Philip Pettit

This essay outlines some of the main issues that arise in the theory of freedom and, in particular, those that divide the liberal conception of freedom as non-interference from the republican conception of freedom as non-domination. It goes on to explore the idea that discourse theory provides reasons for favouring the republican conception. Discourse theory is taken for these purposes to be a theory that subsumes, but goes beyond decision theory. It accepts the decision-theoretic view that human agents are moved by beliefs and desires that, on the whole, are rationally maintained and rationally issued in action. But it adds the further, crucial assumption that human beliefs and desires are shaped under the transformative influence of discursive argument and exchange

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.

Allan Gibbard’s strategy in his new book is to begin by describing a psychology of thinking and planning that certain agents might instantiate, then to argue that this psychology involves an ‘expressivism’ about thought that bears on what to do, and, finally, to try to show that ascribing that same psychology to human beings would explain the way we deploy various concepts in practical and normative deliberation. The idea is to construct an imaginary normative psychology, purportedly conforming to expressivist specifications, and then to campaign for the hypothesis that that psychology is ours and that we ourselves conform to those specifications. The upshot is an original and intriguing argument for the claim that ‘expressivism’, as Gibbard understands it, is sound. There is more in the book than that bare argument. Filling out the strategy pursued, for example, the volume contains useful discussions of a number of current debates (chs 2, 12), an enlightening argument that the strategy survives the introduction of the notion that a concept can have a character distinct from its content (ch. 6), and an extended set of reflections on how far the point of view defended leaves room for the idea of gaining normative knowledge (pt. 4). But I shall ignore those aspects of the book in this commentary; the focus is on its central argument. My approach will be to reconstuct the main stages in the Aufbau of our normative psychology that Gibbard provides, emphasizing some crucial points that are passed over rather quickly, and then to suggest on the basis of this reconstruction that the more natural lesson to derive is not an expressivist one. Although I break with Gibbard in that way, however, I have great admiration for the book. Thinking How to Live is a sharp, fresh and invigorating treatment of the main issues of metaethics

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.

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

This book is in three sections, with two chapters in each. It begins with questions of psychology: questions to do with what it means to be an intentional agent and, in particular, what it means to be an agent with the capacity for thought. Having sketched an overall view of the intentional, thinking agent, it then goes on to explore the difference that social life makes to the mentality of such agents; in effect, it outlines a social ontology. And, having developed a picture of the mind in society – of the common or social mind – it turns, finally, to the lessons of this picture for the pursuit of social and political theory: for the explanation of what happens on the social scene and for the evaluation of the different ways in which that scene may be structured.

Imagine a very fi ne grid or graph on which dots are placed at various coordinates so that, as a consequence, this or that shape materializes there. Depending on the coordinates of the dots, different shapes will appear, and for every shape there will be a pattern in the coordinates that guarantees its appearance. Take, for example, the diagonal line that slopes rightward and upward at an angle of 45 degrees from the origin. This line is bound to make an appearance so long as the coordinates satisfy the condition or pattern that as they move away from the origin, (0,0), the coordinates are progressively larger pairs of equal numbers: (1,1), (3,3), and so on. In the world of such dots and shapes, it is going to be in principle possible, for any array of dots that realizes a relevant shape, to derive the presence of the shape from the numerical coordinates of the dots. More particularly, it is going to be possible to derive that shape without reliance on anything other than, fi rst, the empirical fact that the given array of coordinates instantiates this or that pattern; and second, the a priori knowable fact that the pattern guarantees the presence of the shape in question. The nature of the shapes on any grid—if indeed there are any relevant shapes present—is going to be a priori derivable from the positions of the dots; it is going to be possible in principle to derive the one from the other. The simplest and most appealing version of physicalism parallels this sort of doctrine about dots and shapes (Pettit 1994, 1995). It holds that just as the positions of the dots determine the nature of the shapes a priori, so the way the natural world is physically organized a priori determines the way it presents itself in psychological and other terms. The way things are physically confi gured entails the presence of psychological and other realities, and it does this without reliance on anything other than what a..

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.

Rational explanation, as I understand it here, is the sort of explanation we practise when we try to make intentional sense of a person’s attitudes and actions. We may postulate various obstacles to rationality in the course of offering such explanations but the point of the exercise is generally to present the individual as a more or less rational subject: as a subject who, within the constraints of the obstacles postulated - and they can be quite severe - displays a rational pattern of attitude - formation and decision-making.In this paper I want to draw attention to three distinct, and progressively more specific, aspects of such rational explanation. I do so, because I believe that they are not always prised apart sufficiently. The first aspect of rational explanation is that it is a programming variety of explanation, in a phrase that Frank Jackson and I introduced some years ago (Jackson and Pettit 1988). The second is, in another neologism (Pettit 1986), that it is a normalising kind of explanation. And the third is that it is a variety of interpretation: if you like, it is a hermeneutic form of explanation.

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

Taken as a model for how groups should make collective judgments and decisions, the ideal of deliberative democracy is inherently ambiguous. Consider the idealised case where it is agreed on all sides that a certain conclusion should be endorsed if and only if certain premises are admitted. Does deliberative democracy recommend that members of the group debate the premises and then individually vote, in the light of that debate, on whether or not to support the conclusion? Or does it recommend that members individually vote on the premises, and then let their commitment to the conclusion be settled by whether or not the group endorses the required premises? Is deliberative democracy to enforce the discipline of reason at the individual level, as in the first possibility, or at the collective level, as in the second?

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.