The term liberty means freedom.

Freedom can be understood in different

ways, i.e., Freedom of speech, freedom to move, freedom to practice the
profession of one’s Choice, and freedom to practice and propagate the
religion of one’s choice. In short, Freedom means the absence of any kind of
restriction, where a person can do whatever/he wishes to without any
hindrance and to free to achieve to the goal or objectives.

Evolution of liberty

In ancient and mediaeval times ,liberty was something to be granted to the

slaves by their masters. In ancient Greek ,enabled citizen (those who can
take part in politics)were free to enjoy certain rights and privileges.During
the feudalist control rarely gave the individual rights or freedom. The notion
of liberty, as a political right, gained momentum in Europe with the
beginning of the Renaissance movement and industrial revolution during the
seventeenth century.Thus,we can say that freedom is a modern concept.

ISSIAH BERLIN: Two concept of liberty

Imagine a women driving a car ,in the cross-road she turns left but no on was
preventing her from taking left or straight way. There is no traffic to speak of
and there are no diversions or police roadblocks. So she seems, as a driver,
to be completely free. But if we see the reason to turn right the situation will
be changed,if we consider that she took right turn because she wanted to
reach a shop to buy cigarettes before it is closed as she is addicted to
cigarettes and right now desparate for it .She is fully aware that taking right
turn means she will probably miss the train which is to be taken for an
important meeting Rather than driving. It feels she is being driven, as her
urge to smoke leads her uncontrollably to turn the wheel right.Her desire is
stopping her from doing what she thinks she ought to be doing.

This story gives us two contrasting ways of thinking of freedom. On the one
Hand, one can think of freedom as the absence of obstacles external to the
Agent. You are free if no one is stopping you from doing whatever you might
Want to do. In the above story the woman appears, in this sense, to be free.
On The other hand, one can think of freedom 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.
In the above Story the woman appears, in this sense, to be unfree. One
might say that while on the first view freedom is simply About how many
doors are open to the agent, on the second view it is more About going
through the right doors for the right reasons.
Isaiah Berlin, the English philosopher and historian of ideas, called these two
Concepts of freedom ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ given in his most celebrated
work ‘Two concept of liberty’ in 1969.The reason for using these labels Is that
in the first case freedom seems to be a mere absence of something (i.e., of
‘obstacles’, ‘barriers’, ‘constraints’ or ‘interference from others’), whereas in
The second case freedom seems to require the presence of something (i.e.,
of ‘control’, ‘self-mastery’, ‘self-determination’ or ‘self-realisation’). In Berlin’s
Words, we use the negative concept of freedom in attempting to answer the
Question ‘What is the area within which the subject – a person or group of
per-Sons – is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without
interference by other persons?’, whereas we use the positive concept in
attempting To answer the question ‘What, or who, is the source of control or
interference That can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?’

NEGATIVE LIBERTY

It is popularly understood as freedom from interference. The idea of

Negative liberty is very well described in berlin words that ‘If I am prevented
by others from doing what I could otherwise do, I am to That degree unfree:
and if this area is contracted by other men beyond a certain minimum, I can
be described as being coerced, or, it may be, enslaved’ (Berlin 1969: 121–
22). For Example, if an individual who is otherwise qualified to contest
elections is prevented by Others from doing so by the use of coercion, the
liberty of the potential candidate is being Infringed. Berlin, however, makes it
clear that incapacity to attain a goal is not unfreedom.

Negative liberty rests on two main axioms—

(a) Each one knows one’s own interest best.

(b)The state has a limited role to play

For Berlin (1969), negative liberty as freedom is the opportunity to act, not
action itself. As ‘opportunity concept of freedom’ it focuses on the availability
rather than exercise of Opportunity.

As Berlin initially formulated the idea, negative liberty is frustrated only

When people are prevented from doing what they desire to do. Thus, a law
that Prohibits dancing does not intrude on the negative liberty of people who
do Not like to dance.

1. Thomas Hobbes: According to Hobbes, liberty or freedom Signifies the

absence of all impediments to action that are not Contained in the
nature and intrinsic quality of the agent. Fear and Necessity, for
Hobbes, are the motivating factors in human nature That impel them
towards liberty. While such an understanding of Liberty does take into
account the ‘absence of constraints ‘Aspect, it totally undermines the
notion of choice and does not Recognize any kind of moral framework.
2. John Locke: Locke’s understanding of the concept includes Viewing
liberty as choice exercised in a moral framework. This Moral framework
is based on the Laws of Nature of which equality Is a central tenet. The
Law of Nature, according to Locke, is that No one ought to harm
another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. Hence, the exercise
of liberty should not be at the Cost of equality. According to Locke,
liberty as a natural right is universal, and Precedes civil and political
society The individual is guided by the faculty of reason in the Exercise
of freedom in conditions that are alterable. So, the individual will not
seek the freedom to want to fly like a Bird but will seek the freedom to
be heard even if in a minority.

