiheit als die Fähigkeit zur reflexiven Kritik der eigenen Subjektivierung – kurz: Freiheit als Kritik – ist das Resultat von freiheitlicher Subjektivierung in politischen Institutionen. Der Band zeigt so die Konsequenzen von Foucaults Freiheitsdenken für die Demokratietheorie und die allgemeine sozialphilosophische Freiheitsdiskussion auf.

Liberal and republican conceptions of freedom differ as to whether freedom consists in noninterference or non-domination. Pettit defends the republican non-domination conception on the grounds that one can be unfree without being interfered with if one is dominated, and that one can be interfered with yet free if not dominated. I show that these claims mistake the scope of actual interference. In particular, I show that cases said to involve unfreedom without interference do involve interference, and that cases said to (...) involve freedom despite interference— in particular, cases involving government regulations—are cases in which some interference is outweighed by protection from even greater interference. The liberal noninterference conception of freedom, therefore, can account for what Pettit claims can only be accounted for by freedom as non-domination. (shrink)

Foucault's theory of power and subjectification challenges common concepts of freedom in social philosophy and expands them through the concept of 'freedom as critique': Freedom can be defined as the capability to critically reflect one's own subjectification, and the conditions of possibility for this critical capacity lie in political and social institutions. The article develops this concept through a critical discussion of the standard response by Foucault interpreters to the standard objection that Foucault's thinking obscures freedom. The standard response interprets (...) Fou-cault's later works, especially The Subject and Power, as a solution to the problem of freedom. It is mistaken, because it conflates different concepts of freedom that are present in Foucault's work. By differentiating these concepts, this paper proposes a new institutionalist approach to solve the problem of freedom that breaks with the partly anarchist underpinnings of Foucault scholarship: As freedom as critique is not given, but itself a result of subjectification, it entails a demand for 'modal robustness' and must therefore be institutionalized. This approach helps to draw out the consequences of Foucault's thinking on freedom for postfoundationalist democratic theory and the general social-philosophical discussion on freedom. (shrink)

Interjú az Új Symposion örökségéről, Jugoszláviáról, a vajdasági magyarság baloldali radikális hagyományáról, az avantgárdról stb.

Robert Kane’s libertarian theory of freedom is frequently attacked in the free will literature by the “luck objection”. Alfred Mele’s articulation of the objection is a very influential formulation as it captures the spirit of Kane’s critics and their complaint with Kane’s view. Mele argues that without a contrastive explanation that highlights aspects of the agent their free choices are reducible to luck. I argue that the lack of a contrastive explanation does not establish that there is no explanation for (...) self-forming actions. Building on the explanation that Kane offers in his rebuttal, I claim that there are neglected dimensions to Kane’s view that, when put together, mitigate the force of the objection. These elements are value experiments, teleological intelligibility and liberum arbitrium voluntatis. I claim that through adopting a narrative view of the self, we can place value experiments in a broader teleological framework that allows us to see self-forming choices are not just a matter of luck. (shrink)

While the image of the slave as the antithesis of the freeman is central to republican freedom, it is striking to note that slaves themselves have not contributed to how this condition is understood. The result is a one-sided conception of both freedom and slavery, which leaves republicanism unable to provide an equal and robust protection for historically outcast people. I draw on the work of Frederick Douglass – long overlooked as a significant contributor to republican theory – to show (...) one way why this is so. Focusing the American Revolution, the subsequent republican government established new political institutions to maintain the collective interests of the whole population. The political revolution was held in place by processes of public reason that reflected the values and ideas of the people that had rebelled. The black population, however, had not been part of this revolution. After emancipation, black Americans were required to accept terms of citizenship that had already been defined, leaving them socially dominated, subject to the prejudices and biases within the prevailing ideas of public discourse. Douglass argued that republican freedom under law is always dependent on a more fundamental revolution, that he calls a ‘radical revolution in thought’, in which the entire system of social norms and practices are reworked together by members of all constituent social groups – women and men, black and white, rich and poor – so that it reflects a genuinely collaborative achievement. Only then can we begin the republican project of contestatory freedom as independence or non-domination that today’s republicans take for granted. (shrink)

