THE LIBERTY TRADITION AT ITS BEST

It seems to be the spirit of our topsy-turvy times that the notion of liberty energizes our minds with a new power. When common sense, rationality, moral decency, and legitimate social institutions are challenged and violated we begin to think seriously about the potentials and limits of freedom. We are forced to reconsider some fundamentals of political thinking: why people want what they want, what they do to acquire their goals, what limits them from acquiring these goals, and what kind of rules should regulate their actions. We return to fundamental questions about what the idea of liberty means, what its scope is, and what secures our liberties in the contemporary world.

The Oxford Handbook of Freedom is a collection of studies returning to these fundamental questions of political philosophy. Some basic arguments are developed and updated here, new ideas are explored, and some of them are applied to the new changing realities. The editors hint that the collection emerged as a naturally liberal, relatively spontaneous project; it was not really designed and structured to become a well-organized source of scholarly knowledge. They gathered a group of philosophers who had fresh ideas in the subject and gave them free rein to experiment with philosophical imagination and creativity. The effect is exquisite.

The authors of twenty-eight chapters differ in their interests, methodological approaches, philosophical backgrounds, and political ideals. One finds numerous arguments known from deontological, contractarian, utilitarian, and even scholastic philosophical debates. The theories of social contract, natural law, free will metaphysics, virtue ethics, and other notions of moral and political thought are explored. Such diverse classics as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Rousseau, Kant, and John Stuart Mill provide ideas. However, the authors also clearly share a rich set of concepts and values. Their philosophical orientation can be placed within what was somewhere else labeled “the liberty tradition,” the tradition reaching back to John Locke and Adam Smith but fully developed in the twentieth-century by such intellectual giants as Friedrich Hayek, James Buchanan, and Robert Nozick.[Gaus, Gerald, and Mack, Eric. 2004. “Libertarianism and Classical Liberalism,” in A Handbook of Political Theory, Gaus G. and Kukathas C. (eds.), London: Routledge, pp. 115–129.] Some of the most notable contemporary masters of that legacy have contributed to The Oxford Handbook of Freedom: Jason Brennan, Allen Buchanan, Gerald Gaus, Fred D. Miller, David Schmidtz, Steven Wall, to mention a few.

The liberty tradition – while intrinsically diverse in many respects – is founded on a few well-known principles. Above all, it defines itself by its fundamental individualism: the individual is in reality the sole decision-making agent and his freedom to make choices is the supreme value. Individuals must have social, political, economic, civic, legal, and moral liberties to pursue their goals and live good lives. In particular, respect for the individual and her liberties demands special role for individual property rights and the free market, a social order fueled by individual choices, stimulating human productivity and the pursuit of well-being. The primary role for the state – as the only agent allowed to use force – is therefore the protection of individual liberties and rights. There is a debate within the liberty tradition concerning a permissible scale of justifiable state intervention in individual decisions but there is also an agreement that such intervention should be limited as much as possible. The rule of law, the division of powers, constitutional democracy, the checks and balances construct such limitations of governmental power. The state is a useful instrument preventing harm and solving disputes but it must be also seen as a serious danger to a free society. The institutional framework of the state and the free market has also a significant moral dimension in the liberty tradition: liberties and rights are associated with moral responsibilities. Since individuals choose and act, they are solely responsible for their choices and deeds. The free society is bound by political institutions as well as the principles of moral accountability. In a sense, the liberal tradition combines the themes of classical liberalism, contemporary libertarianism, and other anti-statist and pro-market oriented conceptions of the free society.

As a masterpiece of the liberty tradition, The Oxford Handbook of Freedom is a refreshing alternative to the voluminous literature dominated by the debates over John Rawls’s works. Rawls’s liberty principle and political liberalism have been for decades the most discussed concepts in political philosophy. Philosophers explored in great detail the theoretical subtleties of Rawls’s ideas and their relationships with other theories: utilitarian, contractarian, Kantian, Marxist, feminist, communitarian, postmodern, and others. The theoretical explorations also strongly affected the domain of political doctrines, where liberal egalitarian and social democratic ideals colonized public political discourse. Other conceptions of liberty and liberalism have been pushed under the shadow of that predominant paradigm. The Handbook demonstrates that the leading paradigm is not the only one, and, apparently, not the best one.

