Frank Lovett
Biographic Data
| ID | 712651 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Frank Lovett |
| GIVEN NAMES | Frank |
| FAMILY NAME | Lovett |
| SIGNATURE | LOVETT F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Washington University in St. Louis |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9745-5559 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 189 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Liberty as Independence: The Making and Unmaking of a Political Ideal, written by Skinner, Quentin
Republican freedom and Moen's dilemma
Republicanism and liberalism have long been regarded as rival political doctrines, although the exact nature and degree of that rivalry has always been subject to debate. In a new contribution to this debate, Moen's The Republican Dilemma argues that republicans face an unavoidable choice between adopting a moderate interpretation of republican doctrine suitable for modern political conditions, but indistinguishable from liberalism in practice; o…
The freedom of choice and persons in republican theory
The Oxford Handbook of Republicanism
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title w…
Milton and the Republican Politics of Paradise Lost
Milton was both a great poet and in his own time a well-known political writer. Reading Paradise Lost in the light of his republican political writings, however, presents a serious problem because it is Satan and his confederates who speak and act like republicans in that epic poem, as would have been obvious to his contemporary readers. Rather than try to explain this problem away as others have done, this paper argues that Paradise Lost advance…
Response to Eric MacGilvray’s Review of The Well-Ordered Republic
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The Well-Ordered Republic
Classical republicans from Machiavelli to Madison and contemporary republicans such as Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner together form a coherent political tradition centered on three main principles: the non-domination principle, the empire of law principle, and the popular control principle. Republicans argue that people are not free when their choices are dominated by others, even when those others are benevolent, and even when that domination…
Three errors about republicanism: A reply to Jafarov and Huseynli
In their paper, ‘Republican Freedom, Domination, and Ignorability,’ Jafarov and Huseynli argue that our analysis of republican freedom in terms of an ignorability test fails to distinguish republicanism from liberalism. In this reply, we defend our view, showing that their argument rests on three common errors about republicanism: first, that republicanism must distinguish itself from liberalism to succeed; second, that republicans cannot admit p…
Domination and democratic legislation
Republicans hold that people are unfree if they are dominated, that is, if others have an insufficiently constrained ability to frustrate their choices. Since legislation can frustrate individuals’ choices, republicans believe that the design of legislative institutions has consequences for individual freedom. Some have argued that if legislative institutions are democratic, then they need not be sources of domination at all. We argue this view i…
Well-Ordered Republic
A Civic Republican Perspective on Market De-encapsulation
A republican argument for the rule of law
While the rule of law is surely a very important good, the familiar discussions found in the literature lead many to conclude that it is either a relatively trivial political ideal, or else a redundant one. What is needed is a new and persuasive defense of the rule of law that properly reflects its great significance for human well being. An important step towards building such an argument is to question a widely-shared but often unnoticed assump…
Hobbes’s Reply to the Fool and the Prudence of Self-Binding
Few passages in Hobbes’s writings have generated as much critical interest as the notorious reply to the fool – one who believes it is reasonable to renege on our promises whenever it is advantageous for us to do so. In his reply, Hobbes appears to argue that it is never reasonable to renege on our promises because doing so is never in our prudential interest. The problem is not only that this reply seems wrong, but further that it seems inconsis…
Republican Freedom, Popular Control, and Collective Action
Republicans hold that people are dominated merely in virtue of others' having unconstrained abilities to frustrate their choices. They argue further that public officials may dominate citizens unless subject to popular control. Critics identify a dilemma. To maintain the possibility of popular control, republicans must attribute to the people an ability to control public officials merely in virtue of the possibility that they might coordinate the…
Preserving Republican Freedom: A Reply to Simpson
The labour republicans and the classical republican tradition: Alex Gourevitch’s From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth
Alex Gourevitch’s From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth is a valuable contribution to republican historiography: in reconstructing the ideas of the 19th century American labour republicans, this work significantly expands and enriches our appreciation of the classical republican tradition. While the labour republicans are convincingly shown to have made important contributions to that tradition, stronger claims that they fundamentally tran…
Civic Republicanism and Social Justice
Lon Fuller, The Morality of Law
This chapter reviews The Morality of Law, by Lon L. Fuller, one of the most important books in jurisprudence published in the twentieth century. Fuller offers an account of the rule of law and its connection to morality that has influenced not only legal philosophers, but also a wide range of political theorists and social scientists. This chapter provides some background that led to the publication of The Morality of Law, considering in particul…
Freedom, History of
The Cambridge Companion to Liberalism
The political philosophy of liberalism was first formulated during the Enlightenment in response to the growth of the modern nation-state and its authority and power over the individuals living within its boundaries. Liberalism is now the dominant ideology in the Western world, but it covers a broad swathe of different (and sometimes rival) ideas and traditions and its essential features can be hard to define. The Cambridge Companion to Liberalis…
Republicanism, Perfectionism, and Neutrality
A Republican Theory of Adjudication
Civic Virtue
Any discussion of civic virtue must begin with the meaning of virtue in general. A virtue, on the standard view at least since Aristotle, is a settled disposition exhibiting type‐specific excellence. Thus, for example, since the central purpose of a knife is to cut things, it is a virtue in knives to be sharp. Similarly, one might argue, since sociability is an important characteristic of human beings, it is a human virtue to be disposed to form …
What counts as arbitrary power
What counts as arbitrary power? Civic republicans argue that an account of political liberty or freedom as consisting in the absence of domination best captures the spirit of the classical republican tradition, and also provides the basis for an attractive contemporary political doctrine. Domination, in turn, is usually understood as a sort of dependence on arbitrary social power. While there are many aspects of this conception of freedom as non-…
The Path of the Courtier: Castiglione, Machiavelli, and the Loss of Republican Liberty
Although Castiglione's The Courtier was one of the most popular products of the Italian Renaissance, it has largely escaped the attention of modern political theorists. Many dismiss The Courtier as an apolitical work characterized by nostalgia and escapism, but it should not be so dismissed: on the contrary, Castiglione's book expresses a definite political program. This essay explores that program as a “politics of the second best”—as a pragmati…
Neorepublicanism: A Normative and Institutional Research Program
Neorepublicanism may be defined as the attempt by current political scientists, philosophers, historians, lawyers, and others to draw on a classical republican tradition in the development of an attractive public philosophy intended for contemporary purposes. Three main ideas have been especially prominent in the neorepublican literature. First and most important is the conception of a free person as one who does not live under the arbitrary will…
Domination and Distributive Justice
Social power is not always troubling. One form of social power progressives are especially troubled by, however, is domination—meaning, roughly speaking, the arbitrary power that some persons or groups wield over other, dependent, persons or groups. This paper elaborates on this conception of domination and discusses why progressives should aim to minimize it. It then goes on to argue that minimizing domination entails a commitment to a particula…
Republican Freedom, Popular Control, and Collective Action
Republicans hold that people are dominated merely in virtue of others' having unconstrained abilities to frustrate their choices. They argue further that public officials may dominate citizens unless subject to popular control. Critics identify a dilemma. To maintain the possibility of popular control, republicans must attribute to the people an ability to control public officials merely in virtue of the possibility that they might coordinate the…
Rational Choice Theory and Explanation
Much of the debate concerning rational choice theory (RCT) is fruitless because many people (both critics and defenders) fail to correctly understand the role it plays in developing explanations of social phenomena. For the most part, people view rational choice theory as a species of intentional explanation; on the best available understanding, however, it should be viewed as contributing to the construction of straightforward causal explanation…
Preserving Republican Freedom: A Reply to Simpson
What counts as arbitrary power
What counts as arbitrary power? Civic republicans argue that an account of political liberty or freedom as consisting in the absence of domination best captures the spirit of the classical republican tradition, and also provides the basis for an attractive contemporary political doctrine. Domination, in turn, is usually understood as a sort of dependence on arbitrary social power. While there are many aspects of this conception of freedom as non-…
Republicanism, Perfectionism, and Neutrality
Cultural Accommodation and Domination
When should burdened social practices be granted special accommodation? One issue of concern—raised by Okin and others—is that some social practices involve domination, and so the accommodation of those practices might (inadvertently, perhaps) support social injustice. Suppose one wants to take this concern very seriously. Starting from the assumption that freedom from domination is an especially important value, this article examines whether cul…
Can Justice Be Based on Consent
Civic Republicanism and Social Justice
Milton's Case for a Free Commonwealth
This article will examine the development of John Milton's arguments for democracy as against monarchy and other sorts of autocratic rule. These arguments are interesting both in their own right and insofar as they shed light on historiographical debates concerning the classical republican tradition. Milton is shown to hold a negative conception of liberty, as opposed to a positive or participatory conception, which lends support to the neo‐roman…
Domination and democratic legislation
