Abstract
This essay discusses a heretofore neglected dimension of one of the most important questions in the realm of political theory: which obstacles that stand in the way of our performing a certain action render us unfree to perform that action? This dimension is concerned with the issue of the causal test that a certain central kind of obstacle—i.e., subjunctive interference—has to pass in order to render us unfree. The aim of this essay is, first, to introduce this issue; and, second, to offer a first analysis of the two possible positions that can be taken with respect to it.
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Notes
In this essay I am concerned with the concept of negative freedom as the absence of obstacles to actions, in contrast to the concept of positive freedom as the actual performance of actions. Henceforth I shall refer to negative freedom simply as freedom.
As the title of Crocker's book—Positive Liberty—indicates, this view is sometimes described as a view of positive freedom. Leaving aside the question of whether this is warranted, note that, according to the distinction that I draw between negative and positive freedom in footnote 1 above, it is a conception of negative freedom.
The only exception I know of is Matthew Kramer's somewhat cursory treatment of this dimension in his The Quality of Freedom (2003, pp. 303–309).
Steiner (1994, p. 33) seems to assume this position when he argues that he cannot be rendered unfree to perform an action such as drawing a square circle, given that he is simply unable to do so in any case, i.e. regardless of what other people do or will do. Day (1970, p. 180) makes the same point while using the same example. Pettit (1999, p. 52) seems to assume this position when he defines domination, which for him is the only thing that renders us unfree, as ‘the capacity to interfere on an arbitrary basis in certain choices that the other is in a position to make.’ For someone who is unable to perform a certain action is not in a position to choose to perform it.
Cohen (2011, p. 174, n. 18) writes: ‘Suppose that someone is unable to […] walk across the square: the person in question is paralysed. Then he may nevertheless possess [the] freedom to cross the square: he has that freedom if, were he not paralysed, and he tried to cross the square, no one would prevent him from doing so.’ Similarly, Kristjánsson (1996, p. 11, n. 23) remarks that ‘[w]e can imagine a person paralysed […] finding it valuable to live in a society where he is free to various things [sic] which, as a matter of fact, he cannot do, for he realises how it would add insult to injury if he were not only unable, but also unfree, to do them.’
The discussion in this section will not take into account the two views that are found in the literature regarding the third dimension. For expository reasons I will show that the problem discussed in this essay is also relevant to conceptions of freedom that rely on either of these two positions in “The Actual Subjunctive Interference Position” and “The Hypothetical Subjunctive Interference Position” sections.
As far as I know, no one endorses such a conception.
The fact that the obstacle is imposed arbitrarily and with impunity is meant to cover the neo-republican conception of freedom (see, e.g., Pettit 1999, ch. 2). However, it might be argued that, on the neo-republican conception, domination, not interference, is the only source of unfreedom and thus that the problem raised in this essay is not relevant to it. Note, though, that the interference in question is a dominating interference and therefore it is also a source of unfreedom on the neo-republican conception, as Pettit himself points out (2001, p. 142). Besides, as indicated in footnote 4 above, the problem raised in this essay is relevant to the definition of domination itself. Domination can be defined as the capacity to interfere on an arbitrary basis and with impunity in certain choices that another person can actually make (as Pettit seems to define it—see footnote 4 above). Alternatively, it can be defined as the capacity to interfere on an arbitrary basis and with impunity in certain choices that another person can actually make or could make if there was nothing else standing in her way.
A slightly different question, which does not concern us here, will arise under this conception (as well as under any other conception) in situations where two obstacles that are sources of unfreedom emerge exactly at the same time, i.e., which of them renders one unfree to φ?
As the second prong of the U Postulate shows, Kramer's position on the first two dimensions is that only obstacles that make it impossible for us to x and which are the result of someone else's actions render us unfree to x. As the other postulate—the F Postulate which states that ‘[a] person is free to [x] if and only if he is able to [x]’—shows (together with the U Postulate), Kramer's position on the third dimension is that an obstacle that makes it impossible for us to x but is not a result of someone else's action leaves us not-free, rather than free, to x. But this need not concern us here. As I have shown above, my discussion of the fourth dimension is relevant to the different views on the first two dimensions; and, as I will show below, it is also relevant to the two views on the third dimension.
Note that on Kramer's position Albert’s entrapment in the cave is a case of mere inability, rather than unfreedom, even when things work the other way around; i.e., even when Theodore’s shoving of the boulder occurs a split of a second before the gust of wind would have caused the boulder to roll down (during that split of a second, though, Albert's entrapment is a case of unfreedom). I take this aspect of Kramer's position to be more controversial than the ones discussed above in the main body of this essay. But since this is not an essential aspect of the actual subjunctive interference position, at least as is it discussed here, I set it aside.
See also van Hees (2000, pp. 122–123, 132–133).
Assuming, as Kramer himself does (2003, pp. 359–368), that in measuring degrees of overall freedom we have to take into account not only what one is free to do but also what one is unfree to do, so that, ceteris paribus, the more unfreedoms one has the less free one is. See also Steiner (1983) and Carter (1999, pp. 171–173). This issue will be discussed further below.
This does not mean that, on this position, people can simply harm themselves in order to free themselves. As the two parenthesized qualifications in the text indicate, for the reduction in A’s abilities to increase her freedom, it has to occur independently of her imprisonment, i.e., it has to be the case that such a reduction would have occurred even if she had not been imprisoned. Otherwise, the imprisonment would be the cause of the reduction in her abilities.
Assuming, as both Steiner and Kramer seem to do, that the denominator should represent at least all the actions that a human being can perform given the laws of nature. If we assume instead that at any given time it represents only the actions that a human being can perform given the technology that exists at that time, then it would make sense to use such a ratio in measuring people’s overall freedom but only in different times. For then the denominator will not be the same across different times. More on this issue below.
The emphasis in this sentence should be on the term 'logically possible', not 'actions'. Kramer (2003, pp. 156–169) argues that freedom pertains not only to actions but also to becomings, undergoings, etc. But this is a separate issue which I will not discuss here.
van Hees (1998, p. 177) endorses this second option. He claims that ‘[i]t does not seem to be very meaningful to speak about the freedom to perform actions which are impossible to realise given the technical possibilities at a certain point in time.’
Jerry Cohen, who also claims that this phenomenon is an ‘insult to the status of persons’, argues that it ‘has nothing to do with caring about freedom, as such. (It has to do, instead, with caring about who presumes to restrict my freedom and why they seek to do so.)’ (Cohen 2011, p. 192).
Note that doing so would conflict with the claim about the symbolic disvalue of being unfree to x.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Stuart White, whose comments on one of the chapters of my DPhil thesis led me to write this essay, and Martin van Hees for his very useful feedback on earlier drafts.
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Shnayderman, R. Causal Tests in Subjunctive Judgements About Negative Freedom. Res Publica 20, 183–197 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-014-9237-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-014-9237-y