Mary Wollstonecraft, Freedom and the Enduring Power of Social Domination

TY - JOUR

T1 - Mary Wollstonecraft, Freedom and the Enduring Power of Social Domination

AU - Coffee, Alan

PY - 2013/6/1

Y1 - 2013/6/1

N2 - Even long after their formal exclusion has come to an end, members of previously oppressed social groups often continue to face disproportionate restrictions on their freedom, as the experience of many women over the last century has shown. Working within a republican framework which understands freedom as independence from arbitrary power, Mary Wollstonecraft provides an explanation of why such domination may persist and offers a model through which it can be addressed. Republicans rely on processes of rational public deliberation to highlight and combat oppression. However, where domination is primarily social rather than legal or political (such as where cultural attitudes, traditions and values exert an arbitrary and inhibiting force) then this defence against domination is often negated. Prejudice, she argues, ‘clouds’ people’s ability to reason and skews debate in favour of the dominant powers, thereby entrenching patterns of subjection. If they are to be independent, then, citizens require not only political rights but a platform from which to add their perspectives and interests to the background social values which govern political discussion.

AB - Even long after their formal exclusion has come to an end, members of previously oppressed social groups often continue to face disproportionate restrictions on their freedom, as the experience of many women over the last century has shown. Working within a republican framework which understands freedom as independence from arbitrary power, Mary Wollstonecraft provides an explanation of why such domination may persist and offers a model through which it can be addressed. Republicans rely on processes of rational public deliberation to highlight and combat oppression. However, where domination is primarily social rather than legal or political (such as where cultural attitudes, traditions and values exert an arbitrary and inhibiting force) then this defence against domination is often negated. Prejudice, she argues, ‘clouds’ people’s ability to reason and skews debate in favour of the dominant powers, thereby entrenching patterns of subjection. If they are to be independent, then, citizens require not only political rights but a platform from which to add their perspectives and interests to the background social values which govern political discussion.

KW - Mary Wollstonecraft

KW - Republicanism

KW - Freedom as Non-domination

KW - Slavery

KW - Feminism

M3 - Article

SN - 1474-8851

VL - 12

SP - 116

JO - EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL THEORY

JF - EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL THEORY

IS - 2

ER -