Republican liberty considered

History of Political Thought

Volumn 21, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 543-559

  Goldsmith, M M ^a  

^a VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON   (New Zealand)

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EID: 0039550228     PISSN: 0143781X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (67)

1. Although a 'republican form of government' is sometimes taken to exclude monarchies, the existence of officers denominated 'king' or 'queen' has not always been regarded as incompatible with a state being a republic.
2. The term 'civil rights' is sometimes used to encompass both civil and political rights. Here I use it in a more restricted sense to designate those rights normally possessed by an adult human being who is free rather than a slave, and more recently regardless of sex. For an account of the similar situation under Roman Law of the free man who is sui juris, see Quentin Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 38-41. In 1928 the Supreme Court of Canada [1928] S.C.R. 276, relied on a long line of Common Law precedents and even Roman Law (Digest 1.16.195) in unanimously holding that the British North America Act (1867), sec. 24, did not include women when it used the term 'persons' in respect to eligibility for membership in the Senate of Canada. This decision was overruled on appeal to the Privy Council in Edwards v. Attorney-General for Canada [1930] A.C. 124. (Women in Canada were already legally 'persons' for property rights, standing in law, the franchise and holding other offices.)
3. A point made by Isaiah Berlin in 'Two Concepts of Liberty', in Four Essays on Liberty (London, 1969), pp. 129-30.
4. Hohfeld's terminology is briefly explained by Brenda Almond, 'Rights', in A Companion to Ethics (Oxford, 1991 ), pp. 262-3.
5. See Wesley N. Hohfeld, Fundamental Legal Conceptions (New Haven, 1934);
6. Carl Wellman, A Theory of Rights: Persons under Laws, Institutions and Morals (Totawa NJ, 1985). Wellman shows that a right is a complex of Hohfeldian elements.
7. It does not usually include the right to provision of the means of publicizing one's opinions or the right to obligate others to listen.
8. The liberty need not be absolute; for example it may be limited by laws about defamation or exclude speech that puts other rights at risk. It need not extend to a liberty to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre, nevertheless the more extensive the restrictions, the more supportable the judgment that freedom of speech does not fully exist.
9. With Felix Oppenheim, Dimensions of Freedom (New York, 1961) and Christine Swanton Freedom: A Coherence Theory (Indianapolis, 1992), pp. 35-7, 119, regard 'unfreedom' as the dominant notion. The more specific identification of the types of interference is derived from Oppenheim, Dimensions, esp. pp. 109-38. His schema might be regarded as a restricted version of Gerald MacCallum's tripartite conception of freedom. MacCallum's formula runs: X is (is not) free from Y (some 'preventing conditions') to do (not do, become, not become) Z. The variables are stipulated as follows: X is restricted to actors that are humans or organizations of humans; Y is restricted to actions (including doings, not doings and threats) of another such actor or actors; and Z to actions and inactions, becomings and not becomings (that is, to courses of action or inaction as well as discrete actions and inactions). See G. MacCallum, Negative and Positive Freedom', Philosophical Review, LXXVII (1967), pp. 312-34, at p. 314.
10. With Felix Oppenheim, Dimensions of Freedom (New York, 1961) and Christine Swanton Freedom: A Coherence Theory (Indianapolis, 1992), pp. 35-7, 119, regard 'unfreedom' as the dominant notion. The more specific identification of the types of interference is derived from Oppenheim, Dimensions, esp. pp. 109-38. His schema might be regarded as a restricted version of Gerald MacCallum's tripartite conception of freedom. MacCallum's formula runs: X is (is not) free from Y (some 'preventing conditions') to do (not do, become, not become) Z. The variables are stipulated as follows: X is restricted to actors that are humans or organizations of humans; Y is restricted to actions (including doings, not doings and threats) of another such actor or actors; and Z to actions and inactions, becomings and not becomings (that is, to courses of action or inaction as well as discrete actions and inactions). See G. MacCallum, Negative and Positive Freedom', Philosophical Review, LXXVII (1967), pp. 312-34, at p. 314.
11. With Felix Oppenheim, Dimensions of Freedom (New York, 1961) and Christine Swanton Freedom: A Coherence Theory (Indianapolis, 1992), pp. 35-7, 119, regard 'unfreedom' as the dominant notion. The more specific identification of the types of interference is derived from Oppenheim, Dimensions, esp. pp. 109-38. His schema might be regarded as a restricted version of Gerald MacCallum's tripartite conception of freedom. MacCallum's formula runs: X is (is not) free from Y (some 'preventing conditions') to do (not do, become, not become) Z. The variables are stipulated as follows: X is restricted to actors that are humans or organizations of humans; Y is restricted to actions (including doings, not doings and threats) of another such actor or actors; and Z to actions and inactions, becomings and not becomings (that is, to courses of action or inaction as well as discrete actions and inactions). See G. MacCallum, Negative and Positive Freedom', Philosophical Review, LXXVII (1967), pp. 312-34, at p. 314.
