Economics Dictionary of Arguments

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Freedom: Freedom is the ability to live one's life without constraints, according to one's own values and beliefs. See also Liberty, Community, State, Governance, Society, Individuals, Democracy.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Hillel Steiner on Freedom - Dictionary of Arguments

Gaus I 127
Freedom/negative freedom/luberty/Steiner/Gaus/Mack: (...) the left libertarianism of Hillel Steiner advocates a radical version of negative liberty. Building his theory on a Hobbesian conception of negative liberty, Steiner holds that 'Broadly speaking, it suggests that a person is
unfree to do an action if, and only if, his doing that action is rendered impossible by the action of another person' (1994(1): 8). If, am free to X if and only if I cannot be prevented by another from X-ing, then it follows that I am free to X if and only if none of the locations and objects necessary to X-ing are controlled by others, or would be controlled by others should I attempt to X. Thus 'Freedom is the possession of things' (1994(1): 39). ((s) Hillel SteinerVsVan Parijs).
But to have a right to freedom requires more: it is to have a title to a domain of locations and things: it is to have property rights (1994: 81). Thus all rights to freedom are property rights, and all property rights are rights to freedom, a claim made by many in the liberty tradition (....).
Steiner claims that his account of liberty as property rights has a virtue lacking in competing theories of rights: compossibility. If rights are defined in terms of intentional actions - e.g. I have a right to see a film tomorrow and you have a right to wreck a building tomorrow - they can conflict (...).
>Justice/Hillel Steiner
, >Rights/Hillel Steiner.

1. Steiner, Hillel (1994) An Essay on Rights. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

Mack, Eric and Gaus, Gerald F. 2004. „Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism: The Liberty Tradition.“ In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications.

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.
Steiner, Hillel
Gaus I
Gerald F. Gaus
Chandran Kukathas
Handbook of Political Theory London 2004


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