This book sets out in some detail an interesting conception of freedom, according to which being unable to do something (or its being difficult to do), and being dominated in something like the republican sense, are two kinds of unfreedom. This is a conception of freedom as ‘non-constraint’ which recognizes a broad range of constraints on our freedom. According to George Rainbolt’s theory you are unfree in more ways than you might have thought: for example, you are unfree to leap over tall buildings. But some of these unfreedoms matter more than others.
Rainbolt helpfully explains his methodology in Chapter 1. His aim is to articulate a conception of freedom worth honoring and promoting, even if that does not fit common usage (4–5). In articulating it, he uses a range of examples or thought experiments to guide theory construction at various choice points. He describes responses to these cases not as ‘intuitions’, but as ‘lived experiences of freedom’, in an effort to acknowledge cultural diversity and to shift attention to a broader range of responses than just his own. In this spirit, the book sometimes refers to works of art or musical lyrics—for example, to make the case that an adequate account of freedom should include an account of what it is to be a free person, not just an account of what it is to be free to do something (145–6).
The book focuses on negative conceptions of freedom, taking as its main competitors leading liberal accounts by Hillel Steiner, Ian Carter, and Matthew Kramer, and leading republican accounts such as Phillip Pettit’s. It engages with these rivals in impressive detail throughout—which could make it useful as a teaching text for some purposes. It also takes care to explain ideas and distinctions, often displaying a considerable knack for doing so. The writing is clear and snappy and uses lots of examples. In these respects, it is student-friendly—though some students might struggle with other aspects of the style of exposition. In particular, Rainbolt chisholms away at many successive versions of his theory, giving them names such as ‘Freedom as Non-Constraint Bivalent 1.1’ (49). That said, students capable of coping with that element of the style will find much to learn from here, as will specialists.
The main elements of Rainbolt’s theory of freedom are as follows. First, his theory is ‘bivalent’ rather than ‘trivalent’: freedom and unfreedom jointly exhaust the possibilities (in contrast, according to those who defend trivalent theories, inability is a third possibility). Second, whether you cannot do something because of a natural constraint or because of a human constraint makes no difference to the question of whether you are free or unfree—though we can draw such distinctions for other purposes (Chapter 2). Third, the constraints on freedom are of two kinds: ‘interference’ and ‘domination’. Any cause of an inability to do something, whether human or not, is an interference (72). Someone is dominated whenever someone else could interfere with their action if they wanted to do so (80). This is a broader account of domination than Pettit’s, since Pettit sets aside cases in which the other person has ‘orthogonal preferences’, whereas Rainbolt is happy to include these as cases of domination (82). Fourth, whether or not interference or domination is ‘controlled’ or ‘non-arbitrary’ makes no difference to your freedom—though, again, it may well matter for other reasons (Chapter 4). Laws constrain your freedom no matter how democratically they were made. Fifth, both interference and domination (and so, freedom) are matters of degree (Chapter 5). If something is impossible for you to do, you are altogether unfree to do it; if it is only difficult to do, you are to some degree unfree to do it. Sixth, you have an overall degree of freedom, which is a function of the number of specific things you are free to do (not, as Kramer and others claim, a function also of the number of things you are unfree to do) (196–201). Seventh, we can measure overall freedom—but only imprecisely, because your overall freedom depends also on the importance of your specific freedoms. When it comes to measurement, freedom is more like health than weight (Chapter 6).
There is much to admire in the way that Rainbolt sets out and defends these claims. In common with much of the literature that he discusses, the discussion in the book is clear and precise. It proceeds systematically, and engages in detail with the views of opponents. The arguments are carefully made and presented, and often refer to helpful examples. Moreover, Rainbolt’s theory of freedom itself has attractive features. He points out, for example, that it is better suited than some liberal or republican views to account for certain kinds of structural unfreedom (91).
In the final paragraph of the book, Rainbolt points out some political implications of his account of freedom. Because it sees constraints on freedom everywhere, it implies that politics cannot be about perfectly respecting each other’s freedom, but must instead be about trading off one unfreedom against others: ‘A person taxed to pay for health care does see a reduction in freedom. On the other hand, a person whose genetic diabetes is controlled sees an increase in freedom’ (205). On the whole, however, the ethical or political significance of freedom is oddly absent from the discussion.
This seems to me to be methodologically significant. Recall that the aim was to articulate a conception of freedom worth honoring and promoting—under the guidance of the ‘lived experience of freedom’, but not treating common usage as a constraint. Given that aim, I expected more discussion of the value of freedom. There are a few brief remarks at the start of Chapter 2, where it is claimed that freedom is widely valued across times and cultures, in part at least because people understand that it enables them to pursue their life plans (15–16). Rainbolt emphasizes this instrumental value of freedom, and takes no stand on whether it is also noninstrumentally valuable (17 n. 7). Later, the instrumental value of freedom in pursuing life plans is cited as a reason to treat domination as a kind of unfreedom. He refers to ‘the psychological fact that most human beings feel constrained by the knowledge that others could interfere with their life plans even if no interference occurs.’ ‘This is a reason,’ he maintains, ‘to distinguish domination from interference and a reason to hold that both remove freedoms’ (70). But apart from these brief remarks there is very little discussion of freedom’s value, or of how the specific conception of freedom Rainbolt develops coheres with plausible views about its value. Despite the methodological remarks at the start, and despite the fact that his theory is at odds with common views about freedom in significant respects (for example, in treating inability as a kind of unfreedom), Rainbolt leaves appeals to the ‘lived experience of freedom’ to do most of the argumentative work.
More detailed discussion of the value of freedom may have illuminated one aspect of the theory that seemed to me to be underdeveloped. As just mentioned, Rainbolt cites the importance of being able to pursue life plans as a reason to treat domination as a distinct kind of unfreedom, noting that people ‘feel constrained by the knowledge that others could interfere’. Well, what if they have false beliefs about others? I may feel constrained if I wrongly believe that you could interfere, or I may feel unconstrained if I wrongly believe that you cannot. Given the cited rationale, should we say that I am more free when making the second kind of mistake than when making the first? Perhaps the view is instead that it is the facts about domination that matter; what people feel about domination is just evidence for the theory. But if we are searching for an account of freedom worth promoting, and what is valuable about freedom is chiefly that it enables us to pursue life plans, it is not clear why the fact that you could interfere with my plans should be taken to limit my freedom if I am unaware of this fact and you never do interfere. On this issue, the remarks on the value of freedom seem to me to point in a different direction than the theory. Perhaps there is a deeper rationale here, which explains why the fact that someone is dominated reduces someone’s freedom even when she is not aware of being dominated and there is no interference. More detailed discussion of the value of freedom may have helped bring this rationale to the surface.
For all that, Freedom as Non-Constraint is certainly a welcome addition to the literature on freedom. It presents clear arguments in favor of its conception of freedom, engaging in detail with opponents. It defends some unorthodox but interesting ideas, such as the idea that inability is a kind of unfreedom or the idea that difficulty is a degree of unfreedom. Specialists, graduate students, and others will benefit from reading it and carefully considering the arguments it contains.