 There are several different frameworks through which to assess the value of association and freedom of association. Kantians would emphasize the importance of securing equal external freedom for individual citizens, something which the state can help to secure by hindering those who would hinder others’ freedom. Rawlsians would highlight that freedom of association, like other basic rights and liberties, has a certain priority in political reasoning and cannot easily be defeated by countervailing considerations (Quong 2011: 15; cf. Moles 2014: 85–103). In a Rawlsian framework, the scope and limits of freedom of association are justified with reference to what we need in order to develop and exercise what Rawls calls the two moral powers (which are, first, the capacity for a sense of justice and, second, the capacity for a conception of the good) (Rawls 1993: 19–20). This entry will take a broader view of freedom of association, focusing on the diverse range of associations we can have, and highlighting, specifically, the array of social goods that our associations can make available to us.