ASSIGNMENT
KIRORIMAL COLLEGE
B.A. (HONS) POLITICAL SCIENCE/PART1/SEMESTER2/2021
PAPER-POLITICAL THEORY: CONCEPTS
AND DEBATES
NAME:-DEEPALI KUMARI
ROLL NO-2017160
QUESTION: CLASSIFY THE LIBERTY
INTO POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE
LIBERTY
INTRODUCTION
The word liberty originates from the Latin word libertas, derived from the name of the
‘Goddess Libertas’, who, along with the Goddess of Liberty, usually portrays the concept, and the archaic
Roman ‘God Liber’. Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by
prescription or by grant. It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is the state of
being free within society from control or oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of
life, behaviour, or political views. The term liberty is more fascinating as a slogan which was used against
despotism or foreign regimes to resist these ideas and get freedom and liberty. It was believed that the
idea of Liberty was the idea of courage. It was a powerful weapon against the injustice and deprivation.
All political concepts are ‘essentially contested’, so is the concept of Liberty. Definition of The term is
deeply disputed. Philosophers and theorists from different political traditions Attributed different
meaning to the term ‘Liberty’. The concept of Liberty is used differently by different ideological systems
and is used in a variety of competing and incompatible meanings. Classical liberals conceive freedom as
‘absence of restraints’. It implies rolling back of the state and minimizing the realm of political authority.
Positive Liberals, view liberty as creation of those conditions by the state that lead to personal
Development and human fulfillment. Anarchists regard liberty as an absolute value and are opposed to
all form of political authority. Socialists tend to subscribe to positive view of liberty that justifies
widening of the state responsibility particularly in realm of welfare Activities and economic
management. Marxists are critical of civil and political liberties extol as an ideal by capitalist societies
and plead for a society in which freedom of one becomes a Condition for freedom of all. For feminists,
liberty means freedom of women from Subjugation and oppression caused by patriarchy.
Liberty is not a static concept. It gradually developed and its concept evolved. The meaning of liberty in
original term stands for “The Freedom of Choice”. It can be understood as a dynamic term under three
heads:‐
1) Availability of choice
2) Absence of constraints and impediments
3) Existence conditions should be positive
CLASSIFICATION OF NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE LIBERTY
Classification of Liberty can be done on the basis of its nature and the manner of exercise. Ideas about
freedom have varied through western history. Various thinkers have interpreted the concept of freedom
in their own way. H B Constant has distinguished between ancient and modern version of freedom.
David miller has identified three traditions of thought on Freedom: republican, liberal and idealist.
According to Clinton Rossiter, Liberty‐ Civil, Political and economic as one or more of ingredients;
Independence, Privacy, Power and opportunity, Independence implies the minimum of external restrain
on the individual. So that he can make and execute his decision. But this is the definition in negative
term which envisages the negation of numerous restraints such as coercion, oppression, fear and
Psychological and Physical inequality.
The concept of liberty was classified in 1969, as Negative and Positive Liberty by Isaiah Berlin for the
first time in his work ‘Two Concepts of Liberty”. He prefers a twofold distinction between Positive and
negative liberty. Political theorists have broadly categorized the liberty into two negative and positive.
Negative liberty connotes freedom as the absence of the constraints i.e. no interference by the state in
certain activities of the individual to enable him to pursue his own goals as long as he does not obstruct
others in similar freedom. Positive liberty on the other hand, has been portrayed as self‐realization,
rational self‐direction or capacity to make choices. While, Hobbes, Bentham, Mill Tocqueville, Berlin
Hayek and Freidman carried the banner for negative freedom, positive freedom found expression in the
writings of Plato, Kant Rousseau and Marx.
Liberty is a thought of both positivity and negativity. It is viewed as the individual right not to have done
something i.e. immunity form from restraints and interference by state. It is also envisaged as the
individual right to have done something for him that is the state should not only interfere with the
individual right to publish a political pamphlet but should also guarantee him his right to be given the
facilities for publishing it. It implies expression speech or his Liberty of thought but at the same time it
has to see that they are provided with the right atmosphere.
