Abstract

This paper analyzes agency in Pettit’s republican conception of freedom. Byunderstanding freedom intersubjectively in terms of agency, Pettit makes animportant contribution to the contemporary debate on negative liberty. At the sametime, some of the presumptions about agency are problematic. The paper defendsthe thesis that Pettit is not able to provide the sufficient conditions for freedom asnon-domination that he sets out to do. In order to show why this is the case andhow we can address this shortcoming, a distinction is introduced between a thickand a thin intersubjective account of agency. It is argued that while Pettit’sfreedom presupposes a thin account, he would need a thick account in order toelaborate not only the necessary but also the sufficient conditions of freedom asnon-domination.