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The Well-Ordered Republic
OXF ORD P OL I T IC A L T H EORY
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The Well-Ordered
Republic
F R AN K LOV ET T
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For Caroline
Who can in reason then assume monarchy over such as live by
right his equals?
— John Milton
Preface
I was first introduced to civic republicanism twenty-five years ago, during my

first semester of graduate school, in a small philosophy seminar taught by Philip
Pettit. From the beginning I was captivated, and by the end convinced. Since then
the field has grown enormously, both in scope and sophistication. Many new and
promising applications of republican theory have emerged, but so too have new
debates and critiques. The time has come to take stock, so to speak: to attempt
to present the theory comprehensively in its many aspects and dimensions, so as
to determine whether the various parts fit together in a coherent and attractive
whole. Something like this represents my motivation and ambition for writing
this book.
Do we need another big book on republicanism? One might think not. Af-
ter all, hasn’t Pettit written that book already? In fact, hasn’t he written three?¹
Yes and no. While Pettit is undoubtedly one of the more important and persua-
sive contemporary advocates of republican political theory, his voice remains one
among many. Moreover, it is a distinctive voice. His writings sometimes reflect
a philosopher’s temperament for abstraction over application; given his particu-
lar interests, some topics are not covered, while others are covered only briefly
or partially; and he does not always pause to address in detail many significant
debates and critiques now found in the extensive republican literature. These
remarks should not be seen as objections, of course. His aims are different from
mine. In his central writings, Pettit gives expression to his own personal vision
of republican theory. And a powerful vision it is, to which my own work has
obviously been indebted.
The present work is different. It attempts to comprehend the diverse and rich
range of republican ideas in a way that Pettit has not specifically aimed to do. It is
no mere descriptive review, however.² Rather, I deliberately try to fit these many
contributions together into a single coherent theory. While striving to give voice
to diverse views and alternative interpretations within the field, I do not avoid
stating my own sense of the best way forward whenever that way is clear to me.
Nor is the best way always Pettit’s way, to my mind. Although I do not mean to set
up a version of republicanism to rival his, there are important issues on which we
disagree. Even were there not, however, there would still be considerable value in
1 To say nothing of the important book-length contributions of other scholars such as J. G. A.

Pocock, Quentin Skinner, Maurizio Viroli, or Cécile Laborde.
2 Besides, excellent reviews by Iseult Honohan and Rachel Hammersley already exist.
viii PREFACE
having a similar matrix of ideas presented in a different way and from a different
perspective.
It is my overriding hope that this book will be useful, not only for those in-
terested in and attracted to republican ideas, but also for those unpersuaded or
opposed. Precisely because of this hope, I have tried to engage with (and cite) as
many contributions as possible—both from republicans and from their critics. For
the same reason, the bibliography is more extensive and the index more detailed
than typical, or perhaps even advisable under other circumstances.³ Many have
helped me: not only research assistants diligently combing through databases,
but also colleagues generously sharing their works-in-progress, and journal edi-
tors sending me new research to review. Even so it has not been easy. Inevitably,
there are contributions and critiques which, for all my efforts, I have missed,
forgotten, or neglected. For any and all such oversights, I apologize in advance.
Naturally, I have built on my own previous work in various ways. Loosely
speaking, Chapters 2 and 3 cover ground similar to that covered in my first two
books, but the presentation and formulation of ideas has evolved considerably: in
particular, I now rely heavily on the theoretical framework I recently developed
in joint work with Sean Ingham. In consequence, many complexities are newly
addressed that did not occur to me previously, and in several cases I have had to
revise my earlier views or correct mistakes. I also now engage with important re-
cent work by other scholars—on workplace domination and identity politics, for
example. Chapter 4 ventures into new territory for me. Not for Pettit, of course,
who has been centrally concerned with issues of popular control for many years.
In writing this chapter, I not only achieved a deeper appreciation of his views,
but also discovered some unexpected areas of disagreement. Chapter 5 draws
heavily on my article, “Algernon Sidney, Republican Stability, and the Politics of
Virtue,” which appeared in The Journal of Political Science 48 (2020): 59–83; and
to a lesser extent on “Republicanism, Perfectionism, and Neutrality,” co-authored
with Gregory Whitfield, which appeared in The Journal of Political Philosophy 24
(2016): 120–134. Finally, Chapter 6 draws substantially on my article, “Should
Republicans be Cosmopolitans?” which appeared in Global Justice: Theory Prac-
tice Rhetoric 9 (2016): 28–46. I am grateful to the publishers of these journals for
allowing me to reuse the relevant materials.
As much as the field of contemporary republican theory has grown, many ar-
eas remain underexplored. Republicans have not yet addressed the problem of
historical injustice, and they have only begun to tackle the challenges of doing
justice to future generations. Although republicans have a very sophisticated nor-
mative theory of popular control, the concrete institutional implications of that
theory necessarily depend on the resolution of difficult empirical questions that
3 The bibliography has also been sorted into groups, again simply in the pragmatic hope that others
will find this helpful.
PREFACE ix
remain wide open to future research. The discussion of political obligation of-
fered in Chapter 5 remains preliminary to a fully-developed treatment, and only
very recently have some authors started to think about a republican theory of
political action. Throughout this work I try to note gaps and flag opportunities
like these as they become apparent to me.
I have incurred many debts writing this book. Matt Mancini, Julia Maskivker,
Chad Flanders, Tim Sellers, and Philip Pettit advised me on Chapter 1; Daniel
Layman, Lori Watson, Sam Arnold, Hallvard Sandven, and Alex Gourevitch on
Chapter 2; Daniel Layman, Robert Taylor, Hiba Hafiz, and Andreas Schmidt on
Chapter 3; Randy Calvert, Clarissa Hayward, Amy Gais, Fannie Bialek, and Brian
Tamanaha on Chapter 4; Richard Dagger, Victoria Costa, Julia Maskivker, Alan
Houston, and Jessica Rosenfeld on Chapter 5; José Luis Martı́, Miriam Ronzoni,
Michael Sevel, and Corey Katz on Chapter 6. In those cases where I have built on
previously published work, I also benefitted greatly from anonymous reviews of
that work; and in those cases where I have presented parts of what became this
book at conferences and workshops, I have likewise benefitted from engagement
with many discussants and audience members. Ian Carter, Sean Ingham, and two
anonymous readers at Oxford University Press read the manuscript as a whole,
and provided extraordinarily perceptive and detailed commentary: not only have
they pushed me to make the book much better, they have also saved me from
many foolish mistakes. Tennyson Holmes, Rahul Kanna, Adam Lake, Kris Wilson,
and Viola Wu provided invaluable research and editing assistance. I am grateful to
Dominic Byatt for expertly guiding this book through review and publication at
Oxford University Press, and also to Will Kymlicka and David Miller for agreeing
to include it in the Oxford Political Theory series. And of course none of my work
would be possible without the love, encouragement, and support of my family
and friends—especially during the very unusual times in which this book was
written.
Finally, special thanks are due to Philip Pettit, who first inspired my interest in
republican political theory so many years ago, and who has continued to nurture
my work in many ways ever since. It is difficult to imagine where my path would
otherwise have led, but I am deeply grateful it has led me here.
Contents
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Republicanism: Principles 3
1.2 Republicanism: Historical Sketch 9
1.3 Republicanism and Liberalism 17
1.4 Method and Approach 20
1.5 The Big Picture 23
2. Non-domination 26
2.1 Agency, Groups, Teams 27
2.2 Single Agent Domination 33
2.3 Plural Agent Domination 40
2.4 Domination and Structure 44
2.5 Suitable Controls, Part One 51
2.6 Suitable Controls, Part Two 57
2.7 From Non-domination to Freedom 63
3. Law and Policy 73

3.1 The Value of Non-domination 74
3.2 The Priority of Non-domination 81
3.3 Ideal and Non-ideal Theory 89
3.4 The Empire of Law 95
3.5 Republicanism and Punishment 101
3.6 Domination and Markets 104
3.7 Workplace Domination 112
3.8 Race, Gender, and Identity 119
3.9 Future Generations 122
4. Popular Control 128

4.1 The Grounds for Popular Control 130
4.2 Implementing Popular Control 137
4.3 The Limits of Popular Control 145
4.4 The Problem of Discretion 150
4.5 Domination and Legislation 156
4.6 Constituting Legislative Authority 161
4.7 Basic Rights and Judicial Review 170
4.8 Emergency Powers 177
xii CONTENTS
5. Stability 182
5.1 Political Obligation and Legitimacy 183
5.2 Imperfect Compliance 191
5.3 Civic Virtue 194
5.4 Republican Stability 202
5.5 The Well-Ordered Republic 206
5.6 Education, Toleration, and Neutrality 211
5.7 Republics in Crisis 219
6. Global Republicanism 225

6.1 The Global Basic Structure 227
6.2 International Law 232
6.3 Borders and Migration 239
6.4 Global Economic Justice 243
6.5 Republican Foreign Policy 251
6.6 Concluding Remarks 255
Appendices 259
A. On the Boundaries of the Republican Tradition 259
B. The Runaway Slave 263
C. Is Pettit’s View Democratic? 264
D. Multi-agent Domination and Suitable Control 266
E. On the Limits of Republicanism 268
Bibliography 271
Classical Republican Writings 271
Contemporary Republican Writings 273
Other Works Cited 277
Index 287
1
Introduction
This is a book about republicanism. Its aim is to expound as rigorous and com-
prehensive an account of republican political theory as possible, given our present
state of knowledge and constraints of space.
For the purposes of this work, I take republicanism to be the political doctrine
expressed in canonical republican writings. This is less circular than it sounds.
By analogy, when contemporary moral philosophers debate the meaning and
implications of utilitarianism, they are not usually debating how to interpret the
writings of Bentham and Mill, but rather how to understand the utilitarian the-
ory itself: in other words, they aim for the understanding of that theory which is
most consistent, most persuasive, most useful, and so forth. In working out the
best understanding of utilitarianism, the specific claims expressed in the writings
of Bentham and Mill are always relevant, but never decisive. That said, the best un-
derstanding of utilitarianism must in some plausible sense fit with at least the most
distinctive and central ideas found in Bentham and Mill: no matter how good our
theory, if it does not capture the main commitments in the canonical utilitarian
writings, it would not be utilitarianism, but something else.
Thus, just as we uncontroversially regard ‘utilitarianism’ as the best articulation
of the moral theory expressed, more or less perfectly, in the canonical utilitarian
writings, so we should regard ‘republicanism’ as the best articulation of the political
doctrine expressed, more or less perfectly, in the canonical republican writings.
To extend the parallel, once we have the best version of the moral theory ex-
pressed in the canonical utilitarian writings in hand, we can use our articulation
of that theory to decide whether or not to count as utilitarians other writers about
whom we are less certain. For example, we might decide that Hume should not
properly be considered a utilitarian, whereas Paley should. In much the same way,
once we have the best version of the political doctrine expressed in the canonical
republican writings in hand, we can use our articulation of that doctrine to de-
cide whether or not to count as republican other writers about whom we are less
certain. There should be nothing especially controversial about this approach. It is
recursive, but not circular. In truth, it is simply an application of the procedure of
reflective equilibrium, as described by John Rawls.¹
1 See Rawls (1971, 46–53).
The Well-Ordered Republic. Frank Lovett, Oxford University Press.

© Frank Lovett (2022). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192859556.003.0001
2 THE WELL-ORDERED REPUBLIC
Initially, I will stipulate two sets of canonical republican authors. In so doing,

my aim is not to exclude any authors as inferior or unworthy, but rather to de-
fine a coherent tradition: it permits me to plausibly claim that these authors, at
least, share a set of commitments. It is perfectly legitimate, depending on one’s
aims, to define ‘republicanism’ more broadly, but then there may be no shared
commitments, only family resemblances.²
The first are a core set of early modern political writers, who by convention we
may term the classical republicans. These are: Machiavelli; the English republicans
Milton, Harrington, and Sidney; Thomas Paine; and the American founders John
Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. Sometimes I refer to the writings of these authors
as the ‘Machiavelli to Madison canon.’ In addition to this core, there are many
other authors—some well-known, others less so—who on our working out of the
best version of the republican theory will be found to properly count as members
of the tradition as well.³ More ambiguous, however, will be the status of Black-
stone, Montesquieu, and the authors of Cato’s Letters. Because of their importance
in transmitting republican ideas across the eighteenth century, I will refer to their
writings from time to time, but without regarding them as canonical. Likewise
various ancient authors, such as Cicero and the Latin historians Sallust and Livy,
who exerted a strong influence on the tradition, but without necessarily being re-
publicans themselves. I discuss these issues further in Appendix A. Rousseau and
Kant, in contrast, are definitely not republicans, for reasons that will become clear
in subsequent chapters.⁴
The second set of canonical republicans authors are a core group of con-
temporary writers, namely, Philip Pettit, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli.
Sometimes these authors are referred to as the ‘civic’ or ‘neo-Roman’ republicans
so as to distinguish them from J. G. A. Pocock and others, who are referred to as
‘civic humanists’ or ‘neo-Athenian republicans.’ In this work I will simply refer to
them as the contemporary republicans. Many others have contributed to the de-
velopment of contemporary republican theory, of course, and their contributions
2 For example, Honohan (2002) and Hammersley (2020) both adopt a family resemblances ap-
proach.
3 Among these I would include renaissance Italian republicans such as Leonardo Bruni, Alamanno
Rinuccini, and Francesco Guicciardini; seventeenth-century English republicans such as Henry Vane,
John Streater, Marchamont Nedham, John Hall, and Henry Neville; Dutch republicans such as Pieter
de la Court; eighteenth-century ‘Real Whigs’ such as Robert Molesworth and Walter Moyle; some of
the English philosophical radicals such as Richard Price and Mary Wollstonecraft; many Americans
from the founding period, including James Wilson and Benjamin Rush; some of the early, more mod-
erate French revolutionaries, such as Jacques Pierre Brissot; the American labor republicans, including
Thomas Skidmore, Ira Steward, and George McNeill; and some nineteenth-century African-American
political writers, such as David Walker and Frederick Douglass.
⁴ Rousseau sounds his most republican in the Second Discourse’s dedication to the citizens of Geneva;
Kant comes closest to republicanism in the ‘Rechtslehre,’ part one of the Metaphysics of Morals. If we
accept the interpretations of these authors offered by Viroli (1988) and Ripstein (2009) respectively,
then we might regard Rousseau and Kant as offering important variants on republicanism, but doing
so in my experience is apt to produce more confusion than insight.
INTRODUCTION 3
will be discussed as relevant and appropriate.⁵ But no political doctrine, no matter