This book sets out to re-examine the foundations of Thomas Hobbes’s political philosophy, and to develop a Hobbesian normative theory of international relations. Its central thesis is that two concepts – anarchy and authority – constitute the core of Hobbes's political philosophy whose aim is to justify the state. The Hobbesian state is a type of authority (juridical, public, coercive, and supreme) which emerges under conditions of anarchy ('state of nature'). A state-of-nature argument makes a difference because it justifies authority (...) without appeal to moral obligation. The book shows that the closest analogue of a Hobbesian authority in international relations is Kant's confederation of free states, where states enjoy 'anarchical' (equal) freedom. At present, this crucial form of freedom is being threatened by economic processes of globalisation, and by the resurgence of private authority across state borders. (shrink)

Scant attention has been paid to the notion of property in Hannah Arendt’s thought, and this paper aims to address this gap. For Arendt, property is the realm of privacy, located in the house. She argues that the modern age represented its loss with the expropriation of the peasant classes after the Reformation. As a result, wealth started to be accumulated and became productive through the labor of the new propertyless classes. This new way of dealing with property needed a (...) new notion of property for the laborers. Locke’s understanding gave the laborers the hope of being property-owners through their labor and simultaneously justified the unending accumulation of money; nevertheless, property in its true meaning was never recovered. Arendt believes that recovering property under conditions of equality is an essential consideration, and this egalitarian vision of property only can be achieved if law protects prop- erty as well as set limits on the accumulation of wealth. (shrink)

Urban animals can benefit from living in cities, but this also makes them vulnerable as they increasingly depend on the advantages of urban life. This article has two aims. First, I provide a detailed analysis of the concept of captivity and explain why it matters to nonhuman animals—because and insofar as many of them have a (non-substitutable) interest in freedom. Second, I defend a surprising implication of the account—pushing the boundaries of the concept while the boundaries of cities and human (...) activities expand. I argue for the existence of the neglected problem of pervasive captivity, of which urban wildlife is an illustration. Many urban animals are confined, controlled and dependent, therefore often captive of expanding urban areas. While I argue that captivity per se is value-neutral, I draw the ethical and policy implications of harmful pervasive captivity. (shrink)

America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century, and now all of it, due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses at least 1% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity (...) will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. The idea of human rights is an evil fantasy promoted by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world motherhood. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. The attempt to do this is bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. (shrink)

The recent debate over “republican” conceptions of freedom as non-domination has re- invigorated philosophical discussions of freedom. However, “neo-Roman” republicanism, which has been characterized as republicanism that respects equality, has largely ignored the work of Alexis de Tocqueville, although he too took his task to be crafting a republicanism suited to equality. I therefore provide a philosophical treatment of the heart of Tocqueville’s republicanism, including an analysis of his conception of freedom as freedom in combined action and a philosophical reconstruction (...) of his primary argument for the importance of this kind of freedom. A comparison of Philip Pettit’s and Tocqueville’s republicanism exposes limitations in the neo-Roman conception of freedom as non-domination and its ideal of the free citizen and shows why neo-Roman republicanism, to live up to its motivating ideals, should accommodate elements of “neo- Athenian” republicanism and freedom in combined action. (shrink)

For years now, unionization has been under vigorous attack. Membership has been steadily declining, and with it union bargaining power. As a result, unions may soon lose their ability to protect workers from economic and personal abuse, as well as their significance as a political force. In the Name of Liberty responds to this worrying state of affairs by presenting a new argument for unionization, one that derives an argument for universal unionization in both the private and public sector from (...) concepts of liberty that we already accept. In short, In the Name of Liberty reclaims the argument for liberty from the political right, and shows how liberty not only requires the unionization of every workplace as a matter of background justice, but also supports a wide variety of other progressive policies. (shrink)

Karl Popper’s critique of philosophical idealism manifests itself with the application of his method, falsification, to metaphysics, epistemology, social and political philosophy. According to Popper, who identifies himself as a philosophical realist, idealism has emerged as a result of the idea that reality cannot be known by reason and of the search for certainty which is erroneous,and it has begotten two mistaken and detrimental views. These views are historicism, the notion that history has an irresistible course, and holism, the notion (...) that social wholes are organic structures that amount to more than the individuals constituting them. Historicism and holism have become the philosophical underpinnings of closed societies throughout the history, such as the totalitarian regimes in the 20th century. Therefore, with a practical leaning, Popper actually takes aim at these pernicious consequences of idealism while criticizing it. In this study, philosophical idealism and the contours of Popper’s philosophy are examined, and then Popper’s metaphysical, epistemological, social, and political critiques against idealism are investigated. Keywords: Karl Popper, idealism, historicism, holism, falsificationism. (shrink)

