Mind the Economy /Justice 146

Looking into each other's eyes. Freedom without deference

True freedom requires social structures and institutions that prevent domination and protect relations of equality

by Vittorio Pelligra

29 March 2026

8' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

8' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

There is a feature of the experience of freedom that is hardly found in theoretical definitions, although we all recognise it immediately. It has to do not with what we can do, but with the way we are in the world. It is about 'poise', even before choices. The way one enters a room, takes the floor, sustains a gaze. Philip Pettit, taking up a long republican tradition, expresses this idea with a simple image. To be free is to be able to 'look others in the eye' without fear or deference (Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 81-82). And this is not a metaphor. It is a diagnosis. For the opposite of freedom, in Pettit's perspective, is not only constraint. It is a more subtle and more widespread form: exposure or, as the philosopher puts it, 'domination'. That is, being forced to live under an arbitrary will that we do not control. A will that perhaps does not manifest itself in a continuous and manifest way but which is there, and could manifest itself at any moment.

Contemporary political theory has accustomed us to measuring freedom in terms of rights, opportunities, capacity for choice. All important dimensions, of course. But not sufficient. What the republican perspective brings back to the centre is an older and less frequented category: that of status. Being free does not only mean being able to do certain things. It means occupying a recognised position within society. A position in which one is not exposed to the arbitrariness of others. In which one is not dependent on the benevolence, tolerance or mood of those with more power.

Relational freedom

Freedom as Pettit understands it is, therefore, a relational property. It is not about what I have, but how I stand in relation to others. This is why Pettit insists on a decisive distinction, that between not being interfered with and not being vulnerable to arbitrary interference. In the first case, everything depends on circumstances. In the second, on the structure of relationships. In the first case, freedom depends on contingencies, inertia, benevolence or simply the convenience of those in power. In the second case, on the other hand, it depends on a stable structure of relations, on an order that makes that interference non-arbitrary, because it is subject to constraints, controls, justifications. The difference, as Pettit puts it, is between those who do not suffer interference and those who are not exposed to "a power of interference on an arbitrary basis" (1997, p. 52).

It is a subtle but decisive difference. It is the difference between security and fate. When this status is lost, visible forms of oppression do not always emerge. More often, imperceptible transformations in behaviour are produced. One learns to calibrate one's words. To avoid certain stances. To prudently choose contexts, interlocutors and times. Not out of explicit fear, but out of a kind of continuous adaptation. One learns the grammar of deference. One internalises it voluntarily without the need for someone to order one to do so. And then there will be no need for a command for a possibility to be excluded. It is enough that it becomes inconvenient or inappropriate, and in some cases risky. It is enough that it inscribes itself in a space where someone, in principle, could intervene. Domination does not only act from outside, but reorganises the field of possibilities from within. Under these conditions, freedom does not disappear. It is transformed. It becomes prudence, adaptation, the ability to orient itself in an uncertain environment. But precisely because of this, it loses one of its fundamental traits: the possibility of exposure. Because looking into someone's eyes means, after all, exposing oneself to their judgement without having to fear their will.

If we take this connection between freedom and moral life seriously, then the decisive point is no longer just about the quality of our institutions, but about the quality of our relationships. It is not simply a matter of guaranteeing individuals a space of action protected from interference, but of making possible a form of interaction in which each person can engage with others without this engagement being vitiated by dependency.

Freedom and responsibility

The reconstruction proposed by Pettit in The Birth of Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2018), suggests that morality emerges when individuals begin to bind themselves reciprocally through language. To say something, to promise, to declare, to commit, means to expose oneself. It means authorising others to rely on what we say and, at the same time, to call us to account. It is in this space that notions of responsibility, obligation, justification are formed. But this mutual exposure can only work on one condition: that it is not structurally distorted by asymmetrical relations of domination. If one interlocutor holds arbitrary power over the other, language loses its constitutive function and becomes a strategic tool. Words no longer bind, but serve to protect, to negotiate margins, to reduce risks. In this sense, freedom as non-domination is not simply a favourable condition for moral life. It is a constitutive condition. Without it, responsibility becomes empty. Not because individuals cease to be responsible in a formal sense, but because the conditions that make that responsibility meaningful and recognisable are lacking.

The difference is subtle but fundamental. One can be held responsible even in contexts of domination. But one is only responsible, in the full sense, when one is in a position to respond without having to fear the arbitrariness of others. Only when what one says and does can be exposed to the judgement of others without being preemptively filtered by the need to adapt. From this point of view, freedom is not only what protects moral action. It is what makes it possible. It is the space in which the individual can recognise himself as the author of his actions and, at the same time, be recognised by others as such.