how compelling on the merits, could properly count as republican if it did not cap-
ture reasonably well the main commitments expressed in the central writings of
Pettit, Skinner, and Viroli.⁶
I argue below that the classical and contemporary republicans together con-
stitute a coherent political tradition. By no means is this to say that classical and
contemporary republicans agree on everything, or even on most things. This too
should not be controversial. By analogy, consider the relationship between Rawls
and the classical social contract writers Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. Rawls claims
his theory is built on a core set of ideas found in those earlier writers and, in that
sense, that both he and they belong to a shared tradition. No one finds this claim
objectionable, even though there are many points, both large and small, on which
Rawls departs from his predecessors. That is because what everyone really cares
about is the best version of the social contract theory itself. Rather than com-
plain that Rawls has abandoned the tradition, we praise him for expressing the
best possible version of the central ideas distinctive of that tradition. In the same
way, contemporary republicans depart in many ways from their classical prede-
cessors; in doing so, far from abandoning the tradition, they express its best and
most persuasive features.
To properly constitute a coherent political tradition, it is plausible to say three
conditions should be met. First, there should be a set of shared principles that,
implicitly or explicitly, can be found in the writings of all members of that tra-
dition. Second, that set of shared principles should together (if not individually)
be distinctive and thus clearly separate the tradition from other related or nearby
traditions. And third, there should be some plausible story about the transmission
of those distinctive shared principles over time. In the following sections, I argue
that republicanism meets these conditions.
1.1 Republicanism: Principles
Let us say that a political doctrine or public philosophy is a reasonably coherent

set of normative principles for evaluating public laws, policies, institutions, and so
forth as better or worse. To be reasonably coherent, of course, a political doctrine
⁵ Significant contributions to the development of contemporary republican theory have been made
by Richard Bellamy, Jim Bohman, Victoria Costa, Richard Dagger, Alex Gourevitch, Sean Ingham,
Cécile Laborde, Jean-Fabien Spitz, Robert Taylor, and perhaps myself, among many others too nu-
merous to list in this footnote. In fairness, we should also note that many developments in republican
theory have been spurred by its most perceptive critics. Among the most important of these critics, I
might include Patten (1996), Carter (2008), Kramer (2008), Vinx (2010), Dowding (2011), and Simpson
(2017).
⁶ The ‘central writings’ here refer to Pettit (1997, 2012, 2014), Skinner (1986, 1998), and Viroli (2002).
I will of course cite as appropriate many other works by these authors as well.
must supply relative weights or ranks to its various principles, otherwise it would
provide no guidance in cases where the principles conflict. Both the principles and
their weighting should also be supported by some sort of justificatory apparatus
purporting to show why these principles ordered in this way represent the best
political doctrine on offer.
A suitable model might be Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness. Its main princi-
ples are the two principles of justice, the principles are lexically ordered, and the
original position argument supplies a justification for both the principles and their
lexical ordering. For the moment, I concentrate on specifying the main shared
principles distinctive of republicanism, postponing a detailed consideration of
ranking and justification.
All republicans, classical and contemporary, are committed to the following
claim:
Non-domination principle: In designing public laws, policies, institutions, and

so forth, priority should be given to reducing domination.
As stated, the principle is compatible with different interpretations of ‘priority’ and

‘reducing.’ One might hold that reducing domination should be given lexical prior-
ity over other considerations, for example, or merely that it be given greater weight
than other considerations. Likewise, one might argue that sum total domination
should be minimized, or that everyone should enjoy at least a sufficient degree of
non-domination, or something else. Republicans have differing views about these
issues, which I discuss in Chapter 3, but these debates are not presently relevant.
The non-domination principle should not be confused with its somewhat
weaker near-cousin which holds that priority should be given to reducing non-
consensual domination. Most republicans have not given a full consideration to
the various dimensions of this issue, no doubt because in practice it will not often
be relevant: usually, people do not willingly submit themselves to domination. But
in those specific cases where republicans have considered the issue, they have con-
sistently maintained that domination is bad even when consented to. For example,
the classical republicans often encountered the claim that hereditary monarchy
was unproblematic insofar as the people consented to that form of government, a
claim they strenuously rejected. Later republicans encountered the claim that the
domination of women in traditional marriage was unproblematic because women
consent to marriage, and they rejected that claim too. Likewise the claim that the
domination of workers is unproblematic because workers consent to the condi-
tions of their employment. In Chapter 3 I argue that on the best version of the
theory, we should indeed endorse the general conclusion that domination is always
bad, whether consented to or not.
Contemporary republicans actually endorse a stronger version of the non-
domination principle, which holds that we should give priority to reducing
INTRODUCTION 5
domination counting the domination of all persons the same. No classical repub-
lican argued explicitly against this view, and a few argued for it, at least in part.⁷
But we should be wary of attributing this view to most classical republicans, for
it is difficult to see how they might have reconciled it with the unreflective oblivi-
ousness they exhibited toward the claims of women, the working classes, and other
oppressed or disadvantaged persons.⁸ In this respect, however, they did not differ
in any remarkable way from most of their contemporaries.
All republicans also endorse:
Empire of law principle: Every public use of coercive force, whether by public
officials or ordinary citizens, should be controlled by law.
Here ‘coercive force’ means roughly the direct use or threat of violence or physical
restraint. By the ‘public’ use of coercive force, I mean to exclude the use of coer-
cive force in the so-called private or domestic sphere. For the most part, classical
republicans ignored the physical coercion that occurred within households, as did
nearly all early modern political writers.⁹ Later, I argue that republicans should
actually endorse a stronger version of the empire of law principle—one that drops
this restriction, and thus holds that every use of coercive force, public or private,
should be controlled by law.¹⁰
The empire of law principle entails rejecting anarchism, here meaning the view
that there should be no law—i.e., that we should govern ourselves by social norms
or conventions alone. More importantly, it entails rejecting the sovereignty prin-
ciple, held by Hobbes and some others, as well as weaker principles such as the
prerogative principle, typically endorsed by early modern royalists. The preroga-
tive principle holds that at least some top public officials (monarchs, for instance)
should have the authority to depart from law whenever, in their judgment, there
are good reasons for doing so. The sovereignty principle holds not only that
sovereigns have the authority to depart from law, but indeed that the will of the
sovereign is law.¹¹ The prerogative principle follows trivially from the sovereignty
principle for, as Hobbes says, “having power to make, and repeal laws,” a sovereign
“may when he pleaseth, free himself from that subjection, by repealing those laws
⁷ Here I refer to Wollstonecraft, who advocated for women; and the American labor republicans,
who advocated for the working classes. See Halldenius (2015) and Gourevitch (2015) respectively.
⁸ Many have complained about the parochialism of the classical republican authors: see Maddox
(2002), Goodin (2003), or Ando (2010), among others. See Chapter 3 for further discussion.
⁹ Wollstonecraft again being the main exception.
1⁰ Note that, if I am correct, no distinction between public and private spheres will be necessary, and
accordingly, I make no attempt in this work to defend such a distinction. It is introduced here purely
for the purpose of characterizing the view of classical republicans.
11 The sovereignty principle might seem less dangerous, and less contrary to republicanism, when
combined with a doctrine of popular sovereignty, as in the writings of Rousseau. However, the excesses
of the French revolution and our experience with various forms of authoritarian populism suggest the
reverse. For further discussion, see Chapter 4.
that trouble him” (1651, 176). Contrary to a common assumption, most early
modern royalists did not endorse the sovereignty principle: they did not generally
hold that kings make law, only that they have the right to break it.¹² The empire of
law principle need not be incompatible with the existence of emergency powers,
provided those powers are themselves suitably controlled; whether there should
be any such powers, however, remains an open question. More on this topic in
Chapter 4.
The argument for the empire of law principle is basically that domination cannot
be reduced to anything like an acceptable minimum without at least subjecting the
use of coercive force to legal control: “the liberty of a commonwealth consisteth in
the empire of her laws,” as Harrington says (1656, 170). Importantly, republicans
do not usually believe that satisfying the empire of law principle is sufficient for
securing the full measure of non-domination we should aspire to, only that it is
necessary for doing so, and that it goes part way all on its own. There are many
other forms of coercion (economic, cultural, ideological, etc.) that might properly
concern us, and the empire of law as such does not address these directly. But pub-
lic policies as might address them cannot be built except on the platform provided
by an empire of law. More on these points in Chapter 3.
Finally, all republicans endorse:
Popular control principle: Top public officials at least must be subject to suffi-
cient popular control.
Republicans, classical and contemporary, disagree on how many public officials

ought to be subject to popular control, but they all agree that at least the top-
most ones must be. ‘Top public officials’ here refers in the first instance to those
highest-ranking executive officials who in practice direct the coercive apparatus of
the government (or state)—namely, monarchs, presidents, prime ministers, chan-
cellors, councils of state, and so forth.¹³ As Milton writes, “they that shall boast …
to be a free Nation, and not have in themselves the power to remove, or to abolish
any governour supreme” have only “a ridiculous and painted freedom,” and are in
truth “under tyranny and servitude” (1649, 82).¹⁴
Republicans, classical and contemporary, also disagree on the degree and char-
acter of popular control that would count as ‘sufficient.’ Contemporary republicans
12 Here see Allen (1938, 3–12) or Zagorin (1954, 189–196).

13 Why not top lawmaking authorities? Two reasons: first, because the political significance of law-
making presupposes a general respect for the law we cannot always take for granted; second, because
there can be governments (or states) without law, but not without instruments of coercion. The proper
constitution of legislative authority is an important issue, but a downstream one: see Chapter 4.
1⁴ Cf., Streater: only through “the yearly election of all Officers in greatest trust” did the Romans for
so long prevent their magistrates from “obtaining to those advantages of making themselves Masters
of the common Liberty” (1653, 1); or Nedham: the “people never had any real Liberty, till they were
possess’d of the power of … changing Governments … as often as they should judge expedient, for
their own well-being, and the good of the Publike” (1656, 10).
INTRODUCTION 7
generally endorse a strong version of the principle that insists on democratic pop-
ular control. In contrast, the classical republicans were not generally enthusiastic
about democracy as an implementation of popular control. Some claimed they
would be satisfied with a very weak degree of popular control indeed.¹⁵ Impor-
tantly, however, even the latter insisted that popular control must be institutionally
endogenous to the political system to count as sufficient. In other words, it must be
possible for the people to redirect or replace wayward top public officials through
the operation of ordinary political processes, without resort to violence or the
threat of violence. As Milton writes, public officials in a republic
… are perpetual servants and drudges to the public …; [they] are not elevated
above thir brethren …, [they] walk the streets as other men, may be spoken to
freely, familiarly, friendly, without adoration … [because] in a free Common-
wealth, any governor or chief counselor offending, may be remov’d and punishd
without the least commotion.
(1660, 422–423)
While the classical republicans had no problem endorsing popular resistance, they
did not believe (as did John Locke, for example) that the threat of popular re-
sistance alone constitutes a sufficient degree of popular control over top public
officials.¹⁶
The popular control principle entails rejecting constitutional indifferentism, the
claim that the constitutional form of a political order does not matter, inde-
pendently of how well or poorly the society is actually governed.¹⁷ Hobbes, for
example, held that the amount of freedom a people enjoy is not a function of how
their political order is constituted, but rather of the choices made by their rulers,
whoever those happen to be: good rulers might grant more freedom, bad rulers
less. “Whether a commonwealth be monarchical, or popular,” he says, “the free-
dom is still the same” (1651, 143). Republicans reject this view. Their argument for
popular control is roughly that in practice it will be necessary to secure an empire
of law, and therefore to advance non-domination. As Harrington writes,
[T]he magistracy … is different in different commonwealths; nevertheless, there

is one condition of it that must be the same in every one, or it dissolves the com-
monwealth where it is wanting. And this is no less than that, as the hand of the
1⁵ For instance, Molesworth would apparently have been satisfied with a head of state who is elected
by elites and holds office for life, provided there is a constitutional mechanism for impeachment.
1⁶ It follows that republicans must deny there is an unlimited right of self-determination, if we sup-
pose that right to include the right of a people to constitute themselves as, say, an hereditary monarchy:
“no people can lawfully surrender or cede their liberty” says Price (1778, 89).
1⁷ I borrow this term from Vinx (2010).
magistrate is the executive power of the law, so the head of the magistrate is
answerable unto the people that his execution be according unto the law ….
(1656, 174)
I discuss the details of this argument in Chapter 4.¹⁸

In the following sections, I argue that these three principles are in fact shared by
the canonical republican writers, and that together they are sufficient to distinguish
republicanism from other traditions—from liberalism, most importantly.¹⁹ Before
moving on, however, I should mention a few other ideas commonly associated
with republicanism.
The first is the doctrine of the mixed constitution—roughly, the idea that po-
litical systems should be designed so that the various powers and authorities of
government are dispersed among a plurality of departments or agencies, each
having at least some ability to block or restrain the activities of the others. This
doctrine was first clearly articulated in Polybius’s famous analysis of the Roman
constitution, and it was restated near the opening of Machiavelli’s Discourses.²⁰
Throughout the early modern period it was a popular theme among many re-
publican writers, and for a time some contemporary historians regarded it as a
suitable litmus test for who belongs in the classical republican tradition.²¹ The
doctrine evolved over time, and by the end of the classical republican period
was often somewhat misleadingly described as the doctrine of the separation of
powers.²²
There are two reasons, however, for not including it among the core repub-
lican commitments. The first problem is that some republican authors appear
ambivalent about the mixed constitution, such as Vane, De la Court, or Price; and
others actively resisted it, such as Milton and Paine. At the same time, the mixed
constitution was endorsed by many authors who were not republicans, such as
Locke; or who were only doubtfully republican, such as Montesquieu. The second
is that, even if the mixed constitution were a part of standard republican politi-
cal doctrine, it would be a downstream principle. That is to say, our reasons for
1⁸ Since the popular control principle derives its support from the non-domination principle, repub-
licans are not committed to democracy for its own sake: this marks a difference between republicans
and many democratic theorists. Again, see Chapter 4.
1⁹ One might plausibly distinguish narrow republicanism, defined as those writers who endorse all
three principles, from broad republicanism, which includes all those who endorse at least the non-
domination principle. The main difficulty with this is that it would count as republican some writers
who do not believe having a republic is necessary! (See below.)
2⁰ Polybius’s analysis was also enthusiastically embraced by Cicero, but this was of limited historical
significance because his De re publica was lost until the nineteenth century, and thus unavailable to the
classical republicans.
21 See for example Fink (1962).
22 Misleadingly because the important part of the doctrine is that the different departments of
government operate as restraints on one another, not that the powers of government be formally
distinguished into legislative, executive, and judicial functions. The later is merely one more or less
convenient device for implementing a dispersion of power across multiple departments.
INTRODUCTION 9
endorsing the mixed constitution must surely derive from the more fundamental
core principles described above, together with contingent facts about specific po-
litical and historical contexts. If it turns out that republican aims are not well served
by mixed constitutions under certain conditions, this fact would not undermine
the coherence or continuity of the republican tradition. See Chapter 4 for further
discussion, however.
The second idea commonly associated with the republican tradition is civic
virtue. Chapter 5 discusses these issues in greater detail, but for now we may regard
civic virtue as roughly the disposition of citizens to conduct themselves in ways
that support rather than undermine republican political institutions. All repub-
licans have been concerned to ensure that civic virtue is sufficiently prevalent in
society to achieve stability in this sense, and all republicans are prepared to de-
sign institutions and public policies with the express aim of securing such stability.
This sets republicans apart from those contemporary liberals committed to strong
principles of neutrality (see below).
Again, however, a commitment to actively promoting civic virtue should not be
counted among the core republican commitments. It is a downstream principle,
derived from the core principles above, together with contingent facts about the
political and historical context. I here merely assert what is actually my sense of
the conclusion of an extensive and sometimes contentious debate between civic
republicans and civic humanists.²³ Whether one fully endorses this view, however,
is less important for present purposes. To reiterate what was said earlier, the aim of
this book is to expound as rigorous and comprehensive an account as possible of
the republican political doctrine expressed in the central writings of Pettit, Skinner,
and Viroli, together with their classical republican forbearers. Since they, along
with many other contemporary civic or neo-Roman republican authors, are firmly
committed to the instrumental view of civic virtue, that is the version of republican
theory this book aims to elaborate. My own sympathies with this interpretation are
matter of public record.²⁴ My hope, however, is that this work will be of value to
anyone interested in what the best available articulation of this interpretation of
republicanism might look like, even if their ultimate aim is to critique, or indeed
reject, the theory.
1.2 Republicanism: Historical Sketch
The classical republicans do not count among their ranks any truly great systematic
political thinkers on a par with, say, Hobbes or Locke. The bulk of their writings
23 Among the works decisive in bringing about the ‘instrumental turn’ from civic humanism to civic
republicanism, see especially Skinner (1984, 1986), Sunstein (1988), Spitz (1995), Dagger (1997), and
Pettit (1997).
2⁴ See Lovett (2005, 469–472) and (2010, 215–217).
were timely interventions in specific local political controversies.²⁵ It follows that

we do not often find in those writings the sort of rigor or comprehensiveness we
now expect from sophisticated political theories, and so we should be wary of
attributing to the classical republicans detailed views regarding technical issues
that did not occur to them. Nevertheless, the core republican ideas are assuredly
present in the tradition, and they are interesting to trace over time. What follows
is only a sketch, drawing on the considerable historiographical contributions of
many others.²⁶ It does not aspire to originality; its aim is only to persuade the
reader that classical republicanism does indeed constitute a coherent political
tradition, according to the criteria suggested earlier.
Of course the classical republicans did not express their views in the proposi-
tional language of the previous section. Indeed, they more nearly expressed their
views in the reverse order of the presentation above. The popular control principle
usually appears front and center as an emphatic rejection of monarchy:
Had they but once tasted the sweets of peace and liberty both together, they would
soon be of the opinion of Herodotus and Demosthenes that there is no difference
between king and tyrant ….
(Nedham 1650, 127)
[A] king must be ador’d like a Demigod, with a dissolute and haughtie court about
him, of vast expense and luxurie … . Certainly … that people must needs be madd
or strangely infatuated, that build the chief hope of thir common happiness or
safetie on a single person: who if he happen to be good, can do no more then
another man, if to be bad, hath in his hand to do more evil without check, then
millions of other men.
(Milton 1660, 422–423)
To the evil of monarch we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the
first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter
of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity.
(Paine 1776, 15)
It is impossible for any man, when the most favourable circumstances concur,
to acquire sufficient knowledge and strength of mind to discharge the duties
2⁵ Naturally, there are partial exceptions: Machiavelli wrote after his retirement from public life,
Harrington aspired to a degree of philosophical detachment, and so on.
2⁶ To give a very partial list: on Italian republicanism, see Skinner (1983, 1984), Viroli (1998), and Ju-
rdjevic (2001); on seventeenth-century English republicanism, Dzelzainis (1995), Skinner (1998, 2000),
Lovett (2005), (2012a), and Hamel (2013); on Dutch republicanism, Velema (2002); on eighteenth-
century English republicanism, Robbins (1959); on French republicanism, Hammersley (2010); on
early American republicanism, Bailyn (1965) and Sellers (1994); on Wollstonecraft, Coffee (2012) and
Halldenius (2015); on the American labor republicans, Gourevitch (2015); and on nineteenth-century
African-American republican thought, Coffee (2020) and Rogers (2020).
INTRODUCTION 11
of a king, entrusted with uncontrouled power; how then must they be violated
when … all the feelings of a man are stifled by flattery, and reflection shut out
by pleasure! Surely it is madness to make the fate of thousands depend on the
caprice of a weak fellow creature, whose very station sinks him necessarily below
the meanest of his subjects!
(Wollstonecraft 1792, 83)
The rejection of monarchy is nearly as good a litmus test as any for who in the early
modern period properly counts as a republican.²⁷ Outside that period, of course,
it is unreliable on its own, insofar as other political traditions rejected monarchy
as well.
Having rejected monarchy, the classical republicans characterize its alternative
as a ‘free state’ or ‘republic,’ expressions they use interchangeably for reasons that
will soon become clear.²⁸ Either from the examples they give, the definitions
they propose, or some combination of these, it is evident that by a republic
they mean any political order answering to what we have termed the empire
of law and popular control conditions. In this respect, the deep influence of
Livy’s history of Rome is no doubt centrally responsible. At a crucial junc-
ture early in his narrative, the Romans expel their kings, abolish the monarchy,
and institute a republic. The opening lines of the second book then run as
follows:
Liberi iam hinc populi Romani res pace belloque gestas, annuos magistratus,
imperiaque legum potentiora quam hominum peragam.
This passage might fairly be regarded as the urtext of classical republicanism.²⁹ All
the early modern republican authors are certain to have read Livy, and to have
been familiar with these memorable lines. Translations were available, though no
doubt for the most part they read it in Latin. In contemporary English the passage
reads:
2⁷ More precisely, the rejection of any monarchical constitution in which the monarch is in practice
the head of state and not subject to popular control. Some classical republicans would reassure their
readers that they had no objection to monarchy, but an attentive reading reveals that they mean only
as a ceremonial office, or as the title for some public official who is actually elected and thus subject to
popular control. Henry Neville’s Plato Redivivus illustrates this rhetorical strategy. Nelson (2014) errs
in assuming that the distinctive republican worry concerns the concentration of executive power in a
single person, rather than the lack of popular control over that person. The passage from Harrington
quoted earlier should disabuse us of this notion: he explicitly notes that a variety of executive forms are
consistent with republican principles, provided only that they are subject to popular control.
2⁸ Prior to the renaissance, the term ‘republic’ referred more expansively to any good regime: as
Hankins (2010) shows, it was only in the fourteenth century that it came to denote more specifically
non-monarchical free states. For this reason, among others, it is anachronistic to refer to ancient authors
such as Cicero as ‘republicans’ in the sense of the early modern tradition. See Appendix A.
2⁹ Though Skinner (2000, 2002) has suggested a similar status for the opening sections of the Digest
of Roman law, where freedom and slavery are defined as antonyms.
Henceforth my theme will be the history in peace and war of the free people
of Rome, with annual magistrates, and the authority of law greater than that
of men.³⁰
Here notice the two features Livy specifically highlights as marking the beginning
of Rome’s republican period: the fact that top public officials are now elected an-
nually, and thus subject to popular control; and the fact that no one is above the
law. Also note that before these changes, the Romans were not a free people, but
after they were: being a free people and being a republic amount to the same thing.
The classical republicans unanimously regarded ancient Rome as the leading
example in history of a republic. Commonly they cited also Athens and Sparta,
though with varying degrees of conviction. (Athens certainly satisfied the popular
control condition, and perhaps also the empire of law condition; Sparta probably
satisfied the empire of law condition, but only doubtfully the popular control con-
dition.) Some added biblical Israel prior to the monarchy. For modern examples,
they referred most often to Venice, Florence, and the Dutch Republic. England was
a republic during the interregnum; it should also have been recognized as such by
the middle of the eighteenth century onward, though few other than Montesquieu
actually said as much.³¹ The American states were republics after their break from
England, but not before.³²
When attempting to offer more abstract definitions of a republic or free state,
the classical republicans always reproduce in some form or other the basic idea in
Livy—namely, that a republic is a political order answering to the popular con-
trol and empire of law conditions. Sometimes they lean more toward the popular
control aspect:
I give the name of popular governments to those of Rome, Athens, Sparta, and
the like … [where] power is conferr’d upon the chief magistrates … by the free
consent of a willing people, and such a part as they think fit is still retained and
executed in their own assemblies … .
(Sidney 1698, 189)
3⁰ In Holland’s translation, available to the English republicans, the passage reads: “Now will I de-
scribe from henceforth, the acts both in war and peace of the people of Rome, a free state now from this
time forward: their yearely Magistrates and governours: the authoritie and rule of laws, more powerfull
and mightie than that of men” (1600, 44).
31 Partly this was due to the dangerously revolutionary connotations of the term ‘republic’ in Eng-
land, and partly to the backdoor process by which the transition ultimately occurred: the shift of
executive authority from crown to cabinet meant that the de facto top public officials were now subject
to popular control in the form of parliamentary elections. Montesquieu, correctly, described England
as “a republic, disguised under the form of monarchy” (1748, 68).
32 Not before, insofar as colonies are not republics even if they are the colonies of a republic: colo-
nial status as such violates the popular control condition. A republic that “governs by its will” various
territories, says Price, is “an empire consisting of one free state, and the rest in slavery” (1778, 35). In
agreeing with Price, the American revolutionaries were perfectly in line with Machiavelli’s analysis two
centuries before: “the colonies sent out either by a republic or a prince … are not at the outset free,”
and seldom “make great progress” (1531, 101).
INTRODUCTION 13
By the word Republik… I understand thereby such a State wherein an Assembly

… hath the Power to cause all their Resolutions, Orders, and Laws, to be obeyed
and put in execution.
(De la Court 1702, 369)
[W]e may define a republic to be … a government which derives all its powers
directly or indirectly from the great body of the people; and … that the persons
administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people … .
(Madison 1788a, 100–101)
At other times, they lean more toward the empire of law condition:
[A] commonwealth is an empire of laws and not of men.

(Harrington 1656, 170)
For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought
to be King; and there ought to be no other.
(Paine 1776, 34)
[N]o man will contend, that a nation can be free, that is not governed by
fixed laws. All other government … is the government of mere will and plea-
sure, whether it be exercised by one, a few, or many. Republican writers in
general … have maintained … that legitimate governments, or well-ordered
commonwealths, … were those where the laws prevailed.
(Adams 1797, 124)
And sometimes, both aspects appear in more or less equal balance:
There, without any particular person or prince to give them a constitution, they
[the Republic of Venice] began to live as a community under laws which seemed
to them appropriate for their maintenance.
(Machiavelli 1531, 101)
[It] does declare the governed to be in the state of free Citizens … [that they] agree
to be subject and yield obedience to the Laws, that are from time to time made
amongst them by their own free and common consent. So as this sort of Empire
or Government is that of Laws, and not of men … .
(Vane 1659, 4)
[W]e have no other way of distinguishing between free nations and such as are not
so, than that the free are governed by their own laws and magistrates according
to their own mind … .
(Sidney 1698, 440)
Reading in context, there is rarely any doubt as to what these authors mean,
especially if we keep the passage from Livy firmly in mind.
Having characterized the republican alternative to monarchy, the classical re-
publicans then go on to extol republican government on the grounds that it is the
only political order in which people genuinely enjoy freedom or liberty:
[P]eople never had any real Liberty, till they were possess’d of the power of …
changing Governments, enacting and repealing Laws, together with a power of
chusing and deputing whom they pleased to this work, as often as they should
judge expedient, for their own well-being, and the good of the Publike.
(Nedham 1650, 10)
[Filmer asserts] that the greatest liberty in the world is for a people to live un-
der a monarch… . If it be liberty to live under such a government, I desire to
know what is slavery. … [T]he Grecians, Italians, Gauls, Germans, Spaniards,
and Carthaginians … were esteemed free nations, because they abhorred such a
subjection. They were, and would be governed only by laws of their own making.
(Sidney 1698, 17)
It is not … the mere possession of liberty that denominates a citizen or commu-

