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This article explores some implications of the counterfactual aspect of freedom & unfreedom. Because actions can be unprevented even if they are not undertaken, & conversely because actions can be prevented even if they are not attempted & are thus not overtly thwarted, any adequate account of negative liberty must ponder numerous counterfactual chains of events. Each person's freedom or unfreedom is affected not only by what others in fact do, but also by what they are disposed to do. Their dispositions play a key role in determining whether the abilities & inabilities of each person would continue as such if the person's conduct or situation were altered in various respects. Until one knows whether people would or would not have acted in certain ways if a given person had sought to do something, one cannot know whether that person was free to do that thing. Nor can one know whether the person was free to perform that action in combination with manifold subsequent actions. Thus, whether tacit or explicit, counterfactual scenarios are indispensable for any enquiry into a person's liberty. By relying (albeit perhaps only implicitly) on such scenarios, which trace how people are disposed to act vis-a-vis one another, one takes account of the central role of unmanifested dispositions in setting the bounds of people's sociopolitical freedom. Among the principal theorists whose work is critically examined in this article are Hillel Steiner, Ian Carter, & G.A. Cohen. [Copyright 2003 Sage Publications, Ltd.]

The overall freedom of an individual or a society is something that exists in differing degrees. By contrast, anyone's particular freedom to engage in this or that mode of conduct is something that exists (or does not exist) in an all-or-nothing manner. Many political philosophers have taken a contrary view, however, and have contended that each particular freedom exists to a greater or lesser extent in proportion to the easiness or difficulty of exercising it. This essay argues that the temptation to view particular freedoms as matters of degree can be overcome when careful attention is paid to three distinctions: overall liberty versus particular liberties, the existence of any particular liberty versus the probability of its emergence, and becoming more free to do something versus becoming free to do something in more ways. By properly marking these distinctions, one can readily apprehend that the existence or inexistence of each particular freedom is characterized by no gradations – an insight that improves one's understanding of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of any such freedom.

In an array of writings stretching over the better part of two decades, Quentin Skinner has repeatedly challenged the modern conception of negative liberty developed by Isaiah Berlin and many other theorists. He has sought to draw attention to some once vibrant but now largely peripheral traditions of thought—especially the civic‐republican or neo‐Roman tradition—in order to highlight what he sees as the limitedness and inadequacies of the currently dominant ways of thinking about freedom. The present essay will endeavor to defend one important aspect of the modern understanding of negative liberty against Skinner's strictures, and will challenge Skinner's reading of Thomas Hobbes.

Challenges Quentin Skinner's reading of Thomas Hobbes & defends one important aspect of the modern conception of negative liberty. The distinction that Hobbes makes between liberty & power is examined, along with Skinner's account of it, noting how Skinner uses it to critique modern theories of negative liberty, even though the latter are more notable. The example of the sick man & the prisoner is used to argue that the concept of unfreedom is just as vital as the concept of freedom. The prisoner is unfree to walk away, but the sick man is not because the ailment that prevents him from doing so is the result of his own neglect, or the workings of nature, rather than the conduct of someone else. This point of view is compared to Skinner's analysis of the prisoner & the sick man, as well as Hobbes's reliance on a dichotomy of internal & external hindrances. It is maintained that Skinner's reading of Hobbes is questionable because he gives Hobbes credit for a far sounder conception of liberty than he deserves. J. Lindroth