Author: Pinell, Phillip
Title: Might Makes Right: a Ciceronian Critique of Pettit’s Theory of Liberty
Review/Collection: "Polis" 42, 2
Year edition: 2025
Pages: 279-304
Keywords: Droit - Diritto - Law, Héritage - Fortuna - Legacy, Philosophie - Filosofia - Philosophy
Description: [Abstract] Philip Pettit is best known for his defense of liberty as non-domination. Since his initial defense of this concept in Republicanism (1997), scholars have critiqued his normative defense of liberty for failing to capture key aspects of the classical republican conception of liberty. This article contributes to this critique by comparing Pettit’s defense of liberty with an account from his most famous classical source, Cicero. It argues that Pettit misses necessary conceptual and institutional components that allow non-domination to emerge. Through a reading of Book 2 of Cicero’s De re publica, it argues that, contrary to Pettit’s principles, non-domination in Rome frequently derived from a dominating source. This article concludes that without understanding this theoretical complexity within non-domination, Pettit’s neo-Republican ideal remains impossible to achieve in practice.
Works:
Link: https://philpapers.org/rec/PINMMR-2
Author initials: Pinell 2025
Title: Might Makes Right: a Ciceronian Critique of Pettit’s Theory of Liberty
Review/Collection: "Polis" 42, 2
Year edition: 2025
Pages: 279-304
Keywords: Droit - Diritto - Law, Héritage - Fortuna - Legacy, Philosophie - Filosofia - Philosophy
Description: [Abstract] Philip Pettit is best known for his defense of liberty as non-domination. Since his initial defense of this concept in Republicanism (1997), scholars have critiqued his normative defense of liberty for failing to capture key aspects of the classical republican conception of liberty. This article contributes to this critique by comparing Pettit’s defense of liberty with an account from his most famous classical source, Cicero. It argues that Pettit misses necessary conceptual and institutional components that allow non-domination to emerge. Through a reading of Book 2 of Cicero’s De re publica, it argues that, contrary to Pettit’s principles, non-domination in Rome frequently derived from a dominating source. This article concludes that without understanding this theoretical complexity within non-domination, Pettit’s neo-Republican ideal remains impossible to achieve in practice.
Works:
Link: https://philpapers.org/rec/PINMMR-2
Author initials: Pinell 2025
