A Measure of Freedom by Ian Carter
It is often said that one person or society is `freer' than another, or that people have a right to equal freedom, or that freedom should be increased or even maximized. Such quantitative claims about freedom are of great importance to us, forming an essential part of our political discourse and theorizing. Yet their meaning has been surprisingly neglected by political philosophers until now. Ian Carter provides the first systematic account of the nature and importance of our judgements about degrees of freedom. He begins with an analysis of the normative assumptions behind the claim that individuals are entitled to a measure of freedom, and then goes on to ask whether it is indeed conceptually possible to measure freedom. Adopting a coherentist approach, the author argues for a conception of freedom that not only reflects commonly held intuitions about who is freer than who but is also compatible with a liberal or freedom-based theory of justice.
"Ian Carter's book on freedom is a first-rate work of political and legal philosophyIt is extraordinarily well structured, technically sophisticated, consistently illuminating, and rigorously argumentative. For those theorists (including the present reviewer) who disagree with a number of its positions, it is a volume that will amply repay critical reflection. Indeed, of the myriad books published in the twentieth century on the philosophy of freedom, Carter's is probably the best." Matthew H.Kramer, Cambridge Law Journal 2000
Research Fellow at the Department of Politics at the Universita di Pavia, Italy
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780198294535 |
| ISBN 10 | 0198294530 |
| Title | A Measure of Freedom |
| Author | Ian Carter |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 1999-03-25 |
| Number of pages | 322 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |