Pluralist Republicanism: Race, Gender and Domination

Laborde contrasts Default Republicanism with Labordian Republicanism. The latter view ‘answers’ the Probabilistic and the Anti-Psychology Objections to Default Republicanism. The former objection holds that the mere possibility of unconstrained intervention does not matter for unfreedom, whereas the latter contends that it is by virtue of the experience-independent fact of servitude that one is unfree. I argue that people sympathetic to these objections should have reservations about Labordian Republicanism. In any case, republicans should reject the Anti-Psychology Objection. More generally, Pluralist Republicanism might be preferable to Labordian Republicanism.