Exploring Republican Freedom

Freedom and Domination

Keith Breen, Cillian McBride

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351243230
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in republican political theory and, in particular, the republican conception of freedom as non-domination developed by Philip Pettit. This collection of essays offers one of the first sustained explorations of the notion of freedom as non-domination and its application in a range of fields, from democratic legitimacy, civic education, and workplace democracy to related debates on the nature of social equality, social freedom, and recognition, with Philip Pettit contributing a sophisticated account of the interrelations between freedom as non-domination and other dimensions of freedom. With republican political theory undergoing an unprecedented renaissance within contemporary political theory, this collection makes a significant contribution to current debates about the extension and further development of the ideal of republican freedom.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.

Freedom as non-domination: radicalisation or retreat?

Cillian McBride

Key challenges for contemporary neorepublicans are identified and explored. Firstly, the attempt to maintain a sharp line between neorepublicanism and the wider family of liberal–egalitarian political theories is questioned. Secondly, in response to challenges from democratic theorists, it is argued that republicanism needs to effect an appropriate rapprochement with the ideal of collective political autonomy, on which it appears to rely. Thirdly, it is argued that freedom as non-domination draws so heavily on the idea of equal respect that it is hard to maintain that freedom is the sole value grounding the theory. Finally, it is suggested that the consequentialist framework of Pettit's theory imposes significant limitations on republican social justice. How republican political theorists respond to these challenges will determine whether the neorepublican revival will be seen as enriching contemporary debates about democracy and social justice or as a retreat from more ambitious accounts of freedom and justice.

Republican political theory has undergone a striking resurgence in recent decades. This revival has its roots in explorations of the historical language of classical republicanism (Pocock 1975, Skinner 1978, 1998) but has now flowered into a vibrant and flourishing project within normative political philosophy, a project which has been gathering pace since the publication of Philip Pettit’s Republicanism in 1997. To be sure, some strands of this revival are independent of Pettit’s project, such as the republican liberalism of Dagger (1997) or the ‘political’ constitutionalism of Bellamy (2007), while others have sought to extend and develop aspects of Pettit’s conception. Cecile Laborde, for example, has sought to develop the connections between republicanism and feminist social criticism (2008, p. 23) and also to explore the possibility that it might contribute to debates on global justice (Bohman 2004, Laborde 2010). Frank Lovett, like Pettit himself in On the People’s Terms (2012) and Just Freedom (2014), has outlined a republicanism which not only addresses the traditional themes of freedom and constitutional government, but which also addresses the theme of social justice (Lovett 2010) arguing for a conception of justice as the minimisation of domination. We are at the stage now in this republican revival when the central ideas of neo-republicanism, notably the idea of freedom as non-domination, are beginning to proliferate into new areas and adopt new forms as ever more theorists seek to extend and develop the neo-republican project.

On the one hand, these developments may pose a threat to the distinct identity of the republican project as cross-fertilisation between a wider range of debates and traditions of thought takes place, but, on the other hand, this process can also be seen as presenting new opportunities to enrich both republican thought and related traditions such as liberal egalitarianism and critical theory. What is distinctive about this neo-republican revival is its focus on freedom as independence rather than on freedom as political participation (Pettit 1997, p. 8). The contemporary republican revival is essentially a revival of the neo-Roman tradition rather than of the perfectionist, populist, neo-Athenian tradition that defines citizenship in terms of one’s capacity to take turns in participating directly in collective self-government (Laborde and Maynor 2008, p. 3). This latter form of republicanism is best exemplified in the work of Hannah Arendt (1958) and in that of more communitarian critics of liberalism (Sandel 1984, Barber 1984). Philip Pettit’s key contribution, which places him at the centre of this revival of neo-Roman republicanism is his development of a theory of freedom, freedom as ‘non-domination’, which is distinct from both the ideal of negative liberty associated with the liberal tradition, or some strands of it at least, and from positive freedom, associated by Berlin (1969), rather indiscriminately perhaps, with collective self-determination, and individual autonomy. As Henry Richardson has argued, the centrality of Pettit’s conception of freedom as non-domination to contemporary republicanism is explained by the fact that it offers a normative grounding for a tradition that has tended to focus rather narrowly on legal and institutional mechanisms (Richardson 2006, p. 176).

In what follows, I will explore, firstly, the relationship of this ideal of freedom to its rivals and, secondly, offer some reflections on the relations between freedom as non-domination and related ideals of social equality. This last is especially pertinent now that Pettit has begun to present his theory, not only as ‘a theory of freedom and government’ (Pettit 1997) but also as a general theory of social justice (Lovett 2010, Pettit 2012, 2014). This move signals a significant expansion of neo-republican ambition and a new phase in the republican revival in which we may expect to see the idea of freedom as non-domination being taken up in a variety of new contexts. I hope to identify some of the key challenges which freedom as non-domination must address if it is to play a central, radicalising, role in contemporary theories of democracy and social justice.

Pettit’s republican political theory has three dimensions: the ideal of freedom as non-domination; the wider republican account of constitutional democracy; and an overarching consequentialist moral framework. I will suggest that if freedom as non-domination is to address the challenges entailed in developing a broadly egalitarian theory of social justice, some disaggregation of these dimensions may be necessary. It will be suggested, in particular, that the possibility that embedding freedom as non-domination within a larger theory of egalitarian justice may be more easily achieved by detaching it from this consequentialist framework. I will suggest, however, that it will not be possible to disaggregate freedom as non-domination from Pettit’s conception of democracy, however, although we may now need to reinterpret its relationship to the ideal of collective autonomy. It is impossible to give a comprehensive account of Pettit’s extraordinarily rich republican political theory here, so I will focus on three key issues: firstly, the relationship between freedom as non-domination and rival conceptions of freedom, particularly collective autonomy; secondly, the relationship between the non-domination and structural domination and inequality; and thirdly, the prospects of freedom as non-domination to encompass all of the concerns which we might want an egalitarian theory of justice to address. My aim here is not to seek to undermine the claim that freedom as non-domination is a distinctive and attractive ideal – a claim I endorse – but to explore the potential for the further development of the ideal.

For his part, Philip Pettit has argued for the distinctiveness of the republican project from both neo-Athenian republicanism, on the one hand, and from contemporary liberal political theory, on the other hand. The gulf between communitarian, neo-Athenian republicanism, seems, however, far greater than any gulf between neo-Roman republicanism and contemporary liberalism (Richardson 2002, 2006, Larmore 2003). There are two features of the neo-Athenian tradition to which Pettit objects. Firstly, there is the ‘populist’ emphasis on freedom as collective political participation (Pettit 1997, p. 201), and secondly, there is the perfectionism typically endorsed by writers in this tradition, which insists that the life of the active citizen is the best, most choiceworthy, life for anyone to lead. This perfectionism has made it attractive to communitarian critics of the ‘atomism’ of modern social life (McBride 2013). While Pettit suggests, initially, that his republicanism is, in some sense, a ‘communitarian’ project (1997, p. 8), it is not communitarian in the standard sense, but only insofar as he has a holist social ontology and regards freedom as non-domination as a common good which must be jointly produced by the members of a political community if any individual members are to enjoy freedom from domination. In contrast to communitarian thinkers, Pettit’s position reflects an underlying moral individualism and a commitment to ethical pluralism which renders it incompatible with neo-Athenian perfectionism.

Consequently, Pettit’s insistence that his version of republicanism is also distinct from liberalism, is a little surprising. His moral individualism and resistance to perfectionism seem to place him squarely on the liberal side of the fence. Like other members of the liberal family, Pettit worries about the state’s potential for dominating its citizens, arguing that we must be protected both against private domination (dominium) and public (imperium) (2014, p. 77). He does not, however, endorse the sort of impartialist liberalism associated with the Kantian, contractualist tradition that arguably represents the mainstream of contemporary liberal political philosophy. Rather, he adopts a freedom-centred consequentialism which commits the state to the active promotion of freedom as non-domination, but which does not entail the view that non-domination is in any sense a candidate for the good life. Rather, it functions more as a background condition ensuring citizens have the space to exercise undominated choice. This is a relatively novel position, in political philosophy at least, although, as we shall see below, it may, arguably, pose some problems for the development of republican theories of justice. The real gulf, as Pettit sees it, between his republicanism and liberalism, is the commitment of liberals to negative liberty.

While freedom as non-domination appears to sit somewhere between Berlin’s conceptions of negative liberty and positive freedom as a third conception of freedom, it is most sharply opposed to negative liberty (but see Carter 2008). This is true even though freedom as non-domination itself is primarily focused on external, rather than internal threats to freedom, i.e. on the problem of external interference rather than on self-mastery. Where the negative liberty view regards one as unfree only where one is subject to actual interference (Berlin 1969, p. 122), from the perspective of freedom as non-domination this is doubly mistaken. Firstly, the absence of deliberate external interference is not sufficient to ensure one’s freedom. Secondly, the presence of such interference does not necessarily render one unfree (Pettit 1997, p. 23). The first of these points can be explained with reference to the example of the pampered slave in a Roman household, free to do as he pleases and not subject to the violent interference typically associated with slavery. This slave is not subject to direct interference but on the non-domination account he is not therefore free. This is because he enjoys this freedom at the pleasure of his master, who may choose to interfere with him at any time should he choose to do so. To be free from interference but not from the possibility of interference by another is to be dominated: ‘One agent dominates another if and only if they have a certain power over that other, in particular a power of interference on an arbitrary basis’ (Pettit 1997, p. 52). Negative liberty is insensitive to the problem of domination: the problem that one may be in another’s power without that person having to actively interfere with you. On the negative liberty view all actual interference entails a loss of liberty, while on Pettit’s view, this is true only in the case of ‘arbitrary’ interference. The interference of the law, in principle, need not entail a loss of liberty in his view, if the system of regulation serves to secure citizens from domination. The negative liberty and freedom as non-domination conceptions of freedom give rise to directly opposed stances on the relationship between freedom and law.