This essay identifies two kinds of awareness of one’s body that occur in a variety of literatures: awareness as psychologically or spiritually enabling or therapeutic, and awareness as undesirable self-consciousness of the body. Drawing on Foucault’s account of normalizing judgment, it argues that these two forms of awareness are impossible to separate, if that separation is into authentic versus extrinsic somatic experience. Nonetheless, awareness is an important component of embodied freedom, but a freedom understood with Spinoza and Nietzsche as grounded (...) in necessity rather than only in the will, and with Arendt and Foucault as a practice rather than an achievement of a sovereign subject. Somatic practices grounded in awareness and acceptance of the body’s necessities, along with attention to the I-can cultivate a form of embodied freedom that bridges care of the self and the political. (shrink)

Hawthorne makes the interesting suggestion that ascriptions of free will might be contextsensitive. Yet, the specific freedom contextualist account he presents makes freedom contextualism look like a non-starter. In this paper, I shall step into the breach for freedom contextualism. My aim is twofold. On the one hand, I shall argue that freedom contextualism can be motivated on the basis of our ordinary practice of freedom attribution, which shows that the view is anything but ad hoc and explains data which (...) cannot be accounted for by an ambiguity hypothesis. On the other hand, I shall suggest a more plausible freedom contextualist analysis, which emerges naturally once we pair the assumption that freedom requires that the agent could have acted otherwise with a plausible semantics of “can” statements. I'll dub the resulting view Alternate Possibilities Contextualism, or APC, for short. In contrast to Hawthorne's view, APC is well-motivated in its own right, does not beg the question against the incompatibilist and delivers a context parameter which allows for a wide range of context shifts. I conclude that, far from being a non-starter, freedom contextualism sets an agenda worth pursuing. (shrink)

The article, first, reconstructs and criticizes Sandro Nannini’s incompatibilistic concept of freedom of decision and, second, develops a compatibilistic alternative, a synthesis of a rationalistic and an autonomous approach. Nannini justifies his conception primarily from a naturalistic point of view: it reflects our sense of agency, so he says. This is criticized as empirically wrong and methodically mistaken: The theory of freedom of decision is, actually, normative; it is about good decisions; naturalism cannot establish normative claims. The alternative is based, (...) methodically, on an idealizing hermeneutics, which tries to reconstruct the point of free decisions, and then justifies the resulting concept practically: Free decisions, conceived in this way, realize optimally our autonomous desires. (shrink)

组文章试图让我们了解我们是如何从理论上没有错觉的。在接下来的三组中,我评论了阻碍可持续世界的三个主要错觉——技术、宗教和政治合作团体。人们相信社会可以由他们拯救,所以我在书的其余部分里提出一些建议,说 明为什么通过短文和著名作家最近出版的书的评论,这是不可能的。 -/- 美国和世界正处于人口过度增长的崩溃过程中,大部分在上个世纪,现在全部归功于第三世界人民。消耗资源,增加40亿人口,将使工业文明崩溃,使饥饿、疾病、暴力和战争达到惊人的规模。数十亿将死去,核战争几乎可以 肯定。在美国,由于大规模移民和移民再生产,再加上由示威的诡计造成的虐待,这大大加速了。堕落的人性无情地把民主和多样性的梦想变成了犯罪和贫穷的恶梦。崩溃的根本原因是我们与生俱来的心理无法适应现代世界,这 导致人们把不和伦比的人当作他们有着共同的利益。再加上对基础生物学和心理学的无知,导致部分受过教育的控制民主社会的人产生社会工程错觉。很少有人明白,如果你帮助一个人,你伤害了别人——没有免费的午餐,任何 人消耗的每一件东西都会破坏无法修复的地球。因此,各地的社会政策是不可持续的,一个个、没有严格控制自私的社会将崩溃为无政府状态或独裁。如果不进行戏剧性和立即的变化,就不可能阻止美国或任何遵循民主制度的国 家的崩溃。因此,我的文章"民主的自杀"。现在很清楚,统治中国的七大社会路径正在赢得第三次世界大战,所以我的总结文章。唯一更大的威胁是人工智能,我在最后一段简要地评论了它 .