This shift in perspective also has major consequences for the way we think about autonomy, which can no longer be seen merely as an internal property of the individual, a kind of psychological or decision-making independence. It becomes an eminently relational condition. That is, it depends on the fact that the relationships in which we are embedded do not force us to live in systematic vulnerability. Being autonomous, in this sense, does not mean not depending on anyone. It means not being arbitrarily dependent. It allows one to be in relationship without being subordinate. To be able to engage without having to protect oneself. To be able to respond without having to calculate first.

It is here that moral and political reflection become intertwined again. If freedom as non-domination is in fact a condition of moral life, then institutions cannot limit themselves to guaranteeing formal rights or opportunities for choice. They must intervene in the structures that produce dependency. They must make possible an environment in which individuals are not forced to continually modulate their behaviour according to opaque or uncontrollable powers. It is not simply a matter of introducing correctives to an existing institutional set-up, but of rethinking the very way in which we define what makes a social order just.

Pettit proposes to consider freedom not so much as one among many political values, but as a true 'moral compass', a criterion capable of guiding judgement in the complex situations of public life. This implies a significant shift in perspective whereby institutions are not considered just because they achieve certain outcomes, but because they help to configure relationships that remove individuals from arbitrariness.

The first consequence concerns, therefore, the nature of social justice. If freedom is non-domination, then conditions such as poverty, extreme precarity, and economic dependence are not simply distributive problems, but structural forms of vulnerability. They are not unjust merely because they produce inequalities, but because they expose individuals to the discretionary power of others. In this sense, what is at stake is not so much the level of available resources as the degree of structural independence they make possible.

The second implication concerns political justice. Public power, from a republican perspective, is not simply an authorised power, but a power that can be continuously scrutinised. Legitimacy is not exhausted in the democratic origin of decisions, but is measured in the permanent possibility of subjecting them to scrutiny, revision and challenge. This is what distinguishes a non-arbitrary power from a merely legitimised power.

The institutions of non-domination

From these considerations derives a demanding institutional model, which is not limited to electoral representation but includes a plurality of checks and balances, such as separation of powers, jurisdictional guarantees, independent authorities, accountability procedures and, above all, ample space for public contestation. These are not mere correctives, but structural conditions of freedom.

But perhaps it is on the less visible level of social relations that the implications become even more interesting. Alongside the mechanisms of the market - the 'invisible hand' - and those of public regulation - the 'visible hand' - there is a third form of social coordination, that is, one based on the distribution of esteem and discredit. In The Economy of Esteem (Oxford University Press, 2004), Philip Pettit and Geoffrey Brennan call it the 'intangible hand'. Societies function not only through economic incentives or legal sanctions, but also through recognition systems that guide behaviour. This element is crucial because it introduces a further dimension to the theory of freedom. The dimension of those cultural balances that co-evolve with formal institutions making certain forms of power more or less socially acceptable.

In a society where deference is normalised, domination may persist even in the presence of formal guarantees. Conversely, in a society in which certain forms of arbitrariness are publicly disapproved, the pressure of the intangible hand can help to limit them effectively. This implies that republican freedom is not only an institutional project, but also a cultural project. It requires the formation of shared expectations, of public standards, of criteria of judgement that make relations of domination visible and contestable.

A third implication emerges at this point, which concerns the way we conceive political action itself. For if freedom is a relational property, then it cannot be guaranteed once and for all through institutional design. It must be continuously reproduced through practices of surveillance, contestation, and revision. Institutions can stabilise certain conditions, but they cannot eliminate the possibility of new forms of domination emerging.

This is particularly true in contemporary societies, where power takes on increasingly diffuse, impersonal forms that are often difficult to localise. The risk is not only of concentrated power, but of power that is exercised through procedures, standards, algorithms, technical norms that escape immediate perception.

In these contexts, the challenge of non-domination becomes more complex. It is not enough to identify who holds power. It is necessary to understand how it is distributed, how it is exercised, what margins of contestation it leaves open.

The result is a profoundly demanding conception of freedom. Not as a simple absence of constraints, but as a quality of power relations. Not as an individual space, but as the emergent property of a social order. And this is perhaps the most important point.

Freedom, in this perspective, is not what remains when power is withdrawn. It is what emerges when power is organised in such a way that it is not arbitrary. It is not the opposite of order. It is its most demanding form. And, precisely because of this, it is never definitively acquired. It always represents, to some extent, a constitutively fragile achievement.