Eugène Delacroix

This is an essay from my undergraduate years at the London School of Economics. I thought maybe someone could use it, in whatever way. Beware academic language.

This essay will defend the hypothesis that negative liberty is insufficient for a proper understanding of political liberty, and needs to be accompanied by other conceptions of liberty such as the positive and republican one. The purpose of this essay is then two-fold: First, I will focus on negative liberty and evaluate its strength to conclude that there are insufficiencies related to noninterference. Second, I will analyze positive and republican liberty to determine how those can partially lead to a better understanding of political liberty.

To determine if negative liberty, or non-interference, is insufficient for freedom, we need to analyze it properly. If political liberty is something more than negative liberty, then that means that it lacks something. To understand what it lacks, we need to present its core argument first for then we can see more clearly what is missing. Negative liberty is about absence of coercion; it is liberty as non-interference, in which the individual is sovereign. It stems from the desire not to be impinged upon and to be left to oneself. Berlin defines freedom as the capability to exercise an ability, if chosen, without interference. [1]

Mill compared the development of an individual with that of a plant by arguing that individuals like plants must be allowed to grow in the sense of developing their own faculties to the full and according to their inner logic. [2] Locke asserted that a large reserve of private life is needed over which neither the state nor any other authority can trespass. [3] Constant further claimed that at the very least the liberty of religion, opinion, expression, property must be guaranteed against arbitrary invasion. [4] For Hobbes, a free man is someone who in those things, which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindred to do what he has a will to.[5] Negative liberty is intuitively powerful, yet there are some instances in which non-interference can prevent a person from being free.

One is, in which a person is not interfered with, but still lacks ability to do what he desires. In A Two Concepts of Liberty presents a case of a man who cannot read because he is blind. Skinner argues that while the blind man is formally free because no one is interfering with him in this pursuit, he is obviously not effectively free, because he is not in a position to make use of his formal liberty. [6] Mill illustrates the other instance, when he admits that a man may be forcibly prevented from crossing a bridge if there is not time to warn him that it is about to collapse, for we know, or are justified in assuming, that he cannot wish to fall into the water. [7]

As individuals we may not always know what is in our best interest, or better yet what we are doing may be potentially harmful. For example, if the government knew of an imminent terrorist attack, just as in the example given by Mill, everyone would realize that interference by the government would be desirable. Thus, these two examples show that non-interference, or non-coercion is not always enough to ensure political liberty.

If political liberty can be anything more than negative liberty, then what may it be? In his Two Concepts of Liberty, Berlin famously distinguished between positive and negative liberty. In order to determine if positive liberty can show that negative liberty is insufficient for political liberty, the core ideas of that positive notion of liberty need to be assessed. Positive freedom to refer to the two previous examples would be to aid the blind man in exercising an ability despite the fact that he may be blind, or for the government to interfere with the man that is trying to cross the bridge that is about to explode.

To display the value of positive liberty, Christman develops a further example in which he shows that a Muslim women that claims to espouse fundamental doctrines generally followed by her family and community may not be called free because her desire to conform might be somehow oppressively imposed upon her through indoctrination, manipulation or deceit. [8] The Muslim women can then only be positively free when her desire to conform was arrived at while being aware of other reasonable options, plus weighing and assessing other options rationally. Positive liberty is then not merely abscene of obstalces, but freedom as self-realization. Just because the government decides not to interfere with an individual’s action, does not ensure that the individual will reach his potential and growth. This is why negative liberty cannot be sufficient.

Berlin draws an example of a person, who is free of obstacles but controlled by his passion to find the next liquor store. Surely that person would not object if the government had intervened to help him. However, we need to be careful and cannot dismiss negative liberty so quickly in favor of positive liberty. Emerson wrote that self-fulfillment is the person’s highest good in life, and someone else cannot achieve this for them.[9] Kant argued that there is no higher value than the individual. He wrote that if a social reformer manipulates men, and leads them towards goals which the state sees, but the individual may not, that is to deny their human essence and it is to treat them as objects without wills of their own.[10]

Mill is in alignment when he writes that the individual is the best person to judge what it is in his interest, and the paternalizing agent cannot be trusted to really look afer the person’s well-being better than the person himself.[11] Berlin continues to argue that positive liberty carries with it a danger of authoritarianism insofar as this notion of liberty is at the heart of the demands for national or self-direction, which animate the most powerful and morally just public movements of our time, and that not to recognize this is to misunderstand the most vital facts and ideas of our time.[12] In the case of an oppressed minority there is an argument for and against positive freedom.

