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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that People subject to arbitrary power are less free in the negative sense even if they do not actually suffer interference.

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Negative freedom is properly defined as the actual absence of interference by other agents, not the probabilistic risk of future interference.
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    • 2.Conflating the probability of constraint with constraint itself smuggles a consequentialist metric into a concept that Berlin explicitly defined in terms of present, actual barriers.
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    • 3.A person subject to arbitrary power who is never interfered with is, by the strict Berlinian definition, fully free in the negative sense during that unimpeded interval.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Pettit's republican notion of domination-as-unfreedom is a distinct third concept of liberty, not a refinement of negative liberty as Berlin defined it.
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    • 2.Treating arbitrary power as a reducer of negative freedom collapses the analytically important distinction between negative liberty and republican non-domination, obscuring rather than illuminating the conceptual landscape.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The extent of negative freedom depends in part on the probability of being constrained from performing future acts or act-combinations.
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    • 2.People subject to arbitrary power always face a greater probability of suffering constraints than people not subject to arbitrary power, as an empirical matter.
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