อเมริกาและโลกอยู่ในกระบวนการของการล่มสลายจากการเติบโตของประชากรมากเกินไป, ส่วนใหญ่ของมันสำหรับศตวรรษที่ผ่านมา, และตอนนี้ทั้งหมดของมัน, เนื่องจากผู้คนในโลกที่ 3. การบริโภคทรัพยากรและการเพิ่มขึ้นของ3พันล้าน๒๑๐๐จะยุบอารยธรรมอุตสาหกรรมและนำเกี่ยวกับความอดอยาก, โรค, ความรุนแรงและสงครามในขนาดส่าย. แผ่นดินโลกสูญเสียอย่างน้อย 1% ของดินในทุกปี, เพื่อให้เป็น nears ๒๑๐๐, ส่วนใหญ่ของความสามารถในการเจริญเติบโตของอาหารจะหายไป. พันล้านจะตายและสงครามนิวเคลียร์เป็นทั้งหมดแต่แน่นอน.ในอเมริกา,นี้จะถูกเร่งอย่างรุนแรงโดยคนเข้าเมืองข นาดใหญ่และอพยพการสืบพันธุ์, รวมกับการละเมิดที่ทำได้โดยประชาธิปไตย. มนุษย์จะเปลี่ยนความฝันของประชาธิปไตยและหลากหลายเป็นฝันร้ายของอาชญากรรมและความยากจน จีนจะยังคงครอบงำอเมริกาและโลกตราบเท่าที่มันรักษาระบอบเผด็จการซึ่งจำกัดความเป็นที่ต้องการ สาเหตุรากของการล่มสลายคือความไม่สามารถของจิตวิทยาของเราที่จะปรับตัวให้เข้ากับโลกสมัยใหม่ซึ่งจะนำผู้ค นให้ปฏิบัติต่อบุคคลที่ไม่เกี่ยวข้องเหมือนกับว่าพวกเขามีความสนใจร่วมกัน ความคิดของสิทธิมนุษยชนเป็นจินตนาการที่น่าสนใจที่ส่งเสริมโดย leftists ที่จะดึงความสนใจออกไปจากการทำลายความปรานีของแผ่นดินโดยไม่ยับยั้งการเป็นมารดาของโลกที่3 นี้, บวกกับความไม่รู้ของชีววิทยาพื้นฐานและจิตวิทยา, นำไปสู่วิศวกรรมทางสังคมที่ถูกลบออกของการศึกษาบางส่วนที่ควบคุมสังคมประชาธิปไตย. ไม่กี่เข้าใจว่าถ้าคุณช่วยคนคนหนึ่งที่คุณเป็นอันตรายต่อคนอื่น—ไม่มีอาหารกลางวันฟรีและทุกรายการเดียวที ่ทุกคนใช้ทำลายแผ่นดินนอกเหนือจากการซ่อมแซม. ดังนั้นนโยบายทางสังคมทุกที่จะไม่ยั่งยืนและหนึ่งโดยหนึ่งในสังคมทั้งหมดโดยไม่มีการควบคุมที่เข้มงวดในคว ามเป็นที่ต้องการจะยุบเข้าไปในความโกลาหลหรือเผด็จการ ข้อเท็จจริงพื้นฐานที่สุดเกือบจะไม่เคยกล่าวถึงว่ามีทรัพยากรไม่เพียงพอในอเมริกาหรือโลกที่จะยกระดับเปอร ์เซ็นต์ที่สำคัญของคนยากจนออกจากความยากจนและเก็บไว้ที่นั่น ความพยายามที่จะทำเช่นนี้คือ bankrupting อเมริกาและทำลายโลก ความสามารถของโลกในการผลิตอาหารลดลงทุกวัน, เช่นเดียวกับคุณภาพทางพันธุกรรมของเรา. และบัดนี้, เช่นเคย, โดยไกลศัตรูที่ยิ่งใหญ่ที่สุดของคนยากจนเป็นคนยากจนและไม่ร่ำรวย. ไม่มีการเปลี่ยนแปลงอย่างมากและทันที, มีความหวังสำหรับการป้องกันการล่มสลายของอเมริกา, หรือประเทศใดๆที่ต่อไปนี้ระบบประชาธิปไตย.

