‘Freedom’ and ‘Liberty’ are the two catchwords of 20th century, after decolonisation started globally especially for the global South (the non-industrilised ‘Nation States’). In the present global scenario triggered by the awareness of Covid-19 from February 2020, the world has changed rapidly and dramatically. Actions taken independently prior to Covid-19, both at an individual level and collectively are now governed by how are the terms ‘Freedom’ and ‘Liberty’ are being interpreted globally by citizens and netizens alike. The idea of liberty in the global North (the Industrialised ‘Nation States’), for an individual or collective group/s identity can be traced back to the Kantian philosophy, at least. This idea has since been examined by many scholars, and Negative and Positive Liberty became the buzzwords of the 20th century particularly in the context of the Cold War in a bipolar global scenario.
‘Negative Liberty’ is normally taken to mean an absence of obstacles barriers and constraints. One may have negative liberty to the extent of one’s actions available in the negative sense. ‘Positive Liberty’ on the other hand, is more to do with the possibility of acting – to take control of one’s life and realise one’s fundamental purposes. Negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents while positive liberty attributed to individuals belonging to a collective or to the collective itself. Both terms relate to the context of political and social philosophy, and both terms are distinct from but often related to philosophical discourse on ‘Free Will’. Erstwhile British academic Isiah Berlin has done considerable work on negative and positive liberty, and defended his arguments that the two liberties negative and positive can be seen as rivals, incompatible interpretations of a single political ideal. Very few would claim to be against liberty but when the term is interpreted and defined can lead to important political implications.
Berlin points out in his seminal work ‘Positive and Negative Liberty’ (First published 2003; substantive revision 2016), “Political liberalism tends to assume a negative definition of liberty: liberals generally claim that if one favors individual liberty one should place strong limitations on the activities of the state. Critics of liberalism often contest this implication by contesting the negative definition of liberty: they argue that the pursuit of liberty understood as self-realization or as self-determination (whether of the individual or of the collectivity) can require state intervention of a kind not normally allowed by liberals.”
Many political and social authors continue to use negative and positive ‘freedom’ which may be a matter of style and the terms ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ continue to be used interchangeably in most political and social discourse. The idea of differentiating ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ has not gained currency it deserved and that may be due to linguistics because most European languages like Latin and Germanic traditions have only one term (e.g. liberteĢ, Freiheit) whereas English contains both.
The two concepts of liberty
There exist several instances which give us two contrasting ways of thinking of liberty. One can think of liberty as the absence of obstacles external to the agent. One is free if no one is stopping one from doing whatever one might want to do. On the other hand, one can think of liberty as the presence of control on the part of the agent. To be free, you must be self-determined, which is to say that you must be able to control your own destiny in your own interests. If one is a habitual smoker for instance and has run out of tobacco on the way to appearing for an important job interview and decides to take a detour to buy tobacco before reaching his destination, risking missing or being late for the job interview then the person is unfree. Person in question is not in control of his or her destiny as the person is failing to control a passion which one should rid of which is preventing the person from realising what he or she recognises to their true interest. We can safely conclude that liberty is simply about how many doors are open to an agent, on second thought it’s all about going through the right doors for the right reasons.
These two concepts of liberty are what Isiah Berlin refers to as ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ respectively. In the first case liberty seems to be a mere absence of some elements (For example, obstacles, barriers, constraints, external interferences etc) whereas in the second case it requires a presence of elements (For example, control, self-control, self-determination, and/or self-realisation). Negative concept of liberty Berlin explains, to attempt to answere the question “What is the area within which the agent or subject – a person or a group of people is or should be left to do or be what this person or group of people are able to door exist, without interference by anyone? In the positive concept we attempt to answer, “What, who is the source of control or interference that could determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?
In both cases it is always useful to think of the difference between the two concepts in terms of the different external and internal factors to the agent. Negative liberty or freedom theorists are primarily concerned in the degree to which individuals or groups suffer interference from external sources, whereas positive freedom theorists are more focused to the internal factors affecting the degree to which individuals or groups act autonomously. Given this difference between the two, one is tempted to think that a political philosopher should concern exclusively on negative freedom. Positive freedom concern is more relevant to psychology or individual morality than to political and social institutions.
Put simply a democratic society is a free society by definition because it is thought to be a self-determined society and a member of a democratic society is considered free to the extent that the person participates in the democratic process. One must not ignore the individualist applications of positive freedom concept. A good example is that of a welfare state in which it is believed that the government should aim to create actively sustainable conditions necessary for individuals to be self sufficient or to achieve self-realisation. The welfare state argument is sometimes defended on this criterion as has the idea of a universal basic income in many democratic societies. Negative concept of freedom, on the other hand, is concerned most commonly assumed in defending liberal values of the constitution typical in liberal-democratic societies such as freedom of movement, religion, of speech and arguments against any form of paternalistic, condescending or moralist state intervention. It is frequently invoked in the right to private property. A contentious point where some scholars contest the claim the private property enhances negative liberty and others claim that “negative liberty can ground a form of egalitarianism.”
It would be premature to come to any conclusive argument regarding the two forms of liberties. The one most hotly debated in western political and social philosophy scholars for nearly half a century is whether the positive concept of freedom is a political concept? Can individuals or even groups achieve positive freedom through political action? Is it desirable for a state to promote positive freedom of citizens on their behalf? Historically western political and social thought scholars are divided over how these questions should be answered. Classical Liberal traditionalists answere is an emphatic ‘no’. Critical theorists of this tradition such as Rousseau, Hegel, Marx are typically classed as answering ‘yes’ in defending a positive concept of political and social freedom.
Positive freedom in its political form is often thought of as achieved through a collective form. Perhaps Rousseau’s theory of freedom clearly articulates this concept according to which individual freedom is dependent through a participation process whereas one’s commune exercises a collective control over its own affairs in accordance with a ‘general will’.
After Isiah Berlin’s seminal work there have been many scholars who have developed analyses of the negative concept of liberty since the 1960s. Further explanation of Paradox of positive form of liberty and Freedom as a Triadic tradition are explained in separate writings.
The writer is the former head of Media Sciences at SZABIST.