Peter Morriss discusses the notion of 'power' and attempts to show how recent accounts of power have misinterpreted crucial components, thereby producing faulty analyses. He puts the study of power into a modern context and also explains why an understanding of power is so important in developing a radical critique of a society. The revised second edition includes a new foreword.

In this article, I try to embark on an understanding of the work that the concept of freedom does, by distinguishing it from the concept of power. When we are interested in our power, we are interested in what we are able to do; it is plausible to think that when we are interested in freedom, we are interested in something else. The article is largely concerned with looking for this 'something else'. I suggest that freedom differs from power in (...) focusing on the constraints that we are under. When we are interested in freedom, the importance of these constraints is not particularly that they stop us doing things, because that is covered by considering our powers. I suggest that the constraints are important - if they are important at all - because some constraints insult our dignity. This suggests an alternative approach to the current focus on freedom as a property of actions: that of freedom as a property of persons. This idea is explored and defended. In a final section on republican freedom, I argue, against Pettit, that there is no distinctive concept of republican freedom ; but that there is a different - and a highly attractive - political theory present in republicanism. (shrink)

Since 1990 it has been illegal in Britain to create human/animal hybrids. But what is the objection to hybrids? A proposal based on a fear of blurring conceptual boundaries is offered; this fear also seems to underlie several other of our deep-seated taboos, such as incest and bestiality, which are often explained in other, quite inappropriate, ways. The new law shows that the boundary between the human and the animal is still thought of as crucial and untransgressable in modern Britain, (...) yet it is not clear why; the world-views that in the past justified protecting this particular boundary are usually thought of as having been abandoned centuries ago. Thus it would seem that within our culture there are firmly entrenched taboos that are not readily justifiable from within that culture; the taboo against blurring the human/animal boundary is one such. This raises the question whether this human/animal boundary is one we should still want to protect in this way. (shrink)

In this article, I try to embark on an understanding of the work that the concept of freedom does, by distinguishing it from the concept of power. When we are interested in our power, we are interested in what we are able to do; it is plausible to think that when we are interested in freedom, we are interested in something else. The article is largely concerned with looking for this 'something else'. I suggest that freedom differs from power in (...) focusing on the constraints that we are under. When we are interested in freedom, the importance of these constraints is not particularly that they stop us doing things, because that is covered by considering our powers. I suggest that the constraints are important - if they are important at all - because some constraints insult our dignity. This suggests an alternative approach to the current focus on freedom as a property of actions: that of freedom as a property of persons. This idea is explored and defended. In a final section on republican freedom, I argue, against Pettit, that there is no distinctive concept of republican freedom ; but that there is a different - and a highly attractive - political theory present in republicanism. (shrink)