POSITIVE LIBERTY

The concept of positive liberty proceeds with the idea that each self has a
higher self and A lower self. The higher self, the rational self, should attain
mastery over the lower self for An individual or a people to be liberated in
the understanding of positive liberty. For instance , watching a cricket
maths(lower self) instead of preparing for tomorrow’s final examination
(higher self) will restrict liberty of that individual as he/she will not be able to
realise their full potential in scoring marks.

. It does not just refer to non-interference, but includes the idea of Self-
mastery where the higher self is in command of the lower self.

Positive liberty is the freedom to do. It is what can be called the ‘exercise
concept of free-Dom’. It is exercising and availing of the opportunities while
negative freedom is just having Opportunities. Unlike negative liberty,
positive liberty is open to the idea of directing the Individual either by law or
an elite. As long as the law directs the individual towards raTional ends, it
liberates rather than oppresses the individual’s personality.
On this view, free agents must exercise control over Their lives. Thus, ‘[t]he
free person must be guided by values that are [their] Own’ ,and ‘one is free
only to the extent that one has Effectively determined oneself and the shape
of one’s life ‘

It emphasises on the social, material and cultural preconditions for freedom.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Rousseau considered freedom as a Collective

venture, and as freeing oneself from selfish motives Towards a larger good
for the entire group. His conception of liberty Liberates human beings
from the hierarchical and unjust inequality Of society, which he views as a
constraint in the realization of Liberty. Liberty for him is liberation from a
state of unfreedom which comes Into being with the emergence of civil
and political society. Constraints on liberty refer to the constraints of one’s
baser nature That does not facilitate human nature to think of the good of
all. A people is liberated only through obedience to law. Law is Equated
with the expression of the general will of the whole Community. For
Rousseau, one is liberated when one is free of personal Servitude. His way
out is to make individuals dependent not on Other individuals or
institutions, but upon the whole community, Which protects the goods
and persons of every citizen with the United force of all.

Marx: Freedom , according to Marxist, is not possible only when means of

production and distribution-land, factories, mines, Banks, railways etc.-are
all owned by society, i.e., state. They should be distributed as Best
possible amongst people. The development of Capitalism resulted in a
society where oppression, exploitation, unemployment, and Starvation
were dominant, and liberty was not available to a vast majority. Marx and
Engels criticised the inhumanity of the capitalist system and gave a new
materialist Interpretation of human essence, purpose, and value. They
interpreted rights, freedom And morality on a scientific basis and
emphasised all round and harmonious development Of man. All these
ideas are known as ‘Marxian Humanism’ and are associated with Marx’s
philosophical anthropology or the theory of man. The Marxist concept of
Freedom is associated with concepts like self-realisation, self-
development, self-Development, self-fulfillment, and self-creativeness.
Any fruitful discussion on Marxist Concept of freedom must consider
Marxian view of man in its multi-dimensional aspects And his relationship
with self, nature, and society.
J.S.MILL ‘s concept of liberty

Suppose There is a annual fest in the college. The students had to decide
the theme of the fest .While majority wants a Bollywood theme.there is small
section of students who wants a Halloween themed Immediate response to
this situation would be going with majority as opinion of few students should
not consider. However, this decision is taken against the liberty of those
students who wanted a Halloween themed fest.The liberty not to have one’s
individual opinion suppressed by collective decisions of Society and state is
at the core of J. S. Mill’s understanding of liberty.Mill’s views on liberty are
based on his understanding of utility ‘in the largest sense Grounded on the
permanent interests of man as a progressive being’. His essay “On Liberty”
Seeks to protect individual liberty from the interference of state and society.
For mill , individuality was a prerequisite for the cultivation of the self. This
would enable society to progress as Each individual is useful in proportion to
the extent they differ from the rest. Thus He is strong advocator of freedom
of expression.This idea of liberty is inclined more towards negative liberty.

