Upgrading Liberty

Liberty has long been championed as a core political ideal, emphasizing freedom from constraints and coercion. Yet, purely maximizing liberty quickly encounters practical and philosophical limits. Legitimate societal goals—such as security, justice, environmental protection, and public health—often require placing constraints on individual liberty. How can we coherently navigate these inherent tensions?

The solution is to upgrade from liberty to a deeper, richer concept: agency.

Why Agency?

Agency is defined explicitly as the capacity to intentionally choose and pursue one's goals. Liberty—freedom from coercion—is essential to agency, but agency encompasses more:

• Capability: The physical, intellectual, and social abilities required to execute meaningful choices.

• Opportunity: Access to meaningful and valuable choices.

Agency thus subsumes liberty but adds necessary dimensions, clarifying trade-offs rather than masking them.

Agency, Harm, and Coercion

We already have a robust definition of harm as any reduction of agency. Coercion, in turn, is the credible threat of harm used to gain compliance. By explicitly incorporating these definitions, we get a decision-theoretic framework:

• Interventions (even coercive ones) are justified if and only if they produce a net increase in overall agency.

This resolves ideological blind-spots inherent in simplistic libertarianism:

• Environmental regulations restrict liberty but are justified if they prevent greater harm (thus preserving overall agency).

• Public health measures (vaccinations, quarantines) similarly restrict liberty temporarily but are justified through net agency preservation.

Agency-Centric Decision Making

Quantifying agency as the effective capacity for choice lets us reason explicitly about interventions:

• Net Agency = Agency Gained - Agency Lost

• Interventions are justified when Δ(Net Agency) > 0

This formulation simplifies otherwise contentious political debates by clearly identifying which constraints serve broader flourishing.

Practical Examples

• Immigration: Restrictions significantly reduce migrants' agency (access to better futures) with minimal local agency gain. Thus, most immigration restrictions fail the agency test.

• Redistribution: Coercive redistribution generally reduces agency due to the coercion involved. Voluntary or mutually beneficial interventions remain clearly justified.

Philosophical Integration

This agency-centric approach aligns perfectly with our philosophical frameworks, including Conditionalism and the Physics of Choice. It clarifies ethics by quantifying harm and clearly delineating the acceptable scope of political authority.

Conclusion

Upgrading liberty to agency as the fundamental political goal offers philosophical clarity and practical guidance. It provides a nuanced, internally consistent approach to ethical decision-making, explicitly accounting for harm, coercion, and genuine flourishing.