          Despite its freely spontaneous formula, The Handbook’s content follows a logical pattern: the philosophical debate over conceptual foundations (chapters 1-7) turns into a historical contextualization of the concept (chapters 8-13) and an abundant presentation of its plentiful applications (chapters 14-28).

The conceptual inquiries are based on a leading assumption that multiple social relations demand multiple concepts of liberty. Several of those concepts emerge in the opening part and are explored later. As in any discussion of this kind, Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between “negative” (non-interference) and “positive” (self-mastery) liberty is an imminent starting point in several studies. As it also often happens, Gerald MacCallum’s “triadic” conception of liberty (x is free from y to do z) appears as a generic concept extending Berlin’s. The advantages and weaknesses of these concepts are well known and have been thoroughly analyzed. Berlin himself argued that the “positive” understanding of liberty can become a slippery slope towards possible manipulations and abuse of power, so he preferred the “negative” non-interference concept as securing liberal pluralism of values and goals.

The liberty tradition naturally opts for the same classic non-interference notion – liberty as „the absence of obstacles wrongfully imposed by other people” (p. 300). The concept is indeed simple, clear, easily applicable, and independent from normative prejudgments. Freedoms of thought, expression, speech, press, assembly, religious belief, and so forth, are mostly “negative” liberties protecting individuals from unwanted interference. The same applies to freedom to travel, privacy, private property, and others. These concepts are perfectly in sync with the philosophical and legal meanings of rights; basic human rights are defined in such terms; the key liberties of Western democracies too. As Berlin rightly assumed, “negative” rights reflect the natural variety and diversity of human individuals and their goals.

However, the “positive” concept of liberty has also some valor within the liberty tradition. According to Piper Bringhurst and Gerald Gaus (chapter 2), it is a concept helpful in understanding the relationship between freedom and moral responsibility, so immensely significant for engaged liberal thinking. Their idea of “freedom as reasoned control” intends to demonstrate how choices following certain principles of rationality can be compatible with the choices of moral principles. The connection is particularly problematic in social contexts, where choices of moral principles are not individual but collective, as multiple choices of shared moral principles. The authors try to establish under what conditions individuals participating in collective choices – the general will, if you will – can be “fit” for moral responsibility.

The concept of self-ownership – strongly associated with the liberty tradition from John Locke to Robert Nozick – can be also viewed in terms of liberty. In some sense, property rights are “negative” liberties, being free from other individuals interfering in our use of things possessed. Self-ownership is an ultimate right to exclude others from making decisions regarding one’s intimately private sphere. As Mark Pennington puts it, “the protection of person and physical property is the bedrock of a free society because the capacity to pursue the personal projects depends on a private sphere where people can take decisions without the consent of others and where there are protections against violence, theft, and fraud” (pp. 300-301). Or, from a slightly different perspective, “the rules and property rights that define the private sphere can be seen as regulations which restrict or interfere with absolute individual freedoms” (p. 301). A number of other studies in The Oxford Handbook (by Daniel C. Russell, David Sobel, Serena Olsaretti) demonstrate how potent the notion of self-ownership is.

          Finally, a trendy idea of “republican” liberty attracts attention of several authors. The concept was proposed in the nineties as a strong alternative to Berlin’s dichotomy. It is now usually labeled as “non-domination” although more precise definitions are still in the making. [Cf. Pettit, Philip. 1997. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford. Quentin Skinner renamed the concept as “neo-Roman” liberty but his proposal did not gain popularity. Cf., Skinner, Quentin. 1998. Liberty before Liberalism. Cambridge.] Freedom from someone else’s “arbitrary will” is one of the frequent articulations but such terms as “domination” and “arbitrariness” demand further clarifications. For a couple of decades scholarly debates have toiled to identify some conceptual subtleties. In an already voluminous literature, one of the most frequently debated issues is the distinction between non-interference and non-domination. Frank Lovett (chapter 6) argues that “freedom from domination” meaningfully differs from “freedom from interference” and considers the concept potentially fruitful for further study. He warns, however, there are still no practical instruments, institutions, and policies necessary to secure freedom. Elizabeth Anderson (chapter 5), in turn, identifies some institutional conditions of living good life “on terms of republican freedom”. According to her, inalienable economic rights, systems of social security, and free universal education are necessary to avoid domination by those in power: employers, owners, bureaucrats, parents, and others. These initial inquiries are promising but it remains to be seen whether the republican paradigm can be realigned with the strong pro-market and anti-statist tendencies of the liberty tradition.

