Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Reconceiving Freedom from the Shadows of Slavery
    Show more authors
    • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
  • Select format
  • Publisher:
    Cambridge University Press
    Publication date:
    January 2025
    January 2025
    ISBN:
    9781009440196
    9781009440202
    DOI:
    https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009440196
    Dimensions:
    (229 x 152 mm)
    Weight & Pages:
    0.512kg, 266 Pages
    Dimensions:
    Weight & Pages:
    • Subjects:
    Political Theory, Politics and International Relations, Philosophy, Political Philosophy
You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Political Theory, Politics and International Relations, Philosophy, Political Philosophy
    Information

    Book description

    In a departure from standard approaches to the concept of liberty, in this book John Christman locates and defends the concept of freedom as a fundamental social value that arose out of fights against slavery and oppression. Seen in this light, liberty must be understood as requiring more than mere non-interference or non-domination – it requires the capacity for self-government and the capabilities needed to pursue valued activities, practices, and ways of life. Christman analyses the emergence of freedom as a concept through nineteenth- and twentieth-century struggles against slavery and other oppressive social forms, and argues that a specifically positive conception best reflects its origins and is philosophically defensible in its own right. What results is a model of freedom that captures its fundamental value both as central to the theoretical architecture of constitutional democracies and as an aspiration for those striving for liberation.

    Reviews

    ‘John Christman, a leading philosopher of autonomy and positive liberty, offers a powerful and persuasive argument for viewing freedom as deeply situated in historical and social contexts. Seeing free acts as socially constituted by practices and forms of life, Christman combines rigorous conceptual analysis with attentive social and legal history to construct a theory of freedom informed by the lived experience of US slavery. A valuable and welcome contribution to the political philosophy of freedom.'

    Nancy J. Hirschmann - University of Pennsylvania

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents
    References

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.