Three Concepts of freedom

7/24/2019 Three Concepts of freedom

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Axel Honneth

Three, Not Two, Concepts of Liberty:A Proposal to Enlarge our Moral Self-Understanding

Trans. Blake Emerson

Even amongst those of us who are not altogetherconvinced by Isaiah Berlins famous essay TwoConcepts of Liberty, it has become commonplace to

adopt a distinction which largely coincides with theone he offered. On the one hand, we think that theculture of modernity adheres to a negative conceptof freedom, which grants to the individual the widestpossible sphere of protection from externalintervention in the pursuit of purely personal interests.On the other hand, however, we are just as stronglyconvinced that individual freedom only truly exists

when one orients ones actions according to reasonsthat one personally holds to be appropriate, and inthis sense determines oneself. We sometimes adopt adistinction within this second, positive model offreedom between an autonomous and an authenticform of self-determination. This distinction serves tocontrast individual action oriented according to moral

norms, and individual action oriented towards therealization of ones own nature and the mostindividually experienced needs. But such adifferentiation nonetheless largely conforms to themore fundamental classification of our freedom intonegative and positive variants. In the following, Iwould like to argue that this bifurcation of the conceptof freedom, which has developed under Berlins

influence, is incomplete in a significant respect. The


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two models foreclose the possibility that the intentionsof an agent can only be formed in reciprocalinteraction between multiple subjects, and thus canbe realized without coercion only by acting together.This idea cannot be captured by the now

commonplace notion that individual freedom consistsin the realization of ones own already existing orreflexively achieved intentions. Rather the realizationof freedom should itself be thought of as acooperative process; and only in the course of thisprocess does it becomes clear which intentionsshould be realized.

I want to proceed first by illustrating with some well-known examples how we must understand such aform of cooperatively realized freedom. This first stepshould demonstrate that we have experience with thisthird category of freedom in our everyday lives, butthat we lack the language to identify such experiencesas a form of freedom (I). In the second part I wantto recall briefly the philosophical tradition in which thisidea of social freedom, as I would like to call it, hasalways had a central place. Thus I hope to reveal thatthe aforementioned examples from our everyday lifehave already been associated by some politicalphilosophers with a third, separate category offreedom (II). Only in the last part do I want to delveinto the systematic question of whether the model of

freedom which I have suggested by example in factdesignates a third concept, which does not conform tothe traditional bifurcated understanding. Here mypurpose is not only to describe the respects in whichsocial freedom is distinct from the other two models offreedom, but also to explain why we cannot abandonthis third concept in our self-understanding (III).


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I.

I begin with an example from our political everydaylife in which the exercise of freedom should be easilyrecognizable. Consider our regular or only occasional

participation in processes of democratic will-formation, when we join political discussions, call forprotests, sign petitions, or merely distribute leaflets atdemonstrations. What is immediately obvious aboutsuch actions is how difficult or even impossible it is todescribe them with the traditional category of negativefreedom, although we quite obviously perceive suchcases as exercises of individual freedom. To be sure,

in making political statements of this kind, we makeuse of a space that is legally protected fromgovernmental interference, which allows us toproclaim our beliefs freely and without fear ofcoercion. But it is fairly misleading to think of theauthor of such opinions only as an isolated I,separated from all others, in the way the negativemodel of freedom suggests. So too is it misguided tothink that the action is already completed with theproclamation, and thus that the expression of anopinion is the final step in the exercise of freedom. The political belief that is expressed in publicstatements would be in some sense falselyunderstood if it were ascribed to the private resolutionof the will of a solitary acting subject. The

determination of the individual will would then beundertaken purely monologically, and directedtowards a merely private realization of its content.This understanding of political expression fails tocapture its true dynamics. When the subjectcontributes to political discourse, she refers in herexpression to a chain of earlier statements, which sheattempts to correct or improve, such that she can only

appropriately be understood as a member of a


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previously constituted, self-reflexively given, andalready present We. This means that the exerciseof the free action cannot be regarded as completewith the mere proclamation of her belief. For what theindividual proposal aims at, and where it finds

completion, is in the reaction of the addressed We,or of its individual representatives, who once againattempt to correct or improve upon the beliefs of otherparticipants with their own. This description suggeststhat the participants in democratic will-formation mustbe able to understand their respective statements ofopinion as intertwining with one anotherin such a waythat they cannot avoid assuming a We which they

together

sustain through their contributions.

