PHi3001 Berlin, Two concepts of liberty
Read Berlin’s essay that has been made available on (or in — what is the correct preposition for the “space” which is BB?) Blackboard and then get together with friends and begin answering the questions. Use the common room and the large workstation thingy in the corner…
The essay is really important but beware, Berlin is a little naughty by calling them positive and negative and then trying to deconstruct the opposition which he has made. One can be positively and negatively unfree at the same time — they are not logically exclusive.
If you can post some answers below prior to the lesson next Tuesday I can respond to them in class and use them as the basis for a quick overview of the issues involved. Thoughts, puzzles and even answers can also be posted in the comments below.
Questions:
1. 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?
2. Describe some limitations on negative liberty by the state. Are these all exercises of power? All they all illegitimate?
3. 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?
4. What is despotism? Can one legitimately coerce men in matters concerning the public sphere? Is this another way of classifying the significance of power?
5. Why, according to Mill, is negative liberty of value? Why should it be protected? Is Mill’s claim true?
6. Is the opposite to coercion non‐interference? What could it be? (Note the use of good and bad in the text.)
7. Berlin talks about the death of civilisation. He also assumes that negative liberty is not universal. What sense can you make of these claims?
8. 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?
9. How do we say someone has greater or lesser freedom in the positive sense of the word?
10. 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?
Comment and possible example to the first question:
Could the French Revolution and its ‘regime of terror’ by Robbes Pierre be an example for positive liberty turning into negative liberty or dangers that are inherent in the concept of positive liberty?
The example of the French Revolution is an interesting one and one worth looking at in relation to Hegel’s critique of the Terror (Hegel is one thinker that Berlin has in his sights when discussing the problems of positive liberty). Positive liberty: I am free when I govern myself, however I my be mistaken about what I want, what I think is good due to coercion or false consciousnesses and others may know better than me what I want. I should allow these others (parents, teachers, intellectuals, governors) to decide what I want for my sake. We will chat about this today. Historically this has meant forcing people to be free yet (as Hegel says and which Berlin does not remind us), that is to switch one state of servitude for another and the will is still not free.
Be careful because you fall into Berlin’s carefully laid trap of assuming that positive means good and negative bad, and that they are opposites. There is no logical relationship between them and they can be both be the basis of political oppression. The main question remains who knows best what my interests are and what liberalism does better than other theories is says, “Don’t know, but probably best I decide rather than others.”
Begin with definitions of the two terms though, as offered by Berlin, and work backwards form these to reconsider your comments.
Answers/thoughts from Tom Stables and Jack Hewitt
1. Negative Liberty – the absence of constraints upon one’s actions.
Positive Liberty – the possibility of acting in such a way as to take control of one’s life. Unlike negative liberty, it is not about “freedom from” but “freedom to”. A useful way to look at it is to ask, “who has control over me? Is it me? Am I free to choose my own life path?”
Intuitively, negative liberty sounds more important for political freedom, as the absence of constraints appears more fundamental to political action and freedom than self-determination and mastery.
2. We submit ourselves to limitations upon our actions through the social contract, a concept enforced by the state, in order to protect ourselves. Nonetheless, this is a constraint upon or actions and freedom. Laws are exercises of power. The legitimacy of power relies on the existence of a de jure source of authority, or purely political and recognised authority, as distinct from de facto authority.
3. If negative liberty were unlimited then ‘it would entail a state in which all men could boundlessly interfere with all other men; and this kind of ‘natural’ freedom would lead to social chaos in which men’s minimum needs would not be satisfied; or else the liberties of the weak would be suppressed by the strong.’
Berlin proposed that ‘there ought to exist a certain minimum area of personal freedom which must on no account be violated; for if it is overstepped, the individual will find himself in an area too narrow for even that minimum development of his natural faculties which alone makes it possible to pursue, and even to conceive, the various ends which men hold good or right or sacred’. As such, private space is protected.
4. Despotism – to invade the personal freedom of a man. The typically established personal freedoms are seen as including, at least, the liberty of religion, opinion, expression, property. These must be guaranteed against arbitrary invasion, in order to prevent the degradation or denial of human nature.
Coercion in matters of the public sphere to some extent can be legitimate, it is accepted that we cannot remain absolutely free, and must give up some of our liberty to preserve the rest.
For Mill, justice demands that all individuals be entitled to a minimum of freedom. As such, all other individuals must necessarily be restrained in some limited way, in order to prevent the deprivation of anyone’s minimum liberty.
Power therefore may have the ability to preserve a minimum of freedom for all?
5. Negative liberty is the liberty from, or absence of, interference beyond our personal frontier. For Mill, ‘The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way.’
It should be protected for the good of all society, for, ‘unless the individual is left to live as he wishes in ‘the part [of his conduct] which merely concerns himself’, civilisation cannot advance; the truth will not, for lack of a free market in ideas, come to light; there will be no scope for spontaneity, originality, genius, for mental energy, for moral courage. Society will be crushed under the weight of “collective mediocrity”.’ – Mill therefore believes that liberty is a necessary condition for human genius and the progress of society.
