Chapter 2 surveys phrases with the verb boulomai that describe the ability to do “whatever one wishes” or to live “however one wishes” as freedom in order to demonstrate that democratic freedom was understood as the ability to bring one’s will to fruition. These phrases are found in a wide range of genres, including history, philosophy, oratory, drama, and epigraphy. By defining themselves as free in contrast to slaves, Athenians perceived their actions and decisions as emanating from themselves rather than a master. Freedom was thus defined as not simply a prerequisite status for citizenship, in contrast to birth or wealth, but a personal capacity for action. This positive freedom was a central aspect of citizen identity, rendering scholarly accounts focused on negative freedom incomplete. The distinctive feature of democratic freedom was the insistence on the self as master of action; as a citizen, one did what one wished. Positive freedom gave rise to procedural components in Athenian administration and law, notably voluntarism and accountability, as well as served as a distinctive core marker of identity in contrast with other states, such as Sparta and Persia.

Chapter 3 analyzes freedom as doing “whatever one wishes” in fourth-century oratory. As several scholars have noted, doing “whatever one wishes” appears ambivalent in forensic speeches. They argue that, since Athens was not an anarchic state, extreme freedom could be glossed as a threat to sociopolitical stability. In contrast to prevailing scholarship, however, I argue that the most dominant principle, even in these texts, is the preservation of positive freedom as justification for the litigant’s position. While acting “however one wishes” may be presented as objectionable, the rhetoric of that assessment emphasizes who is doing “whatever they wish” and whom they affect by doing so. Bad characters, whether a criminals, oligarchs, or metics, can be rebuked as undeserving of positive freedom and abusing the power that attends it. The limitation of another citizen’s ability to do what he wishes can also condemn the action. Doing “what one wishes” is not a byword for antidemocratic action, but can have such a connotation because of the particular actors or victims of the actions. It is the misuse of the natural qualities of a citizen that leads to censure.

This chapter introduces the idea of an empowering state – one that provides its citizens with protection from vulnerabilities, resources to achieve their potential, and access to full participation in democratic institutions and decision-making. It argues that the last forty years have instead seen a disempowering state with many excluded by poverty and lack of opportunity, while for others active citizenship and participation were stifled. It contrasts the negative liberty of a neoliberal state – in which wealthy people and corporations are accorded freedom from interference and regulation – with the positive freedoms of a nurturing state – one that provides the wherewithal for each individual to achieve their potential.

It elucidates the many strands of an empowering state, beginning with the need for everyone to commit to making a fair contribution, rather than seeking ways to evade responsibility, and setting out the case for a far more progressive tax system than the one we currently have (which is shown to be essentially regressive). It discusses the need for greater democratic accountability and citizen engagement, with examples from pioneering local initiatives. Finally, it argues that protecting our natural environment and mitigating climate change require the support of an empowering state.

Whereas Isaiah Berlin argued that positive liberty is not a theory of liberty at all, and that negative liberty is the only true conception of liberty, Dorothy Roberts argues that positive liberty is the only true conception of liberty, and that negative liberty is not a theory of liberty at all but rather a theory of power and privilege. This essay takes up that contrast with specific reference to disability. One could argue that disability takes a negative liberty view, because disabled persons are constrained by physical, legal, and attitudinal barriers from doing many things they want. But this requires a positive liberty gesture of expanding what we mean by “barriers,” such as seeing stairs as a barrier rather than a natural part of building architecture for which nobody is responsible. But this essay carries the positive liberty argument further, drawing on feminist insights about the social construction of desire and subjectivity, to argue that positive liberty is important to a full understanding of freedom for disabled persons.

Contemporary democracies are facing ever increasing threats of authoritarian rule on the part of their own leaders, along with the emergence of powerful white nationalist social movements. In this difficult political context, those committed to reform have called for a recommitment to democracy, including restoring and expanding voting rights, and limiting the power of money. Yet, several theorists (myself among them), have argued that we need to go beyond this, not only by deepening democracy but also by expanding its domain, extending it to corporations and firms and to social institutions, as has also been proposed by feminist ethics, e.g., as caring democracy.In this paper, I want to argue that a key element is missing in the standard analyses of democracy’s difficulties, one that is at least partly theoretical and normative in nature.I argue that the deeper meaning of freedom has been obscured within the dominant liberal democratic tradition, taking this to include both liberal and libertarian approaches. And although authoritarianism falls outside both of these more mainstream approaches, it benefits from the fecklessness of the traditional understanding of liberty, which also, I believe, enables it to propagate itself in perniciously inegalitarian as well as antidemocratic ways.

