Freedom as Non‐Domination and Widespread Prejudice

Abstract

This paper offers an answer to an objection to Phillip Pettit's neo-republican account of freedom as non-domination raised by Sharon Krause. The objection is that widespread prejudice, such as systemic racism or sexism, generates significant obstacles to individuals' free agency but that neo-republicanism fails to explain why these obstacles reduce freedom. This is because neo-republicanism defines domination in terms of the capacity for arbitrary interference, but many prejudiced actions do not involve physical coercion, threats, or any other behavior typically described as types of interference. The paper discusses three strategies to account for the impact of widespread prejudice on the domination of groups. It argues that the most plausible strategy redefines domination in terms of behavior that is prima facie wrong and lacks appropriate checks. Such behavior includes interference but also includes prejudiced actions, such as failing to select the most qualified candidate for a job.

Neo-republicanism’s Methodological Commitments and Individual Rights

“…Those who are powerful can often bend the interpretation of the law or ignore their moral obligations with a significant degree of impunity. Widespread prejudice often works as a shield against even very well-justified claims by preventing those claims from getting a fair hearing (Costa 2019). The success of practices of contestation crucially depends on people being responsive to the arguments and perspectives of others, a willingness to listen and make an effort to be fair when assessing their demands, rather than Neo-republicanism's Commitments and Individual Rights 123 dismissing them as lacking credibility (Fricker 2013).…”

“…7 But in fact, there is nothing in neo-republican philosophy that militates against giving moral rights a basic justificatory role. 8 Indeed, it turns out that this is a very promising strategy for neo-republicans to adopt when building their theories if -as I have argued elsewhere -one cannot give an informative account of freedom as non-domination without appealing to at least some more basic normative terms (Costa 2007(Costa , 2019.…”

Systemic domination, social institutions and the coalition problem

“…This is an attractive feature of the theory, because it can account for an important aspect of our experience of agency, namely, that groups can exercise power in ways that constrain our freedom. Further, this gives the theory a distinctively critical edge: by accounting for imbalances of power between social groups, non-domination seems well equipped to theorise loss in freedom stemming from racist, patriarchal or material oppression (Costa, 2019;Laborde, 2008). 3 In conjunction with the robustness requirement, however, this focus on social groups seems to generate a problem.…”

“…Now, some proponents of non-domination reject that it is problematic to advocate a moralised conception of freedom (Costa, 2019; Laborde, 2010). But, as I will show, the coalition problem does not provide a new locus for this internal disagreement.…”