{"id":183,"date":"2014-10-10T09:33:31","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T08:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/?p=183"},"modified":"2014-10-10T09:41:03","modified_gmt":"2014-10-10T08:41:03","slug":"phi3001-stage-3-click-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/2014\/10\/10\/phi3001-stage-3-click-here\/","title":{"rendered":"PHi3001 STAGE 3 CLICK HERE"},"content":{"rendered":"

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. <\/code>\u00a0Behind 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<\/a>) is the canoinical piece of thinking on this. The two concepts he proposes are these:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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…)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Find the definitions of negative and positive liberty.\u00a0 Translate them with the use of an example.\u00a0 Which one sounds intuitively more important for political freedom according to you?<\/li>\n
  2. Describe some limitations on negative liberty by the state.\u00a0 Are these all exercises of power?\u00a0 All they all illegitimate?<\/li>\n
  3. Why can\u2019t 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?<\/li>\n
  4. What is despotism?\u00a0 Can one legitimately coerce men in matters concerning the public sphere?\u00a0 Is this another way of classifying the significance of power?<\/li>\n
  5. Why, according to Mill, is negative liberty of value?\u00a0 Why should it be protected?\u00a0 Is Mill\u2019s claim true?<\/li>\n
  6. Is the opposite to coercion non-interference? What could it be? (Note the use of good and bad in the text.)<\/li>\n
  7. Berlin talks about the death of civilisation.\u00a0 He also assumes that negative liberty is not universal. What sense can you make of these claims?<\/li>\n
  8. Are negative and positive concepts of liberty contradictory?\u00a0 Or opposite?\u00a0 Is it a choice between one or the other or are they logically distinct?\u00a0 What does this mean?<\/li>\n
  9. How do we say someone has greater or lesser freedom in the positive sense of the word?<\/li>\n
  10. What is the distinction between my \u2018real\u2019 self and my \u2018enslaved\u2019 self?\u00a0 How can I coerce others for their own sake?\u00a0 What are the dangers of this?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4745,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedom","category-liberty","category-stage-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4745"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions\/189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/davidrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}