We’ve started looking at the concepts of power (the ability to determine how one behaves) and authority (the right to determine how one behaves), or illegitimate (bully) versus legitimate (parents) uses of power. Behind this is a prior question about individual liberty and how far others can interfere in what I choose to do. I suppose you all agree that others should stop me planting a bomb even if I wanted to, or torturing small animals, but you would probably be indignant at the idea that others can tell me what job to do or who I should reproduce with. The philosophical work is to think about why. Berlin’s essay (available on Blackboard) is the canoinical piece of thinking on this. The two concepts he proposes are these:
Negative freedom: what is the sphere in which others cannot interfere if I do not let them? I have a right to decide what I can do and what can be done with my body and others cannot unless I give them permission.
Positive freedom: how much about my own life do I decide and how much do others decide for me? (consider the question, should I choose my job for myself or should I be told what to do?, partner, football team, tax to pay…)
I want you to read the essay and then answer the following questions, by logging on here and posting comments below, BEFORE NEXT WEEK’S SESSION.
- Find the definitions of negative and positive liberty. Translate them with the use of an example. Which one sounds intuitively more important for political freedom according to you?
- Describe some limitations on negative liberty by the state. Are these all exercises of power? All they all illegitimate?
- Why can’t negative liberty be unlimited? If it is only to be limited when I interfere with others, then is it a question of how can my private space be protected? What is the distinction between the private and public sphere of decision making?
- What is despotism? Can one legitimately coerce men in matters concerning the public sphere? Is this another way of classifying the significance of power?
- Why, according to Mill, is negative liberty of value? Why should it be protected? Is Mill’s claim true?
- Is the opposite to coercion non-interference? What could it be? (Note the use of good and bad in the text.)
- Berlin talks about the death of civilisation. He also assumes that negative liberty is not universal. What sense can you make of these claims?
- Are negative and positive concepts of liberty contradictory? Or opposite? Is it a choice between one or the other or are they logically distinct? What does this mean?
- How do we say someone has greater or lesser freedom in the positive sense of the word?
- What is the distinction between my ‘real’ self and my ‘enslaved’ self? How can I coerce others for their own sake? What are the dangers of this?
1) Negative Liberty appears to be the ability to act – that is to say in the simplest terms, do what one is capable of and has a will to do – without physical boundaries or coercion of any kind. An obvious example of an infringement upon negative liberty is being tied up, assuming that one’s wants desires cannot be wholly satisfied whilst bound.
Positive seems to be much more expansive in the liberty + freedom it gives individuals. The idea being that one is aware that they are autonomous (i.e. the source of decision making power is themselves), and can decide as a collective to make institutions. For example traffic wardens/parking tickets/road safety, because although they arguably hinder our ability to act in certain ways, like driving at 120 mph or parking where we like. They are reinforcing our ability to drive safely, without obstruction (e.g. from parked cars), and also stop me from driving irrationally with the potential to cause harm when I am, say very emotional + am driving differently to how I would be in a more normal state (i.e. calm and rational). I appreciate this account assumes many things, but It was the best I could come up with and I didn’t want to run through all the caveats.
Which is more important depends upon the nature of how you define the two; although they all occupy a similar area, Hobbes definition of negative liberty is certainly distinct from many others. Having said this, i would argue positive liberty is the more important to political freedom, because it seems – in my rudimentary view – that it is the cornerstone of almost any functioning democracy i.e. the ability to make institutions that in theory safeguard liberty and freedom. Although there does seem to be a permanent weakness – a lot of opportunity despotism or totalitarians regimes to establish themselves.
The worry for Berlin, though, is that when one accepts that there is a “you” which reasons properly and a “you” which is too emotional, fraught, uneducated then the individual may not be the best person to decide what is best for him or her. And in certain cases, we let others decide what is best or not for us (the doctor, the psycho-analyst, the parent), but the problem is when political leaders begin to say “If you could know what I know and reason as I do, this is what you would agree is best for you…” It harks back to Plato’s myth of the metals and give history it is best not to trust others with decision about what I do with my life and who I become.
