We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
– Dalai LamaThe sequence thesis of emancipation theory starts from a utility assumption: freedoms have utility for humans because our intellectual powers enable us to choose a course of action for a valued purpose. However, our potential to choose an action of our liking is not always readily usable: we need to control action resources to be able to do what we would like to. Control over action resources corresponds directly with existential conditions. Pressing conditions mean that action resources are largely beyond our control; permissive conditions mean the opposite.
Freedoms always embody potential utility: at any time, people could take advantage of freedoms if they only had the resources needed to do what they desire. Yet, the actual utility of freedoms varies because people’s control over action resources also varies. The persistence of freedoms’ potential utility is the seed of the human quest for freedoms; variation in their actual utility is the reason why the quest adapts.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
