Description
Book SynopsisWe speak of being ''free'' to speak our minds, free to go to college, free to move about; we can be cancer-free, debt-free, worry-free, or free from doubt. The concept of freedom (and relatedly the notion of liberty) is ubiquitous but not everyone agrees what the term means, and the philosophical analysis of freedom that has grown over the last two decades has revealed it to be a complex notion whose meaning is dependent on the context. The Oxford Handbook of Freedom will crystallize this work and craft the first wide-ranging analysis of freedom in all its dimensions: legal, cultural, religious, economic, political, and psychological. This volume includes 28 new essays by well regarded philosophers, as well some historians and political theorists, in order to reflect the breadth of the topic.This handbook covers both current scholarship as well as historical trends, with an overall eye to how current ideas on freedom developed. The volume is divided into six sections: conceptual frames (framing the overall debates about freedom), historical frames (freedom in key historical periods, from the ancients onward), institutional frames (freedom and the law), cultural frames (mutual expectations on our ''right'' to be free), economic frames (freedom and the market), and lastly psychological frames (free will in philosophy and psychology).
Trade ReviewAs a masterpiece of the liberty tradition, The Oxford Handbook of Freedom is a refreshing alternative to the voluminous literature dominated by the debates over John Rawls's works. Rawls's liberty principle and political liberalism have been for decades the most discussed concepts in political philosophy. Philosophers explored in great detail the theoretical subtleties of Rawls's ideas and their relationships with other theories: utilitarian, contractarian, Kantian, Marxist, feminist, communitarian, postmodern, and others. The theoretical explorations also strongly affected the domain of political doctrines, where liberal egalitarian and social democratic ideals colonized public political discourse. Other conceptions of liberty and liberalism have been pushed under the shadow of that predominant paradigm. The Handbook demonstrates that the leading paradigm is not the only one, and, apparently, not the best one. * Waldemar Hanasz, Metapsychology *
Table of ContentsI. Chapter 1: Self-ownership Dan Russell Chapter 2: Positive Freedom and the General Will Piper L. Bringhurst and Gerald Gaus Chapter 3: Moralised Conceptions of Liberty Ralf Bader Chapter 4: On the Conflict between Liberty and Equality Hillel Steiner Chapter 5: Freedom and Equality Elizabeth Anderson Chapter 6: Non-domination Frank Lovett Chapter 7: The Point of Self-ownership David Sobel II. Chapter 8: Platonic Freedom Fred Miller Chapter 9: Aristotelian Freedom David Keyt Chapter 10: Freedom in the Scholastic Tradition Edward Feser Chapter 11: Freedom, Slavery and Identity in Renaissance Florence Orlando Patterson Chapter 12: Freedom and Enlightenment Ryan Hanley Chapter 13: Adam Smith's Libertarian Paternalism Jim Otteson III. Chapter 14: Market Failure, the Tragedy of the Commons, and Default Libertarianism in Contemporary Economics and Policy Mark Budolfson Chapter 15: Planning, Freedom and the Rule of Law Steve Wall Chapter 16: Freedom, Regulation and Public Policy Mark Pennington Chapter 17: Boundaries, Subjection to Laws and Affected Interests Carmen Pavel Chapter 18 Democracy and Freedom Jason Brennan Chapter 19: Can Constitutions Limit Government? Michael Huemer IV. Chapter 20: Freedom and Religion Richard Arneson Chapter 21: Freedom and Influence in Formative Education Kyla Ebels-Duggan Chapter 22: Freedom and the (Posthumous) Harm Principle David Boonin V. Chapter 23: Exploitation and Freedom Matt Zwolinski Chapter 24: Voluntariness, Coercion, Self-ownership Serena Olsaretti Chapter 25: The Impartial Spectator and the Moral Teachings of Markets Virgil Storr VI. Chapter 26: Disciplinary Specialization and Thinking for Yourself Elijah Millgram Chapter 27: Free Will as a Psychological Accomplishment Eddy Nahmias Chapter 28: Prisoners of Misbelief: Why the Friends and Theorists of Freedom Should Pay More Attention to its Epistemic Conditions
