Quentin Skinner. On the Liberty of Republics.

thank you very much ah it's wonderful to be back here before I say anything more may I first just Express a word of thanks which the Anglophones must always Express which is for you to allow me to come here and speak to you in my own language this is an enormous privilege thank you very much okay this being the introductory lecture in our conference I abandoned my PowerPoint presentation which was rather detailed and decided that I would like to offer something completely introductory we're here at our conference to talk about the Republican tradition in European political speculation that's to say about the ideals and the institutions which are distinctive of Republic's and about their histories so I just want to try this evening to start by offering something completely general and introductory about how republicanism fits into a wider story it's a map because I'm going to try to offer you and I'm going to try to place the Republican tradition on a map of wider speculations about the ideals of constitutionalism now in order to see where you were republicanism fits I think you have to recognize one crucial feature about the Republican tradition generally which is that this is a tradition which thinks that the most important value in our common life is freedom now that needn't be the case the contemporary liberal Breezer position is that the most important value is justice whereas of course for the Republican there would have to be a Republican ideal of justice utilitarians would tell you that the most important value is the common good various Marxist strands of thought would tell you that the fundamental ideal is enabling people to follow real interests the Republican is the person who says that the fundamental value it is arek already said it is freedom and what it is to be able to live freely in a civil association so the fundamental value is freedom and what you have to understand to understand republicanism is its view of freedom all right now comes the map because the Republican story fits onto a very complex conceptual history that one can offer in Western European in particular speculation about the concept of political Liberty and that's what I'm going to try to do in the first half of this lecture is to talk about where republicanism would fit on a very general map of more mainstream ways of thinking about the idea of political Liberty so is that ok so here this is this is the map and in order for you to see where republicanism fits I'm going to have to talk about not republicanism so that you'll see how it fits in relation to other concepts so let's think about the what would be the Western European mainstream way of thinking about political Liberty is the one well the answer is yes and if you think of the German tradition of the 17th century in public law or if you think of the Anglophone tradition of the same period you'll you'll come up with was major names like boof and off in the German tradition or even more important because he's so crucial for boof and off I'm sorry to say it's a name of an Englishman but the name of Thomas Hobbes so far as I'm aware certainly in the Anglophone tradition the earliest modern political philosopher who gives or tries to give an absolutely abstract and inclusive analysis of how you should think about the concept of political Liberty is Hobbes so what is his story it's incredibly influential story and in fact you already know it it's very familiar to you and it's also quite simple so let me just lay it out what freedom is according to this founding moment in the Western liberal tradition is just to things there has to be power on the part of an agent to to do something that's to say to follow an action which is an option and alternative I can do this I can do that freedom is having the power to make that choice and secondly freedom involves that there be no interference with your exercise of that power so there it is it's very simple but of course it's much too simple because what you need to understand surely if you're going to understand freedom it now turns out is what is this idea of interference if freedom is absence of interference what is interference right that's not a simple notion the Hobbesian strand of the liberal tradition which is still alive and with us gives a very restricted answer it says interference is when there is a physical act of prevention of you as the agent from exercising your powers you're physically compelled to act against your will or you're physically made to act in a certain way so it's either prevention or compulsion but it has to be physical such that your power your underlying power to act is taken away it's impossible for you to act except in a certain way so freedom is contrasted with impossibility so there's the Hobbesian analysis now that analysis contains what you might think a very counterintuitive implication and of course the development of liberalism is the exploration of what's counterintuitive about it so what is counterintuitive about it it is surely the idea that if I coerce your will so for example I threaten you with very serious consequences if you don't do what I do then on this analysis because threatening your will doesn't make it impossible for you to exercise your power when you act according to my will when I bend your will nevertheless I act freely I'm completely free that's the strange implication and assembly it's actually the philosophers they really meant this and they always give an example it's quite common at the time which is the high women you know the high women is the person who stops your coach and says your money or your life Hobbes says you're being offered a choice and that's what you've got to admit you're being offered money life gone now now choose that's freedom freedom is having the choice not impossible to give him your life and Hobbes has an unpleasant joke he says when you give him your money instead of your life you do it willingly in fact he says you do it very willingly so how can you say that wasn't a free action so that's what free action is it's having an alternative it hasn't been stopped now that's too restricted and as I said you could construct the liberal tradition as saying well something's gone wrong there and in the Anglophone tradition which I'll speak about for a moment what's thought wrong is is this figure of the the person who puts you under illegal threat so if you consider just for a moment in the Anglophone tradition the next really major work on constitutional and freedom in our tradition John Locke's two treatises of government then I quote paragraph 176 of the Second Treatise a robber breaks into my house and with a dagger at my throat makes me steal a deed to convey my property to him does that give him a just title so the question is purely rhetorical Locke's saying of course it doesn't he does not act freely now it's true it's not impossible for him to seal these deeds he could do it and Hobbes would be saying yeah of course he's doing it very freely Locke wants to say no something's gone wrong there and what we need to make central to our discussions of freedom is the idea of coercion you're free if an action within your powers is prevented from being performed he doesn't deny that of course I mean if I stop you physically but you must say that coercion of the will takes away freedom now if you do say those two things that is the modern wet Western European Anglophone included tradition of way of thinking about freedom just to stick with the Anglophone case for a moment the most famous treatise on how to think about political Liberty in modern times written in English has been Isaiah Berlin of course he's Russian really but as I Berlin's treatise called two concepts of Liberty long famous essay and if he has a preferred concept there are two concepts and he has a preferred concept what is that concept the answer is exactly the one I've now laid out that's Liberty it is non interference with your powers where that either means prevention or coercion that's Liberty now that view in the Anglophone tradition as I've said is a 17th century philosophical discussion but of course it becomes extremely important in the Enlightenment especially with enlightenment utilitarianism and that whole tradition runs through in utilitarian philosophy until the present day however if you think about 19th century political philosophy this liberal story got complicated in two ways that I now want to talk about so here's the math now you've got the liberal tradition two strands of it in the Anglophone tradition hobbsy booth and Dorothy and one or the Lockean Hume story now in 19th century social philosophy that's as I say subjected to a criticism in two very important ways and now need to say a word about them first the late enlightenment attack that's associated with the philosophy of count but particularly Hegel's