Abstract
In this chapter I argue for the importance of freedom’s agency value and the need to adopt a refined value-based approach to freedom in order to capture it. I focus on the debate between proponents of a value-neutral approach to overall freedom (Carter, A Measure of Freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999; van Hees, Legal Reductionsim and Freedom, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2000), and scholars who defend value-based approaches to overall freedom (Sen, J Econ 50:15–29, 1991; Oxf Econ Pap 45:519–541, 1993). In this debate value-neutral approaches are commonly motivated by a rejection of value-based approaches. I show that the most prominent arguments that reject a value-based approach to overall freedom in favour of a value-neutral one are implicitly or explicitly based on the importance of freedom’s agency value. More specifically, I examine three prominent arguments raised against value-based approaches: the problem of preference dependency in subjective value-based approaches, the impossibility of paternalism, a problem of objective value-based approaches, and the non-specific value neglect, a general shortcoming of value-based approaches to overall freedom raised by Carter (A measure of freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999). In contrast to the way these problems are commonly employed in the literature, which is to motivate the rejection of value-based approaches and make the move to a value-neutral approach to overall freedom, I argue that these problems in fact make a case for a (refined) value-based approach. More precisely, all of the three problems are, as I argue, implicitly or explicitly based on the failure of the respective value-based approach to take freedom’s agency value into account, that is the value freedom has for being a necessary condition of a person’s agency. As opposed to existing contributions Carter (A measure of freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999) though, I argue that freedom’s agency value can only be captured by a (refined) value-based approach. This is an approach to overall freedom that takes account of the value of particular freedoms in terms of the various values and motives a person deliberates on before making choices. The chapter concludes with a more specific discussion of freedom’s agency value and how the availability of choice options can contribute to it.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
The importance of the concept of overall freedom has not remained undisputed, though. Ronald Dworkin (1977), for instance, questions the importance and intuitive plausibility of measures of overall freedom, or liberty as he calls it. He questions whether rights to particular liberties, such as freedom of speech, can be grounded on a right to liberty as such, which he then goes on to deny (Ronald Dworkin 1977, 269–271).
- 2.
The various contributions differ, though, with respect to the question of which constraints are indeed relevant to the definition of a particular freedom. If one is concerned with a person’s legal freedom, as Van Hees (2000) is, for instance, ‘having access to the internet’ would form part of a person’s opportunity set if, and only if, it is not legally prohibited. Kramer (2003), who is interested in freedom in the socio-political realm, considers that a person’s ability to perform an action together with the absence of humanly imposed external constraints is necessary for a person to enjoy a particular freedom. Alternatively, if one is interested in a person’s (overall) freedom to achieve well-being from a capability perspective, along the lines set out by Sen (1985), then one might also take into account a person’s endowment with sufficient resources, together with her physical ability and the absence of environmental and social constraints. The main arguments put forward in this chapter remain valid under all possible accounts, as long as the constraints that define a person’s states of being do not have an impact on the person’s valuation of this freedom. This rules out cases in which a person prefers to exercise a freedom just because of the nature of the very constraints which entail she does not have that freedom: as, for instance, when a person prefers to read newspaper A to newspaper B only because the government prohibits the sale of newspaper A. Another important difference between the various contributions concerns the interpretation of particular freedoms. Carter (1999), for instance, focuses on an action interpretation, whereas Sen (1992) also allows the various particular freedoms, or functionings as he calls them, to refer to states of being. Kramer (2003) extends the scope even further to include additionally ‘under-goings’. For clarity I shall follow Sen and focus on a ‘doing or being’ interpretation. However, the argument I set out here is also valid under a broader or narrower definition of the relevant alternatives.
- 3.
This example is a modified version of an example invoked by Taylor (1979).
- 4.
Note that some parts of the literature discuss the importance of particular freedoms (Gray 1991; Kymlicka 2002) rather than their value. However the underlying issue is the same, namely whether the different importance of various particular freedoms, such as free traffic flow or freedom of worship, to use Taylor’s (1979) example, should influence our measurement of overall freedom. So one might say an alternative is valuable if, and only if, it is important and the crucial question to answer is how to identify the valuable or important alternatives.