In most discussions of the nature and value of freedom, the setting in which it is meant to be enjoyed is assumed to be the domestic relations among citizens in a stable state.However, current social conditions around the world are rife with porous borders, migrating populations, refugees and those fighting for liberation against oppressive regimes.In this setting, those idealized assumptions do not hold; yet, freedom remains a value such persons.In this chapter, I discuss the nature of freedom in this light, and I defend a notion of basic freedom that, on the one hand includes positive elements such as access to resources and the capacity for self-government, but, on the other, does not require full citizenship in ideally functioning democracies (as do other conceptions).

Public reason approaches to political legitimacy typically claim that members of society are free and equal when they live under institutions that are publically justified. Institutions are publically justified when they can be justified in the right way to the reasoning of each member. However, the requirements of publically justified institutions are also backed by political coercion or other social practices through which individuals are held accountable to those requirements, though the result is supposedly citizens being free in a positive sense. Throughout this development, public reason theorists have seemed to presume that legitimate institutions are sufficient for securing the freedom of its members, even the members that do not think those institutions are best. This change from best to merely legitimate, however, raises serious difficulties for the account of freedom within public reason theories, particularly when we consider the level of divergence that may exist between the institutions favored by one’s own reason and the merely legitimate institutions one may live under. This chapter elaborates the difficulties that public reason views face regarding liberty in a merely legitimate regime, and considers the main strategies available to such accounts for understanding the liberty of members of legitimate societies.

Over the last century, many philosophers have argued in favour of a liberal-egalitarian accommodation of capitalism, in which the liberty of the market is to be combined with an egalitarian distribution of property. Theorists of positive freedom, amongst others, have been prominent in arguing for the liberal-egalitarian accommodation. They have argued that an egalitarian distribution of private property is necessary to give every citizen equal positive freedom. To lead an autonomous life, every citizen needs control over some private property. The liberal-egalitarian accommodation to capitalism has come under threat in the last decades, as documented by a renewed widening of inequalities in wealth and income.In this essay, I will argue that this predicament requires us to look at one important precondition of the positive freedom argument. This precondition I call the de-politization of private property. Private property is conceived of as a purely private phenomenon, which has no effects on the exercise of political power. However, whether this precondition is met is a contingent matter; and so defenders of the positive freedom argument therefore need to turn their attention to the problem posed by the relation between private property and political power.

This chapter outlines the structural diversity of public speech that democratic government requires, and the claim that democracy entails positive freedom of communication, not only a negative freedom or liberty. The state has obligations to support communicative freedom; both positive and negative dimensions of free speech need protection for democracy to have substantial communicative legitimacy. This book, often using historical comparative material, examines speech and varied forms of democracy; what it would mean for society to have a voice, formulate judgments and make claims of government that are heard; and free speech law’s role in the voice, judgments and claims. The chapter explains terminology, challenges in the approach and sources used: media studies, human rights, political theory and legal writing and case law. Further possible sources are considered, including analyses based on communication rights and republican freedom. The book is not an exegesis of any one legal system but explores ideas and techniques relevant to positive dimensions of free speech. The aim is show how law should treat positive free speech and raise questions for democratic systems.

This chapter examines writing on positive human rights and political theory on positive freedom. The human rights analysis suggests positive free speech entails obligations on states to act for diversity in public speech to support autonomy and democratic practices, perhaps with courts having a role to frame positive free speech as a democratic precondition. Work from political theory is used to argue Isaiah Berlin’s analysis of positive and negative freedom has little relevance for positive dimensions of free speech. Other writers show positive communicative freedom is highly pluralistic, clearly connects with democratic goals, and includes negative liberty. Even for approaches generally within Berlin’s tradition, his essay should be left aside when discussing free speech. The writing examined in this chapter tends to place responsibility on institutional politics rather than judges. Similar ideas are evident in much of the legal scholarship considered in the next chapter. But it becomes clear in subsequent chapters why such a limited judicial role is unlikely to result in substantial positive freedom of speech, even if a larger judicial role also raises real challenges.

This chapter connects our arguments about agency and autonomy in chapters 2-4 to conceptions of freedom and its value. We argue that freedom has two fundamental conditions: that persons be undominated by others and that they have an adequate degree of autonomy and agency. We then explain that algorithmic systems can threaten both the domination-based and the agency-based requirements, either by facilitating domination or by exploiting weaknesses in human agency. We explicate these types of threats as three sorts of challenges to freedom. The first are “affective challenges,” which involve the role of affective, nonconscious processes (such as fear, anger, and addiction) in human behavior and decision-making. These processes, we argue, interfere with our procedural independence, thereby threatening persons’ freedom by undermining autonomy. The second are “deliberative challenges.” These involve strategic exploitation of the fact that human cognition and decision-making are limited. These challenges also relate to our procedural independence, but they do not so much interfere with it as they exploit its natural limits. A third sort of challenge, which we describe as “social challenges,” involve toxic social and relational environments. These threaten our substantive independence and thus, our freedom.