While Hobbes provides the first clear statement of the negative liberty position – that ‘liberty is the silence of the law’ – Bentham, Pettit observes, regards it as his own ‘discovery’ and ensures its central role in the development of classical liberalism in the nineteenth century (Pettit 1997, p. 44, 2014, p. 14). Pettit suggests that negative liberty struck Bentham as attractive precisely because it offered a relatively undemanding conception of freedom. This was not, interestingly, because Bentham et al. simply placed a low value on freedom, Pettit suggests, but rather because of a concern with the extent to which freedom could realistically be equalised amongst citizens. Negative liberty, being relatively undemanding, could be enjoyed by servants as well as masters and served as a good candidate for this project. The older tradition of freedom as non-domination, if extended to all, would clearly present an unambiguous threat to the social order of the day by threatening the very relationship of master and servant (Pettit 2014, p. 16). In this way, liberalism’s universalist project became wedded to a relatively thin conception of freedom and republican freedom was effectively lost from modern political thought. This is a compelling narrative, but republicanism will only be distinct from liberalism if it can be shown that liberalism is exclusively committed to the negative liberty view.

Pettit acknowledges that the early history of liberalism is rather messier than this narrative suggests: Locke clearly opposes the exercise of arbitrary power in the Second Treatise, for example (Pettit 2014, p. 93). He does not, however, give much weight, in his account of the relationship between republicanism and liberalism, to the Kantian strain of liberalism. In this, he appears to follow Berlin in neglecting the way liberal politics can be justified with reference to the ideal of equal respect for our status as autonomous persons. Republicanism, arguably, does not die with the rise of Utilitarianism, but is transformed by Rousseau and Kant, living on in contemporary liberalism in the idea of a political community of free and equal persons. Pettit does, of course, have philosophical reasons for rejecting autonomy as a political ideal, but the narrative of the occlusion of republicanism by negative liberty tends to suggest that republicanism and contemporary liberalism have less in common than is, perhaps, the case.

While the existence of a clear gap between Pettit’s republicanism and right liberals, or libertarians, is undeniable (Brennan and Lomasky 2006, p. 222) it is less clear that there is such a clear gap between this style of republicanism and ‘left’ liberalism (1997, pp. 9–10). Pettit suggests that Rawls, for example, adheres to a purely negative liberty view of freedom (1997, p. 50), although Rawls himself is happy to insist on the affinities between his position and that of ‘classical republicans’ (1993, p. 205). Rawls, in a move which parallels the neo-Roman/neo-Athenian contrast, stakes out a clear distinction between his liberal/republican position and that of ‘civic humanists’, whose perfectionism is incompatible with the pluralism of political liberalism. Furthermore, in response to Habermas, Rawls argues that he is not committed only to the liberty of the moderns, i.e. personal autonomy, but also to collective autonomy and that liberalism, ‘properly interpreted’, treats each of these as ‘co-original and of equal weight’ (1993, p. 412). In this way, the attempt to demarcate neo-Roman republicanism from contemporary liberalism seems not entirely successful and some have argued that not only is liberalism more ‘republican’ than Pettit is usually prepared to allow, Pettit’s own position is itself also more fundamentally liberal than he is prepared to admit (Larmore 2003, p. 115).

In more conciliatory moments, Pettit has suggested that one way to view the relationship between his version of republicanism and liberal egalitarianism is not as an ‘outright rejection’ of that position but rather as a ‘radicalisation’ of it (1993, p. 304). Does it really matter at the end of the day whether we think of these as distinct, almost entirely self-contained, traditions, or see them rather as families of related arguments sharing many elements in common? I am inclined to think that this latter perspective may be more fruitful in the long run as it creates a space in which to explore the relations between non-domination and other dimensions of political freedom on the one hand, and between non-domination and other important values, on the other. This way of thinking about the relations between republicanism and liberalism, rather than representing a loss of clarity, would rather serve as a precondition of developing new ‘hybrid’ theories in which non-domination may play more or less central roles and it may be necessary if freedom as non-domination is to play a radicalising role in contemporary political theory.

Dimensions of freedom

While negative liberty and freedom as non-domination appear to be mutually exclusive, the relationship between non-domination and autonomy is more complex. Pettit has been criticised for presenting non-domination as the ‘true meaning’ of political freedom (Larmore 2003, p. 103) and for failing to adopt a sufficiently pluralist approach to freedom and other values. This is surprising in some ways, as Pettit claims that freedom as non-domination is ‘ecumenical’ in the sense that it is not taken to exclude other values, but is a ‘primary good’ which we have reason to want, whatever else we may want (1997, p. 91). Indeed, in presenting freedom as non-...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Freedom as non-domination: radicalisation or retreat?
• 2. Freedom: psychological, ethical, and political
• 3. Broader contexts of non-domination: Pettit and Hegel on freedom and recognition
• 4. Non-domination, non-normativity and neo-republican politics
• 5. Non-domination and democratic legitimacy
• 6. Non-domination, non-alienation and social equality: towards a republican understanding of equality
• 7. Freedom as non-domination and educational justice
• 8. Freedom, republicanism, and workplace democracy
• Index