Negative, positive liberty,... Isaiah Berlin...

Some thoughts hopefully to encourage some discussion to further enrich my, and everyone's understanding of the concepts of negative and positive liberty, and/or freedom.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Isaiah
• Berlin
• negative
• positive
• liberty
• freedom
• psychology
• sociology
• philosophy

[gbushimprov]

@MrDevong ...(cont) you can certainly restrain yourself from smoking cigarettes in order to be healthier and free yourself from addiction, this is not incompatible with negative liberty. It is tyranny of enforcing your ideals of positive liberty on others that Berlin warned against. Advocates of postive liberty as a social movement often talk about freeing individuals from themselves, Berlin argues this leads to external tyranny instead and the individual should be free to constrain themselves.

[gbushimprov]

@MrDevong I'll see if I can find it for you, I think it was a radio speech. Essentially he believed that if governments tried to impose a particular view of how people should live their lives then that would lead to tyranny. He makes it clear that individuals are free to pursue any brand of positive freedom they wish. As long as they are not imposing it on others it is not incompatible with negative liberty. Positive liberty for the individual is having power over yourself to fulfil desires....

[MrDevong]

@gbushimprov With all due respect that doesnt make sense. Please post a link so I can read it cause I have found no such statement. How can he say that positive liberty is necessary for the advancement of society but say that it always leads to paternalism and tyranny.

[gbushimprov]

@MrDevong Have a read of some of his other works (mostly interviews and debates), he states quite clearly that positive liberty is necessary for the advancement of society, it is positive liberty as a political movement that he is against.

bit [DOT] ly/a8Ls17

bit [DOT] ly/b3ssm6

[MrDevong]

@gbushimprov False Berlin does see the paradox of positive liberty as evil

[gbushimprov]

I would encourage you all to read the transcripts of interviews and discussion groups that Berlin took part in. Adam Curtis describes both concepts in the barest form he can so that the theory doesn't overshadow the reality of what happened.

Isaiah Berlin doesn't find positive liberty inherently evil as Curtis suggests, he instead sees it as essential to the continued progress of society but that it should be the individual that enacts this on himself, not the state or any other persons.

[Pittounikos]

Berlin wanted to plug the keyhole to utopia. And after what went on in the 20th century who can blame him? But the human drive for a better world and indeed utopia itself is like a gas. If you plug the keyhole it will only come out through the floorboards. N liberty feels artificial and just as 'man made' as any utopian plan. To me, the idea of N Liberty just feels like a childs playpen, that is, we can consume what we see on the supermarket shelves and follow the law etc but thats about it

[natedaug1]

Adam Curtis is a bit of a hack. His movies are meant to produce fear. Yes your concepts of negative and positive are correct. Negative liberty is supposed to be that in theory you work out your own salvation, so to speak. Positive liberty your getting some help in working out your own salvation as an autonomous being. The question is when does positive liberty start infringing upon people's negative liberty rights.

[Pittounikos]

You can decide for yourself. Who said Isaiah Berlin should be the grand guru of freedom anyway? We have already, oops! You done well to fit you intellectual labyrinth into the YouTube box though.

[damnsith]

positive liberty, describes a concept, where the government has a concept of a free human being, and everyone should try to attain that. But when these ideas, set forth by the government clashes with personal values and morals, that is when revolution results, and this will always be the case with positive liberty, simply because everyone is different, and have their own ideas and way of thinking, and positive liberty disrupts this.. correct me if im wrong