1)Negative liberty is freedom from interference by other people. Positive liberty is the possession of the power and resources to fulfill one’s own potential.
2) The ‘uneducated’ are unable to see that their coercion will benefit them in the future, this causes conflict.
3)-
4)Despotism is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power. You wouldn’t want to think coercion could be legitimate as if it was the right thing to do arguably man wouldn’t need to be coerced in the first place.. However people have conflicting interests which stops us from all having a common interest, which can benefit the greater good. Some may say coercion is okay here..
5) Because it can ultimately help man. Example; forcing a man to cross a bridge as you haven’t got time to say its going to collapse. He supports it as he highlights virtually everything we do will harm someone else in some way.
6) No I don’t think it would be non interference. I think it would be fully educating all man so they can understand the importance of their own personal actions.
7) He seems to be linking the death of civilisation with privacy. I do not understand the link.
8) They are opposite as PL wants man to use his own mind to make decisions freely and non biased whereas NL takes away all freedom of choice and opinion on actions.
9) The ‘free-er’ have the resources to free themselves both mentally and physically. Money???
10) The real self may be conceived as a social hole. The enslaved self idealises that it is not really free, even if it has been convinced to think it is- individualism.
If they are unable to see past the positives of perhaps being repressed for a while for a greater benefit then maybe as educated individual you are making the best choice for them. For example telling your children they have to go to school or ‘Santa won’t come.’ Dangers are that the person/persons coercing may not always be correct in there judgement!
Critical answers, but necessarily so as every philosopher has a reason to write what they write. Berlin is interesting though, in the full version of the article he is as critical of negative and positive liberty because they can both be justifications of oppression. His aim is to argue for a liberal pluralism which has a free market of ideas. Rights protect the individual from interference so he or she can make his own mind up, so liberalism seems to be the best form of government. Trouble is, like Mill before him, he is perhaps too optimistic in a free market of ideas: truth is not always the loudest voice, see your cryptic answer to no. 9.
Positive liberty presents itself as ‘freedom to’, rather than ‘freedom from’. It recognises the individual as its own autonomous being, but also acknowledges the fallibility of humans, hence puts forward certain institutions to prevent actions that are unreasonable and would harm the liberty of others.
The rules which we follow in the library can be used to provide an example of positive liberty. As inhabitants of the library, we are free to take out books, sit and work on our individual assignments, and make use of the computers, printers and scanners. However, this freedom is accompanied by a set of rules, such as being silent when working, not eating loud food, scanning our cards to enter the library etc. If these rules were not in place, the library would be a noisy, hectic place, making work impossible.
The problem with positive freedom arises when institutions assume that they know best because they are the more rational and informed beings. This takes away liberty from the individual and places it in the hand of the institutions, thus giving them more scope to exercise power over the individual. For example, the library assumes a new rule that each individual must pay to use the computers, because it stops people meaninglessly surfing the internet, instead forcing them to work. This would enable only certain people access to the computers who are prepared to pay, hence the institution would be restricting an individual’s autonomy by assuming to be the more informed and reasonable party.
Mill claims that negative freedom – the freedom to act in a way that isn’t obstructed to do so – is essential to humanity, and without it civilization would be unable to advance, due to the restricted scope for spontaneity, originality, genius and moral courage. Although there is some truth in this claim (that freedom prompts individuality and hence encourages new ideas), Mill fails to see that not all forms of coercion are bad, and that certain forms of institutions help to steer the individual towards moral behavior and forward thinking.
Couple of thoughts: (1) has the library annoyed you lately? (2) Mill, as always, is not as simple as he is presented to be. He has a view of custom and history as progress whereby through educational techniques individuals can be improved. There are also issues of equality and fairness: should someone’s right to determine him or herself be dependent on his or her social class and wealth?
