Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

A Theory of FreedomDefining the Domain: Freedom and Oppression in the Social Sphere

A Theory of Freedom: Defining the Domain: Freedom and Oppression in the Social Sphere [Traditional social contract theory aims to account for individual freedom, but concerns about the legitimacy of and obligations to the state have largely preoccupied liberal theorists with political aspects of freedom. What goes largely unexamined is how living with others can interfere with individual freedom even when politcal safeguards, such as nondiscrimination laws, are in place. This does not mean that traditional contract theory does not discuss matters of the social sphere. But the notion of the social is either tightly connected to the political sphere so that its unique sense gets obscured, or the “social” is cast in terms of institutions and so is too abstract to capture what is actually social in and about the social sphere—sociality. I claim that what makes the social contract social is the assumption that it exists because of interpersonal interaction. I focus on this aspect of social contract to set out the distinct form of freedom—social freedom—that belongs to lived sociality.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Theory of FreedomDefining the Domain: Freedom and Oppression in the Social Sphere

Part of the Breaking Feminist Waves Book Series
Welch, Shay
A Theory of Freedom — Nov 9, 2015
Download PDF
16 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/a-theory-of-freedom-defining-the-domain-freedom-and-oppression-in-the-pKTVk6dXQ3
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2012
ISBN
978-1-349-44203-4
Pages
19 –35
DOI
10.1057/9781137295026_2
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Traditional social contract theory aims to account for individual freedom, but concerns about the legitimacy of and obligations to the state have largely preoccupied liberal theorists with political aspects of freedom. What goes largely unexamined is how living with others can interfere with individual freedom even when politcal safeguards, such as nondiscrimination laws, are in place. This does not mean that traditional contract theory does not discuss matters of the social sphere. But the notion of the social is either tightly connected to the political sphere so that its unique sense gets obscured, or the “social” is cast in terms of institutions and so is too abstract to capture what is actually social in and about the social sphere—sociality. I claim that what makes the social contract social is the assumption that it exists because of interpersonal interaction. I focus on this aspect of social contract to set out the distinct form of freedom—social freedom—that belongs to lived sociality.]

Published: Nov 9, 2015

Keywords: Individual Freedom; Private Sphere; Social Sphere; Political Sphere; Social Oppression

There are no references for this article.