Although we obviously have the tendency to interpretparticipation in democratic will-formation as anexercise of individual freedom, such freedom cannotreadily be described as an exercise of merelynegative freedom. This is because the threedistinguishing elements of negative freedom havelittle plausible application to such cases. The actorcannot be represented as a private subject whoformulates the intentions of his actions by himself; noris he free in carrying out his action only when otheractors do not arbitrarily interfere; and finally hisaction is not complete as an exercise of freedom withthe expression of his own opinion, but rather only

temporally concludes if the other participants havereacted to it in a rationally comprehensible fashion. The actions of my fellow citizens therefore do notplace an obstacle to my own free political act; nor dothey merely constitute the conditions of its possibility. Rather their actions are so intrinsically interwovenwith mine that it is difficult to speak of an individual actat all. It therefore seems that we can only realize this

democratic freedom through a collaborative process,


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in which we understand our individual expressions ofopinion as complementary contributions to a commonproject of identifying a common will.

One reason why this intersubjective or cooperative

structure of political freedom so easily falls out of viewmay be that we usually think of voting as the standardcase of democratic participation. Thus it can seem asthough freedom consists in the singular and secludedact of forming a private opinion about ones ownpreferences, and of secretly recording it without theinfluence of arbitrary intervention. This picture ofdemocratic action falsely takes the part for the whole.

John Dewey famously railed against this viewbecause he saw that it masked the essentialparticipatory element of democracy. A myopic focuson voting fails to recognize that the casting of theballot is preceded by public discussion, includingopen media coverage and thus the process ofreciprocal influence. Such deliberative discussionsare a constitutive rather than merely an incidentalfeature of democracy. Taken in isolation, the castingof the ballot itself can perhaps be thought ofaccording to the model of negative liberty. But this actis only a snapshot of a much more comprehensiveprocess, which is meant to ensure that throughappropriate instruments for the exchange ofexperience and opinion individual beliefs are not only

aggregated, but are as far as possible bound togetherinto a rational general will. Even when such anagreement concerning the common good cannot bereached, because starkly divergent viewspredominate, the resulting conflict over the betterinterpretation of the general welfare must bedescribed as a cooperative process. Whoeverparticipates in these consensual or conflictual

processes of identifying the public will can no longer


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imagine the related experiences of freedom and theabsence of coercion according to the standard ofimplementing private interests with the least possibleinterference. To be able to formulate ones ownintentions, one must be able to take up the

perspective of others, and accept their potentialcorrective power. In this way democratic will-formation can be understood as a cooperativeundertaking which serves the search for the commongood.

So as not create the misleading impression that onlydemocratic will-formation resists description as an

exercise of purely negative freedom, I want to giveanother well-known example from our everyday lives,which, despite its many distinguishing features,shares several common elements with politicalparticipation. Personal relationships of friendship andlove may also be interpreted as exercises of freedomon the basis of their non-coercive quality and theattendant loosening of the boundaries of the self; butthey resist description by the standard of theundisturbed realization of privately determinedintentions. Even the first premise of a negativeconception of freedom does not plausibly apply to thiscase: someone who is maintaining a sincerefriendship or romantic relationship will understand hisactions within this relationship as free, but generally

will form his intentions only in relation to the wishesand needs of his companion. The free actionobviously emerges here not from interests orpurposes anchored in the will of a solitary actor. Buteven if the negative concept of freedom were not sostrongly associated with the presupposition of anisolated I, it would still not adequately capture thestructure of freedom within love or friendship. For not

only are the interventions of other persons into ones


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own sphere of action not felt as limitations, whichwould conform to the principle that only arbitrary oruncontrolled interferences impair the exercise ofnegative freedom, but also the wills of theparticipating persons are so attuned to and enmeshed

with one another that talk of intervention loses itsmeaning.The limitation of ones own will with respectto the concrete other frequently rises to such a levelthat it becomes impossible to distinguish clearly anddefinitively ones own interests or intentions fromthose of the other. The aspirations of both personsoverlap not only in certain respects, but permanentlyinterpenetrate each other, so that their fulfillment can

only be understood as a common concern. Where,however, individual interests are melded with those ofothers, where mine and yours can no longersufficiently be distinguished, the freedom of a personshould not longer be measured according to whetherher own intentions can be realized without arbitraryinterference.