nity free, but that security for the possession of it which arises from … a free
government … .
(Price 1778, 82)
A free republic is the best of governments, and the greatest blessing which mortals
can aspire to. … [And] an empire of laws is a characteristic of a free republic only.
(Adams 1797, 87)
Hence the habitual tendency of these authors to employ the terms ‘republic’ and
‘free state’ interchangeably: in effect, they mean the same thing, because to en-
joy freedom is precisely to live in a society answering to the popular control and
empire of laws conditions.
The final step is to observe that when the classical republicans praise the freedom
or liberty enjoyed by the citizens of a republic, they mean freedom in a particu-
lar sense—specifically, they mean freedom from domination.³³ Sidney expresses
this perhaps most clearly. As he says, “the liberty asserted is not a licentiousness
of doing what is pleasing” (1698, 9).³⁴ Rather, “liberty solely consists in an inde-
pendency upon the will of another,” whereas “by the name of slave we understand
33 On this point, see especially Skinner (1984, 1986, 1998), Pettit (1997), and Viroli (2002).
3⁴ Compare Milton: “none can love freedom heartilie, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but
licence” (1649, 53); or Nedham: “Freedom … consists not in a License to do what you list, but … in
having wholesome Laws suted to ever Man’s state and condition” (1650, 9); or Price: “Licentiousness,
which has been commonly mentioned, as an extreme of liberty, is indeed its opposite” (1778, 27).
INTRODUCTION 15
a man, who can neither dispose of his person nor goods, but enjoys all at the will
of his master” (1698, 17).³⁵ In other words, freedom does not mean the absence of
constraint or interference, but the absence of domination. The relevant distinction
is most clearly drawn in the case of the kindly master who frequently lets his ser-
vant do as he please, without intervening. On the republican view, the subject of
the kindly master remains unfree: the “weight of chains, number of stripes, hard-
ness of labour, and other effects of a master’s cruelty, may make one servitude
more miserable than another,” but nevertheless “he is a slave who serves the best
and gentlest man in the world, as well as he who serves the worst” (1698, 441).³⁶
While often couched in a rhetorical contrast between freedom and slavery, it was
monarchy that the early modern republicans most centrally had in mind. The real
teeth in the theory was the claim the subjects of a monarch are not free, even when
some particular monarch happens to be benevolent. “I denie not but that ther may
be such a king, who may regard the common good before his own,” writes Milton,
but “it behoves not a wise nation to commit the sum of thir wellbeing, the whole
state of thir safeie to fortune” (1660, 434).³⁷ Later, the same reasoning could be used
to argue that even the wives of benevolent husbands are not free, and later still that
even the employees of benevolent employers are not free. Properly understood,
the republican conception of freedom has radical implications, as indeed its more
perceptive critics plainly recognized (more on this shortly).
Notice, however, that while the classical republicans present their views very
differently from contemporary republicans, their main ideas are structurally the
same. The classical republicans talk about liberty, by which they mean non-
domination; and they hold that people cannot enjoy liberty except in a republic,
which they define as a political order answering to the empire of law and pop-
ular control conditions. This is logically equivalent to the three core principles
articulated in the previous section.
Now for the transmission story.³⁸ The basic materials for republican theory
were latent in ancient sources readily available to early modern readers with a
humanistic education—most especially, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, and the Corpus Ju-
ris. It was the writers actually living in the renaissance republics of Northern Italy
who began to fit the pieces together. Of these, by far the most profoundly influ-
ential was Machiavelli, whose Discorsi on Livy may be regarded as the founding
text of the classical republican tradition: most of the main ideas circulating in
republican literature for the next two centuries could be found in at least some
3⁵ Compare Trenchard and Gordon: “Liberty is, to live upon one’s own terms; slavery is, to live at
the mere mercy of another” (1755, 430).
3⁶ Compare Price: “while held under the power of masters,” people “cannot be denominated free
however equitably and kindly they may be treated” (1778, 77).
3⁷ “I could never be perswaded,” says John Hall, that it would be “happy for a people … to be numbred
as the herd and Inheritance of One to whose lust and madness they were absolutely subject” (1651, 1).
3⁸ Many have contributed to the telling of this story, including most famously Robbins (1959),
Pocock (1975), and Skinner (1998). Hammersley (2020) provides an excellent recent overview.
embryonic form in that work.³⁹ The Discorsi were translated into English and
widely read in the seventeenth century. Their tremendous influence is apparent
from the frequency with which English republicans such as Harrington and Ned-
ham heap praise on the ‘divine Machiavel’ and deploy his ideas in their political
writings.
After the restoration, some of the English republicans more or less retired from
public life, while others such as Sidney fled to Holland, where they influenced and
where influenced in turn by the Dutch republicans. Republican ideas resurfaced
during the Exclusion crisis, especially in the writings of Sidney and Neville, both of
whom drew on Machiavelli directly, as well as on Harrington and the other earlier
English republicans.
After the revolution of 1688, republicanism entered a period of relative intel-
lectual stagnation, but the tradition was nevertheless kept alive by the so-called
‘real Whigs’—an expression which derived from Molesworth’s preface to the 1721
edition of his translation of Fracogallia.⁴⁰ One of the more important vehicles by
which republican ideas bridged the eighteenth century consisted of repeated re-
publications of the classic republican texts. John Toland published new editions
of Milton, Hall, Harrington, Neville, and Sidney around the turn of the century;
and about the same time, John Darby published works by Milton, Sidney, Har-
rington, and the Dutch republican Pieter de la Court.⁴¹ These volumes would
have been found on the bookshelves of republican sympathizers throughout Eng-
land and America. Among these, the wealthy Thomas Hollis was later moved to
publish new, handsomely bound critical editions of the canonical texts around
mid-century. Sidney, Nedham, Harrington, Molesworth, and others came out in
this series.
Hollis was lavish in distributing these editions to libraries throughout England
and America, and so it was that when the American revolution came, republican
ideas were ready to hand.⁴² Adams reprinted extensive passages from Machiavelli
and Sidney in his Defense of the Constitutions, and Jefferson praised Sidney as one
of the two most important inspirations for American political ideas (Locke be-
ing the other). Even Madison—who of all the American framers was most cagey
about his sources—clearly betrays the influence of Machiavelli in a 1792 editorial
attacking Hamilton’s nascent federalist party, which he titled “Who Are the Best
Keepers of the People’s Liberties?”⁴³
3⁹ Ironically, it was only just as the classical tradition was coming to a close that Madison, Woll-
stonecraft, and the American labor republicans began to move beyond Machiavelli in a decisive
manner.
⁴⁰ The preface was subsequently published independently as the Principles of a Real Whig.
⁴1 Presumably to enhance sales, Darby’s 1702 edition of Pieter de la Court’s True Interest and Political
Maxims of the Republick of Holland claims the more famous John De Witt as its author.
⁴2 For a detailed study of the influence of republican ideas on the framers, see Sellers (1994).
⁴3 Machiavelli’s Discourses, book one, Chapter 5, is titled “Whether the Safeguarding of Liberty
can be more safely entrusted to the Populace or to the Upper Class.” Madison’s editorial agrees with
INTRODUCTION 17
1.3 Republicanism and Liberalism
The nineteenth century was not kind to republicanism. Many republicans were
initially enthusiastic about the French revolution. Paine and Wollstonecraft pub-
lished supportive tracts and travelled to France in person. Central writings in the
tradition by Milton, Harrington, Sidney, and others were translated into French
and widely circulated.⁴⁴ Paine was even elected to the National Convention, where
he allied with the moderate Girondins led by Brissot. Sadly, the violence of the
conservative reaction soon radicalized the revolutionaries, which then discredited
their republican sympathizers outside France.⁴⁵ In a few corners—most especially
among the American labor republicans and some African-American political
writers—republican ideas continued to inspire for a time, but they were eventu-
ally eclipsed by the rise of Marxism, liberalism, and nationalism, and thus fell into
obscurity.
Before these events, however, republicanism and liberalism evolved in parallel,
and were to some extent intertwined.⁴⁶ This has led some to doubt whether re-
publicanism ever constituted or could constitute a distinctive tradition in its own
right.⁴⁷ Such skepticism is too strong. Republicanism and liberalism are indeed
distinguishable, but they are not, or at least not necessarily, incompatible political
doctrines.
On one plausible view, liberalism emerged from the unhappy experience of
religious conflict following the Protestant reformation.⁴⁸ For generations, it had
been widely, if only implicitly, assumed that social order was not possible except
on the basis of some shared comprehensive doctrine such as medieval Christian-
ity supplied. Of course we may disagree about a great many lesser things, it was
thought, but how can we possibly live together in peace and order unless we agree
on the most fundamental and important ethical, moral, and theological questions?
It was precisely this view, inherited by Protestants and Catholics alike, that made
religious disagreement so fearsome, and its resolution by any available means so
urgent.
After more than a century of bloody armed conflict failed to produce victory for
either side, however, the need for some sort of modus vivendi gradually became
apparent. Beginning with the 1648 treaty of Westphalia, grudging acceptance of
Machiavelli in concluding that freedom is more safely entrusted to the people. It is probable that Madi-
son is not borrowing from Machiavelli directly, but from Thomas Hollis’s edition of Nedham, which
recapitulates Machiavelli.
⁴⁴ See Hammersley (2010).
⁴⁵ On this dynamic, see Philp (1998). Of course, republicanism was not so discredited among
some radical thinkers: Roberts (2017), Muldoon (2019), and O’Shea (2020) trace interesting historical
connections between the republican and socialist traditions.
⁴⁶ See Kalyvas and Katznelson (2008), and MacGilvray (2011).
⁴⁷ For example, Patten (1996), Larmore (2001), or Moen (2021).
⁴⁸ This account of the origins of liberalism is famously sketched in Rawls (1993, xxiii–xxviii).
Alternative accounts abound, however.
disagreement evolved through the writings of John Locke and his Enlightenment
successors into a principled defense of toleration and, eventually, a positive af-
firmation of diversity. This was the kernel that blossomed during the nineteenth
century in the writings of J. S. Mill and others into the modern liberal ideals of
individualism and the protected private sphere.
Here I will take liberalism to be any political doctrine committed to:
Toleration principle: Public laws, policies, institutions, and so forth, should

impose no special disadvantages on any worthwhile conception of the good.
The modifier ‘worthwhile’ is meant to indicate only that on any plausible account,
the domain of toleration need not extend to every possible conception of the good
without exception. Some conceptions may have no possible benefit for those who
hold them, for instance, and others might militate against whatever prior values
underlie our commitment to toleration in the first place.⁴⁹
There is no logical inconsistency between the toleration principle and the three
core republican principles discussed earlier. Indeed, many classical republicans
expressly avowed toleration: Pieter de la Court, for example, and Paine, Jeffer-
son, and Madison as well. We might say such authors are liberal republicans. All
contemporary republicans are liberal republicans, so defined, and indeed Pettit
has a plausible argument to show that the toleration principle can be derived
from the non-domination principle (see Chapter 5). Conversely, we might imag-
ine someone who regards the toleration principle as central, but also accepts the
three republican principles in a subordinate role: we might say such an author is a
republican liberal. Locke was close to being a republican liberal, but not quite.⁵⁰
Republicanism is not compatible with certain stronger versions of liberalism,
however. Two in particular are of relevance here. The first are those liberals who
replace the non-domination principle with a non-interference principle. Earlier I
noted that the republican ideal of freedom from domination has potentially radical
implications once the scope of concern is properly extended to include women,
servants and slaves, the workings classes, and so forth. The more perceptive critics
of republicanism clearly recognized this, and on occasion said as much openly:
[T]hose conception of liberty ought to be rejected, which, by making that essential

to civil freedom which is unattainable in experience, inflame expectations that
⁴⁹ Locke does not extend toleration to atheists and Catholics on the grounds that their promises to
adhere to the social contract cannot be reliable; contemporary liberals may want to exclude fascists and
others actively hostile to the value of equal respect; and so on. For further discussion, see Chapter 5.
⁵⁰ Locke shared the republican conception of freedom, and thus might be thought to have accepted
the non-domination principle; depending on how one interprets his discussion of prerogative power,
he may or may not have adhered to the empire of law principle as well: for discussion, see Hallde-
nius (2003) and Layman (2020, 27–38). But Locke did not endorse the popular control principle, as
discussed in Chapter 4. Thomas (2017) might stand for a contemporary republican liberal as defined
here.
INTRODUCTION 19
can never be gratified, and disturb the public content with complaints, which no
wisdom or benevolence of government can remove.
(Paley 1785, 315)
In the wake of the French revolution, Napoleonic wars, and industrial revolution,
Paley’s warning no doubt appeared prescient to many. Fortunately, an alternative
way of thinking about liberty was ready to hand: namely, Hobbes’s conception
of freedom as non-interference. On this view, one is free simply to the extent
that one’s choices are not actively frustrated by others. It was easy to see that
freedom so understood might be compatible not only with monarchy (Hobbes’s
main concern), but also with traditional family arrangements, with the condition
of servitude, and with wage labor relations. Reasonably benevolent rulers, hus-
bands, masters, and employers will often refrain from frustrating the choices of
their subjects, wives, servants, and workers, leaving them to that extent free.⁵¹
Accordingly, Paley and Bentham enthusiastically embraced a non-interference
principle in place of the republican non-domination principle, and their combined
influence was such that this became the universally accepted version of liberal-
ism for the duration of the nineteenth century.⁵² With a little help from Benjamin
Constant, the republican conception of freedom as non-domination was misin-
terpreted and, in time, forgotten.⁵³ Many contemporary liberals, most famously
Isaiah Berlin, have endorsed the non-interference principle. Republicanism is not
compatible with such versions of liberalism.
The second version of liberalism incompatible with republicanism is any ver-
sion that substitutes a stronger neutrality principle for the toleration principle.
The neutrality principle holds that public laws, policies, institutions, and so forth,
should be equally accommodating of all worthwhile conception of the good.
Many, though certainly not all, contemporary liberals subscribe to the neutrality
principle.⁵⁴ Republicans, however, cannot. Clearly there are conceptions of the
good according to which an active engagement in the political affairs of society
is viewed with indifference or even abhorrence, and presumably not all such con-
ceptions can be disregarded as strictly worthless (or at any rate, not without the
danger of circularity). Even if they do not impose special legal or economic dis-
abilities on such conceptions, public measures expressly designed to promote civic
⁵1 Of course not all liberals embraced the conservative possibilities opened by this way of thinking
about freedom, though many did. The point is rather that the ideal of freedom from domination is
inherently progressive in a way that the ideal of freedom from interference is not.
⁵2 In addition to Paley and Bentham, J. S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Henry Sidgwick all subscribed
to the conception of freedom as non-interference. See Pettit (1997, 41–50) and MacGilvray (2011, 150–
173) for more detail. Ghosh (2020, 39–45) has a somewhat different interpretation.
⁵3 In his famous lecture on “The Liberty of the Ancients and the Liberty of the Moderns Compared,”
Constant associated republicanism with the views of Rousseau, and thus with the excesses of the French
revolution.
⁵⁴ Prominent liberal neutralists include Dworkin (1985), Rawls (1993), and Patten (2012). The most
prominent liberal rejecting neutrality is no doubt Raz (1986).
virtue nevertheless afford them less favorable treatment than other conceptions,
violating neutrality. Since republicans are committed to such measures, republi-
canism is not compatible with any version of liberalism that includes a neutrality
principle.
I further discuss conceptions of freedom in Chapter 2, and toleration and neu-
trality in Chapter 5. The aim here is only to clarify the relationship between
liberalism and republicanism. In review, contemporary republicans generally en-
dorse the toleration principle. Later I argue they are correct to do so, and thus
that the best available version of the republican theory is liberal republican-
ism. However, republicans must reject those versions of liberalism that substitute
non-interference for non-domination, as well as those that embrace a neutrality
principle.
1.4 Method and Approach
This book aims to expound as rigorous and comprehensive an account of republi-

