Freedom's values

The good and the right

Bibliographic Data

ID20143313
AuthorsPietro Intropi (0000-0001-7979-1439, Trinity College Dublin Philosophy Department Dublin Ireland, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume88
Issue6
Pages1144-1162
Publication date2022-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTheoria (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0040-5825 • E-ISSN: 1755-2567
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/theo.12431
PMID37064415
OpenAlexW4293770831
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited32

How is freedom valuable? And how should we go about defining freedom? In this essay, I discuss a distinction between two general ways of valuing freedom: one appeals to the good (e.g., to freedom's contribution to well‐being); the other appeals to how persons have reason to treat one another in virtue of their status as purposive beings (to the right). The analysis of these two values has many relevant implications and it is preliminary to a better understanding of the relationships between freedom and justice. First, it contributes to shed light on the relationship between trust and the value of freedom, and on two attitudes towards freedom – promoting and respecting freedom. Second, it disambiguates between two versions of the claim that freedom has non‐specific/content‐independent value: one appeals to the good, the other to the right. And third, I show that certain implications concerning the definition of freedom follow from assuming an account of the value of freedom that exclusively appeals to the right, illustrating how the value of freedom can shape what freedom is

Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry) · Economic Justice · Epistemology · Individualism · Law and economics · Physics · Political science · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Virtue · Free Will and Agency · Law · Mathematics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics