II. Freedom and Coercion

Transcription

1 II. Freedom and Coercion Freedom Stewart (85): While freedom (liberty) is one of the most basic concepts in political thought, it is also perhaps p the most vague and ambiguous. Maybe so. Almost unarguably it is an instance (if anything is) of what some theorists call an essentially contested concept W.B. Gallie (1956): Such concepts essentially involve endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users. 1

2 A related (but more modest) claim: Freedom is often the subject matter of persuasive definitions ( true liberty ) y) Burke: But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. In part, this follows from the many uses to which the idea of freedom is put in political l thought: ht Theories of political l obligation, justice, and democracy typically include or presuppose a conception of freedom (85) Ideology & Freedom In fact, at the popular level of political thought, virtually all political ideologies (in the descriptive sense of the term) claim to promote freedom. This despite the fact that at least some of the major ideologies are clearly inconsistent and/or incompatible with each other. Which is simply to say (again): Freedom is a contested concept. Each ideology can sincerely claim to be in favour of freedom because each ideology has a different conception of freedom. 2

3 Negative vs. Positive Freedom Negative Freedom (Liberty): Freedom from; noninterference. Positive Freedom (Self-actualization): Freedom to, i.e. freedom to do, to attain or to become something. Compare: Negative Claim Right: An entitlement to the non- performance of an action, non-interference with the actions of an agent Positive Claim Right: An entitlement to something (e.g., welfare, education, opportunity) which requires the performance of actions by others Hohfeld s (1919) Classification A and B are CORRELATIVE iff the presence of the one [of A or B] in an individual X implies the existence of at least one other person Y in which the other [of A or B] is present. A and B are OPPOSITES iff the presence of the one in an individual X implies the absence in himself, X, of the other 3

4 MacCallum s: The Conflict Resolved? Since nearly every political ideology claims to promote freedom, the idea of freedom can be used as convenient basis on which to compare ideologies and political theories. E.g., On MacCallum s (1967) model any claim about freedom can be expressed in the form: A is (or is not) free from B to achieve, be, or become C MacCallum s Triadic Model of Freedom B Obstacle A Agent C Goal 4

5 So, for example Ideology Agent Goal Obstacle Marxism Classes, e.g., Fulfillment of Class divisions, the working class human needs; economic economic justice inequalities, false consciousness Liberalism Individual Freedom to live as one chooses Arbitrary authority, laws and/or traditions Classical Communities; Order, stability, Radicalism, (Burkean) interconnected continuity change, lack of Conservatism individuals restraint Thomas Hobbes ( ) A mechanistic materialist (of a distinctively modern sort): Whatever else they may be, human beings are physical objects, sophisticated machines whose functions and actions can be explained in purely mechanistic terms Accordingly, Hobbes advances a (rather uncompromising) negative conception of liberty: Liberty, properly so called, is simply the absence of external impediments 5

6 Liberty to do X, for Hobbes, contrasts with an inability to do X: when the impediment of motion is in the constitution of the thing itself, we do not say it wants the liberty but the power to move as when a stone lies still or a man is fastened to his bed by sickness. (II, 21, 88) Even man in a foundering ship is free not to throw his goods overboard, to the extent that nothing/no one actually prevents him from doing so. The Liberty of Subjects I Similarly, a man who acts out of fear of the law (or out of natural or supernatural necessity) is still acting freely: a man sometimes pays his debt only for fear of imprisonment, which, because no one hinders him from detaining, was the action of a man at liberty. And generally all actions which men do in commonwealths for fear of the law are actions which the doers had liberty to omit. (88) 6

7 The SON & the Commonwealth For Hobbes, the state of nature is a state of virtually unlimited freedom. But it also a state of constant war, in which the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. In short, the SON is bad by each person s own lights (they have essentially unlimited liberty, yet they lack the power to secure their livelihood). Accordingly, they join together th into a commonwealth; they create a new, collective, artificial person (Leviathan) to whom all responsibility for social order and public welfare is entrusted. The Liberty of Subjects II In civil society, subjects are bound by laws, that is, by chains artificial which they themselves by mutual covenants, have fastened at one end to the lips of that man or assembly to whom they have given the sovereign power and at the other end to their own ears. (89) P l ki th lib t f bj t li t i l Properly speaking, the liberty of subjects lies pertains only to those actions which are not forbidden by law. Whatever is not forbidden, we are free to do. 7