Philip Pettit

This reply argues five points, in response to the commentaries on my book, “Made with Words”. First, that Hobbes's theory of language may have supported his materialism, as his materialism supported the theory of language. Second, that for Hobbes legal penalties as such do not take from freedom, only legal obligations. Third, that his emphasis on maker's knowledge explains his theory of a priori demonstrable knowledge and, in particular, the importance he gives to definitions. Fourth, that Hobbes's theory of the desire for power suggests, against his own strategy, that people each ought to seek the equality that goes with others not having power over them; this is the next best to the inequality a person would enjoy in having power over others. And fifth, that Hobbes's theory of freedom is inferior in a number of respects to the republican theory of freedom as non-domination that he opposed

In 'The Humean Theory of Motivation' Michael Smith attempts two tasks: he offers an account of the debate about motivation between Humeans and anti-Humeans and he provides arguments that are designed to show that the Humeans win. While the paper is of great virtue in clarifying the debate, I believe that it falls short of both its goals. It does not highlight the really central issue between Humeans and anti-Humeans and it does not provide arguments which would settle that issue in favour of the Humean side.

This innovative approach to freedom starts from an account of what we mean by describing someone, in a psychological vein, as a free subject. Pettit develops an argument as to what it is that makes someone free in that basic sense; and then goes on to derive the implications of the approach for issues of freedom in political theory. Freedom in the subject is equated with the person's being fit to be held responsible and to be authorized as a partner in interaction. This book is unique among contemporary approaches - although it is true to the spirit of classical writers like Hobbes and Kant - in seeking a theory that applies to psychological issues of free agency and free will as well as to political issues in the theory of the free state and the free constitution. The driving thesis is that it is only by connecting up the different issues of freedom, psychological and political, that we can fully appreciate the nature of the questions involved, and the requirements for their resolution. The book does not not seek a comprehensive reach just for its own sake, but rather for the sake of the illumination it provides._ _ _A Theory of Freedom_ is a ground-breaking volume which will be of wide interest to scholars and students in political philosophy and political science

The question with which I shall be concerned in this paper is whether global response-dependence entails the truth of a certain noumenal form of realism: for short, a certain noumenalism. I accept that it does, at least under a plausible assumption, endorsing an argument presented by Michael Smith and Daniel Stoljar. But I try to show that, while the connection with noumenalism is undeniable, it is neither distinctive of a belief in global response-dependence nor particularly disturbing for those of us who embrace that belief.

The background thesis is that an implicit ontology of the people and the relation between the people and the state often shapes how we think in normative terms about politics. This article attempts to defend that thesis in relation to Rawls. The argument is that the rejection of an image of the people as a group agent connects with his objection to utilitarianism and the rejection of an image of the people as a mere aggregate connects with his objection to libertarianism. Rawls, it is argued, holds by an in-between picture and it is this that explains many of his most distinctive commitments. Key Words: Rawls • social ontology • group agent • solidarism • singularism • civicity.

There are three major issues which crop up in the discussion of metaphor among philosophers of language. They are: whether metaphor is cognitive, whether it is descriptive, and whether it is innovative. Those who deny that metaphor is cognitive are a group more often imagined than encountered, but if they existed they would consign the study of metaphor to affective stylistics, stressing the ornamentative and related effects which the phenomenon is likely to have.‘ Those who admit that metaphor is cognitive and go on to reject the idea that it is descriptive also assign the study of metaphor to stylistics, but stylistics with a cognitive emphasis. What is primarily to be studied in their view is not any descriptive content but the effects which metaphor has in drawing certain things to the attention of an audience and in changing thereby the audience’s general point of view.