can political theory as possible. Whether republicanism is the best theory on offer
remains to be seen. Obviously it holds many attractions for me, but as Rawls fa-
mously remarked, every theory is wrong somewhere.⁵⁵ To regard this as a problem
is to misunderstand the nature and role of theoretical reflection. When our world
seems to be in order and we have few doubts about what to do, theoretical reflec-
tion is unnecessary. The spur to theory is uncertainty, and its point is the resolution
of practical doubt. Once a theory, even when incomplete or imperfect, provides
us with a well-founded confidence to proceed, it has done what it is supposed to
do. Of course, our confidence must be well-founded: it cannot depend on our ig-
noring the sources of doubt, say, or on our refusing to admit obviously relevant
considerations. But political theories that fail to provide practical guidance, either
by being too utopian or too acquiescent, are pointless theories.⁵⁶
What sort of guidance does republicanism offer? Both classical and contem-
porary republicans have operated across a range of levels of idealization. Many
classical republicans were focused on making discrete interventions in immediate
political controversies: as we might now say, their contributions were exercises
⁵⁵ “Objections by way of counterexamples are to be made with care, since these may tell us only
what we know already, namely that our theory is wrong somewhere. … All theories are presumably
mistaken in places. The real question at any given time is which of the views already proposed is the
best approximation overall” (Rawls 1971, 52).
⁵⁶ This orientation toward theory derives from the Peirce and the other American pragmatists: for
some elaboration, see Chapter 3. Note that political theories aiming to reconcile us to an existing politi-
cal order are not necessarily pointless on this view, for they may guide our efforts toward preservation.
Here ‘utopian’ is used in the narrow pejorative sense described by Estlund (2020, 11–12): political the-
ories are utopian if they will not succeed even when everyone tries as hard as they reasonably can. But,
as he argues, political theories are not pointless merely because ‘realistically’ people will not try hard
enough for them to succeed.
INTRODUCTION 21
in non-ideal theory. Others, such as Madison, worked at a more general level,

abstracting beyond the range of immediate concerns to broader questions of high-
level institutional design. And a very few engaged in what we would now term ideal
theory, constructing models of an ideal republic—or, in Harrington’s words, “an
immortal commonwealth” (1656, 209).
While the present work primarily addresses ideal theory, along the way it con-
siders various aspects of non-ideal theory, and it also discusses how ideal and
non-ideal theory should properly relate to one another within a broadly republi-
can framework. To fix terms, let us say that a republic is simply any political order
satisfying the empire of law and popular control conditions. As we have seen, this
is precisely the sense in which the classical republican authors used the term, or its
equivalent, ‘commonwealth.’ They used these terms more or less interchangeably
with the expressions ‘free state’ or ‘free people.’⁵⁷ Two important things are notable
about this usage.
First, it shows that they regarded freedom in the politically relevant sense as
something institutionally constituted. Human beings as a mere unorganized mul-
titude do not enjoy freedom by default, as it were. Freedom is not something you
possess automatically unless or until someone takes it way: that was Hobbes’s view,
which the republicans utterly rejected. Rather, freedom is something people enjoy
only under the auspices of rightly-ordered institutions. The republicans meant this
not simply in a practical sense that freedom will likely be insecure in a state of na-
ture, but indeed in a stronger constitutive sense. In Blackstone’s words, “laws, when
prudently framed, are by no means subversive but rather introductive of liberty;
for … where there is no law, there is no freedom” (1765, 122). And because those
institutions depend on citizen support for their maintenance, republican freedom
is necessarily an ongoing collective project.
It is important not to trivialize this claim by defining freedom as living under
rightly-ordered institutions. One problem with doing so is that it generates the
counter-intuitive conclusion that the person stranded on a deserted island would
not enjoy freedom. Surely this is false. Nevertheless, many have inadvertently com-
mitted this error by characterizing freedom from domination in such a way that
either the empire of law or (more often) the popular control principle becomes
a logical entailment of the non-domination principle. More precisely stated, the
republican claim is that, given very general facts about how human beings must
inevitably relate to one another when living and working together, freedom from
domination supervenes on republican institutions.⁵⁸
⁵⁷ The classical republicans unreflectively assumed that a ‘free state’ would be a local, territorially
bound state. But we need not assume this, and indeed contemporary republicans debate this point: see
Chapter 6.
⁵⁸ Here see the helpful discussion in Pettit (1997, 106–109).
Freedom from domination is thus a public good in the technical sense: it is a

good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous.⁵⁹ It is non-excludable be-
cause individuals living under the auspices of a republican political ordering will
enjoy the benefits of freedom from domination whether they have themselves con-
tributed to its production or not—as Milton says, “of freedom they partake all
alike” (1660, 438).⁶⁰ And it is non-rivalrous because one individual’s enjoyment of
freedom from domination does not diminish the simultaneous enjoyment of that
same freedom by other individuals. Etymologically, res publica just means ‘pub-
lic good,’ and in the republican tradition, our shared freedom from domination is
precisely the public good to which that expression refers. The “common good is
the good of citizens” who “desire not to be dominated,” says Viroli (2002, 5).
While people will enjoy freedom in a republic whether they individually con-
tribute to its production or not, holding the contributions of others constant, it
is of course important for republicans to consider how much each person should
in fairness contribute, and also how to motivate such contributions in aggregate
as are necessary to maintain republican institutions over time. When republicans
such as Molesworth say that a commonwealth is any political order in which “the
Good of the Whole is taken care of by the Whole” (1721, 175), what they mean
is that a republican political order exists only when and so long as the necessary
contributions to the public good are indeed reliably forthcoming. Chapter 5 ar-
gues that such a republic will be stable in roughly Rawls’s sense of the term. In that
spirit we will term it a well-ordered republic. As it happens, this is an expression
Machiavelli uses in effectively the same sense, referring to a “republica bene ordi-
nata” throughout the Discorsi, and he is followed in this usage by Harrington and
others.
The second notable thing about how the classical republican authors used the
expressions ‘republic’ and ‘free state’ interchangeably is that it shows they con-
ceived of freedom from domination in terms of a threshold condition. Simply
meeting the empire of law and popular control conditions is enough for a political
order to count as a free state, and for the people living under that political order
to count as free citizens. It is important to appreciate that being a republic in this
sense is no mean feat. Both historically and today, many and perhaps most people
live under political orders that do not rise even to this bar, and even those who
do can by no means rest assured they will continue to indefinitely. Republics have
failed, and no doubt some will fail in the future.
Still, to live in a republic, even a well-ordered republic, is by no means to enjoy all
the freedom from domination that one might enjoy, or that one deserves to enjoy.
⁵⁹ See Pettit (1997, 120–122) and Dagger (2018, 101–108).

⁶⁰ Here of course we refer only to those persons actually protected by republican institutions (re-
gardless of whether they contribute to the maintenance of those institutions), not to persons excluded
from those protections: historically speaking, the protection of republican institutions has not always
extend so far as it should. For further discussion, see Chapter 5.
INTRODUCTION 23
Among those stable political orders answering reasonably well to the empire of law
and popular control conditions, there is great variation in the overall amount and
distribution of freedom from domination. Let us use the term ideal republic to
designate the political ordering, among those we have present reason to believe are
socially possible, that would best or most fully realize the non-domination princi-
ple. Of course, there are various ways to interpret what counts as socially possible,
and also what counts as most fully realizing the non-domination principle. I dis-
cuss these issues in Chapter 3. But certainly, to model an ideal republic on any
interpretation is to engage in ideal theory if anything is.
1.5 The Big Picture
Republicans hold that we can only be genuinely free in those choices where
our freedom is robustly secured—that is, free from domination. It follows from
this that, as emphasized above, our freedom is not natural, but institutionally
constituted. No one is free in some choice by default, so to speak, for it is
always possible that others might decide to frustrate that choice. Only when
institutions are so designed as to robustly secure some of our choices against
possible frustration does the clearing of freedom appear. Freedom super-
venes on the clearing opened by those institutions: it is not some extra thing
which, but for some practical inconveniences, say, might have existed in their
absence.
What particular bundle of freedoms should our institutions so create? Unlike
libertarians and some liberals, republicans do not believe we have pre-institutional
or natural rights to any specific bundle of freedoms—to rights of self-ownership,
for instance. This is not to say that republicans deny the existence of natural duties
altogether, only that those duties do not dictate specific freedoms every commu-
nity is bound to respect. They are more general, as for example the duty to create a
free republic so people might enjoy some measure of freedom from domination.⁶¹
Within certain bounds, perhaps, every republic must construct its own bundle of
freedoms, according to its own lights.⁶²
Each republic does this through the implementation of an effective system of
public law and policy. Public laws and policies robustly secure the freedoms of
each citizen against interventions from other citizens or external parties.⁶³ Thus,
⁶1 Something like this duty is the claim corresponding to the ‘natural right of liberty’ which the
classical republicans frequently asserted all people possess: they cashed out the content of this natural
right not in terms of a specific list of individual rights as Locke did, but rather as a general right to live
under republican institutions. See Chapter 5 for further discussion.
⁶2 This point is emphasized in Viroli (2002, 60–64), Pettit (2012, 104–107), (2014, 69–71), and
Skinner (2019, 11–13).
⁶3 ‘External parties’ here may refer to foreign governments, global terrorist networks, multinational
corporations, and so on.
the reason A is not dominated in some choice by B is because the law prevents B
from intervening in her choice, or because public policies provide A the resources
she needs to avoid such interventions. Of course there may be better and worse
ways to implement a system of public law and policy, depending on the social and
economic context and our commitments to other values, but the overall structure
of such systems should be roughly the same. And because republicans have a more
capacious and flexible understanding of freedom, they will be more open to eco-
nomic redistribution and policy activism than libertarians. This is the first stage of
republican political analysis, and it is the subject of Chapters 2 and 3.
However, the first stage assumes that public laws and policies will be reliably and
effectively implemented. This means, in practice, that we will also have to robustly
ensure that public officials respect the law, otherwise citizens will be dominated by
their public officials, even if the laws, so far as they are implemented, ensure that
citizens do not dominate each other. The republican solution is to subject public
officials to popular control, and this too must be done institutionally. This sec-
ond stage of republican political analysis is the subject of roughly the first half of
Chapter 4.⁶⁴
Most classical republicans did not go much further than this. Even if there were
no more to the theory, it would have much of value to say: as stressed earlier, we
should not underestimate the importance of securing popular control and the em-
pire of law. However, nothing stands still. This is more apparent in the modern era,
but it was also true in the early modern period. Laws and policies that serve at one
time may not adapt well to new circumstances. Thus it is that a healthy republic
will need some way to revise and adjust its laws and policies over time. The first
and second stages together assume that the ability to change law and policy will
not itself be used in such a way as to dominate anyone. Or, if it is not possible to
avoid such domination entirely, then institutions must be so designed as to ap-
propriately balance the benefits of flexibility against a suitably limited and fairly
distributed incidence of domination. This is the third stage of republican analysis,
and it is the trickiest bit. It is not clear that any author, classical or contemporary,
has perfectly solved it. This will be topic of the second half of Chapter 4.⁶⁵
The three stages together constitute a complete theory of republican political
institutions. However, such institutions, even once introduced, might be unable to
maintain themselves over time. Thus republicans further need a theory of stability:
they need to show how a republican political order might plausibly become self-
sustaining. To a large extent, showing this will involve providing of an account of
how citizens living out their lives under republican institutions might acquire the
⁶⁴ Pettit (1997, 105–106, 171–172) articulates the distinction between the first two stages here de-
scribed as the distinction between protecting citizens from dominium on the one hand, and imperium
on the other.
⁶⁵ The distinction here between the first two stages and the third appears in Pettit (2012, 130–140)
as the distinction between republican justice and republican legitimacy.
INTRODUCTION 25
set of civic-minded dispositions necessary to maintain the health of those same

institutions. Unlike communitarians, republicans do not believe that stability so
understood will necessarily require society become a community of values in any
strong sense; but unlike some liberals, republican do believe that it may require—
and thus that we should pursue—vigorous policies of civic education. These issues
are the subject of Chapter 5.
Finally, we must consider the extent or scope of republican institutions. For all
that has been said up to this point, the ideal free state might be small and local,
extensive and regional, or indeed a global state embracing all humanity. Even if
our preferred answer is the last of these possibilities, we must at least for the time
being consider how a republican political order best relates to a world that re-
mains populated by other global actors, some themselves republics, but others not.
Chapter 6 accordingly proposes a republican theory of international politics and
global justice.
2
Non-domination
The non-domination principle is republicanism’s foundational commitment. The

aim of this chapter is to explain this principle. For the most part, doing so will
involve articulating what republicans mean by domination in the relevant sense. I
will argue that all republicans understand domination roughly as follows:
Domination: A’s choice whether to ϕ is dominated to the extent that some B has
the uncontrolled ability to intentionally frustrate that choice.
Of course classical and contemporary republicans employ the language of freedom

as often as the language of domination, and indeed see these as tightly connected
concepts. All republicans hold that:
Freedom: A is not free to ϕ to the extent that some B has the uncontrolled ability
to intentionally frustrate A’s choice whether to ϕ.
Observe that, so-specified, the absence of domination is a necessary condition

for freedom. All republicans are committed to this claim. They disagree, however,
whether the absence of domination is also sufficient for freedom, and their differ-
ent views are discussed subsequently in this chapter. For this reason it is better to
begin with the more fundamental concept of domination and proceed from there.
Republicans have not, of course, consistently described freedom and domina-
tion using precisely these terms or in this exact language. There has been much
discussion (including some by the present author) regarding the disagreements
among republicans as to how freedom from domination should be understood.¹
Indeed, some republicans are commonly thought to have changed their mind, or
even to have offered competing views at different times. Too much has been made
of these debates, in my view. Republicans, both classical and contemporary, have
always shared the core idea that to have a master is to be dominated, and that to be
free is to not have a master. The difficulty is in the details. As we shall see, to spec-
ify a conception of domination with a high degree of analytic precision is much
1 Among others, see Costa (2007), Lovett (2012b), Blunt (2015), Busen (2015), McCammon (2015),
or Arnold and Harris (2017).
The Well-Ordered Republic. Frank Lovett, Oxford University Press.