In answer to question 8, i would argue that positive and negative liberty are not opposites. The opposite of negative liberty (freedom from coercion) would surely be slavery (to be entrapped through coercion). Slavery uses force to stop the individual choices of people, whereas Positive liberty uses its enforcement to guid an individuals choice in an attempt to promote their liberty. The aims of both kinds of liberty are related to the furthering of ones freedom, so i don’t see how they can be opposites.
1) Question of which out of positive and negative liberty sounds intuitively more important for political freedom. Interesting question, as political liberalism would presumably lend itself more to the definition of negative liberty. Indeed, if liberals generally claim that if you favour individual liberty then limitations should be placed on the activities of the state this coincides with negative liberty. Therefore given negative liberty’s emphasis on the non-intervention from other persons giving a person space to grow, it would appear that negative liberty is more important for political freedom. However, a free individual is someone who changes, develops and makes decisions autonomously… could it be argued this is not liberty due to the absence of interference or obstacles but liberty due to autonomy or self-realization. If so, then why should the absence of state interference guarantee this growth? Nonetheless as Berlin points out, positive liberty carries with it the danger of authoritarianism.
Therefore surely the most important liberty for political freedom lies somewhere between the minimal state interference as preferred by negative liberty and the authoritarianism as presented by positive freedom?
5) For Mill negative liberty is of value because it is ‘… the only freedom which deserves the name… that of perusing our own good in our own way…’ p5
Follows Mill’s claims that all individuals be entitled to a minimum freedom – and all other individuals were to be restrained, by force if necessary if they deprive anyone of this freedom.
According to Mill this should be protected as Berlin mentions on p6, as civilisation cannot advance if the individual is not left to do as he pleases… society would be crushed by ‘collective mediocrity’ p6
7) Berlin’s point of the death of civilisation can be linked back to Mill’s point mentioned above, assuming he means the death of civilisation if there is no individual liberty… p6 again… speaks of how there would be no free market for ideas, no scope for spontaneity, originally etc. This is significant linking to David’s comment above if Berlin is attempting to argue for a liberal pluralism which has a free market of ideas…
10) Distinctions between ‘real’ self and ‘enslaved’ self. Enslaved self could be a relation to the empirical self, not the real self. ‘Real’ self is meant to be at the heart of human understanding, beyond the empirical. Positive freedom arguably necessitates this as those who do understand can persuade/guide others as to what actions they should take through laws/rules… Dangers of this links back to the authoritarianism in that it can restrict individual freedom if there are too many laws to follow.
Some really good points,. The death of civilization is when the individual dies and to have individuals you need to just put up with those who are irrational, capricious and frankly weird. It is a cost worth paying. You are right to link liberalism closely with negative liberty but both Mill and Rawls out pressure on this connection.
10. The real self is the transcendental self that dominates. The self-reason, ‘higher nature’ that is outside the empirical, yet the important factor that decides what we do as it aims at what will satisfy it in the long run with ‘my self at it’s best’, the real or ideal self. It seems to be like the potential we have to be which is at the heart of humans. The enslaved self is the empirical self – enslaved by the impulses and desires of the body in the hunt for immediate pleasures. It’s constrained by the day to day requirements it needs just to keep us alive and needs controlling so we are able to reach the potential of our real self. This makes me think of higher and lower pleasures, higher pleasures satisfying the mind and lower pleasures such as eating satisfying the body.
You can coerce men in the name of some goal, that if they were more enlightened they would agree to it. It’s for their own good. However this is so easily corrupted. Practically anything can be justified if you twist the words which then opens up the way for justifying bulling, oppression etc by telling people it’s for their own good in the name of their ‘real’ self even if they do not want it at all.
Can there not be an independent way of reasoning whether those who command are giving good commands or not? Hegel has this cocnept of objective freedom which applies here: parents, for example, we trust. But it is easier to trust them in a culture where social services, the police and other relatives are in a position to question their edicts on our behalf, isn’t it?