It should already be clear that the examples ofdemocratic will-formation and personal relationshipshave more in common than it would appear at firstglance. The point at which the negative model offreedom fails is nearly identical in each case. In bothdemocratic participation and personal relationships, itis unclear what constitutes ones own will, in respect

to which the unrestricted realization of the free act ofthe individual could be assessed. In the case ofdemocratic will-formation, a subject only understandsher political actions correctly if she thinks from theconcurrent perspective of a We, the permanentrenewal of which she contributes to with her ownbeliefs. But because of the necessity of remainingopen to other perspectives, the aspect of these beliefs

which is truly proper to the individual subject is only


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something preliminary and tentative. The beliefstherefore cannot accurately be taken as a stableoutput variable that is used to measure theunhindered realization of freedom. Something similaris true in the case of friendship and romantic

relationships, in which the boundary between onesown intention and that of the other fall away to aneven greater extent. Because of the sharedperspective of a We, the plans and the aims of theother are implicated in the determination of ones ownwill, such that the aspirations of both participantsbecome intertwined. Both in such personalrelationships and in democratic political life, the

negative model of freedom is inappropriate todescribe the kind of freedom individuals practice. Inthese social contexts freedom consists in an unforcedcooperation, which assumes a higher degree ofconsensus concerning the aims of action than thenegative model of freedom is capable ofaccommodating.

One might object to the argument up to this point thatthese examples, even if they do not representinstances of negative freedom, can nonetheless beunderstood in terms of positive freedom. Since wedraw upon this second category to clarify certainaspects of our normative culture, by speaking, forexample, of moral autonomy, it would make sense to

attempt to understand democratic participation andlove and friendship in terms of the other model offreedom Berlin put forward. But this attempt, too,quickly reveals itself to be inappropriate forarticulating the kind of freedom we realize in thesecases. With concepts of positive freedom, we nolonger describe an individual action as free insofaras there are no arbitrary, external obstacles to its

exercise. Rather the freedom of an action is


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understood in terms of its realization of higher ends orvalueswhether this should mean agreement withmoral norms, as for Kant, or the actualization of onesown natural needs, as in the romantic tradition. Aslong we understand freedom, however, only as an

activity performed by an individual subject, in which itpractices a given capability (such as norm-orientationor the articulation of needs), then the free character ofthe activities described in the examples above has notbeen adequately disclosed. For their distinctivenessconsists in the fact that multiple subjects must act forone another in order for each to experience heractivity from her own individual perspective as a

common practice of freedom. There is indeed someoverlap here with the idea of positive freedom, insofaras citizens or lovers or friends must orient themselvesto certain idealssuch as the good of egalitarianpopular sovereignty or the good of trusting intimacyin order to act for one another in the appropriatesense. But it is this for-one-another whichconstitutes the entire difference between these formsof freedom and the traditional idea of positivefreedom. For in democratic will-formation and intimaterelationships, the good that is striven for can only berealized when multiple subjects carry out un-coercedactions, which reciprocally complement one anotherand thus enable free collaboration.

To be sure, this suggestion could also mean that thedifference between positive freedom and the thirdform of freedom we have been searching for onlyconsists in the kind of good pursued, rather than inthe mode of exercise itself. Whereas in the case ofpositive freedom goods and values are searched forwhich are individual, in the sense that they are onlyrealizable on account of individual capabilities, these

distinctive cases of freedom could be said to concern


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the pursuit of goods or values that have a collectivecharacter, because their realization is only possiblethrough the united efforts of several subjects. Thenwe would take democratic will-formation or friendshipor love as representing collective versions of positive

freedoma possibility that Berlin occasionallytouches upon in his famous essay, if only in order todiscard it because of the inherent danger of itsdespotic misuse. The reasons for his rejectioncertainly make it plain that he conceives the collectiveexercise of positive freedom by precisely the samemeasure as its individual enactment: namely, that themembers of a homogenous group must all perform

