Lecture 3; Liberty Flashcards
(14 cards)
why liberty?
Why Liberty? Because it prescribes the limits of state activity – i.e. the legitimate scope of coercion.
Negative Liberty
Negative Liberty: freedom from interference (‘freedom from’)
-1) is defined as a boundary space for human action
-2) is defined against coercion …
-3) …which must be deliberately inflicted by humans: (not coerced by the wind, just by people)
positive liberty
Positive Liberty: freedom as self-mastery (‘freedom to’)
-1) Linked to autonomy (or self-mastery)
-2) The Subject not the object
-3) Threats to liberty can be internal or extern (negative has to be external)
different selves
The whole idea about negative liberty is that there is a boundary
*How is liberty a boundary?
-1) An outer boundary which the state (or others) cannot enter.
-2) Not exactly fixed, but nonetheless firm. (firm like a right but not fixed)
-3) The question of liberty is: how large should the circle around the self be?
*Bottom Line: there has to be a way to protect the individual, to carve out a space free of interference. Berlin doesn’t give a formula for how to define this minimum space, except to point out that it must somehow exists and HARM draws the line.
what is the problem of dividing yourself? (positive liberty) opens the door for totalitarianism
1) when you divide yourself agency is meaningless
2) bastardizes the idea of choice, you willed to do something but you did not do it
3) it puts people in the position to know what is the best for you.
(MOST IMPORTANT)
it creates a dangerous opening for external forces, like the state, to justify controlling you for your own good.
the root problem of totalitarianism
Rationalism:
one must understand in order to be free
Berlin thinks that rationalism lies at the heart of nationalist, communist and totalitarian ideologies.
A second route to totalitarianism: fictions of autonomy
Berlin argues that we can never be autonomous, because of social encasement:
the pursuit of social ‘autonomy’ leads to the forfeit of freedom
negative freedom wrapped up
-1) that only rights can be considered absolute (rather than power) (the force field is absolute)
-2) that there are frontiers around individuals that must be inviolable.
*This leads to a kind of individualism, protected against the state.
*The main scourge of history is the belief that somewhere there is a single solution to our human social woes.
*Thus what matters is pluralism (which negative liberty affords):
critique maccallum on Berlin
In fact, all freedoms are both ‘from’ and ‘to’. Instead, their relationship is ‘triadic’:
-“x is (is not) free from y to do (no do, become, not become) z”.
In this model, the only real difference between negative and positive liberty is how you define the agent (X).
Miller thinks this reduces away the core essence of the conceptual distinction
Skinner’s argument critiques MacCallum’s triadic model by pointing out that positive liberty — as traditionally understood — doesn’t fit neatly into MacCallum’s structure.
Formal Freedom
lack of state law preventing you from acting
Effective Freedom
having the means to actual act as one would wish
Republicanism (Pettit)
The central motivating force behind republicanism is the desire to hedge against domination, or arbitrary mastery by another:
How do we justify redistribution and support liberty at the same time?
LEARN!
-1. Redistribution is OK because we have a limited claim to property
-2. Redistribution can be justified on other grounds
-3. Redistribution is justified due to the increase in overall effective freedom
-4. All of this is ideological artifice. (blinded)
-5. Redistribution can be defended on positive freedom grounds.
How might one save positive liberty from totalitarianism (berlin)
according to swift
1) Start Small: Promote autonomy by offering information and encouraging critical thinking.
2) Barriers ≠ Intervention: Recognizing internal struggles doesn’t justify forcing change.
3) Freedom ≠ Rationality: Authentic desires aren’t always about logic.
4) Rationality Varies: What’s rational differs for each person.
5) No Single Rational Path: Even for one person, multiple rational choices may exist.
6) Knowing What’s Rational ≠ Force: Identifying the “best” choice doesn’t justify coercion.
7)Restrictions May Be Justified (But Not for ‘Freedom’): Limits on freedom may be valid for safety, justice, etc., but not in the name of freedom itself.