In a now famous thought experiment, Frank jackson asked us t0 imagine an omniscient scientist, Mary, who is coniincd in a black-and-white room and then released into the world 0f color . Assuming that she is omniscicnt in respect of all physical facts—roughiy, all the facts available to physics and all the facts that they in turn Hx or determine-physicalism would suggest that there is no new fact Mary can discover after emancipation; physicalism holds that all facts are physical in the relevant sense . Yet we cannot help but feel that coming out of that room would be an occasion of dramatic enlightenment and, in particular, an occasion for learning facts to do with how red or yellow or blue 100ks or, as it is usually said, with what it is like t0 sec red or yellow or blue. Many in the black-and—whit

Suppose we embrace the republican ideal of freedom as non-domination: freedom as immunity to arbitrary interference. In that case those acts that call uncontroversially for criminalization will usually be objectionable on three grounds: the offender assumes a dominating position in relation to the victim, the offender reduces the range or ease of undominated choice on the part of the victim, and the offender raises a spectre of domination for others like the victim. And in that case, so it appears, the obvious role for punishment will be, so far as possible, to undo such evils: to rectify the effects of the crime that make it a repugnant republican act. This paper explores this theory of punishment as rectification, contrasting it with better established utilitarian and retributivist approaches

The idea of control or power is central to the notion of democracy, since the ideal is one of giving kratos to the demos: giving maximal or at least significant control over government to the people. But it turns out that the notion of kratos or control is definable in various ways and that as the notion is differently understood, so the ideal of democracy is differently interpreted. In this little reflection, I distinguish between three different notions of popular control, arguing that only one is really suitable in democratic theory. Under the first conception of popular control, it means that the people have a causal influence on government; under the second, it implies that the people exercise intentional direction over government; and under the third, it requires that the people enjoy an intermediate degree of power: I describe this as institutional control over government. I argue that popular control as causal influence is not demanding enough for the ideal of democracy, that popular control as intentional direction is too demanding, and that the only plausible candidate for interpreting the ideal is that of institutional control. I discuss two ways in which this sort of popular control may be realized, arguing against what I call a ‘market’ model and presenting the rival, ‘condominium’ model in a rather more favorable light.

Hobbes made a distinctive contribution to the discussion of freedom on two fronts. He persuaded later, if not immediate, successors that it is only the exercise of a power of interference that reduces people’s freedom, not its (unexercised) existence - not even its existence in an arbitrary, unchecked form. Equally, he persuaded them that the exercise of a power of interference always reduces freedom in the same way, whether it occurs in a republican democracy, purportedly on a ‘non-arbitrary’ basis, or under a dictatorial, arbitrary regime. But the basis on which Hobbes maintained those two propositions was very different from any that successors would have found plausible. This article explores the idiosyncratic principles that led Hobbes to develop his influential point of view. Key Words: freedom • Hobbes • liberalism • libertarianism • liberty.

This authoritative collection of the seminal texts in post-war political philosophy has now been updated and expanded. Reprints key articles, mainly unabridged, touching upon the nature of the state, democracy, justice, rights, liberty, equality and oppression. Includes work from politics, law and economics, as well as from continental and analytic philosophy. Now includes thirteen additional texts, taking account of recent developments in the field and reflecting the most pressing concerns in international affairs. Can be used alongside A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy as the basis for a systematic introduction to the subject

The early nineteenth century saw the demise of the Italian-Atlantic tradition of republicanism and the rise of classical liberalism. A distinct Franco-German tradition of republicanism emerged from the time of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant, which differs from the older way of thinking associated with neo-republicanism. This chapter examines the key differences between the Italian-Atlantic and Franco-German traditions of republicanism and places them in a historical context. It first considers classical republicanism and how the ideological ideal of equal freedom as nondomination differs from the twin institutional ideals of a mixed constitution and a contestatory citizenry. It then looks at the classical liberal opposition that arose in response to Italian-Atlantic republicanism. It also discusses the views of Kant and Rousseau about freedom and the role of the citizenry, as well as their theory of the constitution. The absolutist opposition in Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes to the institutional ideals of republicanism is also explored.

A generation of social theorists have argued that if free-rider considerations show that certain collective action predicaments are unresolvable under individual, rational choice – unresolvable under an arrangement where each is free to pursue their own relative advantage – then those considerations will equally show that the predicaments cannot be resolved by recourse to norms (Buchanan, 1975, p. 132; Heath, 1976, p. 30; Sober and Wilson, 1998, 156ff; Taylor, 1987, p. 144). If free-rider considerations explain why people do not spontaneously keep the streets clean, though they would each prefer unlittered streets, then those considerations will also explain why there is no effective norm against littering the streets.