political philosophy particularly the philosophy of right which is an attack on Anglophone enlightenment liberalism and Hegel says you remember in book 1 of the philosophy is right only the English could be so crude as to suppose that that's what freedom is that they've missed something tremendously important so what have they missed they think freedom is a negative concept that's to say you're free just in the absence of interference so negative no interference that's freedom so it's seen as a negative concept Hegel wants to say then that's what book three of the philosophy of right picks up the role of the state in this is you're not free unless you use this absence of interference in certain ways so what the Anglophone tradition according to Hegel does is it only picks up the negative moment in the dialectic of freedom there's a dialectic of freedom and that consists in answering the question what do you want this absence of interference for why do you want it why is freedom of value there's the positive moment in the dialectic is having an answer to that question and as you know the Hegelian answer brings us to the theory of the state which is that you want that freedom but not at all for the reasons that liberal political theory tells you now liberal political theory you might think this is its glory says what you might this freedom for whatever whatever reasons you want it for I mean that's you've got four clothes on those reasons freedom is being able to do what you want but the Hegelian says no no it's being able to do what is a realization of your most distinctively human qualities that is the free person and so in the wake of that argument of Hegel's which became incredibly influential in 19th century social philosophy you get a huge extra premise added to liberalism and the extra product premise is human nature is normative the liberal idea is you know we just all have these passions we go our way that's freedom the normative claim about human nature is there are certain purposes which are distinctively human and freedom is pursuing those purposes so on this account the liberal says in order for me to know if you're free I just need to know what opportunities you have what alternatives what options you show me that you've got options you can leave the room you can stay that's freedom the Hegelian says no no you'll only know how if this person is free once you see how they behave freedom is a pattern of behavior so what pattern of behavior well in the Western tradition thinking very globally there have been different answers to that and as you can see once you say human nature is normative there are certain ends which are distinctively human then there are going to be as many series of positive Liberty as there are coherent answers to the question what are human purposes but of course the main answer that's been given in our tradition is the one that takes you right back as it took Hegel right back to Aristotle the so on political what's characteristic of mankind is that we are the political animal those our own political and the fullest realization of your powers and therefore your greatest freedom depends upon your taking part in a civil Association so if I see the pattern of your behavior and I see that that's how you conduct yourself then I say you're free now that's a view of freedom which has been much revived in our time I suppose the most famous philosopher who took up exactly that view of freedom is Hannah Arendt in her book between past and future the essays on freedom and also in the human condition where she goes back quite explicitly although it's mediated by Heidegger it's an Aristotelian story about how the the range of skills and the character of the virtues which are needed to sustain a public life are what are your most fundamental purposes that's what makes you most fully you and if you follow those purposes you are a free person you're free that is freedom so when she asks the question in the famous essay called what is freedom she answers freedom is politics now freedom is politics okay that mean if you engage in the public life of your community you're free if you don't or not so it's absolutely the opposite of the liberal if you want a another contemporary political philosopher who takes exactly that view Charles Taylor in his great work sources of the self the true self which is what he's looking for is the self who commits themselves to the public arena and that's the free person now that is one way of criticizing liberalism which became very important in the 19th century but there's a second way which becomes much more mainstream and is an internal development of liberalism and I want now to move on to that now as we saw the liberal is the person was and is the liberal if you I mean you think of contemporary liberal political theory is the person who says if you want freedom defined in a sentence its absence of interference by any external agent who takes away a part of yours either by coercion or prevention so then there comes a moment in the history of liberalism in the 19th century I mean Harrison is very important here in the Russian tradition top heel in the French tradition John Stuart Mill for whom both Hudson and it mean especially talk feel are important in the Anglophone tradition and that raises this question it says all right we agree that freedom is negative its absence of interference but why does that interference have to be by external agencies other I mean organizations people states why does it have to be external don't we have to make sense of the claim that the agent who can undermine your own freedom might be not an external agent at all don't we have to make sense of the idea that you could be the agent who limits your own freedom well it's a wonderful idea and the question is well how could that be so how could you be the agent of your own freedom were much 19th century philosophy interested in the category of the social tries to answer that question of course there's an ancient answer here which is very much picked up in 17th century philosophy where this is anticipated which says we want a distinction between reason and the passions this goes back as far as Plato's Timaeus where the will you remember in that geography of the mind can ally itself either with the passions in which case the resulting action is not free or it can allow itself with reason in which case the resulting action is free so that generates a distinction very important in 17th century philosophy for example central to a text like John Locke's essay on human understanding a distinction between liberty and license if you act out of the passions you do not act freely your action is licensures but not free so that distinction which of course notice hobbes abolished as he thinks well that's ridiculous in that case all actions are licensures so there's a big debate there but here is a tradition which says there's one way in which you can make yourself unfree you can be and this was the phrase always used and notice how resonant it is for a theory of freedom being a slave to your passions the notion of addiction here so there's one answer that's certainly not the answer of interest nil the answer is that the interest nil and and of course Tocqueville before mill is that you could live in a society as they both thought they were doing in 19th century France or England in which the nerve has stopped feelings calls them or the the mores of the society are so strong in relation for example to personal codes of conduct sexual mores dress codes all of these sorts of things they're so strong that you are unable or thent eclis to pursue your own desires as freedom requires you make these mores into your second nature and they become your first nature that's Mills phrase so what has happened from the perspective of freedom is you have unauthenticated them so you're limiting your own freedom because various alternatives don't occur to you if we were going to say a final word about the way in which the liberal story about freedom was undermined in the 19th century surely we'd also want to mention the name of Freud simcha Freud as he like to do as a writer on Liberty he wants to he wants you to liberate yourself well from what well from yourself of course he completely agrees with this and Freud's great discovery was the entity the unconscious which contains these motives of which not fully aware which generate neurotic and obsessional behavior but the the therapy makes you aware of them and it's an act of liberation so what has happened the self has liberated the self from the self so there is another way of thinking about freedom now if you put that addition but all those additions together I think you would have a map of how in Western political speculations sister seventeenth century those are the ways that freedom has been thought about now the Republican the Republican is the person who