the same action, in order to realize in consonancethosevalues and goods the achievement of which isthe goal of freedom. But such a picture does not inany way correspond to the kind of freedom we havediscerned in democratic will-formation or romanceand friendship. The participants in these cases do notbehave like the members of a group who have beenforced into line. To the contrary, they must alwaysrenegotiate amongst themselves how they would liketo apportion the responsibilities resulting from theshared value orientation, and thus assign reciprocallycomplementary contributions to the common project.The We that must be assumed between citizens orlovers or friends is therefore something totallydifferent from the collective subject Isaiah Berlin had

in mind with his idea of positive freedom. In thecollective positive freedom Berlin described, one iscommitted to an ethical end which guides the actioncontributions of all individuals uniformly. In the caseswe have considered, participants are indeed orientedtowards certain values, but must continuallyrenegotiate the form in which common tasks are to bedistributed in light of their ongoing reinterpretation of

common aims. Alongside the limitation of his will with


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respect to those of others, the individual nonethelessretains a right to have a say in how the relevantactivities should intertwine with and reciprocallycomplement one another. In democratic participationit thus becomes clear that the participants in the

cooperative production of a common will can alwayschose whether they want the role of speaker orlistener, of demonstrator or spectator. Likewise, in thecase of love or friendship, the participants recognizethe possibility of motivating one another to take on anew distribution of tasks and obligations. Theparticipants in these examples are involved in thecommonly assumed We in a different way than the

members of the collective which Berlin imagined asthe bearer of a supra-individual process of realizingpositive freedom. They retain a right to have a say inhow they want their intentions intertwine with oneanother in the pursuit of a goal that is constantlyredefined collaboratively, and thus to behold in thefreedom of others a condition of their own freedom. We can therefore provisionally conclude that thecollective version of the concept of positive freedom isinapposite to capture the form of cooperative freedomwhich is evidently performed in the social practices ofdemocratic participation or love and friendship. Inthese cases my freedom is grounded upon theunforced intermeshing of our activities. On this basis,I can envisage the other not as a limitation but rather

as a requirement for the realization of my strivings,without thereby giving up the possibility of co-determining the goal to be achieved, and the form ofthis intermeshing. Before I pursue this train ofthought further, I first want to examine whether onecan find suggestions of such a third, social orintersubjective model of freedom in the philosophicaltradition.


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II.

The thesis that the form of social praxis exemplifiedby democratic will-formation and personal

relationships constitutes an independent category offreedom has been an undercurrent in political-philosophic thinking since Hegel. Hegel himselfbelieved that the two forms of freedom, which Berlinwould later label as positive and negative, did notreach the highest level of freedom which ought to beavailable to members of modern society. Instead heconceived of a third stage of freedom, which he called

objective freedom, the meaning of which remainscontested by scholars. The basic thought Hegelproceeded from is weaved into the terminology of hisphilosophical thinking, but can be renderedindependent of this framework in a much simplerform: If a persons individual action is conceived of asfree only in the negative sense that there can be noimpediments to the exercise of the will in the externalworld, such a conception fails to consider that

theintentions underlying the action can only truly befreely formed when they too are independent fromcausal force and thus anchored in self-positedreasons. Kant, following Rousseau, had similarlyconcluded that the will can be free only when itscontent is determined by rational considerations.

Hegel argues that this Kantian view, however, leadsto theequally peculiar consequence that there is noguarantee that self-determined intentions can actuallybe realized in the objective world. From the defects ofthese two concepts of freedom Hegel developed asynthetic view, according to which the complete ideaof individual freedom would only be achieved if theself-posited resolutions of the will can be thought of

as furthered or willed in, or even by,

reality. For


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Hegel this was possible in those ethical spheres ofmodern society in which the freely chosen intentionsof participants intertwine with one another,complement one another, and thus find willedfulfillment within social reality.

It is not yet altogether clear from this rather formal,broad-brushed presentation what Hegel meant toconvey with his idea of a third, objective freedom. Here the different interpretations of Hegel dependupon how strongly Hegel is thought to remaininfluenced by Kants conception of freedom.

