The Measurement of Pure Negative Freedom
| Author | Ian Carter |
| Published date | 01 March 1992 |
| Date | 01 March 1992 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1992.tb01759.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Political Studies
(1992),
XL,
38-50
The Measurement
of
Pure Negative
Freedom
IAN
CARTER*
European University Institute, Florence
Examining the question of whether
or
how far freedom is measurable contributes to
the analysis of the concept
of
freedom in two ways. First, it involves attempting to
establish criteria for answering questions about ‘how free’ individuals
or
societies are.
Secondly, it helps to show how far different definitions
of
freedom really conflict, in as
much
as
those definitions are themselves motivated by intuitive extent-of-freedom
assessments in the first place. Critics of the ‘pure negative’ conception of freedom
(freedom as the absence of purely physical impediments to action) have argued either
that freedom
is
unmeasurable
on
such a conception,
or
that such a conception is
counterintuitive,
because
the measurements of freedom implied by it conflict with the
intuitive comparisons which we normally make. Closer examinations
of
the nature of
measurement and of the nature of act individuation show both ofthese criticisms
to
be
ill founded.
A
Czech and a Dutchman are talking about housing problems in their
respedve countries.
DUTCHMAN:
Housing problems we Dutch can understand, but what must be
so
terrible for you is not having freedom of speech
to
complain about them.
CZECH:
But we
do
have freedom of speech!
CZECH:
We are
free
to
say
absolutely anything we like. The only difference is
DUTCHMAN:
What
do
YOU
mean?
that we don’t have freedom
after
speech!’
Whether or how far it is possible to measure freedom is an important yet
neglected question. The answer will
of
course depend on how ‘freedom’ is
defined. This paper attempts to provide an answer on the basis of the ‘pure
negative’ conception of freedom, the conception of freedom most famously (and
infamously) defended
by
Thomas Hobbes,*and most extensively defended
recently by Hillel Steiner.’ According to the pure negative definition of freedom,
an individual is free to the extent that he is
notphysicallyprevenred(intentional1y
The author wishes to thank Richard Arneson, Steven Lukes, David Miller, Hillel Steiner and
Philippe Van Parijs for their comments
on
earlier drafts
of
this paper, and Pedro Lains for his advice
on
the subject
of
‘freedometrics’.
’
Steven Lukes and Itzhak Galnoor,
No
Laughing Matter: a Collection
of
Political Jokes
(Harmondsworth Penguin Books,
1987),
p.
126.
’
Thomas
Hobbes,
Leviurhun,
Ch.
XXI.
’
Hillel Steiner. ‘Individual liberty’,
Proceedings
of
rhe Arirroteliun Sociery,
75 (1974-5),
33-50;
‘How free: computingpersonal liberty’,
in
A.
Phillips- Griffiths (ed.),
OfLiberry
(London, Cambridge
University Press,
1983)
pp.
73-89;
An
hsuy
on
Rights
(Oxford, Blackwell forthcoming).
0032-32 I7/92/01/0038-13
0
1992
Political Studies
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