ECPR, Edinburgh 2003 Workshop 6

New Approaches to Rights, Freedom and Power

Directors: Keith Dowding and Martin Van Hees words - 698 The workshop was designed to bring together analytic philosophers and formal theorists to discuss different approaches to the conceptualisation and measurement of rights, freedom and power. There were nineteen papers, ten basically formal and nine basically analytic, though several papers combined both. Most of the papers formed a very coherent set which stimulated much dis cussion and debate around a set of common themes. Four papers were off the main themes in some regard, but all were recognized to be interesting and strongly related to the workshop themes. The papers can organized as follows (a = broadly analytic, f = broadly formal) Rights - concept and measurement 1. Rowan Cruft, Rights: Beyond Interest Theory and Will Theory? (a) 2. Ruvin Gekker, Rights, Games and Social Situations (f) 3. Keith Dowding, Social Choice and the Grammar of Rights and Freedoms (a) Freedom - concept and measurement 4. Sebastiano Bavetta (and Matthew Braham): Freedom in a Strategic Setting (f) 5. Andreas Bergh, Freedom, Choice and Well-Being (f) 6. M. DAgostino, V. Peragine (and V. Dardanoni), A Statistical Approach to Freedom (f) 7. Martin van Hees (and Ruvin Gekker) Freedom, Opportunity and Uncertainty: A Logical Approach (f) 8. Matt Kramer On the Counterfactual Dimension of Negative Liberty (a) 9. Antonio Romero-Medina (with Vito Peragine) On Preference, Freedom and Diversity (f) 10. Hillel Steiner, Pikes and Minnows: The Quantity of Freedom (a) 11. Stefano Vanucci, The Cardinality-based Ranking of Opportunity Sets in an Interactive Setting: A Simple Characterization (f) Sen's capabilities approach to freedom and rights 12. Ian Carter Functionings, Capabilities and the Non-specific Value of Freedom (a)

13. Paul Anand, Social Choice and the Integration of Claims (f) 14. Serena Olsaretti Endorsement and Freedom in Amartya Sens capability approach (a) Power 15. Matthew Braham (and Sebastiano Bavetta) The Impossibility of a PreferenceBased Power Index (f) 16. Rolf Hoijer (and Patrick Dunleavy), Political Power and Political fragmentation (a) Rights in a Judicial Setting/Health Setting 17. Jim Rogers How Judicial Enforcement of Rights Can Decrease Freedom (f) 18. Maxim Rybakov Right to Healthcare as Example of a Right Requiring Use of Scarce Resources (a) Rights and Equality 19. Magnus Jedenheim A Unification of Self-Ownership and Joint Ownership (a)

The formal papers on the analysis and measurement of freedom all fitted together nicely, examining the issues with a common approach though using different assumptions. Van Hees and Gekker's paper (7) took a new line from previous formal approaches suggesting a new direction for future work. The analytic philosophers found the formal papers tough but learned what some of the issues in dispute are about. The formal theorists discovered the nature of some of philosophical issues on these same subjects. Some of the papers formed nicely set themes and continued debates. Braham and Bavetta (15) criticized the work of another participant (Carter) who was able to respond in his commentary. Kramer's paper (8) critiqued earlier work by Steiner and and Carter who were also enabled to respond, and the Steiner paper (10) answered some criticisms developed by Kramer and work by the formal theorists. Braham and Bavetta (15) examined issues in power covered work earlier by Dowding. Dowding's paper (3) analytically criticized formal work, including work by van Hees. Cruft's paper (1) took up issues which criticized the approach of Steiner (a choice rights theorist) and Kramer (an interest rights theorist). Jedenheim's paper (19) took up themes that Steiner has extensively published on. Most of the papers were theoretical but Ana nd (13), Hoijer (16), and Rogers (17) combined theoretical work with empirical data or applications. There were other common themes picked out in the sessions, for example, Anand (13) and Rybakov (18) were concerned with rights and healthcare, whilst the issue of the relationship between preferences and freedom/power/rights were taken up by in papers (3, 4, 5, 12 and 15). The sessions provided lively debate. Some sessions involved mostly the formal theorists, and some the philosophers but most saw participants across the divide debating the conceptual issues. All agreed that the workshop was a valuable session from which everyone learned a great deal.