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Here I move from historical analysis to philosophical explication of the concept of liberty, and I introduce the main conceptual components of the idea of freedom I defend.
This chapter examines the nature of slavery, and particularly chattel slavery, in the trans-Atlantic region in the modern period in order to structure the analysis of freedom to follow in subsequent chapters.
Here I defend the view that freedom requires more than merely opportunities to act but also the provision of resources needed for agents to enjoy capabilities to pursue valued activities and ways of life.
This chapter continues the discussion of the relation between liberty and democracy. It then shifts to a discussion of "sites of unfreedom" as in the case of prisoners, immigrants and refugees, and trafficked persons in order to illustrate the value of the concept of liberty defended in the book.
This chapter introduces the main methodology used in the book. It includes a discussion of nonideal theory, the analysis of political contexts via examination of the historical contexts in which they are used, and looks specifically at discourses around slavery and abolition as a source for insights about the idea of freedom.
Here I examine the relation between freedom and value, both in the sense of a person’s own values and the inherent value of liberty itself. I then show the relation between liberty, so conceived, and democratic institutions and practices.
This chapter argues that freedom requires certain modes of social recognition of the status and activities of free persons. I explain this claim and contrast it with similar views of thinkers such as Axel Honneth.
In a departure from standard approaches to the concept of liberty, in this book John Christman locates and defends the concept of freedom as a fundamental social value that arose out of fights against slavery and oppression. Seen in this light, liberty must be understood as requiring more than mere non-interference or non-domination – it requires the capacity for self-government and the capabilities needed to pursue valued activities, practices, and ways of life. Christman analyses the emergence of freedom as a concept through nineteenth- and twentieth-century struggles against slavery and other oppressive social forms, and argues that a specifically positive conception best reflects its origins and is philosophically defensible in its own right. What results is a model of freedom that captures its fundamental value both as central to the theoretical architecture of constitutional democracies and as an aspiration for those striving for liberation.