Liberty defination: 1 : the quality or state of being free: a : the power to do as one pleases. b : freedom from physical restraint. c : freedom from arbitrary or despotic (see despot sense 1) control. d : the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges.
Isaiah Berlin, talked about liberty in two aspects: Positive and Negative liberty. Positive liberty comes from the personal perspective of the person for eg. rights to speech, rights to do things that he desires. Negative liberty is about outside pressure or resistance in doing something for eg. laws that bind you from causing harm to yourself or the society.
Negative liberty has got to do with absence or presence of coercion from outside forces, like a person has strength and will to do what he wants without or with hindrance or deliberate attempts by other agents. This implies that a person’s liberty is determined by outside circumstances acting on him. This has its own shortcomings: having freedom of press in a country where everyone is illiterate, here illiteracy does not amount to lack of freedom.
Positive liberty follows the positive sense of being master of oneself. Person believes that he or she can live and make decisions as per their own will without considering any external circumstances. People like to be the doer and the decision maker and don’t want someone else doing that for them. This is what distinguishes them as human and not slave or an animal. I can decide my own purpose and own pursuit of happiness. Shortcomings here. Where does one's personal liberty stop? It should not interfere with someone else's liberty. This is seen heavily in America, people value individual freedom/liberty the most. Recent example: People get offended when someone tells them to wear a mask, they say it's their own right to freedom and liberty and they can do whatever pleases them. They are not reasonable to consider health risk to themself and to others.
An Analytical summary of Berlin’s writing of liberty is as given below.
a) Self-Control and Self-Realisation: We always have desires, of all sorts at all time. The paradigm of freedom consists in our decision to resist the desire and have only what seems the best. Freedom to prioritize and to decide, after due diligence, what is to be done now and what is to be kept for later.
b) Paternalism: In case someone is not able to decide for myself, ignorant of what best for me, then a paternalistic intervention is justified as freedom for the person. Eg: in the USA, Women taking care of slaves, when they got freedom but couldn't decide what to do or where to start from. Eg. 2. A parent feeding a nasty tasting medicine to a child for her health benefit.
c) Social Self Control: Freedom is further enhanced by laws and coercive sanctions set by the organization for all. If someone can’t resist temptation despite knowing that it would likely cause harm to him, then fear of punishment can prevent him from making that decision and keep him on the wise path. Hence it expands his true freedom.
d) State Servitude: If someone is out of self-control, he is at risk of causing harm to himself or and to the society then the State’s intervention to control by force, despite his disapproval or lack of participation can thereby make him free for the service of his real interest.
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