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

2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 494-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Dyzenhaus
Keyword(s):  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Positive Liberty ◽  
Republican Theory ◽  
Negative Concept ◽  
Critical Notice ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Theory And Model ◽  
Liberal Thought

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.

scholarly journals REPUBLICANISM IN MODERN POLITICAL THEORY

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
Positive Liberty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Republican Theory ◽  
Negative Concept

The article discusses the main theoretical provisions of the republican tradition in modern political theory. The main attention is focused on the works of F. Pettit and Q. Skinner. The position of the republican tradition in the political theory of the second half of the twentieth century is presented and the popularity of this tradition is argued today, the theoretical background of the actualization of republican theory is highlighted. It is shown how the republican theory was updated by the Cambridge School of the History of Political Thought. The features of the republican theory, which consists of two points, are considered: the openness of the republican project to alternative political theories (projects), representatives of the republican theory focus not on political theory, but on the history of political thought, that is, they do not develop their own theoretical project, but actualize in political theory and adapt the republican tradition to modern political practices. The origins of the republican tradition in the history of Western political thought are traced, special attention is focused on the development of republican ideas during the civil war in England (1642-1651) and the political/ideological confrontation between parliamentarians and royalists, focuses on the concepts of «political body» and «king-in-parliament». The criticism of the republican understanding of liberty by T. Hobbes and the consequences of this criticism for the political theory of the Modern era is traced. It is shown how the republican understanding of freedom is supplanted by the negative concept of freedom in modern times, why the liberal theory begins to be based on the negative concept of freedom. The republican understanding of freedom as non-domonation and the relationship between the concepts of positive liberty, negative liberty and liberty as non-domination are considered. Criticism of the republican tradition of a liberal interpretation of liberty is presented. The significance of the theoretical developments of the republican tradition for modern political theory is highlighted and the fundamental difference between the republican approach and the liberal one is shown.

scholarly journals Criminal Law and Republican Liberty: Philip Pettit’s Account

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Horder
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Significant Challenge ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Republican Liberty ◽  
Republican Theory

AbstractPhilip Pettit has made central to modern republican theory a distinctive account of freedom—republican freedom. On this account, I am not free solely because I can make choices without interference. I am truly free, only if that non-interference does not itself depend on another’s forbearance (what Pettit calls ‘formal’ freedom). Pettit believes that the principal justification for the traditional focus of the criminal law is that it constitutes a bulwark against domination. I will, in part, be considering the merits of this claim. Is the importance of the orthodox realm of the criminal law solely or mainly explained by the wish to protect people from domination? In short, the answer is that it is not. Across the board, the criminal law rightly protects us equally from threats to what Pettit calls ‘effective,’ as opposed to formal, republican freedom. I will develop my critique of Pettit’s account of criminal law, in part to raise questions about the role of ‘domination’ in political theory, and about whether it poses a significant challenge to liberal accounts of criminal law.

Niccolò Machiavelli

Philosophy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cary J. Nederman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Web Search ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Niccolo Machiavelli ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Niccolò Machiavelli ◽  
Current State ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
Republican Theory ◽  
Do So

Niccolò Machiavelli (b. 1469–d. 1527) was a civil servant in the 1498 Florentine Republic who, after he lost his position in the Medici coup of 1512, wrote two of the most influential works of Renaissance Italian political theory, The Prince (1513/1514) and the Discourses on the Ten Books of Titus Livy (1514/1515–1518/1519). Both works were published only posthumously—in 1532 and 1531, respectively—but they appear to have circulated widely prior to their printing. Although Machiavelli wrote numerous other works, including poetry and plays as well as history and a treatise on warfare, his reputation as an important author rests primarily upon the two major political compositions just mentioned. The Prince is a short tract that proposes to teach rulers the “actual” precepts that will lead them to govern effectively. The Discourses, by contrast, is a far lengthier tome that defends the superiority of republican government, especially that of Rome. Machiavelli’s thought engendered controversy almost immediately upon its dissemination, and it continues to do so today. He has been condemned, for instance, for founding the doctrine of Realpolitik and for teaching the political necessity of doing “evil.” He has also been venerated for his contributions to the origins of political science and to the formulation of modern republican theory. The scholarly literature on Machiavelli is enormous. A useful guide to 20th-century interpretations is Niccolò Machiavelli: An Annotated Bibliography of Modern Criticism and Scholarship, compiled by Silvia Ruffo Fiore (New York: Greenwood, 1990), which covers research from 1935 to 1988 in all major languages. Also valuable is The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli, edited by John M. Najemy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), which reviews the current state of scholarship on Machiavelli. Online efforts to survey recent literature on Machiavelli are many, but they have proven ephemeral; it may be best to conduct a web search for currently available bibliographies.

Books Received

Philosophy ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-150
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Feminist Philosophy ◽  
State University ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Johns Hopkins University ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
Feminist Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
The Mind

Alanen, Lilli, Sara Heinämaa, and Thomas Wallgren. (Eds). Commonality and Particularity in Ethics. Macmillan. 1997. Pp. x and 493. £47.50. Allen, Prudence. The Concept of Woman. Second Edition. Eerdmans Publishing. 1997. Pp. xxiv and 583. £22.99 or $35. Almeder, Robert. Blind Realism. Rowman & Littlefield. 1997. Pp. xiii and 247. £41, £19.95. Anderson, Pamela Sue. A Feminist Philosophy of Religion. Blackwell. 1997. Pp. xvi and 287. £45, £13.99. Armitage, David. (Ed.) Bolingbroke: Political Writings. Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xliv and 305. £50, £16.95 or $64.95, $24.95. Bader, Veit. (Ed.) Citizenship and Exclusion. Macmillan. 1997. Pp. xi and 208. £42.50. Baron, Marcia W., Philip Pettit, and Michael Slote. (Eds). Three Methods of Ethics. Blackwell. 1997. Pp. vi and 285. No price given. Beaney, Michael. (Ed.) The Frege Reader. Blackwell. 1997. Pp. xv and 409. £14.95 or $21.95. Bélanger, André J. The Ethics of Catholicism and the Consecration of the Intellectual. Liverpool University Press. 1997. Pp. viii and 242. £25. Bencivenga, Ermanno. A Theory of Language and Mind. University of California Press. 1997. Pp. 103. £16.95 or $22. Bencivenga, Ermanno. Freedom: A Dialogue. Hackett. 1997. Pp. viii and 107. £29.95, £9.95. Berger, Harry Jr., (Introduction by Peter Erickson, Ed.) Making Trifles of Terrors. Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xxxviii and 487. £40, £14.95 or $59.50, $19.95. Bloor, David. Wittgenstein, Rules and Institutions. Routledge. 1997. Pp. xvi and 173. £40. Boas, George. Primitivism and Related Ideas in the Middle Ages. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1997. Pp. xii and 227. No price given. Bolotin, David. An Approach to Aristotle's Physics. State University of New York Press. 1997. Pp. vii and 156. $14.95. Boucher, David. (Ed.) The British Empiricists. Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xlvi and 304. £45, £15.95 or $64.95, $24.95. Brook, Andrew. Kant and the Mind. Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xii and 327. £45, £14.95 or $74.95, $18.95. Bunzl, Martin. Real History. Routledge. 1997. Pp. viii and 152. No price given.

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