Leiden University Student Repository

Van der Bijl, Danique (2019)

Ethical detachment in defining freedom

Master thesis | Philosophy (MA) (60 EC)

Ian Carter identifies a philosophical dispute about whether either all political concepts necessarily express ethical evaluation, or some can be ethically detached. Establishing the truth of the latter is especially interesting, since ethically loaded accounts often generate confusions and misunderstandings within moral and political discourse. Carter suggests that it is possible to provide largely ethically detached accounts of certain political concepts, especially freedom, namely in being to a certain extent value-free or value-neutral. I scrutinize his proposal through examining three examples of partly ethically detached concepts of freedom, and ask whether such concepts are indeed possible and useful for both normative and conceptual theorizing. I conclude that overall, beside some remarks, Carter’s theory makes sense and provides an original and useful insight in the nature of ethical theories and their concepts, especially concepts of freedom.

Freedom

Political philosophy

Metaethics

Value-free

Value-neutral

Ian Carter

Political concepts

Ethical theories

Author

Van der Bijl, Danique

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

MA Philosophy: Philosophical Perspectives on Politics and the Economy

Supervisors

Kalf, Wouter

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en