According to Robert Brandom, Hegel only socializes

the Kantian idea of positive freedom, in that hemakes the ability of individuals to bind themselves tonorms dependent upon the recognition of acommunity of others whose recognitive authority isalso freely recognized by the individual herself. Theresulting reciprocal recognition constitutes thenormative horizon in which a subject makes use of hispositive freedom to renew the shared culturalpotential through her own expressive initiatives. This interpretation converges with the idea of socialfreedom I have hinted at so far, insofar as the core ofthe Hegelian idea is understood as connectingindividual freedom to the assumption of theperspective of a We. But the freedom which isrealized through this participation in a community of

subjects reciprocally recognizing one anothersautonomy is, in Brandoms interpretation of Hegel,understood only as an individual exercise, as theexpressive act of the individual who lends a newaccent to the shared culture. In contrast I believe thatHegel understood the freedom made possible byreciprocal recognition as itself a common orcooperative practice. According to Hegel, it is only by

complementing each other that the intentions of the


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individuals can achieve the individually (subjectively)desired conclusion. Thus freedom in its objectivesense is not something an individual subject canperform on his own, but rather is something he is onlyable to achieve in regulated collective action with

others.I have similar reservations with regards to the

profound interpretation which Frederick Neuhouserhas given to the Hegelian idea of objective freedom,the subjective dimension of which he attempts to reconstruct as social freedom. According to hisinterpretation, Hegel sets out in his Philosophy ofRight from the idea that a complete concept of

individual freedom must comprise all the institutionalrequirements which allow the members of society toarticulate their particular identities without coercion inthe external form of social roles, and thus to acceptinstitutionally established paths of self-realization. Here too individual freedom is linked with theassumption of the perspective of a We, whichmakes it possible to understand specific, freedom-enabling institutions as rooted in common interests. But, as for Brandom, Neuhouser understands thepractice of socially conditioned freedom as anindividual act which every participant should be ableto perform for herself without requiring the reciprocalaction of another subject.

In a similar vein, Robert Pippin interprets Hegels

concept of freedom as referring primarily to therational agency of the individual subject, though heacknowledges that such freedom is for Hegel onlypossible in the context of social institutions thatprovide individual agents with the appropriaterecognitive status. According to my interpretation,however, Hegel is driving at a much strongerintersubjective idea with his conception of freedom:

the individual can only realize the freedom which is


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available through certain institutions when he acts incooperation with others whose intentions make up anelement of his own. Not only is it necessary forHegel that the exercise of individual freedomproceeds from the taking-up of the perspective of the

We, which either makes possible the constitution ofa community of recognition or a common commitmentto freedom guaranteeing institutions; in addition, suchan exercise of freedom must be undertaken with theexpectation that the other members of the communitywill carry out actions which correspond to myintentions or needs. Only this doubledintersubjectivity, as both a condition and as an end to

be produced from my free action, makes it possible tounderstand why Hegel again and again thought oflove as the paradigm for his own idea of freedom. Here, according to the famous formula, one is athome with oneself in the other, in the sense that onecan understand the actions of the other asrequirements for the realization of ones own, self-determined intentions.

As the famous formulation to be at home with oneselfin the other already suggests, Hegel intended farmore with his idea of objective freedom than toidentify for therapeutic purposes certain possibilitiesof unforced and thus free collaboration in modernsociety. Ultimately he wanted to construe our entire

relationship to the world in terms of the recognition ofour own posited ends in the Other of objective reality,and thus also to underscore idealistically our freedomin relation with the natural environment. For ourpurposes, however, it suffices to limit ourselves to theaccomplishment of freedom in the social world, sincethis is the context which would be elaborated by laterauthors, who would furnish it with new aims. Already

in early French socialisms critique of market


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relationships, which were expanding at that time,there was an idea of freedom which can only beappropriately understood with reference to its roots itsHegels Philosophy of Right. Unlike the understandingof freedom in classical liberal law, which is charged

with the legitimation of purely private interests in thecapitalist market, freedom is understood in thewritings of Fourier and Proudhon as a solidary activityof being-for-another, which both thought was manifestin the unforced cooperation between craftsmen. Justlike Hegel, Proudhon suggests that individual freedommust be thought of not merely as a barrier but ratheras a help to the freedom of all others.