It is difficult to argue against the idea that truth and self-expression cannot flourish as well as they might in a libertarian society when dogma prevents thought, but, as argued by James Stephen, love of truth and individualism can be seen to grow at least as often in severely disciplined communities as in the more tolerant ones.
6. For Mill, non-interference is the opposite of coercion, being the classical conception of negative liberty. Similarly, for Rousseau, the wider the area of non-interference, the wider my freedom.
7. Berlin claims that negative liberty is a modern concept, one that is ‘scarcely older than the Renaissance or the Reformation’ and not present in the laws of Rome, Ancient Greece, or other ancient civilisations, but that to remove it would be the death of our civilisation, and our modern moral outlook.
8. ‘Who governs me?’ is logically distinct from the question ‘How far does government interfere with me?’ It is in this difference that we find the great contrast between the two concepts of negative and positive liberty.
For Berlin, ‘The desire to be governed by myself, or at any rate to participate in the process by which my life is to be controlled, may be as deep a wish as that for a free area for action, and perhaps historically older. But it is not a desire for the same thing. So different is it, indeed, as to have led in the end to the great clash of ideologies that dominates our world. For it is this, the ‘positive’ conception of liberty, not freedom from, but freedom to – to lead one prescribed form of life – which the adherents of the ‘negative’ notion represent as being, at times, no better than a specious disguise for brutal tyranny.’
9. Perhaps positive freedom can be measured through the degree of someone’s own self-realisation. A young child, for example, is unable to fully exercise the potential liberty of their mind and will, due to the physical and mental obstacles that they encounter. However, a fully grown man/woman, is able to logically function and propel themselves deliberately and rationally. They are therefore more free than the child, in a positive sense, being more able to realise their own desires, regardless of any external constraint or obstacle.
10. The real self might be seen as the autonomous version of the individual, the dominant self which is aligned with reason and rationality. They are liberated from potential slavery, in both a literal and spiritual sense. This slavery might be political, legal or moral, but refers universally to the self which is present in day to day life, one constrained and limited in their behaviour.
Berlin also suggests a further divide between the two selves, being represented through a social identity. This might be found through the state, race, church.. This collective entity then takes up the ‘true’ self identity, and imposes it’s collective will upon external, opposing wills.
Coercion implies the deliberate interference of other beings within an area that you could otherwise act. Berlin sees that it is plausible and sometimes justifiable to coerce men in the name of a goal which, if they were better informed, they would pursue themselves regardless.
However, this is dangerous, because one may go on to claim a good deal more than this, being in a position to ignore the wishes of men or societies and impose limits upon their liberty.
Good answers. Couple of reflections:
“Intuitively, negative liberty sounds more important for political freedom, as the absence of constraints appears more fundamental to political action and freedom than self-determination and mastery.”
Perhaps, but… what about the right to self-govern? I could be allowed extensive liberty with my actions, but not be allowed or invited to choose the ends of my actions.
On Mill and the wonderful phrase “collective mediocrity”, I wonder whether it is fair to hold a mirror to our society and its cultural production where we enjoy quite a lot of negative liberty?
“Berlin claims that negative liberty is a modern concept, one that is ‘scarcely older than the Renaissance or the Reformation’ and not present in the laws of Rome, Ancient Greece, or other ancient civilisations, but that to remove it would be the death of our civilisation, and our modern moral outlook.”
And that comes from a Hegelian point about the way the self is structured by social institutions. The trouble is that the justification of these social institutions is often now given in terms of our own best interests or real self — hence how it feeds into the last few questions.
Marie
1. Negative liberty= the area in which a man can act unobstructed by others. Includes rights and freedom of action (freedom of speech, religion etc.)
Positive liberty= the wish on the part of the individual to be their own master. Concerned with the question, ‘who governs me?’
Negative liberty seems more intuitively important for political freedom, as rights to certain things (such as bodily integrity) seem far more important that being the master of oneself. If one lives in a society that is ruled by other(s), but still has rights, and is not being oppressed, then does it really matter who is governing him?
2. Limitations on negative liberty by the state: we are not free to go around killing or attacking people. We are not free to vote/drink alcohol if we are below 18 years old. We are not free to be married to two people at the same time.
The above examples are exercises of power by the state, but they are certainly not illegitimate. Such laws are enforced so that we can live in a safe, secure society in which we don’t fear for our lives every time we leave the house. Of course this is restricting our freedom, but for the good of everyone, including us, who lives in our society.
(Of course the voting, drinking and marriage examples are debatable- some would argues that such laws are not legitimate. However, almost everyone would agree that laws against murder and rape are essential for a safe society).
3. For Hobbes, our negative liberty could not be unlimited because, without any laws or rules, men would return to the state of nature, resulting in chaos, wars, and misery. The will of the strongest would suppress the weakest in the society, resulting in an oppressive, unjust and dangerous society.
It is surely very difficult to distinguish between the private and public sphere of decision making, because, as Berlin writes, ‘no man’s activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in any way’. In what way, then, is it possible for man to have a ‘certain minimum area of personal freedom’ if all of his actions affect the lives of others in some way?
4. Despotism is the exercise of absolute power, especially in a cruel or oppressive way. A country where the ruler holds absolute power. ‘We must preserve a minimum area of personal freedom if we are not to degrade or deny our nature’- to go against this would be despotism.
For Mill, one can legitimately coerce men in matters concerning the public sphere, even by force is required. In order to ensure that one is entitled to a minimum of freedom, all those around him were of necessity to be restrained to some extent so that they cannot deprive him of his rights to his personal sphere of freedom.
Looked at in this way, power then becomes very significant in a positive way. It becomes essential for our freedom and happiness.
5. According to Mill, a man is a being with a life of his own to live. If he is coerced and is not free to make his own choices about his own life, then ‘civilization cannot advance’ and ‘society will be crushed by the weight of custom, by men’s constant tendency to conformity’ which breeds weak men.
It does not matter what the intention is behind the blocking of freedom, to invade the personal sphere of a man’s freedom is to ‘sin against the truth that he is a man’ who must be free in some way to make his own decisions and be who he chooses to be, without restraint by others.
As James Stephen points out, however, Mill’s assertion that liberty is a necessary condition for the growth of human genius may fall to the ground when considering other societies, namely ‘severely disciplined’ ones, in which ‘integrity, love of truth and fiery individualism’ still grow and flourish as they do in more liberal societies.
6. For Mill, non-interference is the opposite of coercion, and it is good, although not the only good- sometimes our negative freedom must be restricted for the good of society at large. Perhaps this could be seen as the opposite of coercion- having limits to our freedom in certain ways for the good of society? However, it is difficult to see how this could not contain a contradiction, for coercion itself implies limitation and restriction, so how could limitation and restriction be considered its opposite?
7. Rather than being a universal concept that has spanned centuries, the concept of negative liberty is a fairly modern idea. There was no talk of such liberty by the Romans, the Greeks, the Jewish or Chinese ancient civilisations. Rather, the idea of individual liberty as a conscious political ideal is scarcely older than the Renaissance or the Reformation. However, because the concept of negative freedom has come to dominate our conceptions of freedom in modern times, to return to how it was before would mark the death of civilisation, and of an entire moral outlook that we have come to see as the norm. The desire to not be impinged upon has become the mark of high civilisation- to get rid of it would mark the decline of society in moral terms.
8. Although raising different questions, negative (concerned with rights) and positive freedom (who governs me?) are not opposite, but rather overlap.
For example, in positive freedom one wishes to govern themselves, but the question inevitably arises of how do I stop others interfering with me? This links in with negative liberty, which is concerned with our rights to certain things, including our rights not be be interfered with in certain areas of life.
The two concepts are not opposite, although this does not mean that they are logically linked. One can, for example, be free in one way and not the other (one could still have rights to healthcare in a tyrannical society.)
9. Does one have more positive freedom is they identify more with their ‘higher self’- their reason, which calculates and aims at what will satisfy it in the long run, and less positive freedom if they give into their ‘lower nature’, their base desires and do not exercise their reason in pursuit of future goods? Perhaps this would be true for Plato and Hegel? (e.g. being a ‘slave to nature’) Using reason, one would be able to better understand their desires and goals, and to logically look at how best to achieve these as their own master, or the ruler of their own ‘fate’. However, someone consumed by their base desires would be too preoccupied trying to satisfy their own short term desires, and thus would need to be ruled by someone else in order to decide on more long-term, important decisions about their life.
10. The ‘real’ or ‘dominant’ self is identified with reason, with my ‘higher nature’ or my ‘self at its best’. The ‘enslaved’ self is associated with ‘irrational impulse’ and one’s ‘lower nature’.
Others can be coerced for their own sake if the coercer believes that what he is forcing him to do is actually in his best interests, but he does not see this because his mind is clouded by his empirical interests- he is not in touch with his ‘real’ self so cannot see what is in his best interests. If he was in touch with his ‘real’ self then he would choose this for himself, but at present he is blind to the truth.
It is dangerous because it allows the coercer to ignore the actual wishes of men or societies, to bully, oppress, torture them in the name, and on behalf of, their ‘real’ selves.
For example, churches doing missionary work in other countries.
Good answers again. Thoughts:
“does it really matter who is governing him?” It matters if he governs himself or is able to have the choice to govern himself, surely.
2, More controversial cases: I am free to smoke, but not marijuana; I am free to watch violent films, but not sexually violent films. These test the legitimate/illegitimate tension more than the obvious case.
“The desire to not be impinged upon has become the mark of high civilisation- to get rid of it would mark the decline of society in moral terms.” Was there no high culture or society in Ancient Greece or Ancient China?