says all of that's wrong that you I hope you haven't been taking notes because it's all wrong freedom isn't anything to do with any of that so it's an extraordinary dramatic intervention in the tradition that's the what the point I've been trying to bring out think of that and think of all the names I've fitted onto that story and here is this tradition which says I'm sorry that you just haven't understood freedom at all it's something else and if you look at some contemporary philosophers who wanted to revive Republican ideals of freedom there's a shot say a paranoid moment but if you look at the unbelievably important writings of Phillip Pettit on the theory of republicanism you will see that he regards it as a kind of ideological move of Western societies that wish to disavow a Republican way of thinking about freedom because it just looked too demanding too difficult so people thought well let's not think about it in that way let's think about it in the ways that I've laid out so what does the Republican say the Republican says where you've all got off on the wrong foot the Broads the galleons is that you think that freedom is to do with actions but it's not freedom is the name of a status and the question is what makes you and here the classical tradition Wells up what makes you a liberal homo now homo in the Latin language of course means man or woman so the question is what makes you a free man or woman that's the question you should be asking yourself not can I do this or can I do that but am i a free person that's the question you should ask so what is it to be a free person that's the question and that's the question which has as I said a classical answer interestingly however especially because in classical philosophy there's a tremendous snobbery about how the Greeks invented everything and then the Romans took it over this is not a feature of Greek philosophy eleuthère freedom well it's there in Greek philosophy but but that's not the key notion de caza knee there's the freedom the crucial notion we want to talk about justice peri dick I on Plato's great title concerning justice but the Roman tradition wants to say no no libertas concerning freedom that's what we should be asking about and if you think of the Roman tradition for a moment there are two really vital groupings here first is the great Roman historians and here you would want to mention Livy and Tacitus if you know Livy's history you will know that the hinge between book one and book two a moment of great drama in antiquity he wanted to say is the move in Rome from the rule of the Tarquins as kings to the rule of the consuls and this was a move he says because the consuls are elected and for short time this is a move from servitude to freedom and that's how the latin comes up they were servi the whole population was servi they were slaves and they became libery Khamenei's they became free men and women and that's just the move from the kingship to the Republic or Tacitus Tacitus is panels about the loss of the Republic and the rise of the prin kippot again he says the whole political class lost its standing as libery Hama neighs because of the prin kaput we became servi once again so notice the crucial distinction here which is going to tell you what freedom really is is what does it mean to be a slave okay that's the distinction you're a liberal homo or you're a service now obviously if you're a service you're not free I mean a slave is not free that sort of definition is true but to understand freedom what you need to understand according to this classical tradition is what does it mean to be a slave what what does it mean to be a slave don't answer to be coerced in relation to your powers I mean that's the liberal answer well that's very unsatisfactory answer you have to say because suppose a slave who had a completely benign master or whose master was absent and who was able to do exactly what he wanted this figure is a recurrent figure in Roman comedy this is a slave who only ever does what he or she wants they're never coerced so in a liberal understanding of freedom you're left with a horrible paradox which is the free slave and liberal thinkers have wrestled with this I mean Berlin wrestles with it you're left with the idea well there could be a free slave well the thing to say about that my friends is you've lost your grip on a concept you're not saying anything interesting if slaves are free we're lost slaves are unfree the question is what makes them unfree well nothing to do with coercion what makes a slave makes you unfree loses you your status is a liver homo is if you are subject to the arbitrary power of someone else that power doesn't have to be exercised and the slave is someone who is subject to someone's arbitrary will notice in the Latin our bit reom we would say arbitrary in English but our Victoria man laughing just means the will you're completely subject to somebody else's will that may be alright nothing bad may happen but you're subject to their will that is slavery and there's the distinction between the Libero mer ii classical text one would have to mention here is the roman law as codified at the end of antiquity the most important analysis of freedom that we have in the republican tradition because it begins the roman law begins as I'm sure you know by asking de statue hominem we need to know about the status the status of men and women and there's any two statuses you can have you can either be free or you can be a slave so again the question is well what does it mean to be a slave and the answer that the rule the Roman law gives is if you're a slave the latter is interesting if you are in pot Astarte are you in the power of are you subject to the will of someone else that's slavery so there is the Republican way of thinking about freedom freedom is a matter of status and it's the status of being a free person as opposed to being a slave and that is the status of not being subject to the arbitrary will of someone else now the next thing I want to do this lecture is in three parts and the next part is brief but it's very important addendum to this philosophical analysis that I've been giving of different ways of thinking about freedom if you look at traditions of discussion about freedom and contemporary debates you'll see that these different traditions that I've laid out the liberal tradition the Hungarian tradition of positive Liberty the Republican tradition three completely different understandings of the concept they're always getting muddled up and I want to try to to clarify the models first of all here's something that you need to understand is that there's an obvious way in which the Republican and the liberal agree with each other as opposed to the hIgG alien have you got these three ideas in mind okay we've got all three of them all right so the Republican agrees with the liberal that freedom is a negative concept that's to say the presence of freedom is always marked by the absence of something contrary to the Hegelian who thinks that you'll have to I'll have to watch how you act to see if you're free or not they think it is freedom marked by an absence the presence of freedom is marked by an absence where they disagree is what is that absence now where that's got confused one confusion is that a lot of Republican thinking about freedom has got confused with Hegelian thinking about freedom and if you were to take the greatest modern contemporary the greatest contemporary his story of republicanism professor John Pocock although his masterpiece the Machiavellian moment is a masterpiece it is systematically muddled about this point he thinks that Republicans are her galleons I quote him and when the leading Italian defenders of the vive le bro of the high Renaissance writers like Machiavelli and Richard Dini wrote about citizens in their libertà they invoke the Aristotelian form of the active concept of citizenship articulating at a high level the positive view of freedom that we are free if and only if we act in such a way as to realize our true nature so notice he's made those Republicans into Hague aliens it's a complete mistake I think there's nothing in Machiavelli nothing in Witcher Dini that is about what it is to follow your true nature on the contrary it's all about whether you are in a viva le beurre or whether you're a free person living in a free state or whether you're living in salary - whether you're living in a condition of slavery now when they say if you're going to live freely you must take part in the activities of the public realm they do say that the reason that they say that is not because they are big aliens who think that if you don't then you're not realizing your true nature they think that you must take part because unless you can recognize your will in the law then what you must be recognizing in the law is somebody else's will but if but since you're subject to the law under those circumstances you are subject to somebody else's will but that's slavery so the reason that you must involve yourself in the business of government is that it's a causal claim about what will enable you to remain a free person that's to say if you can recognize your will in the law then you are free although you're a citizen or subject to the law but you've made it yourself so it's compatible with freedom and that I think is part of the distinctive claim of the Republican so there's the Republican and the liberal together saying yes we agree freedom is negative we know as I said disagreeing with Pocock there as opposed to the gala button there's a crucial division between the liberal and the Republican and that is quite simply that the liberal thinks that you're free if you're not interfered with the Republican thinks two things first of all of course that's true I mean of course if I if I lock the door so that you can't leave the room then you're not free to leave the room nobody dad denies that but that's not the essence of freedom freedom is not a bad way that really freedom is about whether you have a status or not everything about actions is secondary so you could put it in a nutshell and say the liberal thinks freedom is absence of interference on some understanding of that concept the Republican thinks freedom is absence of dependence a much broader and indeed more demanding account right that's quite enough philosophical analysis what I want to do in the third and concluding part of this lecture which will be briefer than the other two parts because 55 minutes right I've so far spoken all right I've got some 15 minutes left you all right with 15 minutes we're going to do some history I want to end by considering three here I go back to the great Pocock what Pokot were called moments I wanted to look at three moments in they're going to be in rather Western European and American history in which we see the Republican theory in motion we see it as an insurgent ideology we see it as an ideology of liberation the first of these three moments is at the time of the crisis of Republic's in 16th century Italy you heard in the introduction Contarini celebrated de república Venator 'm first published in english in 1599 when they were thinking about a republic the queen must be dying soon is the sort of subtext of the translation not of the Russian translation but if it were translated in England now of course that might be a listen I'm not being recorded the that's the Venetian story but of course yet more of a crisis is the Florentine story and the final loss of the Republic to the Medici in 1512 that lost theorized by Machiavelli in the discovery of 1519 there's one moment second great Republican moment is the successful abolition in Great Britain of the monarchy of Great Britain in 1649 and the establishment in perpetuity of a republic didn't last in perpetuity but there's a second moment and a third moment is the successful revolt of the thirteen colonies in North America from the rule of the British crown in 1776 what these moments have in common is that they're all theorized in relation to the Republican theory of freedom that's how they get legitimized all of those moments are legitimized in terms of the theory of freedom lay down for you now in each case that leads to a tremendous debate where the Republican theory is vehement Lee attacked so what I want to talk about is the Republican view on each of these moments then the attack and then the question is did the Republicans have an answer to the attack on them or to put it more interestingly as the end of the lecture should you be a Republican regalian or a liberal okay you the Republican has two views which make for the absolute distinction of the position and you'll see now what they are and one is a view about freedom in its character that's to say its absence of dependence and second is a view about how you can maintain that freedom which is you've got to be a lawgiver now if you think of the the first of these what freedom means then the same analysis is given as a legitimating account in each of these three great crises for example think of Machiavelli's discourse she and how it analyzes the concept of freedom if you open that great work the first two chapters asked you what it is to live in a vive le burro a free free community or to live in servitude to live in the manner of slaves that's the first question you asked himself and the answer he gives is that you live in 72 if you live independence' if you're not independent if you live in dependence in upon an oligarchy within your community or within a power outside it if it's not your will if it's the will of an oligarchy if it's a little a conqueror you are independence that if you're independent you're in shelley - there's the analysis that's the beginning of the discourse see the same story is what you find if you ask what is the view of freedom that the English Republicans have in 1649 the greatest of the English Republicans are great lyric poet John Milton who was secretary to Oliver Cromwell and wrote the major treatises in defense of the English Republic when it was set up in 1649 has exactly the same analysis of Machiavelli for the excellent reason he takes it from Machiavelli and in his famous treatise of 1649 called the iconoclast II the destruction of the image that the image of the King destroying the image of the king what he says is that under any king however you discuss legislation it are quoting your purpose legislation will be terminated by the will of one man a form of arbitrary power that leaves you in the miserable condition of a slave so there is the salient story and finally you get the same story again in 1776 when the American colonies set up the United States of America after their declaration in 1776 what is that declaration called it's called the Declaration of Independence where independence from what well from dependence of course from dependence er why it's the Machiavellian analysis dependence is the same as 72 and hence in the Federalist Papers if you ask about the analysis of freedom that makes America think of itself as the paradigm of a free state of cosmic they've all become liberals they'd keep but in the in 1776 and in the Federalist Papers the account that's given is when the thirteen colonies were colonies of the British crown they were taxed by the British crown so that the levels of Taxation were simply imposed upon them but without any representation in the assembly that was making the taxes so the taxes came in the form of somebody else's arbitrary will but if you are subject to someone else's arbitrary will you are a slave and that's the amazing fact about the rhetoric of the American Revolution they really knew about slavery there were slave owners and they were saying of themselves we are subject to this alien power which is imposing taxation without our consent that is slavery and the British answer was very interesting which was to say look oppresses nothing nothing bad is going to happen but that's the word of the master the master says it'll be all right don't worry but they said that's what Tony Blair used to say to us you know you can trust me don't worry to be alright but what you say to the slave owner is I'm not worrying about what you're doing I'm worrying about what power you have you've got the wrong kind of power it's arbitrary power arbitrary power needs and enslavement no you say it yeah but you'll be fine because being slave is not fine you don't know what's going to happen to you that was the whole point that the American Constitution was originally about well now that provoked intense debate so there's the view of freedom freedom is absence of dependence that legitimizes the need for a republic in Florence again that just amazes the the abolition of the monarchy in Great Britain after legitimizes the revolution of America but of course that was intensely debated and the most interesting debates because their closest I think to us are the ones about the American Revolution the enemies of the American Revolution in Great Britain especially the classical utilitarians who hated it William Paley Jeremy Bentham writing bitterly against the American Declaration of Independence what do they say they want to say and I quote Paley you say you are rendered unfree by the mere fact of living in dependence upon us even if our power is never exercised but for your benefit but you are then saying that you are unfree in the absence of any act of interference but if there is no interference how is there no freedom well there is the debate so what is the Republican response to that I mean how is it exactly that you are unfree even if there's no interference at all well Milton it gives an immortal answer to that in his tenure of kings and magistrates it's great treatise of 1649 when he says the life of the slave is