|
July 30, 2008
The Republican tradition includes Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli, Milton, Harrington, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Madison and Adams. According to Hans Oberdiek, in this review of Cécile Laborde and John Maynor (eds.), Republicanism and Political Theory,
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.
I have mentioned this before on philosophy.com. Here I want to explore the features that distinguishes 'republican' liberty from its more familiar ‘liberal’ counterpart. What stands out in the Republican conception of liberty is the linking of liberty or freedom with self-government.
We can interpret the latter by turning to Quentin Skinner's Tanner Lecture (1986)---The Paradoxes of Political Liberty----- where he says:
The suggestion has been that the idea of political liberty is essentially a negative one. The presence of liberty, that is, is said to be marked by the absence of something else; specifically, by the absence of some element of constraint which inhibits an agent from being able to act in pursuit of his or her chosen ends, from being able to pursue different options, or at least from being able to choose between alternatives.
A classic statement of that conception of liberty is given by Hobbes, and it was directed at the classic Republican conception of liberty that linked freedom with self-government. As Skinner says on this account, if we wish to assure our own individual liberty, it follows that we must devote ourselves as wholeheartedly as possible to a life of public service, and thus to the cultivation of the civic virtues required for participating most effectively in political life.
|
It seems to me, on a republican construal, "liberty" just *is* participation in the public deliberation and governance of one's political community, which is conceived of both as essential to the realization of one's status as a human being and as requiring a certain self-mastering constraint, "civic virtue", in accepting the impositions of the regulations of community affairs, the inevitability of individual constraints due to collective conditions of existence. In that perspective, "rights" are what ensure, promote, or enhance such public-political participation, and, if not guaranteeing the resolution of political conflicts, at least ensure their more productive pursuit. That might, in some degree, overlap with liberal conceptions, though on differing grounds. (For example, both might entail a right to "privacy", delimiting public from private issues, but for virtually opposed reasons, on the one side, to prevent undue public interference with the pursuit of private interests, and on the other, to prevent the public from being unduly contaminated by and subordinated to private interests, while protecting the private resources needed for public participation). But for liberalism "rights" are primarily a matter of protecting individuals from the impositions of public-political power, and guaranteeing them a scope for the "free" pursuit of their own interests, (especially economistic self-interests). For liberalism, almost any imposition or regulation of public power comes to seem an authoritarian submission, which can only be ameliorated by referring to the freedom to contract, denying or repudiating any community of fate. Even the most radical demands of liberalism, then, ironically, have Hobbes as their ancestor.