But there is much more to his idea of liberty .The sphere of non-intervention
in an individual’s life is demarcated by drawing A distinction between self-
regarding and other-regarding activities. Self-regarding actions Are actions
over which the individual is sovereign. Whether an action is other-regarding
or Is of concern to others depends on whether such action is harmful to
others. J.S.Mill is in favour of intervention by others if it is other regarding
actions. This is more a positive concept of liberty Now, there Can be several
instances where the boundaries between self-regarding and other-regarding
Actions are quite blurred. For example, addiction of an individual to drugs is
as much a Self-regarding as an other-regarding issue. To counter this, some
readings on Mill state that A self-regarding action cannot be viewed as other-
regarding if it causes offence, it can be Viewed so only if it causes injury. This
exempts intervention in self-regarding action on Grounds of moral beliefs as
to the appropriate form of social behaviour.

While the emphasis on non-intervention in the life of the individual tends to

classify Mill as a theorist of negative liberty, the defence of individuality to
facilitate deliberate cultivation of certain desirable attitudes, does not
preclude the possibility of understanding Mill As a theorist of positive liberty.
TRIADIC CONCEPT OF FREEDOM

As Gerald MacCallum (1967) pointed out, there is no simple dichotomy

between positive And negative liberty; rather, we should recognize that there
is a whole range of possible Interpretations or ‘conceptions’ of the single
concept of liberty. He explains liberty as a triadic Relationship in the
following manner—X is free from Y to do or become (or not to do or become)
Z. According to MacCallum—a subject, or agent, is free from certain
constraints, or preventing Conditions, to do or become certain things.
Freedom is therefore a ‘triadic relation’ – that is, a relation between three
things: an agent, certain Preventing conditions, and certain doings or
becomings of the agent. Any Statement about freedom or unfreedom can be
translated into a statement of The above form by specifying what is free or
unfree, from what it is free or unfree, And what it is free or unfree to do or
be. Any claim about the presence or absence Of freedom in a given situation
will therefore make certain assumptions about What counts as an agent,
what counts as a constraint or limitation on freedom, And what counts as a
purpose that the agent can be described as either free Or unfree to carry
out.

In his concept, freedom is always of something (agents) from something

(constraints) ,to do (or not to do) or become ( or not to become) something .
For instance, taking back the example of women driver. That women is free
from constraint to achieve the goal of smoking.On the other hand ,she is
unfree from constraints to achieve the long-term goal of better life .

According to maccallum,there is no clear demarcation as positive and

negative liberty as both will include the relation between agent, constraint
and certain doings and becoming.Indeed, as MacCallum says, a number of
classic authors cannot be placed unequivocally In one or the other of the two
camps. Locke, for example, is normally thought of as the Father of classical
liberalism and, therefore, a staunch defender of the negative concept of
Freedom. He, indeed, states explicitly that ‘[to be at] liberty is to be free from
restraint and Violence from others’. But he also says that liberty is not to be
confused with ‘licence’ and can Be exercised only within a moral framework
(Locke 1988: paras 6, 57). Locke also seems To endorse an account of
MacCallum’s third freedom-variable (Z) that Berlin would call Positive,
restricting this to actions that are not immoral (liberty is not licence) and to
those That are in the agent’s own interests (I am not unfree if prevented
from falling into a bog).
Will Positive Liberty will always lead to a totalitarian state?

As positive liberty is in favour of state intervention for self realisation and to

exercise the freedom,Issiah berlin feared that it can be dangerous notion,
ripe for perversion into the Official ideology of a totalitarian state. So wrong,
in fact, that totalitarian states like Nazi Germany and The USSR invoked the
concept to justify their regimes .positive liberty , according to berlin, can
create slippery slope for state to , ultimately,become a totalitarian state.

However, Berlin uses postive freedom to mean a number of different things

only some of which have totalitarian tendencies. To understand this
better ,we will make a few distinction .This will help us Understand how Blair
could endorse something he called positive freedom while not Taking even
the first step on the road to totalitarianism.

Formal freedom vs effective freedom

The difference between effective and formal freedom is the difference

between Having the power or capacity to act in a certain way and the mere
absence of Interference. The fact that nobody is preventing you from doing
something does not Necessarily mean that you can actually do it.For
instance,In U.K. At the time of holiday, every citizen is free to go to Bahamas
while in a totalitarian states it is not permitted.But that does not mean that
in U.K. every citizen has liberty to execute their freedom.For example, people
who are in poverty have not enough money to go to Bahamas for holiday.
They may have the formal freedom- no one is preventing them – but do not
have effective freedom or the ability to use the Freedom.

Now suppose a person with no ticket due to lack of money try to board the
plane,that person will be stopped by the Security guards or airport police
because there is a law that without ticket one cannot board the plane.Now
what actually is restricting that person freedom is not money but the law.This
is deliberate interference by others – just like the Interference in Totalitaria.
They are, in that sense, ‘formal’ restrictions on people’s freedom.

Think about somebody who is very ill, and cannot pursue her preferred
Career without medical treatment. If freedom were merely absence of
interference By others, we would have to say that she is free to pursue that
career – she simply Lacks the effective capacity (here health) to do it.Here is
a different kind of example where the distinction between formal and
Effective freedom looks capable of doing some work, and where the state
might be thought able to act to promote the effective freedom of some of its
citizens (in this Case by providing medical care). It’s different because the
restriction on effective Freedom – the y of MacCallum’s formula – is not lack
of money (and hence law, deliberate creation precisely designed to stop
people doing things), but poor health.

2 Freedom as autonomy v. freedom as doing what one wants

Think about what the state is doing for people when it Provides education to
those who would not otherwise receive it. An educated person Might be
regarded as more free than an uneducated person in two quite different
Ways. First, she will have more options available to her. Someone who can
read, or Programme a computer, is effectively free to do things – such as get
jobs that Involve reading or computer programming – that someone who
does not have those Skills is not effectively free to do. By teaching her, the
state is increasing her Effective freedom – her freedom to do things she
might want to do. In that sense, Giving her education is like giving her
money. But there is a second aspect to Education that is not like money, and
that is intimately related to freedom as Autonomy. Someone who has been
taught relevant information, and been taught to process it, to think for
herself, to consider consequences, to evaluate different Courses of action, is
more autonomous, more in charge of her own life, than Somebody who has
not. This is so quite independently of the fact that education also Increases
the range of options available to her. We might think of education as Coming
in two parts: the part that increases your effective freedom, opening doors
That would not otherwise be open to you, and the part that makes you more
Autonomous, telling you what doors there are and putting you in a better
position to Decide which of the open doors you really do want to walk
through. As well as helping get clear on the difference between effective
freedom and Freedom as autonomy, the education example also suggests
that freedom as Autonomy doesn’t have to be scary. If part of having
autonomy is simply being able To think clearly and make informed
judgements about what one wants, then it may Seem hard to see what Berlin
is worried about, hard to see where the totalitarian Menace comes in.

Kant has described the two selves on individual -higher self which is ideal or
rational and lower self Which is irrational or emotional.sometimes a person is
driven by their lower self leading them to do what they shouldn’t have.But as
they are autonomous individual,there should be no authority to describe
them what should be done or not.This is followed by a positive liberal state.

3 Freedom as political participation v. freedom beginning where politicsEnds

A third way In which Berlin draws the distinction between positive and
negative Freedom contrasts those who see freedom as being achieved
through political Activity with those who see freedom as being essentially to
do with that sphere of Activity which is left to the private individual. This
variant of ‘positive freedom’ Holds that one achieves true freedom through
political participation in the state, Through taking part in collective self-
government, through being involved in Making the laws under which one
lives. The contrast is with the more conventional View that the laws are the
rules that determine what the individual is and is not free To do.

This version of positive freedom can clearly overlap with a ‘freedom as

Autonomy’ conception. Suppose we identify freedom with true self-
realization. Add To this the thought that human beings achieve true self-
realization through political Activity, and one will conclude that freedom is
achieved through political activity. Aristotle thought that ‘man is a political
animal’, by which he partly meant that what Is special about human beings –
what distinguishes them from other animals – is Their capacity to come
together collectively to deliberate and decide how they are Going to organize
their society ‘Freedom as political participation’ can overlap with ‘freedom as
autonomy’ in a Different way also. Suppose we think that there have to be
laws – if only because the Alternative is the state of nature – and we accept
that what laws do is restrict people’s Freedom. A good question is: how can
people live under law yet still be free? (This Was Rousseau’s question.) There
are two different kinds of answer to this. The first, And more obvious, answer
is that law itself promotes freedom. The law can restrict People’s freedom in
the name of promoting their freedom. For example, the law Against murder
prevents me murdering – thereby restricting my freedom– but it also
prevents me being murdered – thereby promoting my freedomThe second,
more interesting – and distinctively republican – answer reminds us That
autonomy means ‘self-rule’. Rousseau says that the most important kind of
Freedom consists in obedience to a law we give ourselves. How can we live
under Law but yet be free? Second answer: we can do that if we live under
laws we have Given to ourselves. That is why there is a kind of freedom
achieved by citizens of a Democracy, participating in the making of the law,
that is not achieved by subjects of A dictator
Freedom, private property, the market and redistribution

A lot of political argument involves debate about private property, the

market and Redistributive taxation. The concept of freedom often plays a
pivotal role in such Debate. There are five positions that one might take on
this Issue.

