ABSTRACT
One of the principal motives for developing an impartialist theory is to overcome some of the problems seen as endemic to utilitarianism. Impartialism is committed to the view that the slave is the paradigm of the unfree person, therefore it needs to identify a sense of freedom other than the capacity to satisfy one's interests. As a consequence, there is room for a concept of freedom which is like negative liberty in being an absence and like positive liberty in focusing on mastery, namely, an absence of mastery by others. If, people are not agents until they are converts to poststructuralism, then this strongly suggests that their opinions on such matters as who should govern them lack 'authority'. Their votes in a liberal democracy can be treated as the manifestation of false consciousness in their lower selves.
