ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Autonomy Condition, and the digression is only partial, in that as Benn and Weinstein have shown, if the capacity to choose is a fundamental condition of being a free agent, then the Autonomy Condition must be a central concern of the impure theory of freedom. It is concerned with the quality of the will, and argues that factors which undermine the quality of the will are prima facie constraints of freedom, and that such constraints should be the concern of political philosophy. Stanley Benn expresses his concern with the quality of the will in his paper "Freedom and Persuasion". The concept of freedom needed in order to form objections to these techniques is, says Benn, rational self-mastery: non-rational, subliminal techniques threaten freedom in the sense. A theory of freedom which has the capacity to make rational choice as a fundamental component may well be characterized as a theory of 'positive' liberty.