Hegels concept of freedom appears even morestarkly in the early writings of Marx. The young Marxsketches the image of a social community where themembers no longer work against each other butrather for one another. Here we find the guiding ideaof socialism, namely, that one can speak of membersof society having real freedom only when the actionsof individuals complement one another in such a waythat the freedom of the one is the precondition for thefreedom of every other. As for his Frenchpredecessors, the playful interweaving of action in thecooperation of craftsmen serves as Marxs historicalmodel. According to Marxs conception, the subjectsin such interactions are free in a particular way,

because each can learn from the other participantsthat his contributions to the coordinated plans foraction are acknowledged and seen as necessary andwelcome complements to the others intentions. Theidea of reciprocally complementing one anothermakes it clear how much Marxs cooperative modelowes to the Hegelian idea of freedom. The attempt toimagine the social integration of a future society

entirely according to the measure of such unforced


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economic cooperation, namely as a community ofsubjects working for one another, constitutes in myview the core ethical impulse of socialism. Here thesocial form of the exercise of freedom, which Hegelonly saw at work in individual spheres of modern

societies, is carried over without differentiation into theentire society, in which the members are thought of ascooperative partners who reciprocally strive to satisfythe needs of one another. I do not want to go furtherinto the difficulties that attended this original vision ofsocialism, as it ignored the requirements of thefunctional differentiation of modern society. For mypurposes it is necessary only to recall an undercurrent

of political-philosophical thought in which the idea of adistinctively social freedom was already thought of asvalid in the nineteenth century.

In the following century, a similar thought wastaken up by Hannah Arendt, who understooddemocratic action to express the originalintersubjectivity of human freedom. Whereas forMarx labor itself was seen as a potential context forsocial freedom, for Arendt only in the political sphere,understood as a realm of public contestation over thecommon good, are we free, because there theindividual sheds his private concerns and must widenhis previously egocentric perspective in collaborativeactivity.

While it is certainly not the case that Arendts

concept of social freedom was inspired by Hegel, hisinfluence is clearly apparent in the last of therepresentatives of the philosophical tradition offreedom I will mention: John Dewey, under the directinfluence of Hegel, argued throughout his life thatindividual freedom is falsely understood if it isexclusively understood as a capacity or possession ofa solitary subject. Rather, the degree of our freedom

increases when we participate in socially cooperative


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activity, because we are better able to realize ourintentions and wishes the more various theinteractions in which we reckon with the responsesand contributions of others. For Dewey as for Hegelthe true form for the exercise of individual freedom is

represented in contributions to the distributed labor ofrealizing a common aim, because in such projects therealization of my will is also intended by others. Ithus want to conclude my short reminiscence of thelargely forgotten tradition of social freedom with acitation from Dewey, in which the underlying idea ofsocial freedom is beautifully expressed: Liberty,according to the American pragmatist, is that secure

release and fulfillment of personal potentialities whichtakes place only in rich and manifold association withothers: the power to be an individualized self makinga distinctive contribution and enjoying in its own waythe fruits of association.

III.

Adherents of Berlins conception would surely objectto this plea for a third, social concept of freedom thatit has the fatal propensity to confuse the value offreedom with other ideals shared by humanity. Justas little as we should surreptitiously smuggle the goalof social justice into the concept of individual freedom,

we may not underhandedly furnish it with the aim ofcoexistence in solidarity, for both efforts would ignorethe irreducible pluralism of our values and deny thepossible conflicts between them. In this last part ofmy essay, I want to forestall this objection by oncemore working out the aspect of freedom in theaforementioned patterns of interaction, in order toprove, first, that these do in fact concern a separate

kind of freedom. Next I want to show that the


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exercise of this freedom in or through cooperativeactions need not be bound to the common pursuit ofthe same aim, but rather is compatible with theachievement of completely divergent values. For thisreason, the constant factor in such practices is the

particular form of social freedom, whereas the valuesthat are pursued thereby can vary and thus ought notbe confused with the underlying shape of freedomitself.

If we look back again at the previously presentedexamples of social freedomdemocratic will-formation, love and friendship, and finally, for

socialists, economic productionthe first remarkableelement is that the participating subjects mustunderstand themselves as members of a Wewithout, however, losing their individualindependence. To be sure, the successfulperformance of actions is bound up with theassumption of complementary actions on the part ofothers, so that the participants reciprocally take up ofthe perspective of the We. But this in no waysuggests that they together constitute a collectivewhich acts like a univocal, merely enlarged I. WithPhilip Pettit, we can label the social ontologicalposition in which this intersubjective exercise offreedom can best be grasped as holisticindividualism. This concept assumes that the

realization of certain human capacities requires socialgroupings and thus entities that can only be describedholistically. But this does not in any way preclude theexistence of independent individuals. Why,nonetheless, should individual actions thatpresuppose a community of cooperative subjects beunderstood as a particular class of freedom? What isso distinctive about such unforced intertwining of

actions that makes it justifiable to introduce a new


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category of freedom alongside the existing models ofnegative and positive freedom?

Here, in my view, Hegel and Dewey point in thedirection of an answer, because they each point todifferent aspects of the same phenomenon. Both are

of the opinion that the distinctiveness of the reciprocalprocess of unforced intertwining of ends lies in thefact that the contribution of each is experience aswilled by the other. In contrast to all other actions,which can be understood as either negatively orpositively free, this class of cooperative actionsshows that we can each assume the consent of theother and thus can carry out our own action with a

consciousness of unforced responsiveness. Not onlyis there no expectation ofarbitrary interference frompartners to the interaction; more than this, one cantrust that what one freely does will also be freelywished by the other or all other participants. In moresystematic terms, the uncoerced nature of acommunicative action is here increased because bothsides know of each other not only that they perform afreely chosen action, but also, that the carrying out ofthis action fulfills an autonomously generatedintention of the other.Hegel emphasizes above all thecognitive side of the exercise of social freedom as itshould exist in the reflexive structure of commonlyshared knowledge. Dewey much more starklystresses the affective side, in the enjoyment of

experiencing how ones own actions are seen byothers as preparing the way for completing their ownongoing actions.

The exercise of such a form of freedom certainlyrequires, as already indicated by the accompanyingconsciousness of a We, that the participants pursuecommon aims or values, because these common

aims and values require them, in forming their own


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intentions, to take the intentions of the others intoconsideration. Each participant limits herself tocarrying out such actions which she knows willcontribute to furthering their shared aims. Whereaspositive freedom is related to the assumption of a

reflexive act of self-determination or self-articulation,social freedom is bound to the assumption of thedevelopment of a common will. Where such acommon will is not present and the perspective of aWe cannot be taken up by the subjects, it is notpossible to form in their consciousness an agreed-upon scheme of cooperation which would allow themto act for one another through their complementary

contributions. To this extent the idea of socialfreedom, unlike the concept of negative freedom, butlike the positive concept, is a selective category ofhuman freedom. It does not designate a general,unconditional capacity of subjects, but rather onewhich is bound to the existence of certain socialconditions, namely, belonging to a community ofethically concordant members.

This assumption of membership in an ethicalcommunity cannot however be misunderstood tomean that the participants have completely lost theircapacity for personal initiative and independence. Why this cannot be so can now be more preciselyformulated, because we have learned that in the case

of social freedom ones own contributory actions mustfulfill the autonomously generated wishes orintentions of ones fellow participants. Thisassumption can remain valid only so long as Iconcede to the other the opportunity to place thenegotiated scheme of cooperative action into questionwhen her individual needs, interests, or positionshave changed. Because such a claim must be

reciprocally acknowledged, so that all participants can


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understand their contributions as fulfilling theautonomous wishes of others, the exercise of socialfreedom must be bound to the assumption of therecognition of the claim of every other to co-determinethe commonly practiced schema of cooperation.

Though social freedom can be exercised only in thepursuit of common aims, the determinate content ofthese aims always remains open for revision andcontestation by the members of the We.

This right to have a sayor better, this recognizedclaimcannot itself be understood according to thestandard of negative or positive freedom, as

though another form of individual freedom protrudedfrom outside into the exercise of social freedom. What the participants invoke when they place thepreviously agreed-upon scheme of cooperation intoquestion is the result neither of a purely privateconsideration of interest nor of purely individual self-determination, as Kant had had in mind. Rather theydiscover the content of their will against the normativebackground of jointly entered responsibilities, in orderto check whether their wills remain in agreement withthe negotiated scheme of cooperation. The differencehere is that the participants in this process ofdiscoverydo not proceed from an ethical null point, assuggested by the models of negative or positiveliberty, but rather from the acceptance of

responsibilities they already have with regards toothers in the pursuit of common aims. Thus they willbring to the table only those suggestions for adaptingthe scheme of cooperation, which appear necessaryin light of their changed needs or interests, to theextent that these are compatible with collectivelysettled goals. The claim to have a say in determiningthe distribution of burdens and responsibilities in

romantic relationships, friendships, or democratic


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communities, is not externally imposed, but is ratheran intrinsic element of the social freedom that theparticipants together enjoy in such relationships.

These considerations lead to the last point of my

essay, in which I want to come back to the question ofwhether the suggestion of a third, social model offreedom commits the mistake of confusing the valueof freedom with the value of solidarity. Such areproach immediately suggests itself because theparticipants can allow their intentions seamlessly tointertwine with one another only insofar as theytogether strive for the common goal of solidarity

grounded in trust, whether this takes the form ofsexual intimacy in love, the reciprocal support offriendship, or the egalitarian elaboration of a commonwill in a democratic community. The reason why thisworks for all contributorsso the objection runsisthe unified realization of the good of solidarity and not,as I would have it, the value of a particular kind offreedom. However this objection requires moreinformation about what the value of solidary cohesionshould truly consist in. And thus one confronts thetrue difficulty, namely, that although one can identifysuch positive experiences as reciprocal trust ormutual aid, this does not serve to explain the specialquality such solidarity has for us. What differencewould it make if the various forms of solidary

relationships drew their value for participants from thefact that they constituted different variants of socialfreedom? Then that which makes love, friendshipand democratic collaboration worth striving for couldnot simply be explained by reference to the good ofsolidarity. Rather solidarity would draw its value for usfrom the fact that it allows us to exercise in differentways a form of freedom in which others are not

experienced, as in the usual case, as limitations, but


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rather as conditions of the possibility of forming andrealizing our own intentions. We strive for solidaryrelationships not for their own sake, but rather for theparticular kind of freedom which they embody invarious forms. What attracts us to solidary

experiences, and what makes these kinds ofrelationships worth striving for, is an experience whichis precluded in other forms of social life: namely tosee, in the reflection of our own intentions and wishesin the complementary intentions and wishes of ourcounterparts, that we can only realize them by acting-for-one-another.

These considerations allow us to conclude that weare not able to assess the value of solidaryrelationships without reference to the positiveexperience of social freedom. But beyond this, theidea of social freedom represents the overarchingevaluative concept for the special cases of solidaryrelationships. For what makes the experience ofsolidarity valuable for us can be explained only withreference to finding-oneself-again-in-others, which iswhat is meant by the idea of social freedom. Socialfreedom is related to solidarity as type to token: Thevarious forms of solidarity are empiricalmanifestations of that which makes acting-for-another into a human good. Then, however, theobjection no longer obtains that the idea of social

freedom falsely confuses the value of freedom withthat of solidarity. Precisely the opposite is the case:We are totally unable to comprehend the value ofcertain social forms of being-together unless,alongside the concepts of negative and positivefreedom, we have at our disposal a third concept offreedom which makes it clear to us that we strive forsuch forms of being together for the sake of

experiencing the complete absence of coercion. The


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distinctiveness of this third form of freedom is thecomplete withering away of all hindrances which theintentions of other subjects generally pose for me. Only here do I find in the social world a sort ofhome, which Hegel already knew could exist only

where I am at home

with myself in others. Let meconclude thereforeby noting that under the historicalconditions of the increasing juridification andeconomization of our culture, and thus of the rise of apurely negatively understood freedom, it is high timeto recover the buried tradition of the idea of socialfreedom.--

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Three Concepts of freedom

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