Introduction

Abstract

Debates about freedom traditionally focus on a few central themes. The chapters of this volume update those debates and launch new ones. Whether the freedom worth pursuing is one or many, whether it conflicts with equality, whether it can be secured by the institutions of the modern state, and whether it is compatible with a deterministic understanding of the universe are some of the central questions that animate the chapters in this volume. Our contributors show both that we have made real progress in our understanding of the many faces of freedom and its enabling conditions, and that threats to our freedoms remain various, serious, and real.

Towards a principle of most-deeply affected

“…Since everyone is possibly affected by every single decision, we are left with no easily discernible way of distinguishing ‘those levels and kinds of effectivity’ with which we need to be concerned (Fraser 2008, 40). Even if we were able to know the correct constituency for each decision, the all-affected principle could, in effect, ‘[produce] shifting constituencies’ which ‘changes with specific decisions’ (Pavel 2018, 323; also see Whelan 1983, 19). Such shifting constituencies can undermine the ‘sincerity and trust’ that result from having a ‘stable’ demos (Miller 2009, 209).…”

“…Second, connected to the problem of broadness, scholars have also raised objections with the ensuing ineffectiveness of the all-affected principle as a precept to determine who the legitimate demos is. Carmen Pavel, for instance, points to the logical inconsistency of the all-affected principle: ‘we cannot know how basic interests are affected and whose interests are affected until we know something about the set of alternative decisions contemplated’ (Pavel 2018, 324). This means that we cannot rely on the all-affected principle to constitute a legitimate demos.…”

“…As Carmen Pavel argues,[b]eing a subject […] seems to require additional elements, such as an ongoing relationship with a community and its institutions, rights and obligations of citizenship, and a normative expectation of compliance with and support for the institutional system one is a subject of. (Pavel 2018, 327–28)Therefore, the all-subjected principle can – and often does – exclude those who are not within specific boundaries of subjection. As Rainer Bauböck summarizes: ‘“all subjected persons” is too conservative in presupposing the legitimacy of given boundaries’ (Bauböck 2009, 480).…”

“…[b]eing a subject […] seems to require additional elements, such as an ongoing relationship with a community and its institutions, rights and obligations of citizenship, and a normative expectation of compliance with and support for the institutional system one is a subject of. (Pavel 2018, 327–28)…”

Enfranchising all subjected: A reconstruction and problematization

“… 50. Nagel (2005: 130) employs a similar move in saying that justification is required, “not act by act, but for the system as a whole”; see similarly Christiano (2006: 88). Pavel (2018: 10) says that “[s]ubjection to laws requires a systematic, pervasive, and ongoing relationship between the subjected and the political authority.” Fung (2013: 247) also speaks of “regularly and deeply,” albeit in a different connection.…”