The Impossibility of “Freedom as Independence”
| Date | 01 May 2019 |
| Author | Ronen Shnayderman,Ian Carter |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929918771452 |
| Published date | 01 May 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Political Studies Review
2019, Vol. 17(2) 136 –146
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929918771452
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929918771452
Political Studies Review
2019, Vol. 17(2) 136 –146
© The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1478929918771452
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
The Impossibility of “Freedom
as Independence”
Ian Carter1 and Ronen Shnayderman2
Abstract
Most of the recent work on freedom is concerned with the liberal-republican debate. The latest
move in this debate has been made by List and Valentini who argue in favor of a conception
of freedom (called “freedom as independence”) that is located midway between the liberal and
republican conceptions. In this article, we review some key aspects of the debate that led to
List and Valentini’s move and then argue that their midway position is untenable. We first show
how the debate has given rise to List and Valentini’s (republican-inspired) view that unfreedom
is created not merely by more or less probable constraints (as liberals have claimed) but by
the sheer possibility of constraints. We then argue that this position on possible-but-improbable
constraints makes unfreedom ubiquitous and that “freedom as independence” is therefore an
impossible ideal. In the course of our argument, we rebut some possible rejoinders that appeal
to the difference between positive normative and non-normative constraints and to the ways in
which “freedom as independence” is an open and versatile concept.
Keywords
freedom as independence, freedom as non-interference, freedom as non-domination, liberalism,
republicanism
Accepted: 21 March 2018
The republican conception of freedom has enjoyed a remarkable degree of success among
contemporary political theorists. Despite its initial appeal, however, the conceptual worries
raised by its liberal critics have also brought about a number of clarifications and shifts of
position on the part of republicans. The most recent move in this debate has been made by
Christian List and Laura Valentini (2016), who have claimed that one, but only one, of the
two distinctive features of the republican conception of freedom should be adopted.
There are two ways in which republican theorists of freedom have sought to distance
themselves from the “standard liberal view” of freedom as the “absence of interference”
(Pettit, 1997). First, republicans have claimed that one is free only if the non-interference
that one enjoys is robust, where the robustness of non-interference involves an absence of
1University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
2University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Corresponding author:
Ronen Shnayderman, University of Hamburg, Philosophisches Seminar Überseering 35, Postfach #4, 22297
Hamburg, Germany.
Email: ronenshman@gmail.com
771452PSW0010.1177/1478929918771452Political Studies ReviewCarter and Shnayderman
research-article2018
Article
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