© Frank Lovett (2022). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192859556.003.0002
NON-DOMINATION 27
harder than one might suppose. It is best to see the diversity of views expressed
by different republican authors at different times as successive attempts to better
articulate the same shared core idea.² The following chapter builds on these efforts.
It offers the latest, perhaps, but certainly not the last, word on the subject.
2.1 Agency, Groups, Teams
In the definitions of domination and freedom given above, A and B are supposed
to be agents. Many critics have worried that this entails, as indeed it does, that on
the republican view people cannot in a strict sense be dominated by institutions
or ideologies or cultures or anything else that is not an agent. This is a perfectly
legitimate worry, and it will be addressed in due course. It is only fair, however,
that we fully articulate the standard republican view as it stands first. So let us
begin with the concept of agency.
Let us say that agency is an open-ended standing capacity to perform inten-
tional action, and thus that an agent is anything possessing this capacity in some
degree.³ So understood, agency has three main aspects. First, it involves having the
ability to form intentional states about the world, such as beliefs and desires. Sec-
ond, it involves having the ability to perform actions suitably answering to those
intentional states in a given context. Putting these together, we have the idea of
intentional action. To illustrate, a person might purchase a movie ticket when she
arrives at the ticket booth because she wants to see a movie: her desire to see the
movie is an intentional state, and her purchasing of the ticket is an action appro-
priate in that context given her intentional state. In contrast, consider the typical
assembly line robot: its actions do not answer to intentional states it has formed
about its environment, but rather follow a specific pre-programmed script.
There is, however, a third aspect to agency. Being a genuine agent involves
having the open-ended capacity to perform intentional action, so defined, at least
under favorable conditions.⁴ Consider a more sophisticated robot that does not
simply follow a fixed script, but rather has been programmed to scan its environ-
ment, identify rectangular blocks, and stack them in a pile.⁵ Arguably, we might
describe its actions as intentional, insofar as they are responsive to the robot’s
(primitive) intentional state about the world. Nevertheless, we might hesitate to
describe this robot as a genuine agent because it lacks the standing capacity to
2 Most pointedly, Pettit is often thought to have at least two, or perhaps even three different con-
ceptions of freedom from domination. In my view, his ideas have not substantially changed over time:
rather he has adopted new ways to express his ideas. More on this below.
3 “A man is the agent of an act if what he does can be described under an aspect that makes it
intentional,” says Davidson (1980, 46).
⁴ Our agency might be impaired under unfavorable conditions, as for example when we have been
deceived or distracted or drugged.
⁵ The example is from List and Pettit (2011, 20).
perform intentional action. If dropped into an environment without any blocks,

for example, it would sit idle indefinitely. This is because it will only ever have the
specific aims it was given in advance: it cannot form new intentional states relevant
to new environments. Genuine agents should be able to respond to new situations
by forming new intentional states and proceeding to act on that basis.
What sorts of things meet these conditions and thus count as agents? Most ob-
viously, ordinary people do.⁶ Importantly, this is most assuredly not to say that all
or even most human behavior is fully agential. It is only to say that human beings
ordinarily have an open-ended standing capacity to perform intentional action.
Much of what we do is not intentional. Some of it is not even purposeful, as
for example when our bodies perform involuntary reflex responses. Let us say
that purposeful action is any action that answers, directly or indirectly, to rea-
sons we have, or believe that we have. Often what we do is purposeful without
being intentional.⁷ For example, consider the person who brushes her teeth every
morning. Ordinarily, her doing so will not be intentional, since most mornings
she will not form a conscious intentional state about the benefits of oral hygiene
and then decide to brush her teeth because doing so is the activity suitably an-
swering in context to that intentional state. Rather, most mornings she will brush
her teeth simply out of habit—on auto-pilot, as it were, without thinking much
about it at all. Later that day, she may not even remember whether she did or no.
Only when something out of the ordinary happens—perhaps her toothbrush is
out of place one morning—will the issue press itself into conscious reflection and
deliberation.⁸
Even so, habitual behavior, while not strictly intentional, is almost always pur-
poseful. Presumably it is just because she has good reasons to regularly brush her
teeth that she formed and retained the habit in the first place.⁹ Conscious reflection
takes time and energy. We cannot, at each and every moment, attempt to inventory
in detail all the reasons we have for doing or not doing something. That way, mad-
ness lies. In acting on habit and performing day-to-day routines, we much more
effectively realize our aims overall.¹⁰ Purposeful action is thus a much broader
category than intentional action.
⁶ Setting aside special cases, such as people in comas and so on. Also, people may have more or less
effective agency depending on developmental conditions. For present purposes it will not be necessary
that we have a detailed account as to the social-psychological sources of human agency, interesting
though these questions are.
⁷ The discussion here improves on Lovett (2010, 30–32), where the distinction between intentional
and purposeful action was unfortunately blurred.
⁸ Cf. Pettit (2001, 90–93).
⁹ Though not necessarily because she believed she had good reasons. Perhaps her parents believed
she had such reasons, and thus instilled the habit at an early age. This does not detract from the main
point, for if she ever came to believe that she had good reasons not to brush her teeth, she could easily
unlearn the habit by, say, disposing of her toothbrush.
1⁰ And this is to say nothing about those activities we perform best when we don’t think about what
we are doing: consider the baseball player whose batting average falls when he over-thinks his swing.
NON-DOMINATION 29
Action, whether fully intentional or merely purposeful, is sometimes also ra-

tional. To be rational, on the standard view, an action must satisfy some further
conditions. Most importantly, the selection of some particular path of action is
only fully rational if it is, to the best knowledge of the actor, the most efficacious
or efficient means available for accomplishing her overall goals or aims, whatever
those happen to be.¹¹
Rational action has a specific structure we can characterize formally. Without
lingering on technical details unimportant for present discussion, we can roughly
describe that structure as follows: Given a particular set of goals and aims on the
one hand, and a set of available paths of action on the other, some of the latter
must realize better (i.e., more efficiently), and others worse (i.e., less efficiently), the
former. It follows that in considering any two possible paths of action, a rational
actor must either prefer one to the other or else be indifferent between them. Call
this the completeness condition of rationality. Further, all the various goals or aims
a rational actor has must cohere with one another. If someone prefers apples to
oranges and oranges to pears, she must also prefer apples to pears. Call this the
consistency condition of rationality.
Rational action, so defined, must be carefully distinguished from reasonable ac-
tion. Nothing in the concept of rationality requires that our goals or aims be good
from a moral or ethical point of view. The racist can perform ruthlessly efficient
actions in the service of his noxious aims, and thus count as rational. Let us say
that intentional or purposeful action counts as reasonable when it answers to rea-
sons that are in fact good for a person to have, on whatever the best conception
of morality or ethics turns out to be. This distinction between the rational and
the reasonable follows Rawls, except that he further proposes a specific concep-
tion what sorts of reasons count as good in the relevant sense.¹² We can retain his
distinction while holding a different view of morality or ethics, or indeed while
remaining agnostic on such questions.
So much for individual human beings as agents. What else counts as an agent?
Does anything else in the world possess an open-ended capacity to perform inten-
tional action? Plausibly, yes. Under suitable conditions, groups can be agents.¹³
Let us say that a group, in the generic sense, is any set of two or more individuals.
If we suppose a collection of n individuals, then there will be 2n −(n + 1) possible
groups composed of individuals in that collection. Examples might be: the set of
tall persons, the set of persons of Hispanic descent, the set of people living next
11 This standard view of rationality derives ultimately from Hume. For a succinct overview, see Elster
(1989).
12 Rawls (1993, 48–54). On his view, very roughly, our reasons are good if they are suitably con-
strained by the desire to live together with others on fair terms those others (if reasonable) would be
prepared to accept.
13 It will not be relevant in this context to also consider whether or how far agency also extends to
non-human animals or more advanced forms of artificial intelligence.
to a park, the set of people seated at a restaurant when I enter, the set of people
randomly selected for a survey, the set of people whose name begins with the letter
‘F,’ and so forth. Very few generic groups will count as agents.
Some select groups, however, will have internal organizational structures de-
signed to secure the conditions of agency. The details are complex and need not
detain us here, but when the internal organizational structure of a group is properly
designed, the group will be able to form, on a suitably ongoing and open-ended
basis, the functional equivalent of collective intentional states on the one hand,
and also to perform coordinated actions suitably answering in context to those
intentional states on the other. These very special groups will be termed group
agents.¹⁴
One reasonably clear example is the typical corporate firm. A hierarchical
authority structure ensures that the firm’s employees form coherent collective in-
tentional states, and the prospect of promotion or termination motivates those
employees to perform coordinated actions suitably answering in context to those
intentional states. To illustrate, the executive leadership of some firm might con-
clude that costs can be reduced by moving some aspect of production overseas, and
in consequence various employees perform actions suitable-in-context for imple-
menting this decision: laying off workers, rerouting supply chains, and so forth.
Importantly, as this illustration suggests, it need not be the case that each employee
of the firm share the official corporate view about this or that state of the world,
nor that each endorse the official aims or goals of the firm. All that is required is
that each be reliably motivated to act as if she does—and not only in this partic-
ular situation, but also in a suitably open-ended range of possible situations the
firm might encounter in the future. Some may do their part enthusiastically, oth-
ers reluctantly, and still others without any awareness at all of how their marginal
contribution fits in to the overall project.¹⁵ Nevertheless, if properly organized, the
set of employees will collectively act in such a way as to satisfy the conditions of
agency set out above. One test of this is that we ordinarily regard it as appropriate
to hold corporate firms responsible for their conduct, good or bad: like individual
persons, firms as such can be held liable for their actions.¹⁶
The range and scope of a group’s agency can vary. Some group agents will be
positioned to act across a wide range of domains, while others will be restricted to
only a few. Likewise, the scope of actions a group agent is able to perform might
be broad or narrow. Few group agents will possess anything like the all-purpose
agency of ordinary human beings. This is for the simple reason that the agency
1⁴ The account of group agency here follows Pettit (2007) and List and Pettit (2011).
1⁵ See Pettit (2007, 179) and List and Pettit (2011, 34–35).
1⁶ Of course we might think there are various indirect reasons for punishing firms—as a deterrent
to managers and shareholders, for instance. But would be difficult to reconcile these sorts of indirect
reasons with the collateral costs such punishments might impose on innocent employees and others.
For a detailed discussion, see Pettit (2007).
NON-DOMINATION 31
of a group is constituted by the internal organizational apparatus of that group:

that apparatus might be able to aggregate certain sorts of intentional states but not
others, and it might be able to coordinate certain sorts of actions but not others.
My employer might be able to direct how I spend my time at the office, but not
how I spend it at home; it might be able to tell me which suppliers to use, or which
products to promote, but not who I should vote for; and so on. Thus we cannot infer
from the fact that a group is so organized to act as an agent for some purposes that
it is able to act as an agent for all purposes.
Apart from firms, proper group agents might include universities, unions,
NGOs, strong political parties, and perhaps highly organized crime syndicates
such as the Mafia or the Yakuza.¹⁷ Somewhat controversially, the modern state
might also count as a group agent.¹⁸ The body of citizens in a healthy democracy
characterized by reasonable pluralism does not plausibly count as a group agent,
however: no institutional mechanisms are in place to ensure that the diverse ideas
and activities of the citizens will automatically cohere into a consistent whole, and
indeed protected political and civil rights virtually ensure they will not on most
occasions.¹⁹
Proper group agents can be contrasted with mere multitudes. In many cases,
a large number of individuals can produce aggregate social effects through the
collective impact of their decentralized actions and choices, even without those
effects having been a part of their intentions, particular or collective. One example
might be the decentralized set of consumers in a marketplace, whose aggregate
choices whether buy or not buy certain commodities have a definite impact on
equilibrium market prices. Another example might be the set of homeowners in
the United States, whose independent decisions about where to live cumulatively
produce undeniable (and often deleterious) consequences for economic opportu-
nity, often without this having been intentional on the part of those homeowners
considered separately.²⁰ Mere multitudes are not group agents, properly so-called.
1⁷ Political parties in the United States should not be regarded as group agents, insofar as anyone
can offer themselves as a candidate in most party primaries, and the party organization (such as it is)
has very weak powers of internal discipline. Political parties in other countries might count as group
agents, however.
1⁸ Pettit (2012, 133) holds the state to be a group agent; but others such as Richardson (2002, 118)
worry that the state is too complex and disparate an organization to have a collective intentional state.
In this book, I try to remain agnostic on this issue.
1⁹ This conclusion is one of the central insights of social choice theory, and it follows that it is a mis-
take to speak of a ‘general will’ or ‘popular will’ with respect to most political controversies. If popular
control depended on the existence of a popular will, then republicanism would probably be in trouble.
Fortunately, it does not: see Ingham (2019).
2⁰ Indeed, it is quite common in the United States to lament the aggregate consequences of our
housing choices, even as we feel helpless to do anything about those consequences as individuals. Of
course it is possible that some members of a multitude may endorse, or even intend, the aggregate
outcome. But this is not sufficient to meet the conditions of group agency in the absence of a mechanism
that reliably secures the performance of that conduct across an open-ended range of circumstances.
Thus we would not ordinarily hold homeowners as a class morally liable for the aggregate consequences
Between mere multitudes and proper group agents lies an important and com-
plicated intermediate set of cases. Consider a consumer boycott. On the one
hand, the participants in a boycott are not a mere multitude. They share the
intention of exerting pressure on some particular business, and each does his
or her part in coordination with the others to further that shared purpose—
buying from other shops, publicizing and justifying the boycott, etc. But on
the other hand, their shared intentions and coordinated actions are limited to
a particular case or set of cases: they arise from a contingent convergence of
purposes, without there being an institutional structure in place to ensure an
open-ended capacity for joint intentional action in the future. Once the boycott
comes to an end, the individual participants simply rejoin the mass of ordinary
consumers.
Another much-discussed example is the spontaneous beach rescue. On hearing
cries for help from a hapless swimmer caught in a dangerous riptide, a number of
strangers on the beach spontaneously link arms so they can reach the swimmer and
return him safely to shore. While carrying out this operation, the rescuers share
the intention of saving the swimmer, and undertake coordinated actions suitably
answering in the context to that shared intention. But afterwards, everyone goes
their separate ways.
Let us term groups like these teams. A team is not a proper group agent. Rather,
it is a plurality of agents who, as a group, perform what is called joint intentional ac-
tion.²¹ In addition to consumer boycotts and the beach rescuers, examples of teams
might include political coalitions, as when two or more strong political parties
form a government; or opportunistic criminal gangs.
From a certain formal point of view, every generic group is also a possible team,
in the sense that if all the members of that group were to coordinate their actions
in the service of some shared goal or aim, they might through joint intentional ac-
tion produce effects they would not have been able to produce as an uncoordinated
multitude. It is important to appreciate, however, that all but a trivial number of
these possible teams will be irrelevant to social life. This is because important con-
ditions must be satisfied to transform any merely possible team into an actual or,
let us say, active team.
First, the members of the possible team must form a shared intention—that is,
each must become aware of a mutual desire to work together toward some aim or
purpose with the others. This may happen as the result of some public signal, as
when the hapless swimmer calls for help, or it may happen coincidentally, as when
of their independent housing choices simply in virtue of the fact that some of them (deplorably) endorse
those consequences.
21 See Bratman (1999), among many others, for a discussion of joint intentional action. List and
Pettit (2011, 33–35) distinguish what are here termed teams from proper group agents.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Out of nowhere
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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Title: Out of nowhere
Author: E. A. Grosser
Illustrator: John R. Forte
Release date: March 13, 2024 [eBook #73156]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Columbia Publications, Inc, 1941
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT OF

NOWHERE ***
OUT OF NOWHERE
By E. A. GROSSER
(Author of "The Radiant Avenger", "The Psychomorph", etc.)
Valnar, time traveler from nowhere in particular,

had raised havoc in plenty the last time he stopped
in this continuum; he'd been responsible for the
rise of Dodson, the mental dictator who was now
menacing the entire planet. So Barlow and Laurine
decided that the tourist had better undo it this trip!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Future combined with Science Fiction October 1941.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Dictators are the most naive persons. About all they know are the
facts of life. Therefore Great America's Dodson thoroughly approved
of a man such as Joel Barlow and a girl such as Laurine Coret
walking in the park at twilight. Quite evidently Director Dodson
reasoned: Dusk is mysterious.... Man is curious.... Q. E. D.—usually.
A civic guard saw them and saluted with a good-natured grin. Wisely,
they returned the salute. Then Laurine passed her arm under
Barlow's and sort of cuddled up to him. He straightened and looked
at her with surprise.
"Smile, darn you," she grated. "Make it look real—as though you
enjoyed it, even if you don't."
His lips stretched into a grimace that in the dusk, passed muster for
a smile. And the civic guard smiled fondly after them as they walked
along the park path.
"What does Central want me for?" Barlow asked when the guard
was beyond earshot.
"The organization is going to hibernate. You're to pass the word
along. 'Stay away from headquarters.'"
"Why?"
"Dodson must have managed to get agents into our organization.
The New Orleans headquarters was raided during a meeting."
"Did they get them all?" he asked quickly.
She nodded. He said nothing, but his hands closed slowly. They both
knew the seriousness of the loss, but still her eyes clung to his face.
Director Dodson knew the facts of life.
Suddenly her gaze went over his shoulder and her eyes widened
with fright. She turned with a stifled scream and fled. Barlow stared
after her with puzzled eyes.
"—me she didn't like," said a rueful voice behind him. "I beg your
pardon. I guess it's—"
Barlow turned quickly, but saw nothing. Then, as though someone
had switched on a light, there was a violet haze in front of him. And
in the middle of the haze was the figure of a man. Then the man and
the queer haze disappeared as though the light had been turned off.
A moment later it had returned. "—leave you so abruptly," the figure
said, and vanished. A second later it reappeared and said, "I'm sorry
I had to—"
Barlow moved away, intending to follow Laurine.
"Don't go," said the queer newcomer. "I think I've settled down, and I
want to talk to you."
The haze flickered uncertainly. Barlow's last doubt was removed. He
must know how Laurine was faring. But before he could get started,
the violet haze and the talking image had returned.
"Hello," it greeted cheerfully. "I'm glad you waited. I've made it at last.
Inconvenient—that time-lash."
"Yes," Barlow agreed uncertainly. He stared at the newcomer. The
fellow appeared to be an ordinary human being. The violet haze had
vanished and in the poor light Barlow couldn't see him very clearly,
but it seemed that he was rather tall, strongly built, not too good-
looking, and dressed in loose, comfortably fitting clothes. At the
moment the newcomer was staring in the direction Laurine had fled.
"Too bad I frightened her," he said with a shake of his head. "She's a
cute little trick."
Barlow frowned at the familiarity. "Who are you?"
"Valnar one-oh-oh-three-oh-seven-one-oh-oh—"
"I didn't ask for your telephone number," snapped Barlow. "What's
your name?"
"That's it," said the newcomer. "You see, I'm from—well, from the
future. I was experimenting with time, and discovered a few of the
natural laws that I could control. I constructed this traveler"—He
tapped a plaque strapped to his chest. "—and since then I've just
been wandering around ... trying to get back home."
"Lost?" asked Barlow more friendly.
Valnar hesitated. "Well, not exactly. I'm always able to find out where
I am, but I can't find my own time. Right now, for instance, figuring
from the Birth of Christ as many of the people I've met do, I should
be in the year 1974. Is that right?"
"Nineteen seventy-three," Barlow corrected.
The man named Valnar seemed shocked. "Another error," he
murmured. "If I don't do better than that, I'm going to find myself out
in space, freezing to death."
"I thought you said you were time-traveling," Barlow questioned.
"Certainly," said Valnar. "But traveling in time requires considerable
knowledge of astronomy. Both the Earth and the Sun move in space.
If I were to travel twenty-four hours into the future, without moving in
space, I'd find myself out in the void. But luckily the earth seems to
exert an attraction which compensates for numerous errors, though it
upsets my calculations concerning the time."
"What time are you from?"
"1974."
"That's next year! That means there are two of you in the world now
—that is impossible!"
"No," Valnar disagreed impatiently. "I told you this wasn't my time—
maybe I should say, space-time continuum. Time is like a tree with a
lot of branches—too damn many of them. In my own time, we
calculate that dimension from the Year of the Subsidence. I slid
down my branch of that space-time continuum, and now I can't find it
again. My people are the descendants of an Atlantean colony
established in what you call Florida, but evidently that colony had
few chances for survival—perhaps only one. That would make it a
single small branch and difficult to find—which it is," he concluded
feelingly.
"Then how do you explain your being able to speak English?" Barlow
asked, grinning. He was thinking that the stranger was an
unconvincing liar.
"This stop is merely incidental. I miscalculated time before last and
landed in 1941—met a nice fellow who didn't ask too many
questions." He looked severely at Barlow. "He believed me right
away, taught me English, and told me I was just like someone out of
a science-fiction story. Poor fellow was quite worried about some
sort of a European menace, though. So I gave him the Mental Ray to
protect his—"
"Why, you dirty—" Barlow started forward with swinging fists. He
landed one fairly solid blow, then his hands were held powerless in
the other's.
"What's the matter with you?" Valnar asked a bit angrily.
Barlow fought to free himself, and couldn't. Valnar was much
stronger than he appeared to be. Finally he ceased his struggling,
watching closely for a chance, but he didn't stop cursing the
newcomer.
"Was that fellow's name Dodson?" he asked at last.
"Why yes," Valnar admitted with surprise. "Then my help was
enough to protect this continent. Good!"
"Yeah, 'Good!'" Barlow snarled. "Your 'poor' Dodson protected the
American continents, but when he saw that it was so easy, he
decided to be a Dictator—only he calls himself, Director." Suddenly
Barlow chuckled, "Now Europe is squealing about the 'American
Menace.' Don't you think you ought to go over and 'protect' them?"
Valnar released Barlow and stepped back. "But he didn't seem like
that sort of a fellow. He was so—so idealistic!"
"Probably because he didn't have anything to be practical about,"
Barlow sneered. "Now he's got the Mental Ray you said you gave
him, and he controls two continents with absolute power—and is
thinking of expanding. The only ones in all the Americas who can
even think he's wrong are a few like me—ones who for some
reason, aren't affected by the ray which orders your thoughts to an
approved pattern."
"The dirty heel!" Valnar spat. "I'm going back and kill him. So long!"
"Wait! What good will that do? He's here now, so that proves you
didn't kill him. But you caused all this mess; help us free ourselves."
"I can kill him; and I will. I'll create a new branch of the tree—a world
where Dodson died right after protecting the Americas."
"But what about this branch!" Barlow shouted as Valnar's hand went
to the plaque on his chest. "According to your screwy theory this limb
will still be going strong."
Valnar hesitated. "You're right," he admitted, lowering his hand. "We
might as well create two new limbs, one right here."
Barlow waited, watching Valnar. Somehow he was impressed by the
other. He no longer considered him merely a liar; there was
something strange about the newcomer. And the circumstances
surrounding the discovery of the Mental Ray had never been
explained. Dodson was no scientist, and yet he and no other knew
the more complicated parts of the powerful electrical broadcaster
that matched the thought waves of the people and heterodyned
those he considered undesirable.
"I'll have to acquaint myself with the circumstances," said Valnar.
"Okay, what do you want to know?" Barlow offered.
Valnar looked at him slyly. "It would be much more pleasant to learn
from that girl you were with. I always try to make my work pleasant."
Barlow made a wry face. "I'll help you," he repeated, and wondered
why he so instantly rejected Valnar's suggestion.
Valnar shrugged. "Oh, all right. If you insist. But she sure lit out of
here in a hurry. Where was she headed?"
"She knew I could run faster than she could, and wanted a
headstart," Barlow grinned. "She's probably at headquarters now,
getting a bunch to help me."
"Let's go to headquarters," said Valnar.
Barlow looked at him sharply, frowning with suspicion. "You
promised to help," he reminded.
"Oh, you may be sure that I shall," Valnar assured airily. "Lead on,
MacBarlow!"
Barlow grunted and started toward the headquarters that he was
never supposed to approach. The organization believed in never
establishing a personal trail between the various headquarters, and
Barlow was a runner. But he considered that the circumstances
warranted disobedience.
"Your education was evidently quite sketchy," he grumbled as he led
the way. "Dodson didn't give you your money's worth."
Two blocks from headquarters, Barlow halted suddenly. He was

staring at two patrol wagons drawn up in front of the suspiciously
unimpressive building that the organization used.
"It's a raid!" he snapped to Valnar.
Two guards came out of the building with a young girl between them.
They helped her into the nearest car, even though she fought against
it.
"They've got Laurine," Barlow cried, starting forward.
Valnar caught his arm and held him back. "Is that her name?" he
asked easily.
Barlow fought to free his arm from Valnar's grasp, but the newcomer
was much too strong.
"Come, don't be childish," Valnar reprimanded. "There are too many
of them. Don't worry about your friends. We'll free them as soon as
possible."
Barlow was undetermined.
"In the meantime, we'll go to see Dodson," Valnar continued.
That settled Barlow's mind. To get near the Director was something
that every member of the organization hoped to do. Besides, Laurine
and the others would be safe for a while. The "questioning" of the
guards always started on a gentle note.
"How will we get to him?" he asked.
"That's up to you," said Valnar. "You get some sort of a conveyance,
and I'll construct a small Mental Ray to blackout anyone who tries to
stop us."
Barlow took Valnar to the rooms he had engaged and managed to
secure the apparatus Valnar declared essential. Luckily it could be
made from altered radio parts, the sale of which wasn't restricted.
But his own part of the task was harder.
Dodson was one of the first to realize the power of transportation,
and held firm control of all its phases. Public conveyances wouldn't
serve their purpose because, while Barlow's passports were
necessarily in order even though forged, Valnar had none. And no
forger was available.
They must steal either an auto or a plane—preferably, a plane. But
there was no such thing as a private auto or plane, and the civic
conveyances were carefully controlled.
Finally Barlow had to admit defeat and return to his rooms. He went
in wearily and sat down. Valnar greeted him cheerfully.
"It's finished," he said, waving to the small assembly on the table.
Barlow peered at it. "I failed," he admitted. "Couldn't steal one
anywhere."
"Then we'll get one with this," said Valnar.
Barlow thought of his wearying hours of search and felt like slugging
the other. But he knew that Valnar would win any scrimmage, so he
regretfully discarded the idea.
"Then we might as well free Laurine and the others before we take
off," he suggested.
Valnar's eyes glowed with interest. "Good idea!" he approved. "I was
thinking that we'd need help."
The city prison was a grim structure. It contained few people, but
those it did swallow were seldom heard of again. Barlow felt a
tightening of his muscles as they approached.
Valnar was carrying the ray projector. He walked along confidently,
with an unserious buoyancy like that of a person engaged in a game
with children. Barlow envied him.
He was well aware of what they were fighting. And the thought that
possibly the projector wouldn't work, made him feel hollow. The
guards at the entrance stepped forward to bar the way.
Valnar's fingers switched on the projector and he swept it over the
two guards. They dropped their rifles and slumped to the stone
entranceway. Barlow picked up their rifles, then stared at them. They
were sleeping peacefully.
Valnar strode into the building, applied the ray to another man, and
entered the warden's office. The warden leaped to his feet angrily.
"We want the prisoners brought in yesterday," Valnar informed.
"Shoot, Perkins!" cried the warden.
Barlow wheeled, rifle ready. A secretary that they hadn't noticed at

