Power and Liberty
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1971.tb01920.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1971 |
| Author | D. M. White |
| Date | 01 March 1971 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
POWER
AND
LIBERTY1
D.
M. WHITE
Monash
University
THIS article examines some of the relations between power and liberty. It is
concerned exclusively with the kind of power which an agent possesses in
so
far
as he is able to affect the actions of others in accordance with his own intentions;
this kind of power, and the principal forms which it can take, have been exten-
sively discussed in Anthony de Crespigny’s article ‘Power and its
Forms’.*
This kind of power is to be related to the following four accounts
of
liberty:
liberty as the absence of interference with behaviour, as not being prevented by
other persons from doing what one wants to do, as being able to do what one
wants to do, and as self-determination.
In
varying forms, these kinds of accounts
have had widespread currency.
It should be noted that no account of liberty is espoused in this article. My
discussion is confined to pointing out some of the implications of de Crespigny’s
analysis of power for the four accounts of liberty in question.
It
emerges from
this discussion that each of these accounts embodies some troublesome ambigu-
ities, and thus each of them is, at the least, inadequately formulated. Apart
from this, however, these accounts are not criticized. By drawing out the impli-
cations of de Crespigny’s analysis of power, it would perhaps be possible to show
that they are unsatisfactory. But to show this, it would be necessary to introduce
material that is beyond the scope of this article.
For
example, it would be necessary
to establish that any given implication is grounds for rejecting the relevant
account of liberty, rather than grounds for rejecting de Crespigny’s analysis of
power.
1.
THE RELATIONS BETWEEN SOCIAL POWER AND LIBERTY AS ‘THE
ABSENCE
OF
INTERFERENCE
WITH
BEHAVIOUR’
This kind of account has had widespread currency.
I
shall mention three
examples. According to Sir Isaiah Berlin,
‘I
am normally said to be free to the
degree to which no human being interferes with my a~tivity’.~ This
is
virtually
1
This article was originally conceived as
a
joint venture with Anthony de Crespigny, and
I
wish to acknowledge his many valuable comments.
2
This
Journal, June,
1968.
In addition to the seven forms of power that de Crespigny elabor-
ates,
I
shall discuss enabling power.
In
de Crespigny’s words, ‘Enabling power is exercised when
A
gets
B
to act in conformity with his intentions by enabling B to do what he could not otherwise
do and what he would do if he could. But an exercise of enabling power does not imply that it
was
strictly
impossible for B to have done what
A
enables him to
do.
To
have done this may
simply have been very difficult for B, by reason of his lack of knowledge or skill
or
economic
resources.
We frequently say that
a
person was unable to
do
something in circumstances where
there is no suggestion of literal impossibility’. (Private communication.)
3
Two
Concepts
ofliberty
(O.U.P.,
1958).
p.
7.
This is only oneelement of Berlin’s account of
negative liberty; some of the other parts of his account,
(as
stated in the Inaugural Lecture, and
in the revised version published in
Polftfcal
Philosophy,
cd.
A.
Quinton
(O.U.P.)),
are considered
subsequently.
Political
Stndisr,
Vol.
XU,
No.
1.(37-46)
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