Liberty

doi:10.1017/9781108868143.007

5 - Liberty

from Part I - Values

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 March 2025

Philip Pettit

Edited by

Richard Bellamy and

Jeff King

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Richard Bellamy: Affiliation:
University College London
Jeff King: Affiliation:
University College London

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Summary

Freedom in a choice does not just requires the absence of interference by another, whether with a preferred option or with any option; it requires the absence of domination: the absence of vulnerability to a power of interference on the part of another. Law and only law can guard citizens equally against the domination of others by identifying a common set of basic liberties and by providing intuitively adequate resourcing and protection against others to enable people to exercise those choices. But the state that imposes law will itself dominate all or some of its citizens if it is not subjected to a system of intuitively adequate, democratic control over its imposition of law. Such a system should enable people to shape the framework of government, to impose operational checks, constitutional and contestatory, on officials in government, and to appoint or oversee the appointment of such authorities.

Keywords

liberty freedom law interference domination constitution contestation democracy

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory , pp. 71 - 87

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108868143.007 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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References

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