The second section of The Oxford Handbook of Freedom (chapters 8-13) presents some of the foregoing concepts of freedom in a historical context – how they emerged in the past, evolved later, and how they have acquired contemporary meanings. Edward Feser (chapter 10) demonstrates that the scholastic tradition developed not only the metaphysical theories of the free will but also the notions of political and economic liberties. The scholastic natural law and natural rights theories shaped our understanding of rights today. Orlando Patterson (chapter 11) presents one of the epitomic examples of the Renaissance Man: The Florentine architect, painter, poet, playwright, linguist, cryptographer, humanist, and philosopher Leon Battista Alberti. His images of slavery, the experiences of oppression, unhappiness, alienation, and social marginalization exemplify what can be seen as extreme domination and un-freedom. For Ryan Patrick Hanley (chapter 12) three giants of the Enlightenment – Adam Smith, Rousseau, and Kant – show in their specific ways that Berlin’s ideas of negative and positive liberty are complementary rather than contradictory. James R. Otteson (chapter 13) argues that Adam Smith’s political and economic thinking can be classified as “libertarian paternalism” – influencing individuals’ behavior in ways making their choices broader, more reasonable and effective. Interestingly enough, the most innovative and robust idea has been developed in two studies on ancient thought. Fred D. Miller and David Keyt (chapters 8-9) discover in Plato and Aristotle a very specific concept of “aristocratic” freedom, superior to the mundane concept of democratic freedom. The authors creatively and eloquently show how the diverse concepts of negative, positive, triadic, and republican freedom intertwine in ancient political ideals and realities. Freedom so understood is based on the rule of reason over desires, effectively overcoming external interferences as well as internal inhibitions.

The third section (chapters 14-28) consists of studies experimenting with the diverse conceptual arrangements, testing the concepts of liberty in numerous applications. Some of the studies are the jewels of interdisciplinary analysis of social, economic, and political phenomena. Mark Pennington (chapter 16) investigates the question whether regulations and public policies can enhance freedom. While starting with Berlin’s classic dichotomy, he concludes that the theoretical distinctions are not really as significant as some real life conditions making people comply with regulations and policies. Therefore, theories of political and economic freedom should rely above all on social and behavioral sciences providing factual evidence concerning human motivations and reactions. Virgil Henry Storr (chapter 25) uses Adam Smith’s idea of the “impartial spectator” to examine the moral effects of the free market. While critics expose the well-known market failures and defenders shyly argue that competition turns private vices into public virtues, Storr claims there are real moral teachings in market activities: “the market does promote virtue” (p. 457). Kyla Ebels-Duggan (chapter 21) examines what she calls “the liberal dilemma of childrearing”: whether parents can both respects their children’s freedom and effectively execute their own educational responsibilities. It appears there is no concept of freedom providing an unproblematic answer to this dilemma. It is really hard to teach one’s kids how to live free without limiting their freedom. Jason Brennan’s study (chapter 18) of the connections between democracy and various concepts of freedom leads him to a conclusion that the liberal version of constitutional democracy remains the most reliable form. The fashionable theoretical alternatives – including the republican and deliberative models of democracy – do not offer realistic institutional arrangements to secure individual liberties.

Jason Brennan’s conclusions can be seen as archetypical for the whole volume and its area of study. All in all, The Oxford Handbook of Freedom demonstrates the lasting philosophical and political mastery of the liberty tradition. Although the diverse models of liberty give promising explanatory opportunities, the classical paradigm – especially “negative” non-interference and self-ownership – provides, all things considered, the most useful conceptual frameworks so far. It is superior as a methodological model as well as a practical vision to establish goals and policies. Mark Bryant Budolfson (chapter 14) labels it “default libertarianism” practically inescapable for contemporary economists, social scientists, and policy makers: “the strong default for public policy – even in response to market failures – should be toward decentralized, pro-individual freedom policies that involve minimal government intervention in markets” (p. 274). The default should not become a rigid dogma but replacing it with other models must require strong justifications. Without those, the assumptions of individual liberty, self-interest, rationality, private ownership, and economic freedoms remain the best tools for understanding the world as well as changing it.

 

© 2018 Waldemar Hanasz

 

Waldemar Hanasz, PhD, Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland