I concede that this thesis has strong implications for politics; it
calls directly for some version of equal citizenship, most evidently
that of equal participators in a democratic decision-making pro-
cedure. Non-domination, thus construed, amplifies that strand of
thinking about liberty which stresses self-control in both its per-
sonalized and social versions – important elements in the positive
conception as described by Berlin. It is hard to see how non-
domination, identified in this narrow fashion, can be used to place
limits on a sovereign power which comprises a body of equally
powerful citizens.
And yet Mill, famously, and Pettit, latterly, insist that it must. To
be fully non-dominating on the republican account the laws must
track the interests and values of the citizens.^28 Legislation, how-
ever non-dominating its source in democratic institutions, must be
non-arbitrary in its content as well. Mill’s solution was to insist
that legitimate legislation should respect the harm principle – ‘the
only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any
member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent
harm to others’.^29 Other philosophers have stressed the role of
human rights in delineating the proper competence of the sover-
eign power, howsoever democratic it may be. These are issues we
shall broach later. For the moment, let me conclude simply that I
cannot see how such restrictions on the content of law-making can
be derived from non-domination in the narrow sense that I have
sketched. Perhaps a wider one will serve, but we should be wary of
losing the clear content of the concept of non-domination as we
extend its application. The real lesson we should learn from the
republican theory of liberty is the necessary complexity of any
persuasive account of the value of political liberty.
The value of freedom
In what follows, I shall attempt to give such an account. First
though, let us review our progress so far. We have on the table
versions of the ideals of positive and negative liberty charted by
Berlin, together with an example of how (and how not) to con-
struct a hybrid theory. All three are candidates for our philo-
sophical allegiance; they have sound analytic credentials. How do
LIBERTY