Positive liberty
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Positive liberty is an idea that was first expressed and analyzed as a separate conception of liberty by John Stuart Mill but most notably described by Isaiah Berlin. It refers to the opportunity and ability to act to fulfill one's own potential, as opposed to negative liberty, which refers to freedom from coercion.
Positive liberty is often described as freedom to achieve certain ends, while negative liberty is described as from external coercion. The idea of positive liberty is often emphasized by those on the left-wing of the political spectrum, whereas negative liberty is most important for those who lean towards libertarianism. However, not all on either the left or right would accept the positive/negative liberty distinction as genuine or significant. For example, Gerald MacCallum believes Berlin is in error and that, "Whenever the freedom of some agent or agents is in question, it is always freedom from some constraint or restriction on, interference with, or barrier to doing, not doing, becoming, or not becoming something" and that what Berlin is referring to as freedom is not freedom at all.
Among the right-wing, some conservatives also embrace some forms of positive liberty. For example, Puritans such as Cotton Mather often referred to liberty in their writings, but focused on the liberty from sin (e.g. sexual urges) even at the expense of liberty from the government.
While he described the concept of positive liberty, Isaiah Berlin was deeply suspicious of it. He argued that the pursuit of positive liberty could lead to a situation where the state forced upon people a certain way of life, because the state judged that it was the most rational course of action, and therefore, was what a person should desire, whether or not people actually did desire it.
Defenders of positive liberty say that there is no need for it to have such totalitarian undertones, and that there is a great difference between a government providing positive liberty to its citizens and a government presuming to make their decisions for them. For example, they argue that any democratic government upholding positive liberty would not suffer from the problems Berlin described, because such a government would not be in a position to ignore the wishes of people or societies. Also, many on the left see positive liberty as guaranteeing equal rights to certain things like education and employment, and an important defense against discrimination — here, positive liberty could be the right of (for example) a woman to be considered on equal terms with a man in a job interview.
Bibliography
- Isaiah Berlin: Four Essays on Liberty (especially Two Concepts of Liberty)
- Charles Taylor: What's Wrong With Negative Liberty
See also
External link
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