Review of Ian Shapiro's Politics against Domination (The Philosophical Quarterly, 2016) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Ethics, 2015
"Sometimes dictators are benevolent. Sometimes masters are kind and gentle to their slaves. John Adams was a pretty good "husband" to Abigail Adams. But it seems like there’s something very wrong with being a dictator or a master or a spouse with the power that John Adams had over Abigail Adams in late 18th Century America. A theory of domination tries to pinpoint what’s distinctive about dictatorship and mastery and traditional husbanding, and what is distinctively wrong with such—even the benevolent, kind, gentle, and pretty good varieties. There has been a lot of thinking about domination over the last twenty-five or so years. This is due largely to the efforts of republican political philosophers, who have used domination and its absence — nondomination — as the primary moving part in their conceptions of freedom. Even so, perhaps because domination has often appeared in a supporting role for the analysis of other concepts, conceptualizing domination itself is still a fairly nascent endeavor. Accounts of domination need at least two movements. First, domination is a subset of a social phenomenon with—at least more or less—unobjectionable varieties. Maybe this social phenomenon is power; maybe it’s the capacity to interfere with choice; maybe something else. Whatever it is, it’s plausible to think it’s not always bad. Sometimes it’s perfectly alright to have power over someone else; sometimes there’s nothing wrong with the capacity to interfere with someone’s choices. (For example, if what you’d rather do is go after your neighbor with a meat-axe, it’s a good thing if someone is in a position to interfere with you, or if your choice situation can be worsened, so that charging next door, axe in hand, without having to worry about a lengthy prison sentence is not among your options.) The first task of a theory of domination is to specify exactly what this broader social phenomenon is. Next we need to figure out what gives domination its negative moral valence, and thus sets it apart from that broader social phenomenon. Republicans usually say that what makes domination morally problematic is its arbitrariness. Frank Lovett claims that domination is instantiated in a social relationship between A and B only if A is permitted to exercise power over B arbitrarily (2010, 120). Philip Pettit, until recently, claimed that domination is a capacity for arbitrary interference. Marilyn Friedman calls it “arbitrary interference in someone’s choices…”(2008, 265). If that’s right, and arbitrariness is the difference maker between forms of social power that aren’t domination and those that are, we need a story about what arbitrariness is. Such are the two essential tasks of conceptualizing domination. I offer here what I think are important course-corrections for recent attempts to complete them. In §1 I set out some desiderata for a useful conception of domination before sketching the elements of earlier attempts I think we can’t do without. §2 addresses the problem of “cheap domination”. This is the problem of identifying ordinary, innocuous human interactions with anything we call domination. I don’t think we should do this, but some of the most influential accounts of domination on offer nowadays — in particular, Lovett’s and Pettit’s — have this result. Instead, I contend that only certain forms of social power can underwrite domination, and try to provide a principled way of identifying what these forms are like. Finally, in §3, I address the nature of arbitrariness."
Non-domination and Democratic Legitimacy
While many regard equality as the moral foundation of democracy, republican theory grounds democracy in freedom as non-domination. The grounding of democracy in freedom has been criticized for relying on either an Aristotelian perfectionism or a Rousseauian equation of the people in their collective capacity and the people understood severally. The republican theory of freedom and democracy has the resources to meet these criticisms. But the most systematic elaboration of republicanism, that of Philip Pettit, achieves this by turning the relationship between freedom and democracy into an instrumental relationship in a manner open to objections. Instead, republicanism should offer a justification of democracy that also has a non-instrumental dimension. This revised republican freedom argument for democracy has advantages compared to the equality argument for democracy, including a better explanation of democratic procedures.
The Right to Politics and Republican Non-Domination
Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2016
Against pronouncements of the recent demise of both democracy and the political, I maintain that there is, rather, something amiss with the process of politicization in which social grievances are translated into matters of political concern and become object of policy making. I therefore propose to seek an antidote to the depoliticizing tendencies of our age by reanimating the mechanism that transmits social conflicts and grievances into politics. To that purpose, I formulate the notion of a 'fundamental right to politics' as the opposite of the techne of policy-making. I articulate this right via a reconstruction of the logical presuppositions of democracy as collective self-authorship. I then recast the concept of non-domination by discerning two trajectories of domination – 'relational' and 'systemic' ones, to argue that in a viable democracy that makes full use of the right to politics, the dynamics of politicization should take place along both trajectories; currently, however, matters of systemic injustice get translated in relational terms and politicized as concerns for inclusion into and distribution within the existing system of social relations, rather than its radical overhaul.