1 Justified redistributive taxation does not infringe the freedom of those who
are Taxed because their claims to the property in question cannot be
established in the First place

Non-Moralized conception of freedom is against the private property as it

restricted the freedom of others to go to that area.It is against the moralized
conception of freedom that argued in favour of private property that one can
not seized as it is rightfully theirs.

2 Even if justified redistribution does restrict the freedom of those who are
taxed And whether or not it increases the freedom of those who benefit, it
makes them Better off in other ways and can be justified on these non-
freedom grounds

We shouldn’t think that freedom can Only be restricted for the sake of
freedom. It might be justified because it promotes Equality, or justice, or
social order, or utility, or any of a number of other values.

3 Redistribution reduces the effective freedom of those who are taxed, but is
justified Because it makes for more effective freedom overall

Taking Say, £10,000 from a very well- Off person and giving £500 each to 20
different poor people means that there is a net Increase (of 19) in the
number of people who are free to do things they were not Previously free to
do. Here the idea that redistribution produces more effective Freedom
depends on the thought that it makes more people better off, in terms of
Effective freedom because the Marginal £500 is worth more to the poor than
to the rich.

4 Private property rights and market relations encourage people to

misconceive Their real interests and hence render them heteronomous and
unfree
Some Marxists claim that the very existence of an economy based On private
property and market exchange leads people to misconceive their ‘real
Interests’, fostering a conception of themselves as ‘possessive individualists’
or ‘materialist consumers’ that takes them away from a proper
understanding of the True essence of what it is to be a human being. True
self-realization for human Beings does not consist in the acquisition of
private property through exchange with Others

A free Human being is someone who is free of all that distorting ideology and
the Institutions that embody and promote it. So true freedom consists in
rejecting Private property and markets as embodying an alienated and
distorted understanding Of what it is to be human

5 Freedom = autonomy, autonomy = rationality, rationality = morality,

morality = Justice, justice = redistribution, therefore the person who
recognizes her duty to redistribute her resources is herself freer than the
person who doesn’t recognize that Duty

it goes via the claim that the truly free (i.e., Autonomous) person is
someone who is acting rationally, hence morally. Suppose Acting morally
implies redistribution from rich to poor

This leads to the conclusion that the rich themselves Are more free in giving
their money to the poor than they would be by holding on to It for
themselves. They may have less freedom understood as ‘range of options
Available to one without interference’, but they have more freedom
understood as ‘action in accordance with one’s higher (= moral) self’

Resisting the totalitarian menace

Positive liberty as effective freedom which would fit with centre-left talk
about the enabling state, and involves No controversial claims about higher
or true selves.It involves following points:

1 Promoting people’s autonomy can involve just providing information and

helping Them think for themselves

2 To recognize that there can be internal obstacles to freedom is not to say

that Anybody other than the agent herself is the best judge of when they
exist

3 To recognize that there can be internal obstacles to freedom is not to

identify Freedom with rationality
4 To identify freedom with rationality is not to claim that the same thing is
rational For each person

5 To identify freedom with rationality is not to claim that there is a single

thing that Is rational for any individual

6 To identify what would be rational for a person does not necessarily justify
Interfering with their irrational action

7 Interference aimed at getting people to act rationally might be justified

while Acknowledging that it does involve a restriction on freedom and
without claiming That it is justified on freedom grounds

CONCLUSION

The concept of liberty is used in many different ways, with different theorists
and Traditions invoking quite different conceptions of it.We began with a
simple distinction between two concepts of freedom, and have Progressed
from this to the recognition that freedom might be defined in any Number of
ways, depending on how one interprets the three variables of agent,
Constraints, and purposes. Freedom to have the opportunity is negative
liberty whereas freedom to exercise this opportunity is positive liberty. To
exercise the freedom , individual needs intervention by the state in many
aspects such as health, education,as well as property.This is also creates
fear as Berlin mentioned that Positive liberty gives to many rights to the
state to intervene ,which can always lead the state to become a totalitarian
state.However, this is not certain as explained by political thinkers like adam
swift. The dabate regarding the concept of liberty will always be there ,it also
shows the significance of liberty as a concept in political theory.