one in which you are endlessly self-censoring yourself you do not know what might happen to you and so seeing that you are wholly dependent upon the will of another you will do everything to maintain that will as a goodwill however abject or slavish your conduct as a result becomes so we are left and under monarchy we are always left with nothing but abject bearings and cringing 'he's the triumph of the servile know speaking truth to power why because you don't know what might happen so you keep quiet that is censorship by yourself of yourself you're taking away your own freedom don't say that you're not interfered with you who's doing the interfering but you're certainly making yourself slaves now as to the point that well nobody actually interfered well that's a very important point for the Republican came out by the way if I make very purely British intervention for a second it came out with us this summer when we had a large-scale investigation of the appalling behavior of our press of our newspapers when the the most villainous person a man called Rupert Murdoch who owns all newspapers was questioned by the High Court judge about his political power and he said I do not believe that any of my newspapers have ever interfered with government policy but the point was they didn't have to interfere the newspapers knew that there were things they mustn't say and the especially the politicians knew there were things they mustn't say to the newspapers for fear of what might happen but maybe nothing would happen but maybe they would be so demoralized by the denunciation that would follow that they would lose the next election so they didn't say so when Rupert Murdoch said you know I never interfered he's speaking as the slave owner he doesn't have to interfere they'll do what he wants without him having to say indeed if he has to interfere that's rather a loss of status going to the Prime Minister and saying you know if I were you I wouldn't make that arrangement the European Union because if you do my presses will then rubbish your private life in such a way you will never be elected again he doesn't have to say that thorn understood that's the Republican point the second Republican point is that you are a free person if and only if you are engaged in the making of the law under which you live if you are not so engaged the law is not a reflection of your will but of someone else's but in that case you are a slave now that second view you equally find in each of these three moments if you look again at the beginning of Machiavelli's discourse see now look at the beginning of book truth the beginning of what one tells you what Liberty means the beginning of book two tells you why you can be free if how how you can be free is if and only if you live in a self-governing Republic you can only be free in those circumstances because it's only then that the law reflects your will in which case is lucky very says you're able to live liebherr unanimity freely you can live freely because you are subject to a law recognized as your will so that's the very opening two chapters of book truth the same understanding is completely central to English republicanism of the 17th century the most famous English writer on republicanism of that era was James Harrington his book Oceania 1656 which is a direct reply to Hobbes direct reply to Hobbes is Leviathan and in that text and Hatton has a very very interesting response to hot he says mr. Holmes says that I am free if I am free from law and hanged him says what he has forgotten is that I'm only free if I'm free by law that's to say I have to make sure that I am free by the law that there are but you'll only do that if you engage help to engage in the making of laws and the same comes up in the American Revolution if you think of the great defenses of the American Revolution above all Tom Paine in his treatise common sense of 1776 one of the major theoretical defenses of the American Revolution and not only attacking monarchy as an enslaving institution but attacking mixed constitutions as well and insisting that unless the people at least by representation are the sovereigns then you are living in a state of slavery as he says the free person is his own legislature so mainly say notice this second point about republicanism the Republican the thinks there's a special way of understanding freedom and that's to say that it's absence of dependence on arbitrary will but secondly thinks that that is intimately connected with constitutions so the Republican thinks something much more than for example Merici over only says when he said republicanism is about the rule of law sure it is in the sense that they say only law must rule there mustn't be extra powers there mustn't be special executive powers there mustn't be discretionary powers because they're all arbitrary so only law rules but there's a second point want to make it's not just the rule of law you must make more you must be able to see either directly or by representation if you're Rousseau it has to be directly you know most people have supposed it has to be very representation but you must be able to see you all in the law otherwise whereas say now there's the second claim then but that too was a subject of intense dispute and the answer to that and I'll give the answer that was given to the Americans making that claim in 1776 from the liberal stands for example again Bentham I quote Bentham law is nothing other than the operation of coercive force so all laws are enemies of Liberty how can Liberty be made by law sort of attacking a Republican view Liberty cannot be the fruit of law Liberty and law are enemies all law is coercion all coercion takes away freedom so if you wish a maximum of Liberty you want a minimum of law so there's the liberal attack on the American Declaration of Independence and indeed in this period the anti radical liberal writers of the of the Enlightenment like to mock the Republican case by saying that once you've seen that the fewer laws there are the more Liberty you have you will see and this is a big theme of David Humes political essays you will see that actually you're far more likely to be freer under an enlightened despotism than in a republic because if you live in a republic well you're always being called to meetings we're always being asked to decide things you can't get on with your own affairs you can't get on with your life and especially in commercial society and this is going to be the point that costs dollar picks up from Hume this is ridiculous have this way of thinking about freedom freedom has to be thought of in such a way that I can be free to get on with my life while somebody else gets on with the business of government so once you understand that as human says or indeed as kloster says that's modern Liberty and you'll see that that's the right solution now what does your Republican say to that well the Republican has two answers which is to say to the liberal look if that's your view of freedom then what you're saying is that there can be no Liberty as a citizen because no state exists without law you can't name a state that doesn't have NORs but if all law is the enemy to Liberty then no States can guarantee any Liberty to their citizens is that your is that a liberal answer is that what you want to say and that was Harrington's answer to Hobbes that is not liberalism that is of course in its modern form that has become become what we now in the English language called libertarianism a kind of anarchism which leaves you saying well in that case maybe the state is not a legal institution after all and but do you want that is it possible to live outside the confines of law even Hobbes is there to tell you that that would be very unwise so there is part of the answer but far more powerful answer is that what you have to realize is that if you live in a self-governing Republic where take the Rousseau vien case your will is actually present in the assembly that makes the law such that the law is your will it's the voluntary Nahar and the voluntary arrive is the law then you are a free citizen although a subject to the law because what are you subject to you're subject to your own will but to be subject to your own will is freedom and I can only end by saying because I have not spoken for 50 six minutes I'm sorry that second part of the answer allied to the first how should we think about freedom and what institutions would we have to design to live as free persons it seems to me that the Republican answer to that set of questions which I've now tried to lay out in their response to the liberal gave us a critique of liberalism in the late 18th century discussion which is just as powerful now as it was when it was first articulated thank you very much my question is is there a correlation in every cost any other forms of government because no such as Bolliger comparison proceed