Laws meant to enhance freedom can themselves create new arbitrary power.
Evidence
It is always important from a civic republican point of view to be on guard against the introduction of new forms of dependency and arbitrary power through those very laws and policies designed to enhance individual freedom, however. — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 56
Categorization
- DEFINE: Captures the defining republican worry that domination is a structural relation of arbitrary interference, so even well-intentioned state power can dominate if unchecked.
- corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 56
- XREF: connects to: Republican freedom can be equated with an extended rule of law — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 32; In republican theory, law itself creates freedom rather than merely restricting it — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 53; Gaining freedom paradoxically requires relinquishing some autonomy to rules. (+7 more)
Related
- Republican freedom can be equated with an extended rule of law (similarity 0.89)
- In republican theory, law itself creates freedom rather than merely restricting it (similarity 0.89)
- Republican freedom depends on laws that constrain power without creating new domination (similarity 0.88)
- Restraint by fair law is compatible with freedom, unlike arbitrary sway (similarity 0.86)
- Law can be non-arbitrary and freedom-preserving rather than inherently dominating (similarity 0.85)
- On the republican view, non-arbitrary laws do not reduce freedom but can enhance it. (similarity 0.84)
- Law that is non-arbitrary does not make citizens unfree (similarity 0.84)
- Republican freedom means absence of dependence on arbitrary power, not non-interference. (similarity 0.83)
- Freedom means no one holds arbitrary power to interfere with us. (similarity 0.82)
- Republican ‘arbitrariness’ means sheer lack of control, not injustice. (similarity 0.82)
- Republican freedom can relate to noninterference in various distinct ways. (similarity 0.81)
- Well-formed law ranks with natural obstacles, not coercive domination (similarity 0.81)
- Pure majoritarian democracy enables the very arbitrary power republicans oppose (similarity 0.81)
- Republicans held that subjection to another’s arbitrary will itself constitutes unfreedom (similarity 0.81)
- Freedom in the republican tradition means non-domination rather than merely non-interference (similarity 0.80)
Broader Connections
- Acts that respect one person’s freedom can tyrannize another’s.
#complicates(0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 132 - Unprecedented power cannot be constrained by law made before it exists
#expands(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1637 - Rule by decree severs justification from principle, making power itself the source of law.
#qualifies(0.75) - Legal prohibitions against state control create real personal freedoms
#contradicts(0.72) - Gaining freedom paradoxically requires relinquishing some autonomy to rules.
#complicates(0.70)