Consider two historical examples; that of women not being able to vote and African-Americans being discriminated based on their skin color, which is an arbitrary factor that they cannot control. If the government recognizes that it is unjust that women are not allowed to vote, or African-Americans being discriminated, then it can give them positive liberty in the sense that even though those minorities enjoy formal freedom, they are effectively not free. The notion of positive freedom, in the end, is a double-edged sword and carries with it advantages and disadvantages. If we are to say then that positive liberty needs to be incorporated within a given set of political liberty, we need to realize that positive liberty also has its insufficiencies.

If political liberty goes beyond negative liberty, and positive liberty, while useful also comes with problems, we are left with a third concept of liberty, as Skinner would argue. It is said that the Republican concept of freedom cannot lead to anything like the oppressive consequences feared by positive liberty, because it has a commitment to non-domination and to liberal-democratic institutions already built into it.[13]

Petit distinguishes between Republican freedom and negative freedom by comparing the kindly master, domination without interference, and the nonarbitrary law, interference without domination. [14] This means, as Petit writes, that freedom is not merely the enjoyment of a sphere of noninterference but also the enjoyment of certain conditions in which such non-interference is guaranteed. Skinner further notes that a person is free only if she lives in a society with the kinds of political institutions that guarantee the independence of each citizen from exercise of arbitray power.[15]

To illustrate this Petit draws an analogy to the relationship between a slave and his master. Although the slave may continue to enjoy his freedom by noninterference, the master clearly dominates the slave and possesses arbitrary powers, which means that the continued enjoyment of the slave’s liberty is dependent upon the goodwill of the master. [16] Republican liberty then, to make a further example, similar to the U.S. political system acts whereby power that may constrain people’s liberties is checked and balanced. Political liberty, then, needs to be not only about non-interference, but also about non-domination.

But, for example, in a capitalist society, in which some people will not be perfectly wired to a market economy, we also need to ensure that these people are not left behind. While it is important that each individual enjoys a set of individual liberties by which that person can achieve their potential, we also need to be careful of not involving the government too much. The individual will always know best what is in his interest. He or she may not know the best way to get there, but the government may not know either. Wherever the government may have more knowledge than the individual, it can suggest, or sometimes even interfere.

In some cases individuals might think shortsighted, while the government can ensure that you think about the long-term, as well. One way to do that would be for the government to suggest certain policies by opting them in by default, but at the same time also giving them the option to opt-out.

I have argued in this essay that while the value of negative liberty is intuitively powerful, it cannot be enough to encompass political liberty fully. These insufficiencies were partially addressed by the positive conception of liberty and Republican liberty. However, for a more complete set of political liberties, in the end, we need to draw from different conceptions of liberty, but also be aware of insufficiencies that each conception of liberty poses.

Bibliography

Berlin, Isaiah (1958) ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford UP,

1969)

Carter, Ian (2008) ‘Positive and Negative Liberty’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

(Stanford: Metaphysics Research Lab, 2008

Christman, John (1991) Liberalism and Individual Positive Freedom (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, Ethics, 1991)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1841) Self-Reliance (New York: Dover Publications, 1993)

Hobbes, Thomas (1651) Leviathan (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009)

Mill, John Stuart (1869) On Liberty (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008)

Petit, Philip (2002) A Theory of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001)

Skinner, Quentin (2002) ‘A Third Concept of Liberty’, in Goodin’s Contemporary Political

Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002)

Footnotes

[1] Berlin, I. ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, in Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford UP, p.156

[2] Carter, I. ‘Positive and Negative Liberty’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Stanford: Metaphysics Research Lab, p.5

[3] Berlin, I. ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, in Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford UP, p.157

[4] Ibid, p.157

[5] Hobbes, T. Leviathan Oxford: Oxford UP, Chapter XXI

[6] Skinner, Q. ‘A Third Concept of Liberty’, in Goodin’s Contemporary Political

Philosophy Oxford: Blackwell, p.242

[7] Mill, J.S. On Liberty Oxford: Oxford UP, p. 64

[8] Christman, J. Liberalism and Individual Positive Freedom Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Ethics, p.345

[9] Emerson, R.W. Self-Reliance New York: Dover Publications, p.6

[10] Berlin, I. ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, in Four Essays on Liberty Oxford: Oxford UP, p.158

[11] Mill, J.S. On Liberty Oxford: Oxford UP, p. 87

[12] Berlin, I. ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, in Four Essays on Liberty Oxford: Oxford UP, p.159

[13] Carter, I. ‘Positive and Negative Liberty’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Stanford: Metaphysics Research Lab, p.7

[14] Petit, P. A Theory of Freedom Oxford: Oxford UP, p.52

[15] Skinner, Q. ‘A Third Concept of Liberty’, in Goodin’s Contemporary Political

Philosophy Oxford: Blackwell, p.244

[16] Ibid, p.247