Liberal incompatibilism considers the causal determinism governing all events of the world as a serious obstacle to human freedom.Thus, they seek a way of protecting human freedom with one of these three different approaches: 1. Non-causal account or simple indeterminism, 2. Event causal account or indeterministic causation of events. 3. Agent causation account. In this research, we study the views of the main theorists of these three ideas and criticize them. Then, according to the definition of free will, based on (...) two principles: possible alternatives at the moment of choice and active control of the agent in relation to the act, we will show that it only the agent causation account that succeeds in providing a sensible picture of man’s freedom in action; because the other two views have neglected the role of the agent in controlling and directing action, and have reduced voluntary action merely to an accidental and random event. Agent causation refutes the monopoly of the role of causality for phenomena and claims that the agent is not only passive and affected by events occurring around him but essentially and with his causal powers is at least the creational cause for one of the mental events that initiates the process of realizing the external act. Therefore, despite causal determination, he is truly free, and the direction and control of his actions is in his hands. (shrink)

In this article, I set out to prove that if, by following this basic intuition, we correctly understand human nature and organize our world according to the principle of cooperation, we can arrive at a world of social harmony. The current disharmony in the world, which can be observed especially in the field of politics and economics, is largely related to the erroneous modern Western philosophical assertions identifying the human being with an individual moved by desires and the will to (...) power, and the phenomenon of life with an endless conflict. These misconceptions have enormous practical implications on the picture of today’s world. I want to show that cooperation is an integral part of human nature, and that the society organized according to the requirements of our nature can become a truly harmonious and happy society. (shrink)

If humans are purely physical, and if it is the brain that does the work formerly assigned to the mind or soul, then how can it fail to be the case that all of our thoughts and actions are determined by the laws of neurobiology? If this is the case, then free will, moral responsibility, and, indeed, reason itself would appear to be in jeopardy. Murphy and Brown present an original defence of a non-reductive version of physicalism whereby humans are (...) the authors of their own thoughts and actions. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that Isaiah Berlin’s seminal essay “Two Concepts of Liberty” has to a large extent set the tone and determined the content of the debates within political philosophy in the English-speaking world. Berlin maintains that the conceptual and institutional history of liberty can be understood in terms of the various responses to the logically distinct questions: “Who governs me?” and “How far does government interfere with me?”. In Berlin’s first question, the salient issue is whether the valid (...) authority to positively rule an individual resides within the individual herself or in some external person, social class, institution, empirical circumstance, or tradition. In contrast with the personal freedom to direct oneself, the second issue is concerned with liberating the individual from the coercion of others, especially the government, by limiting authority as such. Berlin dedicates much of his essay to demonstrating that the positive and negative concepts of liberty are not merely two sides of the same coin; rather, he argues that in human psychology and history these mark “two profoundly divergent and irreconcilable attitudes to the ends of life”. According to Berlin’s line of reasoning, to perceive the personal authority to rule oneself as one’s primary end requires a sacrifice of one’s negative liberty. Reciprocally, to make the limitation of authority and coercion in general one’s highest end demands that one relinquish some positive freedom. (shrink)

A liberalism which scorns all individualism is fundamentally misguided. This is the chief thesis of this paper. To argue for it, I look closely at some key concepts. The concepts of morislity and individualism are crucial. I emphasize Dewey on the "individuality of the mind" and a Deweyan discussion of language, communication, and community. The thesis links individualism and liberalism, and since appeals to liberalism have broader appeal in the present context of discussions, I start with consideration of liberalism. The (...) aim is to dispute overly restrictive conceptions and explore a broader perspective. To bring the argument to a close, attention turns first to Dewey on value inquiry, to Dewey's "democratic individualism" (cf. Dewey 1939, 179), and to the concept of moral community. Disputing the acquisitiveness of utilitarian influences in classical liberalism, a Deweyan argument from the nature of moral community supports re-emphasis on individualism in contemporary liberal thought. (shrink)

The title of this interesting study may be misleading; Crocker's subject is not Rousseau's or Hegel's conception of liberty considered in contradistinction to, say, Locke's or J. S. Mill's. The philosophy of Positive Liberty is strictly English-speaking and its intention is to argue against those within the Lockean tradition who would claim that personal liberty can only be limited by deliberate human action. Crocker is in full agreement with his opponents in holding that passion or irrationality is in no way (...) an obstacle to liberty, but he wants to persuade negative libertarians that disabilities like poverty, powerlessness, physical handicap, and manipulative information management are conditions as seriously preventive of liberty as are forcible coercion and legal prohibition. His argument is that increasing liberty requires maximizing the range and desirability of opportunities and choices rather than simply minimizing deliberate or overt restraint. The consequence for political philosophy of this position, which Crocker calls left-libertarian, is that a social commitment to personal liberty may require extensive and costly positive redistributive policies. According to Crocker, positive liberty is not a new conception of liberty, but rather a novel and more inclusive sense of the obstacles to freedom: "the emphasis shifts from the constraints to the alternatives and such matters as their range and desirability. The absence of interference by other persons appears as but one feature of liberty among several". (shrink)

The puritanism of this text is that of mid-seventeenth century England which, faced with the opportunity and awesome responsibility of establishing a new social order, struggled with practical and theoretical difficulties of political life in open debates and published tracts. Questions about political liberty were particularly difficult for them since their shared theological convictions led to no unanimity about how to provide for both social unity and individuality in one political structure. Alternative positions were vigorously supported, and the documents of (...) the struggle are provided here in a fashion that enables a modern reader to experience the dynamism of the struggle without the interference of summaries provided by commentators. (shrink)

A structural affinity between republican freedom as non-domination and human rights claims accounts for the relevance of republicanism for cosmopolitan concerns. Central features of republican freedom are its institution dependence and the modal aspect it adds to being free. Its chief concern is not constraint, but the way in which an agent is constrained or not. To the extent I am vulnerable to someone’s dispositional power over me I am not free, even if I am not in fact constrained. Republican (...) freedom adds a substantial element to a justification of human rights in terms of entitlement, rather than mere satisfaction of interests. A satisfied interest is not a satisfied right if the satisfaction is dependent on personal goodwill and can be withdrawn at any time. Like republican freedom, human rights claims add a modal aspect to enjoyment. Both can be violated by institutional arrangement alone and can be secured only within accountable institutions. National borders may well be irrelevant to the dispositional powers to which people are vulnerable. An international set of institutions globalizes those circumstances in which republican liberty arises as a concern. (shrink)

Republicans hold that people are dominated merely in virtue of others' having unconstrained abilities to frustrate their choices. They argue further that public officials may dominate citizens unless subject to popular control. Critics identify a dilemma. To maintain the possibility of popular control, republicans must attribute to the people an ability to control public officials merely in virtue of the possibility that they might coordinate their actions. But if the possibility of coordination suffices for attributing abilities to groups, then, even (...) in the best case, countless groups will be dominating because it will be possible for their members to coordinate their actions with the aim of frustrating others' choices. We argue the dilemma is apparent only. To make our argument, we present a novel interpretation of the republican concept of domination with the help of a game-theoretic model that clarifies the significance of collective action problems for republican theory. (shrink)

This edited volume focuses on what Hannah Arendt famously called “the raison d’être of politics”: freedom. The unique collection of essays clarifies her flagship idea of political freedom in relation to other key Arendtian themes such as liberation, revolution, civil disobedience, and the right to have rights. -/- In addressing these, contributors to this volume juxtapose Arendt with a number of thinkers from Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls and Philip Pettit to Karl Marx, Frantz Fanon and Geoffroy de Lagasnerie. They also (...) consider the continuing relevance of Arendt’s work to some of the most dramatic events in recent years, including the current global refugee crisis, the Arab uprisings of the 2010s, and the ongoing crisis of liberal democracy in the West and beyond. -/- Contributors include Keith Breen, Joan Cocks, Tal Correm, Christian J. Emden, Patrick Hayden, Kei Hiruta, Anthony F. Lang Jr., Shmuel Lederman, Miriam Leonard, Natasha Saunders, William Smith, and Shiyu Zhang. (shrink)

A standard liberal claim is that freedom of choice is not only instrumentally valuable but also intrinsically valuable, that is, valuable for its own sake. I argue that each one of five conditions is plausible if freedom of choice is intrinsically valuable. Yet there exists a counter-example to the conjunction of these conditions. Hence freedom of choice is not intrinsically valuable.

