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Autonomy of people on the autism-spectrum has only been very rarely conceptually explored. Autism spectrum is commonly considered a hetereogenous disorder, and typically described as a behaviorally-defined neurodevelopmental disorder associated with the presence of social-communication deficits and restricted and repetitive behaviors. Autism research mainly focuses on the behavior of autistic people and ways to teach them skills that are in line with social norms. Interventions such as therapies are being justified with the assumption that autists lack the capacity to be self-reflective and to be “author of their lives”. We question this assumption, as some empirical research shows that autists are aware of their strengths and are critical about social norms, we take this as a starting point to reconsider the beliefs about autistic people’s capacities. As a theoretical framework, we draw on Berlin’s idea of positive and negative liberty as he clearly distinguishes between one’s own developed preferences and the simple absence of interference. By drawing on the concept of positive liberty, we illustrate that a lot of autists are aware of their own needs, and usually do not deny their own needs, values and interests. This makes them less prone than non-autistic people to adapt their preferences to external influences, which might be seen as sticking to an authentic way of living. Our analysis shows that many autists are hindered to be(come) autonomous due to unjustified interference, unreflected assumptions about their self-determination, or by paternalistic actions. These observations contribute to a better understanding when help and interference are justified and a more differentiated understanding of autonomy of autistic people.

It is seemingly bad for animals to have their desires modified in at least some cases, for instance where brainwashing or neurological manipulation takes place. In humans, many argue that such modification interferes with our positive liberty or undermines our autonomy but this explanation is inapplicable in the case of animals as they lack the capacity for autonomy in the relevant sense. As such, the standard view has been that, despite any intuitions to the contrary, the modification of animals’ desires is not harmful (at least not in itself). In this article, I offer a different perspective on this issue, laying the foundations of a novel argument in defence of the view that animals can be harmed by desire modification directly. I suggest that the modification of an animal’s desires (under certain circumstances) is harmful for that animal because it undermines their agency.

The article concerns selected problems related to the postulates of equalizing the level of positive liberty. The classic understanding of individual freedom, called as negative (freedom from), identified with a , can be in opposition to the so-called positive liberty (freedom to). The last notion is generally defined by an , which brings its relation with a concept of power. The postulate of equality in “freedom to” can be justification for conducting a social redistribution of goods. The cases of voluntary and compulsory donation are considered in the text, whose aim is to visualize consequences resulting from a compulsory expansion of the scope of positive liberty.

Isaiah Berlin's 'Two Concepts of Liberty' was a milestone in the development of modern political theory, with his advocacy of negative freedom supporting the neoliberal demand for 'freedom from' the state. This article defends the conception of positive freedom by calling on the neglected insights of the sociological tradition. I demonstrate how Marx, Durkheim and Simmel all understood freedom to be a socially conditioned phenomenon, with 'freedom from' being an idealist fiction (Marx), and a recipe for anomie (Durkheim) and loss of meaning (Simmel). I argue, however, that positive freedom as it was theorised by the classical sociologists must be distinguished from the more fashionable idea of individual self-realisation and self-identity, a notion equally susceptible to idealist constructions, and one increasingly targeted by Foucaultinspired critics. Instead I draw on Hannah Arendt and André Gorz to show how positive freedom should be theorised as a worldly, conflictual, and pre-eminently political affair.

In his provocative book Matthew Kramer offers a systematic theory of freedom that challenges most of the other major contemporary treatments of the topic.

This reflection on Ian Shapiro's recent book, Politics against Domination, argues that there are strengths to conceiving of politics as a struggle against domination but the argument neglects the actual democratic politics of actual movements such as the African American freedom struggle. In the civil rights movement, in particular, nonviolence added to older understandings of politics as engagement across difference a view of positive liberty, recently described by theorists such as Karuna Mantena and Danielle Allen. This understanding of nonviolence as positive liberty has enormous relevance for our time. It finds expression in significant actual civic practices.

Contemporary virtue ethics was revolutionized by Alasdair Maclntyre's reconfiguration using practices as the starting point for understanding virtues. However, Maclntyre has very pointedly excluded the professions of the financial world from the reformulation. He does not count these professions as practices, and further charges that virtue would actually hinder or even rule out one's pursuit of these professions. This paper addresses three tasks, in regard to the financial profession of investment advising. First, the paper lays out Maclntyre's soon-to-be-published charges against the investment world, as specified to this profession. Second, it sets forth the role function of investment advising and shows that it does possess internal goods—the crucial aspect of practices disputed by Maclntyre in this case—including goods of production and goods of performance. Third, it demonstrates that this function, and the goods tied to it, cannot be achieved apart from the virtuous pursuit of the profession, thereby showing that Maclntyre's charges are mistaken. Investment advising is shown to be a virtue-based practice, and the groundwork is laid for showing that other financial professions are so, as well.

This book reconsiders the dominant Western understandings of freedom through the lens of women's real-life experiences of domestic violence, welfare, and Islamic veiling. Nancy Hirschmann argues that the typical approach to freedom found in political philosophy severely reduces the concept's complexity, which is more fully revealed by taking such practical issues into account. Hirschmann begins by arguing that the dominant Western understanding of freedom does not provide a conceptual vocabulary for accurately characterizing women's experiences. Often, free choice is assumed when women are in fact coerced--as when a battered woman who stays with her abuser out of fear or economic necessity is said to make this choice because it must not be so bad--and coercion is assumed when free choices are made--such as when Westerners assume that all veiled women are oppressed, even though many Islamic women view veiling as an important symbol of cultural identity. Understanding the contexts in which choices arise and are made is central to understanding that freedom is socially constructed through systems of power such as patriarchy, capitalism, and race privilege. Social norms, practices, and language set the conditions within which choices are made, determine what options are available, and shape our individual subjectivity, desires, and self-understandings. Attending to the ways in which contexts construct us as \"subjects\" of liberty, Hirschmann argues, provides a firmer empirical and theoretical footing for understanding what freedom means and entails politically, intellectually, and socially.

Italy is a country of free political institutions, yet it has become a nation of servile courtesans, with Silvio Berlusconi as their prince. This is the controversial argument that Italian political philosopher and noted Machiavelli biographer Maurizio Viroli puts forward in The Liberty of Servants. Drawing upon the classical republican conception of liberty, Viroli shows that a people can be unfree even though they are not oppressed. This condition of unfreedom arises as a consequence of being subject to the arbitrary or enormous power of men like Berlusconi, who presides over Italy with his control of government and the media, immense wealth, and infamous lack of self-restraint.

Resumen Este artículo examina siete concepciones filosóficas acerca de la libertad -incluyendo la distinción entre libertad negativa y positiva, liberal y republicana-, ejemplificándolas con representantes de la historia de la filosofía. Por otra parte, para enriquecer la mirada desde un texto jurídico concreto, examinamos la Constitución ecuatoriana de 2008. El propósito principal que ha animado esta investigación es el de sondear las distintas visiones que se han propuesto sobre la libertad, en su triple relación con: 1) los valores, tales como el bien común y la igualdad; 2) el tipo de deber correspondiente que tienen que cumplir los particulares y la sociedad con respecto al sujeto portador del derecho a la libertad; y 3) el Estado y las leyes. Aspiramos a que los resultados alcanzados aporten mayor claridad en aquellos debates de la filosofía normativa en los que está involucrada la libertad.