and democracy and most specifically I was wondering any darling placed on the principle of representation can qualify for self-government Republic what I think is whether I'm as a citizen of to you as a citizen alpha of Britain in a way that it could be in the same stages of being in the state of dependency laws here the results of elections sometimes questions in terms of their kinetic ability and in terms of transparency while in Britain since the system is based on the elections you all the time to let the same type of people and this is explained in Vermont's money to book PS represent yes so does that mean that even looking neither one was a reflection of democratic regime and me having doubts about my own I'm the state using state of unfreedom in the state not participate in making our own laws yeah our laws and we like someone else and only a moment sir very okay well this is an absolutely central question I mean just at the theoretical level and one way of distinguishing the Republican from the liberal position would be to to observe that liberals are not interested in forms of government if they're interested in freedom because they think that freedom is unconnected with forms of government that's the point of Humes paradox if you want to be free that's to say minimally interfered with you might do better under an oligarchy you might do better under an absolute monarch than you would under a republic so the way in which the Republic connects forms of government to freedom is by challenging the underlying understanding of freedom okay so the Republican says no this really does matter because that's the wrong way to think about freedom freedom has to be seen as intimately connected with self-government not only in the government of themself but in the government of the polity so the key figure here reviving this classical story for the Enlightenment is Rousseau now the question then arises and I mentioned Rousseau because he gives such a strong answer to this question all right you say that I'm only free if I'm in effect a legislator I must be able to see my will in the law how can that be institutionalized Rousseau is the great enemy of the idea of the represented will he says well it can only that's why he says he's so proud to be a citizen of Geneva it can probably only be effectively operational in a very small scarcity republic where you can genuinely see a relationship of your will to the volunteers in eval and will that will in such a way that that becomes the law and so Rousseau is disgusted with the modern territorial states of Europe of course because they don't have the institutions that would uphold your standing as freedom as free people now the more particular question you raise is where does that leave us of course if if you're a Rousseau vien it leaves us a slave of course because the represented will is not your will what we have done in modern democracies we call them democracies but they're not democracies if you're a Rousseau vien at all because a democracy if you think of the etymology of that term is ruled by the people the demos but the demos does not rule in Great Britain any more than the Dimas rules in the Russian Federation or in anywhere a political class rules and we elected to represent well to represent the public good that's the idea so if you're not Russo vien what you want is a very strong analysis of the concept of representation and how that would have to operate for us to feel that we were not dependent if you ask me about the British case I would say we're doing very badly and worse and worse we're doing badly because it's still a monarchy and there are huge reserves called the Royal Prerogative they are not operated any longer by the crown as a corporation but they're operated by the chief executive for the time being acting in the name of the crown as a corporation the British constitution has three corporations the crown that represents itself the lords who represent themselves and the Commons who are represented so it's a mixed Constitution and it's all representation except two of the corporations represent themselves now the one crown the crown corporation has handed prerogative powers to the executive but that means that the British executive has incredibly strong prerogative powers including for example the RAC declare war and peace which is not a democratic power it's a power of the head executive and it took Britain in to the Iraq war without any vote of Parliament because it was the decision of the Prime Minister that's legal but that's a very undemocratic Constitution furthermore fears about terrorism have caused our executive to take on very extensive and Arbutus chrétien area powers none of which are in statute none of which have a democratic mandate so the condition of a citizen of a country which is moving in that direction was an increasingly strong executive and a legislative assembly which isn't even all elected we are the one member of the European Union with a non elected Legislative Assembly I mean it's a contradiction in 21st century so yeah we're slaves so what wishes for those reflections well especially of those who are not from sin is urban also who came from different parts of Russia I'd like to ask just asking you to verify some some points about said that freedom does not have anything in common obsessions it's about States and you also said that it's derived from Dusty's the war historians were that information was all freelance Italy England and us I wonder about how communicate this Republican tradition in history around this safer link in amber Saxon Carolina that asked us immediately us we just are not Republicans ourselves then we have work or are they - the strong no practical progress this kind of agenda is that strongly connected through under form but then we must say that Russia no public official work because Harlem then Machiavelli has no Jefferson here discussin videos yeah this is this is very important and I've given as I was saying in my talk of Western European story here were partly partly uh I mean it's a sort of French Italian American British story that's indefensible except for very one very important point which is that lecturers ought only to talk about what they know about I mean and many years of giving lectures have finally persuaded me to talk only about what I think I know about so that helps to explain if I was going to talk about the the historical story here I would want to stress far more than I succeeded in doing in the lecture and the importance not of the minister Roman story but not of the reminisce joins but Roman law Roman law becomes the law of every Western European country and the emergence of common law as a rival for Roman law is very specific feature of British and American experience if you think of the law of the European Union it's fundamentally Roman law so that document it and its fortunes in the history of European politics would be where we should take our starting point from we should take our vocabulary from there I mean that the whole Roman law of a cavalry about the law of persons what it needs to be a free person what it needs to be a slave what arbitrary power means all of this is work in the Roman law of persons which is essentially as you know a Serie of private law it's a theory of persons and property it isn't the theory of public law and all of that gets applied from Roman law into public law so if we were talking about writing a serious history of republicanism then it would have to take seriously that it's a Roman story and the fortunes of Roman law in the politics of Europe would be the thing to focus on actually it turns out there's a lot to be said especially about Eastern Europe as well in relation to the Roman law case could I just correct something where I obviously didn't speak as clearly as I should have done I think that it's true as you say that a distinction between the mainstream way of thinking about freedom in political theory and the Republican way it should be stated to begin with to make it clear that there's a huge distinction one talks about actions and interference with actions one talks about status of a free person but the status of the person who is not free is the status of someone whose actions are under the control of another so you can bring the two traditions completely together but you can also make them collide by saying that if you like definitions the liberal view is that freedom is a bizarre interference the Republican view is that freedom is absence of relationship domination and dependence so it's a relationship it's a status point but actions are involved because an action that is the product of your will being dominated by someone is not a free action I have a question see them yet another conception well walk in walk it seems to be that in some very deep sadness needs all this free because you know the Eucharist as his duration