The Idea of Freedom (Level 7)

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: Stacie Friend
• Assessment: a 2000-word essay (40%) and 2500-word essay (60%)

This module examines the concept of political liberty. It begins by exploring each of the three major traditions of theorising freedom: the ‘negative’ tradition, in which freedom is understood as the absence of physical prevention or coercion; the ‘republican’ tradition, in which freedom is understood as independence from dominating power; and the ‘positive’ tradition, in which freedom is understood as realisation of the objective requirements of reason or human flourishing. Key figures in these traditions include Hobbes, Bentham, Rousseau, Kant, Wollstonecraft, Hegel, Marx, Greene, Douglass, Beauvoir, Hayek and Friedman.

The module then goes on to examine the conflicting answers these traditions give to three fundamental political questions. First: what role do the state and its laws play in the preservation or reduction of citizens’ freedom? Second: is market capitalism fundamentally a form of liberation or of oppression? Third: how should we think about the impact of propaganda, ideology and harmful internalised norms on individual freedom? These questions are looked at from a variety of theoretical perspectives, including those of liberalism, libertarianism, Marxism, feminism and post-colonialism.

Indicative module syllabus

• Freedom and its intellectual history
• The idea of negative freedom
• The idea of republican freedom
• The idea of positive freedom
• The idea of freedom across disparate philosophical traditions
• Freedom and the democratic state
• Freedom and the rule of law
• Freedom and the free market
• Freedom, capitalism, and colonialism
• Freedom and internalised oppression
• Freedom, ideology and propaganda

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• demonstrate a deep and systematic understanding of well-established philosophical theories of political liberty, especially in the ‘negative’, ‘republican’ and ‘positive’ traditions, and their interrelationships with other approaches in political philosophy
• demonstrate thorough understanding of the theoretical and methodological approaches deployed by contributors to debates over political liberty, such as Hobbes, Benthan, Rousseau, Hegel and Marx, and recognise some of their strengths and weaknesses, and the way they affect interpretations of freedom in society.

• Berlin, I., 'Two Concepts of Liberty', in Four Essays on Liberty, by I. Berlin (Oxford University Press, 1969).