Publisher's Synopsis
This text develops a particular theory of freedom, and explores the relationship between this view of freedom and issues of social justice, with a view to influencing public policy concerning those issues. Often the idea of freedom has a negative role to play in relation to the idea of social justic - its function is to limit the scope of social justice, to set boundaries around programmes of social justice in order to preserve "individual liberty". Undoubtedly the idea of freedom does have a legitimate role to play here, but the claim explored in this book is that it also has a positive role to play which is "prima facie" equally important. Rather than simply acting as a negative side-costraint upon programmes of social justice, freedom is also a positive goal that programmes of social justice must pursue. Therefore, the idea of freedom contributes substantial content to the theory of social justice, rather than simply drawing boundaries around it.