The Politics of Non-Domination Towards An An-archic Critique of Neo-Republican Political Philosophy
2019
This thesis offers an an-archic critique and analysis of Philip Pettit’s approach to theorising neo-republican politics and democracy. Neo-republican political philosophy has come to dominate much of the field of contemporary anglophone political theory, claiming strong democratic credentials as well as an innovative account of power, freedom, and political legitimacy. Freedom for neo-republicanism means non-domination and it is around this theory which the entire political project is organised. This thesis pursues two questions which relate strongly to the problem of political power, and are, to-date, neglected by the literature: 1. What is the theory of the subject of freedom as non-domination? 2. What does Pettit understand by political community as it relates to the neo-republican theory of freedom and democracy? To this end, this thesis stages a critical encounter between Pettit’s Method of political philosophy and the post-structuralist critical political theory of Jacques Rancière. Rancière’s innovative account of emancipation and democracy, which is premised upon the presupposition that we are all equal, and structured around the unworking of a torsion of two logics, one of politics and equality, the other of inequality and what he calls ‘the police’, offers the central theoretical tools to map out the possibilities of democratic politics within the neo-republican Method. The argument, in short, is that Pettit’s neo-republicanism represents a case of political philosophy working to write over politics on philosophy’s terms. Pettit’s theory does so by negating that which is central to politics from a radical democratic perspective: dissensus, or ‘antagonism’. The argument is presented through a close deconstructive reading of Pettit’s corpus, which in turn paves the way to explore what an an-archic politics of non domination might entail, based upon the concerted demonstration of an ‘axiomatic equality’.
REPUBLICANISM AND STRUCTURAL DOMINATION
What is domination? According to a leading strand of republican political philosophy, a person is dominated when under the unconstrained power of another. Call this the dyadic conception of domination, because it involves a two-person relation. I argue that domination is better understood structurally. Structural domination is domination by institutions. Rather than a master dominating a slave and a boss dominating a worker (as in dyadic domination), structural domination holds that the institution of slavery dominates the slave and labor law dominates the worker. Without the structural conception, I contend, one misdescribes the power dynamics of paradigm cases of domination.
A conversation on power and republicanism: an exchange between Mark Haugaard and Philip Pettit
Journal of political power, 2017
In this exchange Haugaard and Pettit begin by discussing power and agency. They agree that while many inequalities are linked to deliberate agency, a significant number of inequalities comprise structural effects that are the unintended effect of social action. These are of normative concern: to prevent arbitrary domination and create a society in which everyone can pass the eyeball test. Some of these structures are naturalized, or reified, which often makes them appear less contestable. This includes private property, which is presented as part of the natural order of things, thereby often naturalizing domination. From these beginnings, the authors discuss the nature of the eyeball and tough-luck tests, including: how they apply to culture, parent-child power, gender, and economic inequalities. Mark I am delighted that you wish to partake in this exchange. Let us start from your previous contribution to this Journal. In that article (Pettit 2008), you largely endorse Dahl's famous definition of political power: ' A has power over B to the extent he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do' (Dahl 1957, pp. 202-203). However, you add the significant qualification that this conceptualization should be extended beyond punctual, or individual, point in-time, exercises of power. In this context you list a number of ways that A may exercise power over B, which are not covered by Dahl's account of power but should be. They are as follows: A manipulates B's mindset, thereby reducing B's capacity for deliberation; A imposes a sure or probabilistic block, real and/or purported, on B's not x-ing; A imposes a sure or probabilistic burden, real and/or purported, on B's not x-ing; A misinforms B about the blocks and burdens in place, to get B to x.
LIBERTY AS NON-DOMINATION: THE CONTRIBUTION OF PHILIP PETTIT AND THE DEBATE WITH HIS CRITICS
Revista PPC -Políticas Públicas e Cidades, 2024
This paper explores Philip Pettit's concept of liberty as non-domination, a significant contribution to contemporary political theory emphasizing freedom from arbitrary power rather than merely the absence of interference. In an increasingly plural and complex world, there is a pressing need for a broader understanding of liberty that addresses the political adversities faced by diverse societies. Pettit's theory provides a robust framework for assessing political freedom by proposing that true liberty entails the absence of domination, supported by democratic mechanisms that disperse and make power accountable. The primary objective of this text is to analyze Pettit's complete works alongside contributions from ten prominent commentators and debaters, examining the strengths and potential shortcomings of his theory. The analysis aims to demonstrate how Pettit's concept of non-domination can be superior to other notions of liberty or how integrating different perspectives might reinforce his ideas. Methodologically, the paper conducts a thorough examination of Pettit's seminal works. It includes critical analysis from scholars like Quentin Skinner, Richard Dagger, and Cécile Laborde. Each author's agreement or disagreement with Pettit is analyzed in detail, providing a comprehensive view of the ongoing discourse. In conclusion, Pettit's concept of liberty as non-domination proves to be a compelling framework for understanding and advancing political freedom. This approach necessitates transparency, accountability, and participation within democratic institutions, ensuring liberty is safeguarded against both existing and potential forms of arbitrary power. Through this detailed examination, the paper