With respect to its method, the dissertation has two key features: it proceeds through a closed reading of specific authors and it delves into epistemological and ontological questions (theories of society and the self) that bear profoundly on the conceptualisation of freedom.

"Abdruck der der Rechts- und staatswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Zürich vorgelegten Dissertation." / "Verzeichnis der abgekürzt zitierten Literatur": p. [v]-vi.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1942. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-207).

This dissertation develops a new theory of specific and overall socio-political freedom and discusses its role in normative political theory. The aim is to dissolve some of the conceptual confusions that have often beset previous discussions and to develop a theoretical framework with which to approach questions of public policy. This dissertation consists of three parts. In the first part, I develop a new account that specifies under which conditions a person is specifically free and when she is unfree to do something. It is shown that republican accounts of freedom are unsatisfactory and that a trivalent liberal account that equates freedom with ability is most plausible. A new analysis of unfreedom is defended according to which a person is made unfree (as opposed to merely unable) to do something only if she would have this freedom in a better and available distribution that another person could have foreseeably brought about. In the second part, I discuss how to move from an account of specific freedom and unfreedom to a measure of overall freedom. I develop a new and simple aggregation function and argue that the measurement of overall freedom requires both quantitative and evaluative factors. In the third part, I then discuss what role freedom should play in a theory of distributive justice. Instead of freedom deontologically constraining the reach of distributive justice, freedom should be one of its distribuenda. I will first discuss how best to distribute freedom across a person’s lifetime and how this impacts on discussions of paternalistic policies. It will then be shown that we ought not simply maximise freedom between persons, not aim to give everyone enough freedom nor aim at equal freedom. Instead, distributing freedom requires a principle that combines maximisation with a concern for fairness.

The discussion regarding the second amendment and gun control in the United States has been a controversial and highly debated topic for many years. However, with the several school shootings taking place, the discussion about gun controls has been taken to a new level. The purpose of this essay is to give an overview of the debate and answer to the main question ”how is the relationship between freedom and rights expressed in the debate about strengthened gun control, in relation to positive and negative liberty, and over time?  In order to achieve the purpose, three different kinds of analyzes have been made. First, two pro-contra analyzes were made on two different occasions. Next, the arguments found was examined through two concepts of liberty: positive and negative liberty. Lastly, a comparison was made between the arguments from the two different occasions. The results show that there are three different core issues in the debate, and that positive liberty is dominating the pro-gun control side, while negative liberty and individual rights are dominating the contra-gun control side. The debate has not been going through a radical change. However, some arguments have grown stronger over the years.