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Critical notice of On the people's terms: a Republican theory and model of democracy, by Philip Pettit, Cambridge University Press, 2012, xii+333pp.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

David Dyzenhaus
David Dyzenhaus*
Affiliation:
Law Faculty, New York University, 40 Washington Square South, 414D, New YorkNY10012,
*
*Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper is a critical notice of Philip Pettit's On the People's Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Pettit argues that only Republicanism can respond appropriately to the ‘evil of subjection to another's will – particularly in important areas of personal choice’ because its ideal of liberty – freedom as non-domination – both captures better than liberalism our commitment to individual liberty and explains better our commitment to the legitimacy of democratic decision-making than standard democrat accounts. If this argument succeeds, it demonstrates that there is no real tension between the liberal thought that justice provides a standard for evaluating public decisions independent of the fact that they are taken democratically and the democratic thought that the fact that a decision is democratic suffices to make it legitimate. I argue, however, that Pettit finds himself caught between two contradictory positions: a version of Isaiah Berlin's negative concept of liberty and a positive liberty account of democracy. And I show that his attempt to resolve the tension fails because it requires him to embrace the positive liberty account he is committed to rejecting.

Keywords

Republicanismlibertynegative freedompositive freedomdemocracylegitimacy
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , August 2013 , pp. 494 - 513
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013

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