Neo-Roman Liberty

Abstract

Abstract To speak of neo-Roman liberty is to refer to the claim that the concept of liberty needs to be contrasted with independence rather than with restraint, and thus with asking what counts as arbitrary power rather than what counts as interference. The first section outlines the classic statement of the neo-Roman view of freedom and slavery presented in the Digest of Roman law. Section 2 examines neo-Roman claims about dependence and enslavement, focusing on arguments about the plight of women and the colonized. Section 3 considers the attack on neo-Romanism that began to be widely mounted in the era of revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, when the contention that liberty consists simply in the absence of restraint first came to be generally accepted. The chapter concludes with a defence of neo-Roman liberty against the objections that continue to be raised against it.