Book contents
- Positive Freedom
- Positive Freedom
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction The Multiple Dimensions of Positive Freedom
- Chapter 1 Unity and Disunity in the Positive Tradition
- Chapter 2 Positive Liberty as Realizing the Essence of Man
- Chapter 3 Moral and Personal Positive Freedom
- Chapter 4 Positive Freedom and Freedom of Contract
- Chapter 5 Recognition and Positive Freedom
- Chapter 6 Self-Mastery and the Quality of a Life
- Chapter 7 Basic Freedom in the Real World
- Chapter 8 Reframing Democracy with Positive Freedom
- Chapter 9 Disability and Positive Liberty
- Chapter 10 Positive Freedom and Paternalism
- Chapter 11 Beyond Positive and Negative Liberty
- Chapter 12 Property and Political Power
- Chapter 13 Public Reason, Positive Liberty, and Legitimacy
- Works Cited
- Index
Chapter 4 - Positive Freedom and Freedom of Contract
Fairness, Faring Well, and Freedom
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 September 2021
- Positive Freedom
- Positive Freedom
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction The Multiple Dimensions of Positive Freedom
- Chapter 1 Unity and Disunity in the Positive Tradition
- Chapter 2 Positive Liberty as Realizing the Essence of Man
- Chapter 3 Moral and Personal Positive Freedom
- Chapter 4 Positive Freedom and Freedom of Contract
- Chapter 5 Recognition and Positive Freedom
- Chapter 6 Self-Mastery and the Quality of a Life
- Chapter 7 Basic Freedom in the Real World
- Chapter 8 Reframing Democracy with Positive Freedom
- Chapter 9 Disability and Positive Liberty
- Chapter 10 Positive Freedom and Paternalism
- Chapter 11 Beyond Positive and Negative Liberty
- Chapter 12 Property and Political Power
- Chapter 13 Public Reason, Positive Liberty, and Legitimacy
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
A central charge against T. H. Green’s conception of positive freedom is that it confuses freedom and social justice. Rather than illuminating and elucidating the meaning of liberty, Green, so the criticism goes, under the disguise of a definition, recommends social ideals and principles such as social justice. The validity of such arguments is not the focus of my concern. I argue, instead, that contemporary efforts to defend social legislation, the welfare state, and socialism from the claims of negative freedom overlook the important interplay between context, conceptual mutability, and conceptual relationality in the construction of normative political arguments. Green’s conceptualization of positive freedom unveils just such interplay. To reclaim the vital conceptual-normative role of positive freedom in the tradition of liberalism and its contemporary discourse is the task of this paper.
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- Positive FreedomPast, Present, and Future, pp. 65 - 82Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021