Negative freedom comprising the “Thou shall not” for the government only oblige the state or the
community not to interfere with the individual enjoyment of liberty, whereas the exercise of positive
freedom calls for the providing the means by the state to the individual for the enjoyment of the
individual. These claims of individual on the state or the society imposed on the latter an obligation to
make the necessary means available to individual. Negative liberty is very important but it seems to be
meaningless in the absence of positive liberty.
NEGATIVE LIBERTY
As stated above negative freedom means the absence of external constraints or ‘freedom from’. Hobbes
wrote in Leviathan “Liberty or freedom signifies the absence of opposition; by opposition I mean
external impediment to motion”. A similar contemporary view is expressed by Berlin who writes “I am
normally said to be free to the degree to which no men or body of men interfere with my activity.”
Firmly based upon the faith in individual rationality, and autonomy the idea of negative liberty thrived at
a time when people were struggling to be free from unnecessary restraints of arbitrary government and
shackles of coercive economic system. They wanted to carve out a private space both economic and
political for themselves. This view of freedom prods over the question what is the area within which
individual is or should be left free to do what he/she is able to do without the interference of others.
Preservation of this area became one of the main concerns of liberals.
Initially liberal thinking supported a negative liberty. It was basically the philosophy of a Civil, political
and personal liberty. This view regarded Liberty is something having no relation with equality, rights and
justice. The classical view advocated the negative concept of liberty which advocate a negative state
which is not interfering in the personal domain of Individuals and advocated absence of restraints.
The negative Liberty indicates injunctions that prohibit acts that restrict freedom. It is understood as
freedom from interferences. The scope of negative Liberty provides an answer to the question over the
area one can master. Isaiah Berlin states, “I f I am prevented by others from doing what I could
otherwise do, I am to that degree is unfree and if this area is contracted by other man and beyond a
certain minimum, I can be described as coerced or it may be enslaved.”
Berlin makes it clear that incapacity to attain a goal is not unfreedom only restrictions imposed by other
people affect ones freedom that is where potential candidate is barred from contesting election to an
extent he or she is unfree. If somebody say that, “I want to fly in the sky”, so obviously one cannot
achieve this goal. So this is not a state of unfreedom.
Negative Liberty is basically injunction. They are kind of direction that prohibits acts that violates the
doing of certain act which might infringe individuals. It contains a series of “Thou shall not” preventing
the state from interfering with the enjoyment of liberty of the individual.
There are two basic fundamentals on which the concept of negative Liberty rest. First is each one knows
once own interest best that is what is good for and what is harmful to us. This is based on the
assumption of the individual as a rational agent with the capacity to deliberate and make informed
choice. The second is that the state has a limited role to play. This follows that with the individual
agency for grounded the state cannot decide ends and purposes for the individual. So, state is not an
end in itself state is only means to an end and it cannot determine the purpose of the individual.
The first basic fundamental of negative Liberty is understood in the way that individual is a master of his
own interest. He/she knows what is good for him and what is bad. This implies that individual is rational
being and has the capacity to think and decide the course of action for him/her. The state does not have
a very expensive role to play in this regard.
Freedom is the opportunity to act not action itself. Freedom as a concept focuses on the availability
rather than exercise of opportunity. So the central problem with the negative concept of Liberty is
Indifference to the quality of action. It makes no distinction between the liberated to pursue the
occupation of profession of one’s choice and the liberty to Staff indeed.
The liberal individualist theory in its early phase during the 17th and 18th century gives support to the
negative concept of liberty. This view maintains that the character of liberty is negative. It means
absence of restraints. It is placing restrictions upon the power and the authority of the state not to
commit certain act which might jeopardize the liberty of citizens.
J.S. MILL on Negative Liberty
J.S MILL has been considered as the utilitarian. At one point of time he even supported the negative
concept of liberty and later on along with it he even supported the positive view of state along with it. J.
