How Long Can Liberty Be Free

From the book “The Giver”, I have noticed an important message that the author wanted to tell us – The importance of freedom.

Although liberals agree about the value of liberty, their views on what it means to be ‘free’ vary significantly. It was Isaiah Berlin who first created the concepts of negative and positive freedom that helped to differentiate between the two liberals’ views of freedom. The concept of negative freedom was adopted by classical liberals, who believed that freedom was defined as being left alone and free from interference. Classical liberals believed this theory to mean that individuals should be free from external restrictions or constraints. Modern liberals, on the other hand, believed in positive freedom. This, modernist’s perceived to means that all individuals have the ability to be their own master, and thus reach full autonomy. Unlike classical liberals, who had little faith in humankind, Modernists conveyed humans in a much more positive light: people are rational beings that are capable, and therefore should be able, to flourish and

First, negative liberty shifted to positive liberty, because free markets failed to regulate competition. Through negative liberty one believes that freedom comes when there is

freedom of will, as presented in "Freedom of Will and the Concept of Person" and some problems that

Berlin rejects positive liberty. He theorizes that positive liberty creates a susceptibility in individual rights. Berlin states, “the real self may be conceived as something wider than the individual. (350)” To further explain, he claims that individuals can be viewed as part of a social whole, and the achievement of society’s goals represent a “higher freedom”.

Mahmood argues that negative freedom relates to “spaces that are pregnant with possibilities for women’s fulfillment or self-realization”, while The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it as “absence of obstacles external to the agent.” In other words, negative freedom is concerned with a lack of external constraints––how many and which options are open to an individual?––while positive freedom is more internal––is an individual free from constraints on achieving their highest will? When it comes to structuring societies, negative freedom seems like a more useful metric, as it measures how many doors are closed to individuals wishing to exert their will.

Secondly, when we ask the question, what is freedom, we are not simply asking for a definition. We are seeking to find some truth in regards to liberty. We don’t ask this difficult question in order to get some sort of dictionary definition, we ask this question in order to gain insight. We ask this question to know how we should live our lives and how our government and other institutions should act in respect to liberty and our freedoms. Berlin’s two conceptions not only provide us with a definition, but also helps us determine how our society and laws should progress.

Phillipe Van Parijs argues that there are two ways of thinking around freedom, formal freedom and real freedom. Van Parijs defines formal freedom as one having security and self-ownership. Real freedom on the other hand is formal freedom with opportunities. Van Parijs then goes on to explain that the opportunity, what makes freedom real is not something that can be seen as either present or absent, but instead is something that is constantly shifting. Real freedom is therefore on a spectrum. Van Parijs states that the aim of a free society should therefore be “a society whose members are maximally free.” This means that a society where the most people have the most freedom, while understanding that

What are the basic concepts of liberty each civilized individual reserves? What are the limits to which a person can accept and exercise such sovereignty? In the first chapter, “Introductory”, and the second, “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion”, J.S Mill displays such limits and provides an analysis and debate to the common concepts of how an individual works within a society, while simultaneously diverging into how society works with and against a sole figure. In On Liberty, he construes the conflict between liberty and authority and administers the historical diversity amongst social classes.

The three stories all brought into question the definition of freedom. Is freedom just the physical idea of freedom or is there more? Freedom is not just being unshackled and without an owner, it is having one’s own thoughts and ideas, one’s own morals, one’s own set of

“Absolute liberty is the absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself” - Henry Brooks Adams. There has been great debate, past and present with regards to what constitutes as an individuals liberty. It has been subject to constant ridicule and examination due to violations of civil rights. Freedom, liberty, and independence are all important human rights represented within John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty.

A central belief of the liberal atmosphere on which western legal systems are fundamentally based is that of negative freedom, to do as one wills, provided that it causes no harm to others. But a question which goes to the heart of the ethics of allowing total individual freedom with minimal intervention from society can be characterized like so; where to draw the line between freedom and condemnation?  When is interference with individuals and their private morality justified? The harm principle, which seeks to introduce personal liberty and its coexistence with society, appears in John Stuart Mill's “On Liberty”, first published in 1859. However, the idea is not black and white - the harm principle can be criticized for its excessive paternalism, lack of clarity, and incomplete handling of certain situations. In this essay, I will argue that Mill thoroughly justifies his theory for the harm principle. To make this argument, I will examine the harm principle, evaluate possible counterarguments, then apply the Harm Principle to a real-life scenario.

In “Two Concepts of Liberty”, Isaiah Berlin posits the idea of a dialectic between his notions of negative and positive freedom. For Berlin, negative freedom deals with the space area in which an individual is free from coercion or interference. On the other hand, positive freedom focuses on the source of such coercion. In this sense, the positive conception of freedom can entail a sort of self-mastery. Thus, it will be the focus of this paper because of its political implications. Berlin deems positive freedom as politically dangerous. By assessing his argument that positive freedom as a form of rationalism leads to despotism, and his views of positive freedom in the form of self-abnegation, this paper will prove that the positive conception of freedom can be politically dangerous. Not only will this essay argue that Berlin’s claims were correct, it will do so through critical analysis of his examples of Rationalists and his argument of “retreating to the Inner Citadel.”

First and foremost, I am a proponent of Negative Liberty. Not only does this mean that individuals should be free from external impediments to action by other people, but also that a government should primarily remove obstructions to our freedom, which is in contrast to Positive Liberty, for the purpose of preserving individual liberties. The lack of hindrance to human action will limit government activities and create a free, tolerant society. In addition, Negative Liberty supports the individual freedom of choice and movement. With this in mind, I cannot help but emphasize the significance of the degree to which individuals encounter interferences from others. Some may argue that a government should actively create conditions necessary for self-determination and freedom to act in the presence of internal capacities; however, I interpret that as a sense of entitlement that requires a redistribution of wealth and ultimately violates the human right of private property. For this reason, I find Positive Liberty to be an infringement of others’ liberty. Throughout mankind’s history, there have been many types of oppression that illustrate my support for Negative Liberty, such as the exploitative authoritarian regimes, economic hardships, and racial oppression.

By contrast, “the ‘positive’ sense of the word ‘liberty’ derives from the [individual’s] wish … to be his own master” (178). Exponents of positive liberty focus on internal factors rather than external actors by painting the self as essentially divided, typically into a higher and lower self. The higher of these selves, distinguished perhaps by rationality or length of outlook, represents in some sense the true realization of an individual’s potential, nature, or entity. This being is marked by possessing full self-consciousness, bearing full responsibility for one’s choices, and not being a slave to one’s nature or “unbridled