Many philosophers conceive of freedom as non-interference. Such conceptions unify two core commitments. First, they associate freedom with non-constraint. And second, they take seriously a distinction between the interpersonal and the non-personal. As a result, they focus our attention exclusively on constraints attributable to other people’s choices – that is, on interference. I argue that these commitments manifest two distinct concerns: first, for a wide range of options; and second, for other people’s respect. However, construing freedom as non-interference unifies these (...) concerns in a way that does justice to neither. In particular, it focuses our attention on phenomena that are at best tangential, and at worst hostile, to our interest in respect. If we wish to preserve the distinctive significance of the interpersonal, we would be better served by a conception of freedom that focuses immediately on what I call "the social conditions of respect.". (shrink)

Many political philosophers argue that interference threatens a person’s agency. And they cast political freedom in opposition to interpersonal threats to agency, as non-interference. I argue that this approach relies on an inapt model of agency, crucial aspects of which emerge from our relationships with other people. Such relationships involve complex patterns of vulnerability and subjection, essential to our constitution as particular kinds of agents: as owners of property, as members of families, and as participants in a market for labor. (...) We should construct a conception of freedom that targets the structures of our interpersonal relations, and the kinds of agents these relations make us. Such a conception respects the interpersonal foundations of human agency. It also allows us to draw morally significant connections between diverse species of unfreedom—between, for instance, localized domination and structural oppression. (shrink)

Some people endorse a view called incompatibilism, which states that free will is incompatible with determinism. No free action could possibly be determined, they think. More informatively, incompatibilists think it is impossible that someone’s freely acting be causally guaranteed to happen by things that occur before she freely acts. Some people hold a view called libertarianism, which states both that incompatibilism is true and that someone actually performs a free action. Other people reject incompatibilism. They hold to compatibilism, which is (...) the view that it is possible that previous happenings in the world could absolutely causally guarantee—that is, could cause in a deterministic way—that someone freely acts. In this chapter, I argue that libertarianism is, for the time being at least, the most sensible view. (shrink)

In this introduction we accomplish two things. First, we attempt to get clear about what we mean by the term 'free will'. Second, we introduce a philosophical puzzle known as the metaphysical problem of free will.

The article analyzes Henri Bergson’s understanding of human life in the light of his metaphor of life as “insinuation.” Comparing his ideas with the ideas of another original thinker of the age, George Santayana, allows shedding light on Bergson’s ontological strategy of making matter– as a threat to life –subject to mediation. Memory and imagination use matter to play out the past in the guise of the present–for the sake of life. The text also focuses on the formulas of freedom (...) arising out of both thinkers’ conceptions of conscious life – that of Bergson, for whom the horizon and the fulfillment can be found in the beginning, or the primary vital impulse, and that of Santayana, who sees fulfillment in the forms of finitude assumed by each particular life. Looking at humanity in terms of a spiritual challenge links both conceptions. The whole discussion responds to the need to return to such fundamental but sidestepped terms as “humanity” and “spirituality”. (shrink)

Foreword from the Guest Editor to the special issue of Diametros – “Enlightenment and Secularism.”.

In contemporary positive law there are legal institutions, such as conscientious objection in the context of military service or “conscience clauses” in medical law, which for the sake of respect for judgments of conscience aim at restricting legal obligations. Such restrictions are postulated to protect human freedom in general. On the basis of Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy, it shall be argued that human dignity, understood as the existential perfection of a human being based on special unity, provides a foundation for imposing (...) limitations on the scope of legal obligations in general. Human freedom plays a crucial role in understanding dignity as perfection based on the special individuality of a personal being, which in turn is based on the free choice to pursue a unique way of life. Therefore, Aquinas’ argumentation is, at its core, liberal – the perfection rather than the imperfection of a human being underlies the requirement to limit legal obligations. Dignity understood as the special unity of a person also provides the basis for limiting obligations in the case of conscientious objection; however, in that case, such limitations aim at safeguarding internal integrity rather than the individualisation of a given way of life. _This project was financed with funds from the National Science Centre allocated on the basis of the decision number DEC-2013/09/B/HS5/04232._. (shrink)

