Why Freedoms Do Not Exist by Degrees
| Author | Matthew H. Kramer |
| Published date | 01 June 2002 |
| Date | 01 June 2002 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.00368 |
| Subject Matter | Original Article |
Why Freedoms Do Not Exist by Degrees
Matthew H. Kramer
Churchill College, Cambridge
The overall freedom of an individual or a society is something that exists in differing degrees. By
contrast, anyone’s particular freedom to engage in this or that mode of conduct is something that
exists (or does not exist) in an all-or-nothing manner. Many political philosophers have taken a
contrary view, however, and have contended that each particular freedom exists to a greater or
lesser extent in proportion to the easiness or difficulty of exercising it. This essay argues that the
temptation to view particular freedoms as matters of degree can be overcome when careful atten-
tion is paid to three distinctions: overall liberty versus particular liberties, the existence of any par-
ticular liberty versus the probability of its emergence, and becoming more free to do something
versus becoming free to do something in more ways. By properly marking these distinctions, one
can readily apprehend that the existence or inexistence of each particular freedom is character-
ized by no gradations – an insight that improves one’s understanding of the necessary and suffi-
cient conditions for the existence of any such freedom.
This essay begins with a terse exposition of negative liberty that informs the sub-
sequent analyses herein.1My preliminary sketch will be highly laconic indeed, with
only enough breadth and depth to set the stage for the arguments that follow.
Though a full elaboration of my conception of negative liberty lies well beyond the
scope of this essay – in a larger project of which the arguments herein form only
a small part – one significant facet of that conception will become salient in the
discussions below.
Consider, then, the following thesis:
F Postulate – A person is free-to-jif and only if he is able to j.
In this formulation, the Greek letter ‘j’ (which stands for any germane verb or
set of verbs plus any accompanying words) can denote one’s doing of some action
or one’s existence in some condition or one’s undergoing of some process. The F
Postulate’s reference to a person’s ability encompasses not only his capacity to j–
i.e., his capacity to jif left unimpeded – but also the very condition of unimpeded-
ness that leaves open one or more opportunities for the exercise of his capacity to
j. To be free to jis both to be capable of j-ing and to be unprecluded from exert-
ing that capability, whether one actually exerts it or not. Alternative formulations
of the F Postulate are ‘A person is free-to-jif and only if it is possible for him to j’
and ‘A person is free-to-jif and only if he is unprevented from j-ing’.
Although the preceding paragraph deals only with freedoms-to-engage-in-
particular-acts-or-exist-in-particular-conditions-or-undergo-particular-processes,
and although it therefore does not deal with the overall freedom of any individual
or society, the formulation therein already gives rise to a host of difficulties that
would have to be resolved in a full-blown theory of liberty. Within the bounds of
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2002 VOL 50, 230–243
© Political Studies Association, 2002.
Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
WHY FREEDOMS DO NOT EXIST BY DEGREES 231
this essay, nevertheless, most of those difficulties can be put aside. We shall focus
exclusively on one set of issues with a direct bearing on the distinction between
particular liberties and overall liberty. My arguments on those issues are generally
compatible with conceptions of negative freedom somewhat different from my own
– for example, with a conception that equates ‘A person is free-to-j’ and ‘A person
is not prevented from j-ing by any external obstacles’. Thus, a defence of the
precise conception encapsulated in the F Postulate is unnecessary within the
confines of this paper.
The Topic Introduced
Overall freedom is plainly a scalar or partitive property that exists in different
degrees.2Whether the overall liberty is of an individual or of a society, it will
be present to a greater or a lesser extent in comparison with the overall liberty of
some other individual or society. Indeed, precisely because overall freedom can
exist in differing degrees, it lends itself to measurement and comparisons. If in
principle as well as in practice it could not ever vary at all in its extent, the project
of gauging its proportions would be utterly futile. Measurements presuppose the
possibility of discovering more or less of the investigated property than is actually
discovered. If that property were insusceptible to quantitative variations and if it
thus existed in an all-or-nothing fashion, then it could never be measured but
could only be deemed present or absent.
Are particular liberties similar to overall liberty in being scalar or partitive? In other
words, can each particular freedom exist to varying extents? Can somebody be
free-to-jto a certain degree, and be less free-to-jor more free-to-jthan some-
body else? With only one minor qualification, the current essay will maintain that
the answers to these questions are negative. The existence of any particular liberty,
as opposed to the extent of anybody’s overall liberty, cannot vary cardinally or ordi-
nally. This essay sides firmly with Ian Carter, then, who writes that ‘[t]he freedom
to do xis not a matter of degree; one either is or is not free to do x’. Carter aptly
oppugns ‘the claim that specific freedoms are a matter of degree (i.e., that one can
be more or less free to do x)’ (Carter, 1999, pp. 228, 233, emphasis in original).
Hillel Steiner robustly espouses a similar view: ‘The notion of degrees of freedom
to do an action is superfluous, misleading and descriptively imprecise’ (Steiner,
1983, p. 78).
Like Carter and Steiner, this essay contends that the freedom-to-jof any person
Pconsists in the possibility or unpreventedness of P’s j-ing. The lack of such a
freedom, therefore, consists in the impossibility or preventedness of P’s j-ing. What
is crucial here is that the germane categories for the analysis of particular freedoms
are the stark alternatives of possibility and impossibility, or unpreventedness and
preventedness. The difficulty or easiness of P’s j-ing, which of course exists in
degrees, is irrelevant to the question whether Pis free to j. Either P’s j-ing is pos-
sible, and Pis thus free to j; or P’s j-ing is impossible, and Pis therefore not free
to j.
Although my stance on the current topic is in accordance with the positions taken
by Carter and Steiner, it clashes with the views put forward by quite a few other
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