12. With Felix Oppenheim, Dimensions of Freedom (New York, 1961) and Christine Swanton Freedom: A Coherence Theory (Indianapolis, 1992), pp. 35-7, 119, regard 'unfreedom' as the dominant notion. The more specific identification of the types of interference is derived from Oppenheim, Dimensions, esp. pp. 109-38. His schema might be regarded as a restricted version of Gerald MacCallum's tripartite conception of freedom. MacCallum's formula runs: X is (is not) free from Y (some 'preventing conditions') to do (not do, become, not become) Z. The variables are stipulated as follows: X is restricted to actors that are humans or organizations of humans; Y is restricted to actions (including doings, not doings and threats) of another such actor or actors; and Z to actions and inactions, becomings and not becomings (that is, to courses of action or inaction as well as discrete actions and inactions). See G. MacCallum, Negative and Positive Freedom', Philosophical Review, LXXVII (1967), pp. 312-34, at p. 314.
13. Berlin, 'Two Concepts of Liberty', pp. 121-31.
14. Ibid., pp. 121-2.
15. See ibid., pp. 124, 125, 126, 128, 129.
16. Ibid., pp. 129-30 ; in the 'Introduction', p. xlvii, he declares that democratic rights (to participate in deciding who rules) are desirable.
17. Ibid., pp. 129-30 ; in the 'Introduction', p. xlvii, he declares that democratic rights (to participate in deciding who rules) are desirable.
18. Ibid. See esp. p. 130: 'Self-government may, on the whole, provide a better safeguard of the preservation of civil liberties than other régimes, and has been defended as such by libertarians.' (Note that Berlin identifies self-government with democracy and uses 'libertarian' in this essay as meaning a supporter of liberty.)
19. Hume makes a similar point in 'Of Civil Liberty', contending that modern monarchy has achieved the security of personal property and rights which had earlier been confined to republics; see David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political and Literary ed. E.F. Miller (Indianapolis, 1985), p. 94: 'It may now be affirmed of civilized monarchies, what was formerly said in praise of republics alone, that they are a government of Laws, not of Men.'
20. Benjamin Constant, The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns (1819), in Political Writings, ed. Bianca Maria Fontana (Cambndge, 1988), pp. 310-13.
21. Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 'Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Right, Introduction to the theory of Right', § C, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 56-7.
22. To put it another way, if it can be shown that government is useful or desirable in establishing and maintaining rights and benefits for those in society, then the case for anarchy can be defeated.
23. J.S. Mill, On Liberty, ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge, 1989), Ch. 1, p. 13.
24. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 'Doctrine of Right, II. Public Right', Section 1, §§ 45-6, 52, pp. 124-6, 148-9.
25. Ibid., §52, p. 149.
26. See J.S. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, The Subjection of Women, in John Stuart Mill: Three Essays, ed. R. Wollheim (London, 1975).
27. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford, 1972), p. 61.
28. For the argument that renaissance republicans saw political rights as necessary for preserving personal freedom, see Quentin Skinner, 'The Republican Idea of Political Liberty', in Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner and Maurizio Viroli (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 293-309. Skinner also thinks that the republican position remains concerned solely with the negative liberty to pursue our own goals without interference rather than requiring the positive liberty implicit in adopting the Aristotelian claim that 'we are moral beings with certain determinate purposes, and thus that we are only in the fullest sense in possession of our liberty when these purposes are realised' (ibid., pp. 308-9).
29. For the argument that renaissance republicans saw political rights as necessary for preserving personal freedom, see Quentin Skinner, 'The Republican Idea of Political Liberty', in Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner and Maurizio Viroli (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 293-309. Skinner also thinks that the republican position remains concerned solely with the negative liberty to pursue our own goals without interference rather than requiring the positive liberty implicit in adopting the Aristotelian claim that 'we are moral beings with certain determinate purposes, and thus that we are only in the fullest sense in possession of our liberty when these purposes are realised' (ibid., pp. 308-9).
30. Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford, 1997).
31. 'Control' is meant here as a term stronger than someone being able to exercise some power or influence over another. Consequently, I take strong influence, persuasion and approval and disapproval to be exercises of power which do not amount to control.
32. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 'Doctrine of Right, II. Public Right', Section 1, § 46, p. 126.
33. For the suggestion that taxation on earnings from labour is at least similar to forced labour, see Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford, 1974), pp. 169-72.
34. Cicero, De re publica, I, xxv.
35. Aristotle, Politics, 1321a5-b3.
36. For the opening shot in this paper war, see John Trenchard with Walter Moyle, An Argument, Shewing, that a Standing Army is inconsistent with a Free Government, and absolutely destructive to the English Monarchy (London, 1697;
37. reprinted Exeter, 1971).