the other end of the room was leveling a pistol. Barlow moved the
rifle swiftly, but Valnar was the swifter and the secretary lay back in
his chair and went to sleep.
"The prisoners, please," Valnar insisted.
"I—I can't," said the warden, sitting down weakly.
"You better," Barlow advised.
"They were taken to Washington this morning at the orders of the
Director."
Valnar switched on his projector again and the warden fell forward
on his desk, snoring. Barlow urged Valnar toward the elevator that
would take them to the roof.
"A police plane will do fine," he said. "And they are fast. We've got to
get to Washington in a hurry."
"Is that where Dodson is?" Valnar asked as they shot upward while
the elevator operator snored peacefully in a corner.
"Yes, and God only knows what he intends to do to Laurine and the
others."
The elevator halted at the roof and Barlow faced Valnar. "Can you
spread that beam to get everybody up here?" he asked. "Then they
won't follow, or radio ahead to have us intercepted."
"Sure thing," Valnar said, motioning for Barlow to open the door.
Barlow pulled the sliding door aside, and Valnar stepped outside with
the projector running. He swept the roof quickly and smiled with
satisfaction to see the uniformed men fall.
Barlow chose the newest of the planes ready on the roof and helped
Valnar inside the cabin. Then he climbed inside himself and found
Valnar staring at the controls with offended eyes. He turned to
Barlow.
"Can you fly this thing?"
"I was in the Air Guards before they discovered that I was an
Unamenable," Barlow answered with a smile. He started the motor,
waited until the nearly silent hum of power had reached a constant
pitch, then sent the plane into the air.
"Why do you have so many instruments?" Valnar demanded.
"Doesn't Dodson know that the acme of science is simplicity—
beautiful simplicity? This plane has ten times as many instruments
as my time-traveler. It's foolish and confusing."
"I didn't make it," Barlow disclaimed. "But then you got to remember
that you've been making errors in your calculations. Maybe you need
a few more instruments."
Valnar said nothing. For several minutes he was silent, then when he
did speak, the subject was entirely different. "What did you mean
—'Unamenable'?"
"That's Dodson's name for those who aren't affected by the Mental
Ray. I guess you're one, or you wouldn't be helping me."
Valnar shook his head. "Never heard of it," he declared. "The ray
affects me all right, but I only gave Dodson a low-power version of
this," he signified the set he had constructed, "and I am able to
compensate for the effect."
It was late evening when they sighted the lights of Washington.

Barlow sent the plane down over an arterial highway that stretched
in the night like a glowing worm. He hovered noiselessly above it
until he was sure that there were no cars in sight, then landed.
"Why don't we go on?" Valnar asked.
"Dodson has forbidden planes to fly over Washington, and there are
anti-aircraft batteries permanently on duty to enforce the order."
Valnar grumbled, but helped Barlow send the plane into a field near
the road, where it would not immediately be seen. They walked into
the little suburban town. It took only a short time to find an
automobile, but when they started away in it, the owner came
running out of a tavern, shrieking for the police. Valnar lifted the
projector and removed the man's objections and they sped on
toward the White House.
The closer they came to the symbol of government, the more
doubtful Barlow became. It had all been too easy. Through years he
had been conditioned to a powerful, almost omnipotent government
that struck back savagely at the least resistance. And now he was
nearing the nervous center of that government in an automobile! Like
any government-approved and personally curious tourist. It almost
made him feel guilty.
The guards at the entrance of the drive halted them. Valnar lifted the
projector confidently and the men slumped to the pavement. Barlow
got out and dragged them aside and opened the gates, then sent the
car up the drive.
He halted at the entrance at Valnar's direction. Valnar climbed out of
the car with Olympian confidence as a pair of guards barred the way
and an officer stepped forward to question them.
"Your names, gentlemen?"
Barlow followed Valnar out of the car and watched Valnar thumb the
switch of the projector. The beam swept over the three soldiers. And
nothing happened. Valnar passed the beam over them again and still
nothing resulted. The two at the doorway still barred the way and the
officer smiled grimly.
"Your names are unnecessary," he said. "We have been waiting for
you." He waved to someone in the darkness.
Barlow turned and saw a full squad with leveled rifles. There was no
chance to get the two rifles he had brought with them. There was no
chance for any sort of a fight. They were trapped as completely as
rats in a wire cage.
Valnar seemed paralyzed. He didn't seem to realize that he had
been vulnerable. He made no resistance when the officer took the
projector from his hands. He stared at Barlow dazedly.
"The Director will see you," the officer said to Valnar, then turned to
look at Barlow. "You must be Barlow," he mused. "Put him with the
rest. The Organization will be liquidated tomorrow."
Barlow was escorted to prison by two watchful soldiers. He was

silent. The abrupt failure had stunned him, and he knew that it was
no use to appeal to his guards. With them Dodson was not a ruler;
he was a messiah. The Mental Ray effected that in the common
man. They might be pretty decent fellows with wives and families
and friends, but on that one point they were adamant and inviolable.
He was quickly booked, then taken down the corridor between the
cells. He was thrust into the largest cell, the tank, and heard the door
close behind him with dreadful finality.
"Barlow!" came a surprised shout from one of the men in the
crowded cell.
Barlow focused his eyes on the face of the man who came forward,
and saw that it was the chief of Laurine's group. Then there was a
flurry of movement among the captives and a girl ran to his arms.
Her face was tear-streaked and her voice unsteady.
"Joel! I hoped that they wouldn't get you." She was crying again,
softly, face hidden against his chest.
He stroked her hair slowly. "Don't cry, Laurine," he said dully as he
looked around. There were many whom he didn't recognize, but
among the half hundred in the cell he recognized all those of
Laurine's group that he had met. He looked at the leader
questioningly.
"A clean sweep," said the leader. "And not only of our group, but of
every one in the country. The prisons are full, overcrowded. We
know that nearly every man of our group was captured, and the
others report the same for their groups. The Organization is
through."
"They must have got lists of members," Barlow mumbled.
"How could they?" the leader demanded. "Nothing like that exists.
We never kept any records. No! It was spies. They may even have
got into the organization. Laurine tells me of something strange that
made her return to headquarters to get help for you. What was it?"
Laurine had ceased her weeping, but she still clung to him. And
Barlow felt an inner happiness for her closeness. He held her in his
arms while he told the leader all that had happened to him. When he
was through he expected them to feel as he did, that the disaster
had struck them at the very moment when success seemed within
their grasp. But instead they were staring at him pityingly.
"What's the matter?" he asked hesitantly.
Laurine lifted her head from his chest and freed herself of his arms.
In her eyes too, there was pity. But there was also anger.
"You fool!" she cried. "That must have been the spy."
Barlow was stricken dumb for a minute. Then he shook his doubts
from his mind. "No! Valnar wanted to help us."
The leader pressed his shoulder with a smile, "No, son," he said,
shaking his head slowly. "He must have been a spy. That story of
time-traveling—" He left the sentence uncompleted and the
incompleteness only showed more starkly the absurdity of Valnar's
tale.
Barlow felt the strength flow from his body. He felt old, tired. All that
they had fought for was gone. This was the world's last chance at
freedom. All the Unamenables were gathered together for death and
there would be no more differences of opinion. The only opinions in
the Americas would be those of Director Dodson. And soon his will
would be the only power in the world. In his mind's eye he seemed to
see man marching through time in a long hopeless column, never
progressing, always regressing, without the yeast of the fighting
minority. He turned away from those eyes of his companions, those
eyes that told him that he had had the chance to avenge this
betrayal and had failed.
Laurine's hand went to his shoulder and rested there lightly to
comfort him. He covered her small hand with his own large one.
Then she was standing beside him. His arm was over her shoulders
and she was smiling up at him.
"Any one of us would have done the same, Joel," she said softly.
He smiled bitterly. "If so, we don't deserve to win. We're too damn
dumb!"
She said nothing, but remained quietly at his side. And he became
aware now that he was to lose his life, that it could have been much
sweeter if he hadn't been so blind. He cursed Valnar under his
breath.
But Laurine heard him. "All you missed was a chance to avenge us,"
she said. "The Organization was already doomed."
The anger and disgust left him and he waited with a quiet
acceptance. There seemed to be no hope. But he was determined to
wait, and watch.
The morning was a gray, dull-humored thing. There was no cheer in

the large cell. They waited silently.
It was still early when guards came into the prison. They marched
down the corridor in perfect discipline. Their weapons were well kept
and ready.
"Empty the tank, first," commanded the officer.
The door of the large cell opened, but there was no chance to fight
or escape. The prisoners filed out, formed ranks, then, surrounded
by guards, marched to the prison courtyard.
Barlow and Laurine had managed to stay together and as they left
the prison, her hand slipped into his. He thought it possible that she
was afraid. But when he looked at her, her shoulders were back and
her eyes bright. He pressed her hand.
"Look, Joel," she directed in a whisper when they halted in the
courtyard. She nodded her head toward a richly dressed group near
the outer entrance.
Joel Barlow looked and saw the well-publicized features of Director
Dodson in the middle of the group. And close by the Director was
Valnar.
But Valnar was heavily guarded. His clothes were torn and the
plaque which he had always worn, was gone. And he had lost his
confident bearing.
Their eyes met across the courtyard. Barlow saw Valnar smile, lift his
hand in greeting, but he showed no acknowledgement. Valnar's face
showed puzzlement.
The prisoners were lined against the wall. The guards withdrew to
one side and stood at attention. Director Dodson motioned
negligently with one hand, and Valnar and his guard crossed to the
prisoners. Valnar was placed with the prisoners and the guard
withdrew.
Barlow stared at Valnar. Then he looked down to meet Laurine's
eyes.
"They're going to kill him too," he said. "He wasn't a spy."
She didn't answer.
Barlow turned again to Valnar, called to him, "I see you're still with
us."
"To the end—maybe it won't be so bitter," Valnar grinned. "Get in
there and fight when the time comes."
Barlow had no chance to ask for an explanation. One of the officers
with Dodson stepped forward. He carried the projector Valnar had
constructed, but it was changed and was mounted on a tripod. The
officer trained it on the prisoners and pressed the switch.

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other titles in this series

Territorial Sovereignty National Responsibility and Global Justice

I was first introduced to civic republicanism twenty-five years ago, during my

1 To say nothing of the important book-length contributions of other scholars such as J. G. A.

3. Law and Policy 73

4. Popular Control 128

6. Global Republicanism 225

1 See Rawls (1971, 46–53).

The Well-Ordered Republic. Frank Lovett, Oxford University Press.

Initially, I will stipulate two sets of canonical republican authors. In so doing,

will be discussed as relevant and appropriate.⁵ But no political doctrine, no matter

1.1 Republicanism: Principles

Let us say that a political doctrine or public philosophy is a reasonably coherent

Non-domination principle: In designing public laws, policies, institutions, and

As stated, the principle is compatible with different interpretations of ‘priority’ and

Republicans, classical and contemporary, disagree on how many public officials

12 Here see Allen (1938, 3–12) or Zagorin (1954, 189–196).

[T]he magistracy … is different in different commonwealths; nevertheless, there

I discuss the details of this argument in Chapter 4.¹⁸

1.2 Republicanism: Historical Sketch

were timely interventions in specific local political controversies.²⁵ It follows that

By the word Republik… I understand thereby such a State wherein an Assembly

[A] commonwealth is an empire of laws and not of men.

And sometimes, both aspects appear in more or less equal balance:

It is not … the mere possession of liberty that denominates a citizen or commu-

1.3 Republicanism and Liberalism

Toleration principle: Public laws, policies, institutions, and so forth, should

[T]hose conception of liberty ought to be rejected, which, by making that essential

1.4 Method and Approach

This book aims to expound as rigorous and comprehensive an account of republi-

in non-ideal theory. Others, such as Madison, worked at a more general level,

Freedom from domination is thus a public good in the technical sense: it is a

⁵⁹ See Pettit (1997, 120–122) and Dagger (2018, 101–108).

1.5 The Big Picture

set of civic-minded dispositions necessary to maintain the health of those same

The non-domination principle is republicanism’s foundational commitment. The

Of course classical and contemporary republicans employ the language of freedom

Observe that, so-specified, the absence of domination is a necessary condition

The Well-Ordered Republic. Frank Lovett, Oxford University Press.

2.1 Agency, Groups, Teams

perform intentional action. If dropped into an environment without any blocks,

Action, whether fully intentional or merely purposeful, is sometimes also ra-

of a group is constituted by the internal organizational apparatus of that group:

Title: Out of nowhere

Illustrator: John R. Forte

Release date: March 13, 2024 [eBook #73156]

Original publication: New York, NY: Columbia Publications, Inc, 1941

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

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