- 5.
It is important to note that Nussbaum does not aim at an approach to overall freedom, but strives to develop the capability approach further into a theory of justice. Indeed, she rejects the terminology of freedoms (Nussbaum 2003) and puts forward a list of capabilities meant to be a list of the ‘central requirements of a life with dignity’ (Nussbaum 2006, 75), which has to be guaranteed to all citizens if a society is to be just. Furthermore, she emphasises that her list is open-ended and has to be subject to revision in the light of critical discussion. These points are crucial when assessing whether her approach suffers the impossibility of paternalism, a problem discussed later on in this chapter.
- 6.
Steiner (1983) notes that his formula could take account of the value assigned to different particular freedoms but rejects this line in the course of his argument.
- 7.
A number of criticisms have been raised against the value-neutral measures put forward by Steiner (1983) and Carter (1999). Sugden (2003) questions whether they are indeed value-neutral, given that every individuation of actions presupposes a certain choice as to how to split up the world and thereby a certain view and evaluation of the world in order to do so. (Van Hees 2000, 130) points to various other problems of Carter’s measure, such as the fact that it cannot take the diversity of the available actions into account. Other interesting criticisms have been raised by Kramer (2003). The argument in this chapter does not rely on the criticism raised against value-neutral approaches, though: I derive an argument for value-based approaches purely on the basis of the criticism voiced against them.
- 8.
For a systematic discussion of semantic, normative and methodological criteria to structure a debate about different definitions of freedom, see Dowding and van Hees (2007, sect. 3).
- 9.
In this chapter I use the terms ‘desires’ and ‘preferences’ interchangeably.
- 10.
Strictly speaking my definition allows for a third type, i.e., a conscious unintentional one, in which the person does not intentionally trigger a change in her preferences but is aware of it (whether she embraces it or not). For clarity’s sake, I do not consider this variant.
- 11.
Elster (1983, 117) refers to the latter cases as ‘character planning’.
- 12.
Of course, what a wise choice amounts to might often not be obvious. Would one consider a person unwise, for instance, who fights all his life against the legal constraints he faces as a black person in a racist regime?
- 13.
For a detailed discussion of adaptation phenomena and an argument that Elster’s definition fails to account for all of them, see Khader (2011).
- 14.
The adaptive preference phenomenon is discussed frequently in criticisms of (some) welfarist approaches to evaluating human well-being. If a person’s welfare is equated with the satisfaction of her (actual) preferences, and welfarism is understood as a theory that demands the evaluation of a person’s well-being solely on the basis of her welfare, then the adaptive preference phenomenon can lead to a situation in which a person’s welfare is assessed as being higher than it would be before adaptation has occurred. For a more extensive elaboration of this critique of welfarist evaluation, see Elster (1982, 1983) and Sen (1987). Blackorby et al. (2005, 16) argue, however, that a restriction to well-informed and autonomously formed preferences in welfare (economic) analysis offers an escape from this problem. This points to the relevance of the analysis in this chapter of the relationship between a person’s overall freedom and her agency, a crucial element of the latter being the autonomous and reflective formation of her preferences.
- 15.
An important question is whether preferences are equally vulnerable to the problems discussed in case they are interpreted as a person’s goals or values rather than her desires. A person can reflect on and scrutinise the reasons she has for holding certain values, and this can indeed counter manipulation or adaptation processes. On the other hand, it might be easier to manipulate a person’s reasoning process (using selective information, for instance) than to ‘interfere’ with her desire formation. For an argument that valuation procedures are not less vulnerable to adaptation than desire-based accounts, see Nussbaum (1988, 175–176). For a discussion that touches on this point, see Anderson (1993). For an account of the structure of preferences in relation to reason, see von Wright (1972).
- 16.
This definition is based on Gerald Dworkin (1972).
- 17.
- 18.