S. Mill has propounded the ‘harm principle’ which states that freedom of individual can be restrained
only if it harms other. Mill stated this so eloquently in his essay ‘On Liberty’ [1859] Mill introduces an
important distinction between ‘self‐regarding’ and ‘other‐regarding ‘actions. He argued that with
regard to self‐regarding actions the state has no business to interfere. In contrast, actions which may
cause to harm others, there may arise justification for external interference. Mill included most of the
actions of the individual in the personal sphere and pleads for non‐interference by the state.
Mill defends individuality or the right to choice meaning individual ought to be allowed the freedom to
develop his own talent and invent his own life style. He regards liberty to conscience, liberty to express
and publish One’s opinion, liberty to live as one pleases, liberty of association as essential liberties for a
meaningful life and for the pursuit of one’s good. However, he accepts reasonable interference by the
society to circumscribe individual liberty in order to prevent to harm other people.
It was accepted that state has a legitimate and a positive part to play in promoting the social welfare of
The citizens. So in such circumstances Mill maintains that there may be a possibility of the ‘Tyranny of
The majority’ and the liberty of minority will be vanished. Mill advocated the freedom of even one
Individual. So the core theme of J.S. Mill understanding of liberty is that the opinion of minority is
Important as far as democratic decision is concerned. Individual opinion cannot be suppressed
By the collective decisions of the society and the state. He stated that there may be tyranny of
majority. To quote, “any of the majority and the liberty of the minorities may vanish” and he maintained
That the advent of democracy does not mean that the liberty of the individual will be protected.
He states the notion that the people have no need to limit their power over themselves which might
Seems axiomatic. Such phrases as self‐government and power of the people over themselves do not
express the true state of the case. The people who exercise the power are not always the same people
with those over whom it is exercised and the self‐government spoken of each by all the rest. The will of
the people moreover practically mean the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the
people:‐precaution as much needed against this as against any such other abuse power.
His general position concerning these liberty is that all “restraint is an evil, leaving people to themselves
is always better than controlling them”. Mill position can be summarized in his own words, “The only
freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing own good in our own way. So as long as we do not
attempt to deprive others of their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health,
whether bodily or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as
seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
Negative freedom basically conceived by its defenders as ‘freedom of choice’. Supporters of negative
freedom have usually supported the idea of minimum state and their sympathies are with unfettered
capitalism. Laws are seen as a constraint on individual freedom. However, it does not mean abolition of
all laws but only that it should be restricted to the protection of one’s liberty from the encroachment of
others.
Mill maintains that the state and society can control the individual and his action if these are harmful to
the society or other members. It is quiet logical that if liberty of one individual becomes a nuisance for
other individual then liberty cannot be enjoyed as such. Thus Mill supports the state interference in
those spheres of individual actions which are harmful to others. Analysis of a Mill argument for negative
liberty of Individuals makes the moral position of argument very weak.
Isaiah Berlin on Negative Liberty
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. The central
problem with the negative concept of liberty is its indifference to the quality of action. For example, it
makes no distinction between being liberated to pursue the occupation of one’s choice and the liberty
to starve. Indeed, poverty is not always seen as an infringement of freedom in negative liberty.
According to Berlin, Political Theory in negative sense is simply the area within which individual is
unobstructed. The absence of coercion is the basis of liberty. He says, “You lack political liberty and
freedom only if you are prevented from attaining a goal from human beings.” He maintains that if a man
or woman is unfree that is unable to enjoy his or her freedom; the fault lies not only with the concept of
Liberty but with men and women. He says, “If my poverty were a kind of disease which prevented me
from buying bread or paying a journey, this inability would not naturally be described as a lack of
freedom, least of all political freedom. Berlin here argues, “The free man is a man who is not in iron, not
imprisoned in jail ,nor terrorized like a slave by the fear of punishment: It is not the lack of freedom not
to fly like an Eagle or swim like a Whale.” Berlin says, “By being free in negative sense I mean not being
interfered with other. The wider the area of non interference the wider is my freedom.
Hayek on Negative Liberty
Hayek views liberty as a negative concept, because ‘it describes the absence of a particular obstacle—
coercion by other men’, and it becomes positive only through what we make of it. This is complimented
by Hayek’s definition of individual freedom as ‘the state in which a man is not subject to coercion by the
arbitrary will of another’. Hayek does not view negative liberty as exhaustive of the concept of freedom
as he postulates a necessary connection between liberty, justice and welfare. He explains this by stating
that ‘the conception of freedom under the law rests on the contention that when we obey laws, in the
sense of general abstract rules irrespective of their application to us, we are not subject to another
man’s will and are therefore free’.
Hayek characterized individual freedom as the absence of coercion. Coercion is defined as intentional
interference by other people in a protected individual domain. Hayek argued that individuals can be
made responsible only for the state of affairs they intentionally cause. Coming in defense of free
markets, Hayek maintained that the outcome of free markets is caused not by the deliberate intentions
of participants but by actions of millions of self‐interested economic agents who act independently.
Therefore it cannot be characterized as just or unjust.
Nozick on Negative Liberty
In Nozick’s conception, the primary threat to liberty is the imposition of obligations to which one has not
consented. Liberty is to be safeguarded by keeping such obligations to a minimum, leaving the greatest
possible scope for voluntary agreements and exchange. The idea that respect for individual liberty
requires consent is a necessary condition for all obligations beyond the requirements of a minimal
framework of rights.
Milton Friedman on Negative Liberty
Milton Friedman is a neo‐liberal thinker who supports negative liberty and finds a necessary relationship
between capitalism and liberty. His view is similar to that of Nozick’s view. He believes that without
capital there would be no freedom in society. According to him, “Political Liberty means the absence of
coercion of a man by his fellow men”. In the present century, when competitive capitalism which is
based on free market assumption has given a way to negative economy and state controlled capitalism
Friedman is pleading for a free capitalist economy as a precondition for freedom. He supports negative
liberty and negative state and maintains that all the social welfare functions of the state and the
regulation of the economy by it, is important.
Once upon a time freedom was demanded for the development of capitalism, today Friedman is
demanding free capitalism for the maintenance of political freedom. He maintains that competitive
capitalism is a necessary thought and not sufficient condition for political freedom and history suggests
that capital is a necessary condition of political freedom and regards socialism as the main enemy of
personal initiative and political freedom because in such a situation economic and political power are
concentrated in one hand. He Attacks of positive state and positive view of Liberty. State interference in
economic matter is harmful for the economic liberty of individual. By economic liberty he implies the
availability of free capitalist economy. He does not associate Liberty with human values like justice and
equality.
Criticism of Negative Liberty
The notion of negative freedom is not without its opponent or rivals. It is being argued by the critiques
that negative freedom amounts to freedom to starve because when individuals are left to the vagaries
of market, they may fell prey to its arbitrary justice. C.B. Macpherson criticized liberal notion of freedom
and argued that the unequal access to the means of life and labour inherent in capitalism is an
impediment to the freedom of those who had little or no access to means and resources.
POSITIVE LIBERTY
Liberty, in the positive sense, reflects the idea of self‐development i.e. as the freedom to develop one’s
self through one’s actions or a process of realizing one’s project through activity in course of which one
forms one’s character and develops capacities. This conception of freedom stresses on the importance
of the availability of objective conditions both material and social without which people cannot achieve
their purposes. The socialists and the Marxists also view freedom in this sense.
Positive liberty does not mean that negative liberty is dispensable. Rather as the absence of external
constraints imposed by other persons, negative freedom is also an essential enabling condition for self‐
development. Thus, the guarantees of civil liberties and political rights are central to the meaning of
self‐development or of positive freedom. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the concept of
positive Liberty develops. Some inkling of this view can be found in the writing of Rousseau, Kanth and
Hegel but it found fullest in the writers like Barker, Green, and Lasky.
Positive liberty does not mean the absence of restraints. It is the ability of individual to develop his or
her own faculties to the maximum extent possible to meet their inner logic. Personal growth and
development cannot be imposed from outside, it has to grow from within. Positive liberty is the
availability of social economic conditions which are required for the fulfillment of the liberty. The
conducive and harmonious conditions to be created for the development of the personality.
