Agency-freedom and option-freedom

Bibliographic Data

ID23131178
AuthorsPhilip Pettit (0000-0002-0355-3896, Princeton University, corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume15
Issue4
Pages387-403
Publication date2003-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Theoretical Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0951-6298 • E-ISSN: 1460-3667
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/09516298030154003
OpenAlexW2070171522
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited5

The recent debates about the nature of social freedom, understood in a broadly negative way, have generated three main views of the topic: these represent freedom respectively as non-limitation, non-interference and non-domination. The participants in these debates often go different ways, however, because they address different topics under common names, not because they hold different intuitions on common topics. Social freedom is sometimes understood as option-freedom, sometimes as agency-freedom and the different directions taken by the theories can often be explained by their addressing freedom in one sense, then in another. The non-limitation approach focuses primarily on option-freedom, the non-domination approach on agency-freedom, whereas the representation of freedom as non-interference seems to spring from a failure to resolve the focus decisively on one target or another.

Agency (philosophy) · Economics · Freedom of contract · Law and economics · Political science · Sociology · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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