There is a special case in which the removal of a valuable option can never contribute to a person’s good, namely if the latter is judged in terms of a (perfectionist) theory of the good life which states that more choice, viz. a larger number of choice options, always contributes to the person’s own good.
- 19.
Carter (2008, 64) makes a related, though different point in his criticism of republican theories of freedom.
- 20.
The question whether women should be prohibited from wearing headscarves at public institutions assumed great prominence in public debate in various (European) countries. I refer to the debate only in so far as the prohibition of headscarves is based on an argument for the woman’s own good. For an illuminating discussion of rulings and related reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights on cases related to the ‘headscarf debate’, see Vakulenko (2008).
- 21.
The European Court of Human Rights held that ‘the headscarf appeared to be imposed on women by a religious precept that was hard to reconcile with the principle of gender equality’ (ECHR 2005, para 111).
- 22.
Note that Dworkin’s definition of paternalism is broader since he takes freedom, or liberty as he calls it, to be a necessary condition for autonomy (Gerald Dworkin 1988, 21). So every interference with a person’s freedom implies an interference with her autonomy.
- 23.
Carter (Chap. 2) discusses two additional instances of freedom’s non-specific value: freedom’s unconditional value, a particular type of freedom’s intrinsic value, and freedom’s constitutive value, which as Van Hees (2000, chap. 8.2.) has argued is also a sub-type of freedom’s intrinsic value.
- 24.
Another example of freedom’s non-specific instrumental value to which Carter (Chap. 2.4 a) points can be found in the liberal tradition following Hayek, where overall freedom is valued as a means to human progress. Due to human ignorance concerning the particular paths which lead to progress, overall freedom has non-specific value in an instrumental way by allowing people to try out ‘experiments of living’, some of which will prove fruitful as a means to human progress.
- 25.
To be more precise, Kramer (2003, 243) makes a tripartite distinction between the non-specific, or, as he calls it, the content-independent value of the freedom to do x (such as the contribution the freedom to go to church makes to my agency), the specific or content dependent value of that freedom (that is, the value one assigns to be free to go to church), and the value of doing x (viz. the value of going to church). For the purpose of my argument the sufficient distinction is between the non-specific value of the freedom to do x, which I refer to as the value of enjoying the particular freedom to do x, and the value of doing x.
- 26.
For a more detailed account of Kramer’s argument, see Kramer (2003, chap. 5.2).
- 27.
Note that the case in which a person changes her preferences intentionally in the light of constraint circumstances also reflects a certain infringement of her agency due to a lack of freedom. Even though the loss of agency is not as severe as in case of unconscious adaptation, since the person has triggered the process of preference change intentionally (or is at least embracingly aware of it), it was nevertheless triggered by the lack of overall freedom.
- 28.
Note that Hurka (1987, 365) considers choice to be instrumentally valuable for this reflection process, using a Millian line of argument. ‘It exercises a high rational capacity, the capacity for discriminative valuing.’ For our argument it is not crucial whether we consider choice, or in our case overall freedom, as being of intrinsic or instrumental value to the process of reflection. What is crucial is that the value is non-specific.
- 29.
Note that this does not require the assumption that a person makes all her choices in a reflective way, nor does it impose any requirement on how such reflection takes place. All we are interested in is how overall freedom can contribute to this capacity, whether or not it is indeed exercised.
References
Anderson, Elizabeth. 1993. Value in Ethics and Economics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Berlin, Isaiah. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blackorby, Charles, Walter Bossert, and David Donaldson. 2005. Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics, and Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Carter, Ian. 1999. A Measure of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carter, Ian. 2008. How Are Power and Unfreedom Related? In Republicanism and Political Theory, ed. Laborde, C\(\grave {e}\)cile, and John Maynor, 58–82. Oxford: Blackwell.
Christman, John. 1991. Liberalism and Individual Positive Freedom. Ethics 101: 343–359.
Dowding, Keith, and Martin van Hees. 2007. Counterfactual Success and Negative Freedom. Economics and Philosophy 23: 141–162.