Republicans hold that people are unfree if they are dominated, that is, if others have an insufficiently constrained ability to frustrate their choices. Since legislation can frustrate individuals’ choices, republicans believe that the design of legislative institutions has consequences for individual freedom. Some have argued that if legislative institutions are democratic, then they need not be sources of domination at all. We argue this view i…
The labour republicans and the classical republican tradition: Alex Gourevitch’s From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth
Alex Gourevitch’s From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth is a valuable contribution to republican historiography: in reconstructing the ideas of the 19th century American labour republicans, this work significantly expands and enriches our appreciation of the classical republican tradition. While the labour republicans are convincingly shown to have made important contributions to that tradition, stronger claims that they fundamentally tran…
Harrington's Empire of Law
Nearly every reader of James Harrington has taken his theory that property is the foundation of government to be his central and most enduring contribution to political thought. Operating within this standard reading, most of the extensive literature on Harrington has focused on derivative issues, such as the accuracy and depth of his economic reading of English history, or the extent to which his mechanistic account of political institutions dis…
Civic Virtue
Any discussion of civic virtue must begin with the meaning of virtue in general. A virtue, on the standard view at least since Aristotle, is a settled disposition exhibiting type‐specific excellence. Thus, for example, since the central purpose of a knife is to cut things, it is a virtue in knives to be sharp. Similarly, one might argue, since sociability is an important characteristic of human beings, it is a human virtue to be disposed to form …
A Positivist Account of the Rule of Law
Despite extensive debate, accounts of the Rule of Law remain strikingly vague and imprecise. This paper begins the task of remedying this situation through the development of an analytically rigorous theory of the Rule of Law. First, it offers a preliminary sketch of a concept of law; second, it shows how the principles traditionally associated with the Rule of Law can be intrinsically connected with this concept of law; and third, it shows how t…
Should Republicans be Cosmopolitans?
Contemporary liberalism and republicanism present clearly distinct programs for domestic politics, but the same cannot be said when it comes to global politics: the burgeoning literature on global republicanism has reproduced the divide between cosmopolitan and associational views familiar from long-standing debates among liberal egalitarians. Should republicans be cosmopolitans? Despite presence of a range of views in the literature, there is an…
A Positivist Account of the Rule of Law
Despite extensive debate, accounts of the Rule of Law remain strikingly vague and imprecise. This paper begins the task of remedying this situation through the development of an analytically rigorous theory of the Rule of Law. First, it offers a preliminary sketch of a concept of law; second, it shows how the principles traditionally associated with the Rule of Law can be intrinsically connected with this concept of law; and third, it shows how t…
Can Justice Be Based on Consent
Milton's Case for a Free Commonwealth
Milton's Case for a Free Commonwealth
This article will examine the development of John Milton's arguments for democracy as against monarchy and other sorts of autocratic rule. These arguments are interesting both in their own right and insofar as they shed light on historiographical debates concerning the classical republican tradition. Milton is shown to hold a negative conception of liberty, as opposed to a positive or participatory conception, which lends support to the neo‐roman…
Rational Choice Theory and Explanation
Much of the debate concerning rational choice theory (RCT) is fruitless because many people (both critics and defenders) fail to correctly understand the role it plays in developing explanations of social phenomena. For the most part, people view rational choice theory as a species of intentional explanation; on the best available understanding, however, it should be viewed as contributing to the construction of straightforward causal explanation…
Consent and the Legitimacy of Punishment: Response to Brettschneider
In his paper, “The Right of the Guilty,” Corey Brettschneider aims to develop and defend a theory of punishment within the framework of a liberal-contractarian conception of political legitimacy. My response argues that this attempt to extend the liberal-contractarian theory reveals, in a particularly clear and striking manner, deep and ultimately insurmountable conceptual difficulties for that theory
Multiculturalism Without Culture and Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism Without Culture. By Anne Phillips. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. 216p. $29.95. Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism. By Sarah Song. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 212p. $85.00 cloth, $29.99 paper. These latest contributions to the multiculturalism literature have much to recommend them, and—in light of their many affinities—they are particularly rewarding to read as a pair. Both Sarah …
Domination and Distributive Justice
Social power is not always troubling. One form of social power progressives are especially troubled by, however, is domination—meaning, roughly speaking, the arbitrary power that some persons or groups wield over other, dependent, persons or groups. This paper elaborates on this conception of domination and discusses why progressives should aim to minimize it. It then goes on to argue that minimizing domination entails a commitment to a particula…
Neorepublicanism: A Normative and Institutional Research Program
Neorepublicanism may be defined as the attempt by current political scientists, philosophers, historians, lawyers, and others to draw on a classical republican tradition in the development of an attractive public philosophy intended for contemporary purposes. Three main ideas have been especially prominent in the neorepublican literature. First and most important is the conception of a free person as one who does not live under the arbitrary will…
A General Theory of Domination and Justice
In all societies, past and present, many persons and groups have been subject to domination. Properly understood, domination is a great evil, the suffering of which ought to be minimized as far as possible. Surprisingly, however, political and social theorists have failed to provide a detailed analysis of the concept of domination in general. This study aims to redress this lacuna. It argues first that domination should be understood as a conditi…
Cultural Accommodation and Domination
When should burdened social practices be granted special accommodation? One issue of concern—raised by Okin and others—is that some social practices involve domination, and so the accommodation of those practices might (inadvertently, perhaps) support social injustice. Suppose one wants to take this concern very seriously. Starting from the assumption that freedom from domination is an especially important value, this article examines whether cul…
What counts as arbitrary power
What counts as arbitrary power? Civic republicans argue that an account of political liberty or freedom as consisting in the absence of domination best captures the spirit of the classical republican tradition, and also provides the basis for an attractive contemporary political doctrine. Domination, in turn, is usually understood as a sort of dependence on arbitrary social power. While there are many aspects of this conception of freedom as non-…
The Path of the Courtier: Castiglione, Machiavelli, and the Loss of Republican Liberty
Although Castiglione's The Courtier was one of the most popular products of the Italian Renaissance, it has largely escaped the attention of modern political theorists. Many dismiss The Courtier as an apolitical work characterized by nostalgia and escapism, but it should not be so dismissed: on the contrary, Castiglione's book expresses a definite political program. This essay explores that program as a “politics of the second best”—as a pragmati…
Harrington's Empire of Law
Nearly every reader of James Harrington has taken his theory that property is the foundation of government to be his central and most enduring contribution to political thought. Operating within this standard reading, most of the extensive literature on Harrington has focused on derivative issues, such as the accuracy and depth of his economic reading of English history, or the extent to which his mechanistic account of political institutions dis…
A Republican Theory of Adjudication
Civic Virtue
Any discussion of civic virtue must begin with the meaning of virtue in general. A virtue, on the standard view at least since Aristotle, is a settled disposition exhibiting type‐specific excellence. Thus, for example, since the central purpose of a knife is to cut things, it is a virtue in knives to be sharp. Similarly, one might argue, since sociability is an important characteristic of human beings, it is a human virtue to be disposed to form …
Lon Fuller, The Morality of Law
This chapter reviews The Morality of Law, by Lon L. Fuller, one of the most important books in jurisprudence published in the twentieth century. Fuller offers an account of the rule of law and its connection to morality that has influenced not only legal philosophers, but also a wide range of political theorists and social scientists. This chapter provides some background that led to the publication of The Morality of Law, considering in particul…
Freedom, History of
The Cambridge Companion to Liberalism
The political philosophy of liberalism was first formulated during the Enlightenment in response to the growth of the modern nation-state and its authority and power over the individuals living within its boundaries. Liberalism is now the dominant ideology in the Western world, but it covers a broad swathe of different (and sometimes rival) ideas and traditions and its essential features can be hard to define. The Cambridge Companion to Liberalis…
Republicanism, Perfectionism, and Neutrality
Civic Republicanism and Social Justice
Preserving Republican Freedom: A Reply to Simpson
The labour republicans and the classical republican tradition: Alex Gourevitch’s From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth
Alex Gourevitch’s From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth is a valuable contribution to republican historiography: in reconstructing the ideas of the 19th century American labour republicans, this work significantly expands and enriches our appreciation of the classical republican tradition. While the labour republicans are convincingly shown to have made important contributions to that tradition, stronger claims that they fundamentally tran…
Hobbes’s Reply to the Fool and the Prudence of Self-Binding
Few passages in Hobbes’s writings have generated as much critical interest as the notorious reply to the fool – one who believes it is reasonable to renege on our promises whenever it is advantageous for us to do so. In his reply, Hobbes appears to argue that it is never reasonable to renege on our promises because doing so is never in our prudential interest. The problem is not only that this reply seems wrong, but further that it seems inconsis…
Political science (32 works) · Sociology (31 works) · Law (30 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (24 works) · Politics (24 works) · Law (22 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (20 works) · Philosophy (19 works) · Epistemology (17 works) · Law and economics (16 works)