CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Markoc, Anton |
|---|---|
| Title | A Critique of the Republican Conception of Freedom |
| Summary | In this thesis I argue against the republican conception of freedom. According to this conception, an agent is free if and only if she is not dominated by other agents. An agent is dominated just when and because others have capacities to interfere, intentionally and on an arbitrary basis, in certain choices that she is in a position to make. I first argue against the republican claim that it is only the arbitrary interference that infringes freedom. I show that there is no principal way of distinguishing arbitrary from non-arbitrary interference and that, even if there is, making such distinction is undesirable given that it presents a form of moralization of the concept of freedom. I then tackle the republican idea that the mere possibility of arbitrary interference is sufficient for unfreedom to occur. I argue that this view is mistaken and that we should instead accept the view the agent’s freedom is directly and negatively proportional to the probability of someone else’s interference in her actions. |
| Supervisor | Andres Moles Velasquez |
| Department | Philosophy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/markoc_anton.pdf |
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