Liberty and Coercion: Negative Freedom, Positive Freedom, and Non-Domination

Three Competing Notions of Freedom

Political arguments often use the word freedom while meaning different things. This chapter distinguishes three influential concepts—negative freedom, positive freedom, and non-domination—and shows how each evaluates coercion, manipulation, and structural constraints in policy settings.

Negative Freedom: Freedom-from Interference

Core idea: You are free to the extent that others (especially the state) do not interfere with your choices and actions. Interference includes prohibitions, mandates, penalties, and direct obstacles imposed by agents.

• What counts as a loss of freedom? A new rule that blocks an option (e.g., banning a product) or makes it costly through penalties (e.g., fines, jail).
• What does not automatically count? Bad luck, natural limits, or scarcity not caused by an agent (e.g., a storm ruining crops) typically do not count as interferences, though they may be harms.
• Typical focus: Limiting state power, preventing overregulation, protecting private choice.

Positive Freedom: Freedom-to (Capacity, Self-Rule)

Core idea: You are free to the extent that you can actually do or be what matters—develop capacities, exercise agency, and participate in self-rule. Freedom is not just having options in principle; it is having the abilities and conditions to use them.

• What counts as a loss of freedom? Conditions that undermine agency (e.g., illiteracy, untreated addiction, severe poverty) can be seen as freedom-reducing even without a direct interferer.
• What counts as an increase? Education, health access, and social supports that expand effective opportunities.
• Typical focus: Empowerment, capability-building, democratic participation, and preventing forms of internal or social constraint that block self-direction.

Freedom as Non-Domination: Absence of Arbitrary Power

Core idea: You are free to the extent that no one holds arbitrary power over you—power that can be exercised at their discretion without being constrained by rules, accountability, and contestation. The problem is not only interference, but dependence on someone who could interfere at will.

• What counts as domination? A landlord who can evict you on a whim; an employer who can fire you for political speech with no protections; a police officer with unchecked discretion. Even if they never interfere, the relationship can still be dominating.
• What reduces domination? Rule-of-law constraints, due process, transparency, appeal mechanisms, and institutions that make power non-arbitrary.
• Typical focus: Anti-arbitrariness, accountability, contestability, and reducing dependency relationships.

Coercion, Manipulation, and Structural Constraints

Coercion

Coercion involves intentionally pressuring someone through threats of penalties or force so that their choice is made under duress. In policy, coercion often appears as legal sanctions (fines, imprisonment) attached to noncompliance.

Continue in our app.

• Listen to the audio with the screen off.
• Earn a certificate upon completion.
• Over 5000 courses for you to explore!

Or continue reading below...

Download the app

• Clear cases: “Pay this tax or face penalties”; “Do not sell this drug or you will be prosecuted.”
• Borderline cases: Very large fees, licensing requirements that effectively block entry, or conditions attached to essential services.

Manipulation

Manipulation influences choices by bypassing or exploiting a person’s deliberation—through deception, hidden persuasion, or engineered choice environments that steer behavior without transparent reasons.

• Examples: Government propaganda presented as neutral information; dark-pattern design in public benefit portals; selective disclosure that predictably misleads.
• Why it matters: It can reduce agency even when no option is formally removed.

Structural Constraints

Structural constraints are durable social and economic arrangements that predictably limit people’s options or capacities (e.g., segregated schooling, labor market precarity, inaccessible public spaces). They may lack a single identifiable coercer, yet still shape what people can realistically do.

• Examples: A neighborhood without safe transport limiting job access; chronic underfunding of schools; discriminatory hiring norms.
• Key question: Are these constraints merely unfortunate, or do they reflect preventable, accountable forms of power?

How Each Freedom Concept Interprets Constraints

Comparison Grid: Freedom Concepts and Policy Implications

Practical Toolkit: Classifying a Policy Dispute Step-by-Step

Use this procedure to diagnose why people disagree about “freedom” in a concrete case.

Step 1: Identify the alleged freedom loss or gain

• What action or option is at stake?
• Who is constrained, and by whom?

Step 2: Classify the mechanism

• Coercion: Is there a threat of penalty or force?
• Manipulation: Is choice being steered through deception or hidden influence?
• Structural constraint: Are background conditions limiting effective options?

Step 3: Apply each freedom lens explicitly

• Negative: What options are removed or made costly by interference?
• Positive: What capacities are expanded or undermined (education, health, agency, self-rule)?
• Non-domination: Does the policy reduce or create arbitrary power? Are there safeguards, transparency, and avenues to contest decisions?

Step 4: Check for “trade-offs within freedom”

Many policies reduce one kind of freedom while increasing another (e.g., regulation may reduce immediate choice but reduce domination by powerful actors). State the trade-off rather than assuming one side is “anti-freedom.”

Step 5: Evaluate institutional design

Even if a policy goal is accepted, the design can shift it from non-arbitrary to arbitrary, or from empowerment to paternalism. Ask:

• Are rules clear and general, or discretionary and selective?
• Is there due process, appeal, and oversight?
• Are affected groups able to contest and influence the policy?

Structured Debates: One Policy, Three Frameworks

Debate 1: Progressive Taxation Funding Universal Public Education

Policy: Increase progressive income taxes to fund universal, high-quality public education (including early childhood programs).

Negative freedom assessment

• Main concern: Taxation is coercive interference with individuals’ control over resources.
• Key questions:
  • Is the tax level the least restrictive way to achieve legitimate aims?
  • Does it leave ample room for private choice (schooling alternatives, spending discretion)?
• Likely acceptable design features: Predictable rates, limited scope, strong protections against arbitrary audits, and room for plural educational options.

Positive freedom assessment

• Main claim: Education expands real freedom by building capacities for work, civic participation, and self-direction.
• Key questions:
  • Does the program effectively reduce capability gaps (literacy, numeracy, critical reasoning)?
  • Does it empower students as agents rather than merely training compliance?
• Likely acceptable design features: Universal access, targeted support for disadvantaged students, and curricula that cultivate independent judgment.

Non-domination assessment

• Main claim: Education reduces dependency and vulnerability to arbitrary power (employers, landlords, officials) by increasing exit options and civic competence.
• Key questions:
  • Are tax collection and school governance non-arbitrary (transparent criteria, appeal rights, oversight)?
  • Does the education system itself avoid domination (e.g., discriminatory discipline, unreviewable administrative discretion)?
• Likely acceptable design features: Clear rules, anti-discrimination enforcement, participatory school governance, and accessible complaint mechanisms.

Debate 2: Workplace Safety Regulation with Inspections and Fines

Policy: Mandatory safety standards, random inspections, and fines for violations.

Negative freedom assessment

• Main concern: Regulation interferes with employer and worker choices (how to run a business, what risks to accept).
• Key questions:
  • Are standards narrowly tied to preventing harm to others (including workers as “others”)?
  • Are there less restrictive alternatives (information disclosure, liability rules)?
• Design preference: Clear, limited rules; avoid vague standards that invite expansive enforcement.

Positive freedom assessment

• Main claim: Unsafe conditions undermine agency by threatening health and stability; safety rules can expand effective freedom to pursue life plans.
• Key questions:
  • Do workers realistically have the capacity to refuse unsafe work without severe hardship?
  • Do standards improve long-term capabilities (health, income continuity)?
• Design preference: Strong baseline protections plus supports that make refusal feasible (whistleblower protections, sick leave).

Non-domination assessment

• Main claim: Unregulated workplaces can be sites of private domination where employers hold arbitrary power over safety and livelihoods.
• Key questions:
  • Do inspections operate under rule-bound constraints, or do inspectors have unchecked discretion?
  • Can employers and workers contest findings fairly?
• Design preference: Transparent inspection criteria, documented decisions, appeal procedures, and worker participation in safety committees.

Debate 3: “Nudges” in Public Health (Default Enrollment in Organ Donation)

Policy: Citizens are default-enrolled as organ donors but can opt out easily.

Negative freedom assessment

• Main concern: If opt-out is genuinely easy, interference is minimal; if opting out is burdensome, it becomes coercive in practice.
• Key questions:
  • Is the opt-out process simple, immediate, and costless?
  • Is consent meaningful, or is the default effectively compulsory?
• Design preference: One-step opt-out, no penalties, and periodic reminders of the choice.

Positive freedom assessment

• Main concern: Nudges can support reflective agency if they align with people’s considered values, but can also bypass deliberation.
• Key questions:
  • Is the policy paired with education that enables informed choice?
  • Does it respect people’s capacity to decide, or treat them as objects to be managed?
• Design preference: Transparent explanation of the default, accessible information, and prompts for active choice at key moments (e.g., license renewal).

Non-domination assessment

• Main concern: Manipulative governance can be dominating if it relies on opaque steering that citizens cannot contest.
• Key questions:
  • Is the nudge transparent and publicly justifiable?
  • Are there democratic and legal checks on how defaults are set?
• Design preference: Publicly reviewable criteria for defaults, oversight, and easy mechanisms to challenge administrative practices.

Debate 4: Content Moderation Law Targeting “Harmful Misinformation”

Policy: Platforms must remove “harmful misinformation” within 24 hours or face fines; an agency defines categories of misinformation.

Negative freedom assessment

• Main concern: Strong interference with speech and access to information; chilling effects likely.
• Key questions:
  • Are definitions narrow and objective, or broad and contestable?
  • Does the law effectively coerce platforms into over-removal?
• Design preference: If any regulation exists, it should be tightly limited to direct incitement, fraud, or threats, with high burdens of proof.

Positive freedom assessment

• Main claim: A polluted information environment can undermine citizens’ capacity for self-rule; some constraints might protect deliberation.
• Key questions:
  • Does the policy improve epistemic conditions without infantilizing citizens?
  • Does it support media literacy and transparency rather than simple suppression?
• Design preference: Emphasize disclosure, provenance labels, and education; be cautious about bans that substitute official judgment for citizen reasoning.

Non-domination assessment

• Main concern: An agency with discretionary power to label content “misinformation” risks arbitrary domination over public discourse.
• Key questions:
  • Are decisions contestable with due process and independent review?
  • Are standards stable, general, and insulated from partisan control?
• Design preference: Clear statutory definitions, judicial oversight, transparency reports, rights of appeal, and limits on emergency powers.

Mini-Exercises (Apply the Frameworks)

Exercise A: Identify the dominant freedom concept in an argument

Read a policy claim and label which freedom concept it primarily invokes.

• “This rule takes away my choice.” → typically negative freedom
• “Without education, choice is meaningless.” → typically positive freedom
• “No official should have unchecked discretion over permits.” → typically non-domination

Exercise B: Rewrite an argument in the other two vocabularies

Take a sentence like “Regulation is anti-freedom” and rewrite it twice:

• Positive freedom rewrite: Specify which capacities the regulation undermines or supports (health, agency, participation).
• Non-domination rewrite: Specify whether the regulation creates arbitrary power or constrains it through accountable rules.

Exercise C: Policy design checklist (quick)

• Interference: What options are removed? Are there less restrictive means?
• Agency: Does the policy build or bypass people’s capacity to choose?
• Arbitrariness: Who decides, by what standards, and can affected people contest decisions?