Just Freedom

Overview: An esteemed philosopher offers a vision for the central role of one of our most cherished-and controversial-ideas. In this rigorous distillation of his political philosophy, Philip Pettit, author of the landmark work Republicanism, champions a simple standard for our most complex political judgments, offering a challenging ideal that nevertheless holds out a real prospect for social and democratic progress. Whereas many thinkers define freedom as the absence of interference-we are left alone to do as we please-Pettit demands that in their basic life choices free persons should not…