July 7, 2008
In this review of Cécile Laborde and John Maynor (eds.), Republicanism and Political Theory, Hans Oberdiek says that we need to distinguish "old" and "new" republicanism partly because liberalism largely displaced it in the 19th and 20th centuries in Anglophone nations and partly because contemporary republicanism is liberal in that it accepts moral individualism, value pluralism, and an instrumental view of political life. Oberdiek says that:
There are two strands of old republicanism: one represented by Aristotle's concern for the good life to be realized in and through participation in self-governing communities, the other a neo-Roman tradition that emphasizes freedom (or independence) from the arbitrary will of an "alien power" under the rule of law. If Michael Sandel and Charles Taylor represent contemporary neo-Athenian interpretations of republicanism, Skinner and Pettit represent neo-Roman contemporary interpretations.
He says that Skinner and Pettit Republicanism does not lie on a continuum between liberty as non-interference and self-mastery, but as an independent account, both conceptually and normatively.
Liberty, as they conceive it, consists in non-domination, not non-interference, under the rule of law, and has nothing to do with individual self-mastery. American revolutionaries, for example, sought independence from Britain: they wanted to be free not only from the actuality and the probability but also and essentially the very possibility of domination by the British. They wished to live under laws of their own making and a government of their own devising. What they rightly resented, according to republican thought, was living under arbitrary alien power; power, that is, that not only lies in alien hands, but also that can be exercised completely at their discretion or prerogative.
The important thing -- in keeping with freedom as non-domination -- is that we are citizens, not subjects. Citizens can look one another in the eye; subjects must act deferentially.
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