we actually see a famous famous fabulous personality inference you know sparrows bipedal syndrome you is free whatever whatever they action smooth another agent are yeah and of course John was crossed in the in the discussion list was to what one who highlighted the importance of the version of the view when he landed kind of rationalism of miles dispute of miles corrosion of the wheel so when wanted how does a various story pit yet to to Europe met the same one are saying is of how relates to these that is very different this story in all four months you know involves all peoples there was this one very strong trend of salt which thought that slaves are free characters Simon snow expected now setting arm you know and all these guys and of course the story wasn't characters why what happen garroted partly in regard by the lucidity and I would also mention the Santos time without more whiskey his famous understanding freedom yes something which does not have listened to be state yeah you know the freedom was rather the capacity to conserve the true you Eve gold answer to half so in a sense all human beings we will Eve they are enslaved by the scene you've a long ball possible back I said be Republican in the sense it doesn't require you know to constituents not be also they will not be free also please out of the quality but also to eat human being you have to participate in them this is a very different for the different understanding of humanity are focused on sort yeah so how does these well there's a wonderful observations thank you very much I mean I will produce a map to answer the question but the first thing to say is this is very important is that this lecture has been about how to understand the notion of civil liberty I was quite careful to say that we're talking here about civil liberty the political liberty of the individual freedom in relation to the law we're talking about freedom in civil Association now you're absolutely right and and I must say a word about this that this is very far from exhausting what we want to say when we want to talk about freedom and I would want to say I'm pushing this is it like a party ok initiative civil freedom me too this other way to thinking about feeling in debt and how can we measure something and then feel right medicine it is of you that when I said I can do this that there's not only and hots photography for that in every issue that services the truth about human nature is the forward portal which you make a turn into that know that the next thing for the lock is that that it you should trust and that's sweet that's not a metaphor you asked about the crucial absolutely very interesting operation make negativity but there is streamlined you might see that what matters right field is not sylheti for freedom of mind now the great text which insists on that on the professionals makes the point I think you agree with you the research is blue the most important text for us to think about the mystical people the probably technology and philosophy is the plan protects as a woman who pierced a very fierce committed novelty and she offers in consolation not only speaks at a time increasing unscented deaths trust and they flush appears here said three and he can't build enough free I'm in prison and she says anything wrong of the air seeing my dream or freedom is three was for free the Emperor's only be happy results and nothing matter is you think and that's great Chuck three up to a bastard feel - it's very cold in lot of work because whatever second University to Lydia it has recognized that many are registries are is head and cognitive that is all about me so that is not very the games not civil because that's a harsh truth the previous us to recognize similarly that what matters to us yeah these are one of the questions didn't stop people are thinking we can ask why hmm winter and one thing which you just stressed I think it's very important than scared hunters between civil liberty and freedom of thought or civil liberty and liberty let's say no in personal life because the problem with civilization is the defender decisively put into question the board is aware poetess and where they begin and at least my mentor when I was doing my PhD wrote a book which which I don't agree but that's a book by Hannah Pitkin on Machiavelli where she says that the whole notion of dependency is developed through his hatred of women and well this is of course an arguable thesis but the point here is pretty much straightforward in the sense it's the first time I hear you to use north of dependence and of course dressings and the links to the Declaration of Independence because usually the Republican like you would say that the notion is not to be under somebody else's will the first and when they hear the notion of the students for dependence and Sancho and why do you think that this changes in argument is the argument that my kuvira's notion of getting free a feminist analysis might read them to him the idea being free from the natural who controls exhaustively area that's the point and then of course the famous metaphor of beating the fortune right as a woman into shape and this is what makes for proto-fascist overtones of Machiavelli's and else now this is an overstatement that might be but another thing which shows where the position of Machiavelli is developed to the fullest is of course Conte and the statement of the need of autonomy the personal autonomy right you do not have to be dependent on somebody else and as we look at mature and fool individual capable of freedom now one of the former Republicans who became right now an interesting philosopher between different guys alasdair macintyre at some point his last book was called if I'm not mistaken rational dependent dependent animals by claiming that can't may be Machiavelli with him have invented this fiction that in order to give human being you have to be independent and that is the dream over small boy who was to liberate himself from the mother and from the all the vicissitudes of relationship for the second sex and that's why I can't kind of was in favor of that and like I really might have been in the same situation well in fact most of our lives you and I another spender lightest dependence as kids whereas elderly people so when MacIntyre moved into old age actually wrote that cut is Rohan then advance is the rule most of the time we depend on Alice that's what ladies know better than okay the man so that the ideal of independence is seriously questions and teams in terms of claiming that this is a good thing in one's personal fate and then it's a male standard imposed on the rest of the humankind it's supported by old white males like Machiavellian con but it's not really I mean this is I'm just repeating the you radical critique of where what's going on here and then sense how can we affirm that standard and that ideal at the level of civil liberty if it was seriously questioned in interpersonal relations well the two thoughts go to this critique one of which is sort of necessity is not certainly watched is just to to to to emphasized a condenser I always wanted to do that my formulations of robotics student have always related it to dependents rather than to question about donations hypnotist refer to which is there air mattress anything but my text or talk about the papers now if you want to stress therefore for Texas region on our tubes where it's a person within the thought and we know as diversity important Jewish but they're not allowed to own a Kentucky College decoration wraps women this is the papers upon what they think men want and the lattice definition bothered John stick emoji is divided up freedom which is partying surviving from 1851 and isn't it 1869 file imported courts suggestion notices Macintosh and feeding off into Paracelsus check what images together two men first least any child and a lot of people who must attack this particular view of alternative of not accounting field to 2008 agenda it is a few which is not only possible to but which actually incorporates the interact with it in a way that liberated ensign mark hard to do temple this is the day the energy dependent in endless being the land were off every night but but this is so important safe but happy said exactly gift and freedom is not even the founder but it's before I even our lives but other values are obviously justice so that our solution is you would not think that being freedom and a valid and free suggests ended she's always to be invited to see her me neither you might return were his sister did but for certain life there's something more snake actions personally no cares music our black my answer and that we very good ones freedom is one value but these lands can either contested each other and the life is better person is trying to get not so different era you're not freedom and you give some corn phone