The core commitment of liberalism is that individual liberty is in some sense primary. There is, however, much disagreement over the concept of liberty itself. In this dissertation, I attempt to determine which conception of liberty is the properly liberal one. Ultimately, I argue in favor of what I call the anti-domination conception of liberty. I begin by examining other conceptions of liberty that are prominent in the contemporary literature, specifically Isaiah Berlins distinction between negative and positive liberty as well as variants of these views and Philip Pettits non-domination conception. Of these, I argue that none are consistent with basic liberal commitments and intuitions. As an alternative, I develop the anti-domination conception of liberty in which liberty is understood as reciprocity of power. One is free, on the anti-domination account, to the extent that one stands in an equal relation of power with others. This account, I argue, is conceptually unique from alternative views in that it is a status-based, as opposed to an option based, conception of liberty. As such, I contend that it is the conception that best coheres with core liberal commitments and values.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-08182010-111330 |
| Date | 06 September 2010 |
| Creators | Harbour, Michael David |
| Contributors | Robert Talisse, Jose Medina, W. James Booth, John Goldberg, John Christman |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-08182010-111330/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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