A Eudaimonist Concept of Liberty: Relation, Roles, and Proper Functioning

Abstract

In this thesis, I theorise novelly about the essence of political liberty. And the novelty lies, somewhat paradoxically, in the theorisation’s ancient orientation: I attempt to arrive at a eudaimonist concept of liberty by way of Anscombian analytical Aristotelianism. On this route, we find liberty to be the state of proper functioning — and, specifically, a relational property that characterises and is essential to proper functioning social roles. And that relational property is the actualisation of one’s potencies, the unfolding of the specific soul that one is. An important implication of this concept is that liberty cannot be untied from rationality and goodness. Moreover, rather than antithetical to obligation, we come to know liberty as profoundly entwined with it.