The main objective of this text is to show that for Karl Jaspers all authentic philosophy is an attempt to express subjectivity in terms of the intersubjective categories of intellect. Subjectivity is understood as a plane of individual experience which ultimately comes down to the consciousness of freedom. Intersubjectivity on the other hand is perceived as a plane of expression of this experience, which can boil down to language. For it is only through the mediation of language that one can (...) illuminate its own being – its connection to the world and transcendence. Thus, the rational expression of experience is the essential condition for self-comprehension of any subjectivity. Ultimately, however, any attempt of rational inquiry reveals itself as insufficient. The human being, in his or her, pursuit of self-comprehension has to reach the boundary of language-based expression and therefore the boundary of all reasoning, where rational knowledge must give way to direct but inexpressible experiencing of what is the absolute source of all being. Thus, in the end, silence is the only true expression of transcendence. (shrink)

Sometimes dictators are benevolent. Sometimes masters are kind and gentle to their slaves. John Adams was a pretty good "husband" to Abigail Adams. But it seems like there’s something very wrong with being a dictator or a master or a spouse with the power that John Adams had over Abigail Adams in late 18th Century America. A theory of domination tries to pinpoint what’s distinctive about dictatorship and mastery and traditional husbanding, and what is distinctively wrong with such—even the benevolent, (...) kind, gentle, and pretty good varieties. -/- There has been a lot of thinking about domination over the last twenty-five or so years. This is due largely to the efforts of republican political philosophers, who have used domination and its absence — nondomination — as the primary moving part in their conceptions of freedom. Even so, perhaps because domination has often appeared in a supporting role for the analysis of other concepts, conceptualizing domination itself is still a fairly nascent endeavor. -/- Accounts of domination need at least two movements. First, domination is a subset of a social phenomenon with—at least more or less—unobjectionable varieties. Maybe this social phenomenon is power; maybe it’s the capacity to interfere with choice; maybe something else. Whatever it is, it’s plausible to think it’s not always bad. Sometimes it’s perfectly alright to have power over someone else; sometimes there’s nothing wrong with the capacity to interfere with someone’s choices. (For example, if what you’d rather do is go after your neighbor with a meat-axe, it’s a good thing if someone is in a position to interfere with you, or if your choice situation can be worsened, so that charging next door, axe in hand, without having to worry about a lengthy prison sentence is not among your options.) The first task of a theory of domination is to specify exactly what this broader social phenomenon is. -/- Next we need to figure out what gives domination its negative moral valence, and thus sets it apart from that broader social phenomenon. Republicans usually say that what makes domination morally problematic is its arbitrariness. Frank Lovett claims that domination is instantiated in a social relationship between A and B only if A is permitted to exercise power over B arbitrarily (2010, 120). Philip Pettit, until recently, claimed that domination is a capacity for arbitrary interference. Marilyn Friedman calls it “arbitrary interference in someone’s choices…”(2008, 265). If that’s right, and arbitrariness is the difference maker between forms of social power that aren’t domination and those that are, we need a story about what arbitrariness is. -/- Such are the two essential tasks of conceptualizing domination. I offer here what I think are important course-corrections for recent attempts to complete them. In §1 I set out some desiderata for a useful conception of domination before sketching the elements of earlier attempts I think we can’t do without. §2 addresses the problem of “cheap domination”. This is the problem of identifying ordinary, innocuous human interactions with anything we call domination. I don’t think we should do this, but some of the most influential accounts of domination on offer nowadays — in particular, Lovett’s and Pettit’s — have this result. Instead, I contend that only certain forms of social power can underwrite domination, and try to provide a principled way of identifying what these forms are like. Finally, in §3, I address the nature of arbitrariness. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo consiste en analizar dos alternativas presentes en las Disertaciones de Epicteto como posibles vías de acceso a la libertad y la eudaimonía: a) identificar nuestro querer con el querer de la divinidad; b) concentrarnos exclusivamente en aquello de "depende de nosotros". Dado que ambos caminos parecen conducir al solipsismo y la pasividad, ofreceremos una alternativa de interpretación que permite conciliar ambas estrategias con la impronta práctica que caracteriza a la ética del autor. The aim of (...) this paper is to analyse two alternatives which are present in Epictetus' Dissertations as possible ways to reach freedom and happiness: a) to identify our will with the will of the divinity; b) to focus exclusively on "what depends on us". Since both paths seem to lead to solipsism and passiveness, we shall offer an alternative interpretation that can reconcile both strategies with the practical approach of the Epictetus's ethics. (shrink)