38. See also Caroline Robbins, The Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthman: Studies in the Transmission, Development and Circumstance of English Political Thought from the Restoration of Charles II until the War with the Thirteen Colonies (Cambridge MA, 1959);
39. J.R. Western, The English Militia in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1965);
40. Lois Schwoerer, 'No Standing Armies!': The Antiarmy Ideology in Seventeenth Century England (Baltimore and London, 1974);
41. John Robertson, The Scottish Enlightenment and the Militia Issue (Edinburgh, 1985).
42. The Federalist, ed. Jacob C. Cooke (Middletown CT, 1961), Nos. 48, 62, pp. 332-3, 464-6, see also No. 26, pp. 167-71.
43. See Neal Wood, Cicero's Social and Political Thought (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988).
44. Plato, Republic, 564c-568a.
45. Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy, ed. L.J. Walker (London, 1950), Book I, ch. 4; Vol. I, pp. 218-19.
46. Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge, 1989), Book XI, ch. 6, pp. 156-66.
47. Federalist, No. 48: 'a mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands'.
48. Aristotle, Politics, 1275b.
49. Anytus, in Plato's Meno, 92e-93a, suggests that citizens learn from their elders.
50. Aristotle, Politics, 1328b-1329a.
51. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. R.H. Campbell, A.S. Skinner and W.B. Todd (Oxford, 1976), Book V, ch. i, section f, paragraphs 50, 52-61, Vol. II, pp. 782, 784-8.
52. See Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge MA, 1970): participation (voice) strengthens the attachment of the citizen to the state.
53. Ch. Wirszubski, Libertas (Cambridge, 1960), pp. 1-3.
54. See A.H.M. Jones, Athenian Democracy (Oxford, 1957), pp. 8-20, 75-96, 161-80: Alfred Zimmern, The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and Economics in Fifth-Century Athens (Oxford, 1931), pp. 174-7, 381, 399, 415. Just before the Peloponnesian War, 431 BC, when Athens achieved its highest population, there were 35,000-40,000 adult male citizens in a total population of c.300,000.
55. See A.H.M. Jones, Athenian Democracy (Oxford, 1957), pp. 8-20, 75-96, 161-80: Alfred Zimmern, The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and Economics in Fifth-Century Athens (Oxford, 1931), pp. 174-7, 381, 399, 415. Just before the Peloponnesian War, 431 BC, when Athens achieved its highest population, there were 35,000-40,000 adult male citizens in a total population of c.300,000.
56. See J.-J. Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men, 'Dedication to the Republic of Geneva', in J.-J. Rousseau, The First and Second Discourses, ed. Roger D. Masters (New York, 1964), pp. 78-90; and Linda Kirk, 'Genevan Republicanism', in Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society, 1649-1776, ed. David Wootton (Stanford, 1994), pp. 270-309.
57. See J.-J. Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men, 'Dedication to the Republic of Geneva', in J.-J. Rousseau, The First and Second Discourses, ed. Roger D. Masters (New York, 1964), pp. 78-90; and Linda Kirk, 'Genevan Republicanism', in Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society, 1649-1776, ed. David Wootton (Stanford, 1994), pp. 270-309.
58. See J.-J. Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men, 'Dedication to the Republic of Geneva', in J.-J. Rousseau, The First and Second Discourses, ed. Roger D. Masters (New York, 1964), pp. 78-90; and Linda Kirk, 'Genevan Republicanism', in Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society, 1649-1776, ed. David Wootton (Stanford, 1994), pp. 270-309.
59. Mere inhabitants might not have the right to enter into contracts or use the law. In early Rome, only Roman citizens could avail themselves of Roman law (the law of the Quirites). As the city expanded that law became obsolete in commercial transactions. Trading rights in incorporated cities were usually restricted to members of the corporation or the guilds. The modern analogue is states in which non-citizens can only trade if associated with a citizen.
60. See Puritanism and Liberty: Being the Army Debates from the Clarke Manuscripts, ed. A.S.P. Woodhouse (London, 1951), pp. 54, 57-8.
61. See M.M. Goldsmith, 'Faction Detected: Ideological Consequences of Robert Walpole's Decline and Fall', History, LXIV (1979), pp. 1-19.
62. US Constitution, Article I, sect. 6.
63. James Harrington, Oceana, in The Political Works of James Harrington, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge, 1977), imposes age qualifications on the franchise as well as property qualifications that distinguish 'horse' from 'foot': see pp. 212-13. The US Constitution, Article I, sections 2,3 and Article II, section 1, prescribes age and residency qualifications for the offices of representative, senator and president.
64. See Neal wood, Cicero's Social and Political Thought, and Neal Wood and Ellen Wood, Class Ideology and Ancient Political Theory: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in Social Context (Oxford, 1978), for the contention that ancient republics were class societies.
65. See Neal wood, Cicero's Social and Political Thought, and Neal Wood and Ellen Wood, Class Ideology and Ancient Political Theory: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in Social Context (Oxford, 1978), for the contention that ancient republics were class societies.
66. See M.M. Goldsmith, Allegiance (Exeter, 1971), p. 7.
67. It was only in the 1970s that women in New Zealand were accorded an equal right with men to confer residency on foreign spouses and the right to New Zealand citizenship could pass through the female line to children born abroad (see Citizenship Act 1977). By legislation in 451 BC, renewed in 403, Athenian women could pass citizenship to their offspring; see Jones, Athenian Democracy, p. 10.