In this paper I argue in favour of a single conception of liberty, that picked out by Berlin as negative liberty. However, Berlin's defence of liberty so understood seems to rest on a view not open...

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One Concept of Liberty

The Politics of Freedom : A Study of the Political Thought of Isaiah Berlin and Karl Popper, and of the Challenge of Neoliberalism

In this paper I address the question whether the value of particular freedoms should be taken into account in the measurement of a person’s overall freedom. I examine three prominent arguments raised against value-based approaches: the problem of preference dependency in subjective value-based approaches, the impossibility of paternalism, a problem of objective value-based approaches, and the non-specic value neglect, a general shortcoming of value-based approaches to overall freedom raised by Carter (1999). In contrast to the way these problems are commonly employed in the literature, which is to motivate the rejection of value-based approaches and make the move to a value-neutral approach to overall freedom, I take them to make a case for a (rened) value-based approach. More precisely, all of the three problems are, as I argue, implicitly or explicitly based on the failure of the respective value-based approach to take freedom’s agency value into account, that is the value freedom has for being a necessary condition of a person’s agency. Freedom’s agency value, however, can only be captured by a (rened) value-based approach.

Freedom's Agency Value

Liberty is a potent ideal. Rousseau called it the “most precious of all [God’s] gifts.” But it is also an elusive ideal. What is liberty? Who has liberty? Do some have more liberty than others? It is useful to start from Gerard C. MacCallum, Jr.'s claim that all theories of liberty conform to a 'triadic relation': 'x is (is not) free from y to do (not do, become, not become) z'. This entry examines five conceptions of liberty through the lens of MacCallum's formula: negative, positive, republican, Marxist, and feminist.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2502538_code1511713.pdf?abstractid=2502538&mirid=4

Liberty (Uncorrected Proofs)

In this chapter I argue for the importance of freedom’s agency value and the need to adopt a refined value-based approach to freedom in order to capture it. I focus on the debate between proponents of a value-neutral approach to overall freedom (Carter, A Measure of Freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999; van Hees, Legal Reductionsim and Freedom, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2000), and scholars who defend value-based approaches to overall freedom (Sen, J Econ 50:15–29, 1991; Oxf Econ Pap 45:519–541, 1993). In this debate value-neutral approaches are commonly motivated by a rejection of value-based approaches. I show that the most prominent arguments that reject a value-based approach to overall freedom in favour of a value-neutral one are implicitly or explicitly based on the importance of freedom’s agency value. More specifically, I examine three prominent arguments raised against value-based approaches: the problem of preference dependency in subjective value-based approaches, the impossibility of paternalism, a problem of objective value-based approaches, and the non-specific value neglect, a general shortcoming of value-based approaches to overall freedom raised by Carter (A measure of freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999). In contrast to the way these problems are commonly employed in the literature, which is to motivate the rejection of value-based approaches and make the move to a value-neutral approach to overall freedom, I argue that these problems in fact make a case for a (refined) value-based approach. More precisely, all of the three problems are, as I argue, implicitly or explicitly based on the failure of the respective value-based approach to take freedom’s agency value into account, that is the value freedom has for being a necessary condition of a person’s agency. As opposed to existing contributions Carter (A measure of freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999) though, I argue that freedom’s agency value can only be captured by a (refined) value-based approach. This is an approach to overall freedom that takes account of the value of particular freedoms in terms of the various values and motives a person deliberates on before making choices. The chapter concludes with a more specific discussion of freedom’s agency value and how the availability of choice options can contribute to it.

One Concept of Liberty

Citations

The Politics of Freedom : A Study of the Political Thought of Isaiah Berlin and Karl Popper, and of the Challenge of Neoliberalism

Freedom's Agency Value

Liberty (Uncorrected Proofs)

Freedom’s Agency Value: What it is and why it matters

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