Dworkin, Gerald. 1972. Paternalism. The Monist 56: 64–84.
Dworkin, Gerald. 1988. The Theory and Practice of Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dworkin, Ronald. 1977. Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
ECHR. 2005. Leyla Şahin v Turkey, Judgement no. 44774/98, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 2005-XI. http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?action=html&documentId=789023&portal=hbkm&source=externalbydocnumber&table=F69A27FD8FB86142BF01C1166DEA398649
Elster, Jon. 1982. Sour Grapes – Utilitarianism and the Genesis of Wants. In Utilitarianism and Beyond, ed. Amartya Sen, and Bernard Williams, 219–238. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Elster, Jon. 1983. Sour Grapes, Studies in the Subversion of Rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Frankfurt, Harry G. 1971. Freedom of the will and the Concept of a Person. Journal of Philosophy 68: 5–20.
Gray, Tim. 1991. Freedom, Issues in Political Philosophy. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International.
Griffin, James. 1986. Well-Being. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Van Hees, Martin. 2000. Legal Reductionsim and Freedom. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Hurka, Thomas. 1987. Why Value Autonomy? Social Theory and Practice 13: 361–382.
Khader, Serene. 2011. Adaptive Preferences and Women’s Empowerment. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kramer, Matthew M. 2003. The Quality of Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kymlicka, Will. 2002. Contemporary Political Philosophy, An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Loevinson, Ernest. 1977. Liberty and the Redistribution of Property. Philosophy and Public Affairs 6: 226–239.
Megone, Christopher. 1987. One Concept of Liberty. Political Studies 35: 611–622.
Mill, John Stuart. 1859/1985. On Liberty. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 1988. Nature, Function, and Capability: Aristotle on Political Distribution. In Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supplementary Volume, ed. Julia Annas, and Robert H. Grimm, 145–184. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2003. Capabilities as Fundamental Human Entitlements: Sen and Social Justice. Feminist Economics 9: 33–59.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2006. Frontiers of Justice, Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Parfit, Derek. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Scanlon, Thomas M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Sen, Amartya K. 1987. On Ethics and Economics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sen, Amartya K. 1985. Commodities and Capabilities. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Sen, Amartya K. 1990. Welfare, Freedom and Social Choice: A Reply. Recherches Economiques de Louvain 56: 451–486.
Sen, Amartya K. 1991. Welfare, Preference and Freedom. Journal of Econometrics 50: 15–29.
Sen, Amartya K. 1992. Inequality Reexamined. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Sen, Amartya K. 1993. Markets and Freedoms: Achievements and Limitations of the Market Mechanism in Promoting Individual Freedom. Oxford Economic Papers 45: 519–541.
Steiner, Hillel. 1983. How Free: Computing Personal Liberty. In Of Liberty, ed. A. Phillips Griggiths, 73–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sugden, Robert. 1998. The Metric of Opportunity. Economics and Philosophy 14: 307–337.
Sugden, Robert. 2003. Opportunity as a Space of Individuality: Its Value and the Impossibility of Measuring it. Ethics 113: 783–809.
Taylor, Charles. 1979. What’s Wrong with Negative Liberty? In The Idea of Freedom, ed. Alan Ryan, 175–193. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Reprinted in Contemporary Political Philosophy, an Anthology, ed. Gooding, Robert, E. and Philip Pettit, 387–397, 1997. Oxford: Blackwell.
Vakulenko, Anastasia. 2008. Islamic Dress in Human Rights Jurisprudence and the Surrounding Debate: A Critical Feminist Analysis. PhD-Dissertation, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.
von Wright, Georg H. 1972. The Logic of Preference Reconsidered. Theory and Decision 140: 140–169.
Watson, Gary. 1973. Free Agency. The Journal of Philosophy 72: 205–220.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Binder, C. (2019). Freedom’s Agency Value: What it is and why it matters. In: Agency, Freedom and Choice. Theory and Decision Library A:, vol 53. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1615-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1615-2_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-024-1613-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-024-1615-2
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)