I Oh well I didn't know enough about the case but it is obviously what the Republican wants to do by contrast with the liberal in talking about freedom that that liberal view of freedom as we now have it especially as promulgated but from the United States of America which has such an enormous and Charlie's disastrous influence upon the rest of the world is to say that the more the less all you have the more freedom you have they think that's obvious so that enemies of the state and that it has a little terrier wing which is almost anarchistic which thinks we're we should probably start taxing people you know it's our money and that in capacity to think about a state which is a recurrent feature modern American thinking feminine so what the Republican would want to say to that fate of a person might be important not just in America but also in Russia it's certainly important in the United Kingdom is that the the Republican is the person who thinks that that whole liberal discussion have gone off the rails because it's got the wrong way of thinking about freedom it thinks the more freedom the less law the Republican thinks not necessarily at all there could be more freedoms with more Lord it depends who's making the law so whereas little thinks the mall or the less freedom the Republican thinks who's making this law and so I argue to ask that question of the Russian great and the more that the answer seems to you nor me and not even my represented world then that's a problem but you see if you take a little okay tonight nine pairs of problems I mean you know who needs it so if you're attracted to the way of thinking about freedom that I've eventually foregrounded this evening what that means is you've got to think more seriously about the institutions that make a democracy notice that the Republican theory of freedom should really be clear the democratic theory of freedom because it is a theory of equal freedom of each of us from conditions of dependence upon the are between world of ours it thinks that the value is to try to limit arbitrators in our society because it's also locked view and so it some of you not unaccommodating to that kind of rigorous and it just means that lock is not and the world so that's the way I would urge you to think about it think of it in democratic terms and ask yourself what institutions you need and what you need to abolish answering question over here I'll say that in the British case very obvious what we have to abolish we have to run fee has lords we have to make as an elective chamber we have to abolish the monarchy with the royal prerogative we have to more frequent elections because a slur to ever disclose together corruption and so on it's not always the question done if we see a technology but now what the newspapers have called top official Russian Assembly key we have okay there's a question over there please scholarly legs and it's based in case maybe based on their ironic left applause okay there is this thing that smoking is restricted in most console your finger in public spaces it's intimately in this case dependent on well yes so the question is here counter Republicans how does the Roman tradition view public spaces here and some kind rating of some level controls around the column that is too much very dark to be instructing very not good that's very the biology trying to really show various things for that is in common which is unnecessary fears people civil rights in fracture the bone is nothing in the publication mortgage tonight so if you have out the door never see again a little worried that you know I'm actually need to see it is that solitude okay the time I'm not comfortable talking to you it's an age thirty Balaji so there's no more very nice to say to the others - or else Enigma machine se the one a horrible not only that the reason that's going to be lost nation I mentioned without nation together yeah good positive possible efficiency things the freezers we need the autograph he said three high that decrease servicers to the public good and he accepted the community service - drugs and Christian smart - tends to make sense of unity HIV positive content because they've anything that freedom isn't paradox because the true fruit is in some sense a life of service freezing and lack of service and now I'm in both cases is a story organized and in human nature that the first thing that Christians issue is after I said you are under sin and that there has to be in that station from that scene the Christian story what what is this story about service now what what I think the power of secular liberal that they are marching to see holy line is to say both first stories but we do not think that there is an or if ideal of human nature that we can describe in one of these ways we just don't think that I mean we all have different we all have different natures and the idea of regularizing them into some story that enables me to say you're already living the life in a free man that is horrible and there's nothing in republicanism I say against forgotten people there's now singing republicanism that would lead the Republican not to be completely them Republican is a form of liberation just for liberals winner takes democracy more serious more seriously Republicans do it has nothing to do with these insurgent views about college again so prominent in our society that unless you are seven sort of a person or not really a good for us and our free shuttle yeah the audience is pointing to me that they're ready to go with more questions I mean are you well other people will want something to drink well I want a rating people have their real interest is he hearing is one more question okay well we know for another question because I have to liberate through the roommates he took walk this is the only arbiter rule I kept some frozen for for it's clear that what what is to participate to make no other I understood that other other citizens and Muslims in half so how is this connected blind dependent with all amazing the law and one more team that is one like demands from citizens to be able to make law or the event very the traditional Department story with a funeral jacket has not been strong in answering your question a way to care for this project in thinking a bit procrastinating would be very sad map after second receiver are animals but the question is your fertility fun alright we're saying that three person isn't interested to the cuddly method operation in are now provided in a clapping good associate question best swords firing I think that legal philosophers who have been various on we can Bert ballotine objective traditions and that's how much fish and fish the technical defect and safety in henslowe fly on my favorite path so that one word another word would be the short except especially hard to move the objective detect this they're forgetting oh now that's nervous the incident is us another now the question some made us all sick by videos Wow another thing so penis all current diamonds democracies hate which is in order to increase the power of local government that's one rhythm that so that people can identify with it and then it can relate to central government got an extremely complex Federation that would be that would be a criminal American store not what they do there but that would be the traditional American story all you can say which is the way that it's done in any of the modern democracies best of all down in Australia which is to say where we need bicameralism but everyone has to be elected of course and they have to be elected very frequently indeed because of them so that they have two drafts as the maximum length of any lawful assembly and why is that well for reasons that now have any clarified the longer they're there the more corrupt they become the more they serve their own interests the more they become a political class keep them moving that's that's the thought so the some thoughts along those lines would be important by the way that just heart opening insight on Monday on legal says we should attempt to technicians anything for that I guess that's the fishing which will be left open for the conference let me just sinking words

Channel: Европейский университет в Санкт-Петербурге

Views: 18,079

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Id: YX47aTObiw0

Length: 97min 49sec (5869 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 17 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/ThePrecariat]

Really good. since I'm on an "legal theory and origins of law" kick, this was perfect.

Skinner breaks down the origins of the concept of "freedom" and "liberty" and 'republics'. It ends up being quite a complex development, referencing classical Greek and Roman philosophy and historical practices they were based upon, up to contemporary situations. It explains a lot for me.

Thanks for posting; recommended watching.