NEGATIVE LIBERTY

The concept of 'negative liberty' refers to an individual's freedom from authority. According to Thomas Hobbes, "a free man is he that... is not hindered to do what he hath the will to do."
The distinction between negative and positive liberty was drawn by Isaiah Berlin in his lecture "Two Concepts of Liberty." According to Berlin, the distinction is deeply embedded in the political tradition. The notion of negative liberty is associated with British philosophers such as Locke, Hobbes, and Adam Smith, and positive liberty with continental thinkers, such as Hegel, Rousseau, Herder, and Marx.
In Berlin's words, "liberty in the negative sense involves an answer to the question: 'What is the area within which the subject — a person or group of persons — is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons'." Restrictions on negative liberty are imposed by a person, not by natural causes or incapacity. Helvetius expresses the point clearly: "The free man is the man who is not in irons, nor imprisoned in a gaol, nor terrorized like a slave by the fear of punishment ... it is not lack of freedom not to fly like an eagle or swim like a whale."
The distinction between positive and negative liberty is considered specious by socialist and Marxist political philosophers, who argue that positive and negative liberty are indistinguishable in practice, or that one cannot exist without the other.

Contents

Negative liberty and authority: Hobbes and Locke

Negative liberty in various thinkers

Bibliography

See also

External links

Negative liberty and authority: Hobbes and Locke

One might ask, "How is men's desire for liberty to be reconciled with the need for authority?" Its answer by various thinkers provides a fault line for understanding their view on liberty but also a cluster of intersecting concepts such as authority, equality, and justice.
Hobbes and Locke give two influential and representative solutions to this question. As a starting point, both agree that a line must be drawn and a space sharply delineated where each individual can act unhindered according to their tastes, desires, and inclinations. This zone defines the sacrosanct space of personal liberty. But, they believe no society is possible without some authority, where the intended purpose of authority is to prevent collisions among the different ends and, thereby, to demarcate the boundaries where each person's zone of liberty begins and ends. Where Hobbes and Locke differ is the extent of the zone. Hobbes, who took a rather negative view of human nature, argued that a strong authority was needed to curb men's intrinsically wild, savage, and corrupt impulses. Only a powerful authority can keep at bay the permanent and always looming threat of anarchy. Locke believed, on the other hand, that men on the whole are more good than wicked and, accordingly, the area for individual liberty can be left rather at large.

Negative liberty in various thinkers

John Jay, in Federalist Papers No. 2, stated that: "Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of Government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights, in order to vest it with requisite powers." Jay's meaning would be better expressed by substituting "negative liberty" in place of "natural rights", for the argument here is that the power or authority of a legitimate government derives in part from our accepting restrictions on negative liberty.
Thomas Paine in ''Common Sense'' distinguishes between society and government almost exactly with the distinction between positive and negative liberty: "Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices."
Thomas Jefferson says, "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."
Liberterian thinker Tibor Machan defends negative liberty as "required for moral choice and, thus, for human flourishing," claiming that it "is secured when the rights of individual members of a human community to life, to voluntary action (or to liberty of conduct), and to property are universally respected, observed, and defended."

Bibliography

★ Isaiah Berlin: ''Four Essays on Liberty'' (especially ''Two Concepts of Liberty'')

★ Isaiah Berlin: ''Freedom and its Betrayal''

See also

★ Positive liberty

★ Real freedom

★ Negative and positive rights

★ The Trap (television documentary series)

External links

★ ''Positive and Negative Liberty'' from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy