Liberalism and Positive Liberty - Essay Example

Introduction Within the realm of social science, one can see liberalism as a school of thought, a doctrine that highlights the magnitude of free market, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, human rationality and individual freedom. Within this doctrine of liberalism, one can find a variety of what I categorize as sub-doctrines. In addition, liberalism can also be scrutinized from a social, political and philosophical point of view. The purpose of this paper is to address whether it is possible to articulate a clear and plausible account of positive liberty. I will address liberalism in the context of social philosophy and I will shed light on the aspect of human rationality and individual freedom in order to provide the reader the theoretical background to address the central thesis of this paper. I start this paper with the notion of liberalism in a philosophy realm and manifest different thoughts of scholars and liberal theorists. I continue with explaining the notion of positive liberalism and manifest the complexity of the notion of positive liberty and the shortcomings of the concept of positive liberty that one can identify. I end this paper with a conclusion why I believe it is not possible to articulate a clear and plausible account of positive liberty. The Notion of Liberalism Among scholars and theorist of liberalism, one can determine a variety of definitions of liberty. Some scholars prefer to use the term freedom instead of liberty but both terms can be used interchangeably. I agree with Cranston that a liberal, by definition, 'is a man who believes in liberty' (Cranston 1967, p. 456). It is this human rationality that makes liberty in the realm of philosophy a complex issue. In the case of individual freedom, it was Mills who provided an imperative theoretical framework in On Liberty. Mills developed a concept that identified the best environment for individual and social progress based on one simple principle (Mills 1991, p.30). Mills strongly believes in the incompleteness of knowledge and the shortcomings of humans and used this as the fundament for his argument of the value of individual choice. This individual choice, Mills argues, can only be constrained by the harm principle which Mills defines as 'the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will, is to prevent harm to others.' (Mills 1991, p.30) However, the individual freedom that Mills attempted to define has its practical implications. One can raise serious doubts about the limitations of individual freedom in a liberal society. Especially in the post-9/11 period if one would like to link individual freedom with the counter-terrorism measurements and policies that are implemented by liberal states. One can raise the question to what extent can individual freedom be conceptualized Based on the notion of incompleteness of knowledge and the shortcomings of humans, individuals are free to choose and are responsible for the consequences derived from ones own choices. But is this notion justified if one chooses to act as a terrorist Should states limit the individual freedom purely for the sake of the community Raz argues, that governments should promote the moral quality of the life of those whose lives and actions they can affect' (Raz 1988, p415). I agree with Raz that governments have the responsible justification to interfere and limit the individual freedom when necessary. Nevertheless, Raz argument raises more questions then that it clarifies as the limits of the boundaries of government interference to limit individual freedom are hard to identify. Besides, how can one define promoting the moral quality of life for an individual My perception of a moral quality of life might differ with that of others. Raz argues that state interference does not coercive in a way that it harms individuals. I do not agree with this argument. Do I not have the individual freedom to decide for myself what I perceive as a moral quality of life without the coercion of the state The arguments that Raz provides with his concept of liberalism makes it clear that liberalism as a doctrine exist of many imperative elements of which Raz provides the imperative element of morality and value. Based on the widely available academic and empirical literature about liberalism and the different views on liberalism, Locke argues that liberals believe that an individual is 'in a state of perfect freedom' (Locke 1969 [1689], p.287). As I mentioned above, this state of perfect freedom is limited by political authority and laws as it limits the liberty of citizens. Needless to say, this political authority and law must be justified as freedom is normatively basic and thus, its responsibility of justification is on those who would limit the individual freedom. This is identified by Gaus as the Fundamental Liberal Principle (Gaus 1996, pp. 162-166). Although liberals agree on the liberty of individuals, they quarrel about the concept of liberalism and how to protect individual liberty. Berlin distinguished two kinds of concept of liberty, namely positive and negative liberty (Berlin 1997) of which the former is imperative to address the central question of this paper. Important to note is that the two kinds of concept are not simply two independent concept of liberty as both concepts might, at the end, come in conflict. However, it is beyond this paper to provide the reader an in-dept analysis of both the two concept as it is the purpose of the author to analyze the account of positive liberty. The notion of positive liberty In Two Concepts of Liberty, Berlin derives the 'positive' sense of liberty from the wish of an individual to be his own master. Positive liberty is based on the requirement of the presence of something such as self-mastery or self-determination. Berlin argues that the concept of positive liberty attempts to answer the question of "What, or who, is the source of control or interference that can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that" (Berlin 1969, pp.121-22). From this question, one can derive that those theorist belonging to the positive liberty camp are more vigilant to internal factors which makes individuals act autonomously. However, I argue that after the 9/11 attacks, the concept of positive liberalism should be provided with new empirical evidence that takes into account the measurements taken by states that, obviously, limits the individual freedom of its citizens to prevent terrorist attacks or at least mitigates individual freedom to some extent. As liberty can be put both in a political and social context, one can ask the question whether positive liberty is a more phylosophical concept rather than a political concept. Can one use positive liberty in a political concept where for example, a state provides its citizens of positive liberty From these questions, one can conclude that using positive liberty as a political concept is a complex issue of which many scholars and theorists of liberalism have attempted to answer. But to what degree can one speak of individual freedom whilst the state is acting as the source of control or interfere From the widely historical literature one can find about liberalism, one can easily conclude that scholars and theorist are divided and this is, undoubtly, an never ending debate. MacCallum's essay about negative and positive freedom constructs a strong argument why many persons fail to understand the notion of negative and positive freedom. MacCallum argues that 'the intelligibility of talk concerned with the freedom of agents rest in the end upon an understanding of freedom as a triadic relation is what many persons distinguishing between positive and negative freedom apparently fail to see or see clearly enough" (MacCallum 1967, p.318). MacCallum continues that this failure is caused by the conventional characterization of the differences between two kinds of freedom. That of the differences between 'freedom from' and 'freedom to' a characterization which suggest that freedom could be either of two dyadic relations (1967, p.318). I agree with MacCullum that understand the concept of liberty depends on how one addresses the question of 'When are persons free' It is undeniable that many scholars and theorist of liberalism addressed this question from different angles. When one reads the literature about positive liberalism, one risk to get lost in the debat of academic knowledge about positive liberalism. As in many debates in social science and phylosophy, it is a matter of ones perspective and personal intepretation of theoretical conceptualizations, based on emperical evidence to constructs strong arguments that contributes to an academic debate. For this reason it remains sometimes unclear which scholar or liberal theorist belongs to which camp, the positive liberty or negative liberty. As a result, these scholars and theorists of liberalism end up in a gray area. It seems that when the debate about positive liberty is provided of emperical evidence, it automatically raises new questions and criticism. Therefore, liberalism as a doctrine will always be critically and empirically scrutinized. Conclusion From the above, one can conclude that liberalism as a doctrine that consists of many facets. For this reason, I argue that liberalism is a complex doctrine of which critisism and empirical scrutinization is a never ending story and defining liberty depends on ones own interpretation. This also accounts for positive liberty. In this paper, I attempted to shed light on the term of positive liberty but I come to the conclusion that positive liberty has many facets which can be empirically scrutinized from different angles. As with liberalism as a doctrine, I categorize positive liberty as a sub-doctrine of liberalism that exsist of its own component. In spite of that, one should not see positive liberty as an independent variable from liberalism. My point here that I attempt to make is to stress out the complexity of positive liberty. Although one can find a clear definition of positive liberty, it does not automatically mean that it is plausible. Besides, in the world of academici and academical knowledge in the realm of social science and phylosophy, something can only be plausible to some extent as thesis and notion are always critisized and empirically scrutinized. This also accounts for liberalism and positive liberty. References Berlin, Isaiah (1969). 'Two Concepts of Liberty' in his Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 118-72. Cranston, Maurice (1967). 'Liberalism' in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Paul Edwards, ed. New York: Macmillan and the Free Press: 458-461. Gaus, Gerald F (1996). Justificatory Liberalism: An Essay on Epistemology and Political Theory. New York: Oxford University Press. Locke, John (1975 [1706]). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Peter H. Nidditch, ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mill, John Stuart (1991 [1859]). On Liberty and Other Essays, John Gray, ed. New York: Oxford University Press: 471-582. Pettit, Philip (1997). Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Clarendon Press. MacCullum Jr, Gerard (1967). 'Negative and Positive Freedom' in Philosophical review, 76 (July 1967): 312-334. Raz, J (1988). 'The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon. Read More