Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of political freedom defined in terms of negative liberty

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Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of political freedom defined in terms of negative liberty

The notion of liberty has been a relevant source of debate, and often controversy, for many thousands of years. Similar ideas of the self were explored by Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, whilst more recently, John Stuart Mill, Hobbes, Tocqueville, and T.H. Green, to name but a few, have theorised on the differences and importance of freedom. Many of these distinguished between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ liberty, and emphasised the importance this was. However, it was Isaiah Berlin’s works, most notably his 1958 essay “Two Concepts of Liberty”, that set the standard and revived the debate over which of the two types of freedom is more important (before I advance, it must be noted that I will use the terms freedom and liberty interchangeably, due to their almost absolute similarity).

Berlin asserts that the positive and negative forms of liberty are contrasting, opposing ideas, thus making it unable for adherents of one type to also accept the existence of the other. Throughout this essay, we will examine the differences, and make cases for and against political freedom in terms of negative liberty.

Berlin speaks of liberty, in the negative sense, as “the absence of obstacle to the fulfilment of a man’s desires” (Berlin, 2002: 30). However, he explains that to be unfree is more than just being prevented by others to do what I want. If this was so, then to remove one’s desires, “ignoring obstacles, forgetting, ‘rising above’ them, becoming unconscious of them” would in fact mean freedom. Citing the example of slavery, if the slave-owner was successfully able to remove a slave’s desires or wishes, then it could be said that the slave was free, due to having no ambition to overcome his ‘chains’ therefore. Berlin talks about freedom when “the oppressor, or the oppressive institutionalised practice, curtails or destroys” (Berlin, 2002: 31).

He also specifically defines civil or political freedom as the absence of obstacles to possible choices available. Using the analogy of walking down a corridor, freedom lies not in the decision to walk or not, but how many doors are open to me, and the extent to which they are open. The obstacles Berlin expresses refers to the notion, theorised by Plato and Freud, of the capacity to act freely in the internal, psychological sphere rather than the external sphere. This is a clear indication of where Berlin’s loyalties lie, as whilst he attempts to draw a distinct line between positive and negative liberty, the internal obstacles (what Skinner calls ‘mastering the self’) still emphasise the need to get rid of constraint to act freely and therefore talks only about negative liberty. This is not dissimilar to Hayek’s view, from his Constitution of Liberty, when he asserts “liberty…becomes positive only through what we make of it [modifying negative freedom]…It leaves it to us to decide what use we shall make of the opportunities in which we find ourselves” (Plant, 1991: 223).

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Nevertheless, we can still use Berlin’s basic definition of positive to compare with. Whereas negative liberty was expressed as freedom from constraint, the absence of obstacles, its positive brother follows the freedom to follow a certain chosen way of life, and the path to “personal autonomy or self government”, and the idea of self-realisation. This divides into two forms; the first being internal to the agent, whereby the rational self rules over the self’s lesser elements. The second, being less individualistic and more political, holds that no individual can live autonomously “except as a member of a free political community, a ...

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