The concept of positive liberty proceeds with the idea that each self has a higher self and a lower self as
maintained by Kanth. 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. Kanth believe that free
play of emotions and satisfaction of brewed desires may satisfy ones, lower self but it cannot satisfy the
higher self and liberty is something which is concerned with the higher self only because lower self
consist of selfish desire and higher self is a rational self for the rational consciousness of a human being.
Isaiah Berlin on Positive Liberty
Berlin(1969) states, ‘The positive sense of the word ‘liberty’ derives from the wish on the part of the
individual to be his own master.… I wish to be the instrument of my own, not of other men’s acts of
will.… I wish, above all, to be conscious of myself as a thinking, willing, active being, bearing
responsibility for his choices and able to explain them by reference to his own ideas and purposes’.
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 freedom’. 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 elite. As long as the law directs the individual towards rational ends, it
liberates rather than oppresses the individual’s personality.
According to Isaiah Berlin, "Money manipulation of man and freedom can be made to mean whatever
the manipulator wishes." In the capitalist society of free competitive market the state often crashes the
fundamental liberties of the working class. In capitalism, individual liberty is crushed in name of
production, security, law and order.
Rousseau on Positive Liberty
Rousseau is a votary of positive liberty when he states that true liberty is in obedience to moral law. He
also refers to it as the function of the will of the enlightened people. He differentiated between real and
particular will and maintain that obedience to the dictates of general will is freedom. For Rousseau
liberty lies in the obedience to law and general will which is the expression of the sum total of each and
every member of society which is the real will. In Rousseau thoughts, liberty has been called paradox of
freedom.
T.H Green on Positive Liberty
Green elaborated the concept further and associated personal liberty with society, morality, rights and
the state. Human consciousness needs liberty; liberty needs rights and rights need the state: this was
the positive view of liberty. The positive concept of liberty emphasizes the moral and social aspect of
man and views liberty in relation to society, socio‐economic conditions for the realization of liberty, law,
morality, justice and equality.
Herbert Marcuse on Positive Liberty
From a neo‐Marxist perspective, Herbert Marcuse also favours a positive conception of liberty. The
reason given is that the working class is incapable of seeing its true end and needs to be directed
towards liberation by the revolutionary elite.
C.B. McPherson on Positive Liberty
In recent years C.B. McPherson has presented a forceful case for positive liberty. He calls this
developmental liberty. He says division will be better marked if we change the name of positive liberty
to developmental liberty. Defining the concept he says, “Positive liberty is the liberty to act as a full
human being. A man’s positive liberty is virtually the same as what I have called a man’s power in the
developmental sense”. McPherson maintains that liberty means availability of means of life and labour
to each member of society. For this he suggest that capitalist mode of production based on private
property, should be replaced by some other system. Liberty is not negative liberty because in such a
case the liberty of one individual can destroy liberty of other individual. He says, “…Since each
individuals liberty must diminish or destroy another’s only sensible way to measure individual liberty is
to measure the aggregate net liberty of all their individual in the given society. So the measurement of
liberty is the total liberty available to all the member of society.
C.B. McPherson says, “This is the idealist road which ends in coercion. The individual is forced to be
free… there is no doubt that the concept of positive liberty has been taken to these conclusion and so
perverted, has been used to dent the very freedom for human self development that it began by
invoking.” This idealist misuses the concept to take away liberty itself. McPherson gives importance to
the social dimension of liberty. He does not accepts the division between negative and positive liberty
and maintains that negative liberty is absence of any extractive power. His views were similar to that of
Lasky.
Lasky on Positive Liberty
Lasky supports the positive concept of liberty. He in his book ‘Grammar of Politics’ says that, “by liberty,
I mean the eager maintenance of that atmosphere in which men have the opportunity to be their best
selves.” Liberty therefore is a product of right. You cannot conceive of liberty without the concept of
right because men are subject of law unrelated to the needs of personal liberty.” He maintains that
liberty involves restraints; it does not stand for absence of restraints. It implies restraints in such a way
that enjoyment of freedom of one person does not harm the enjoyment of other. He gives importance
to the relationship of individual liberty with society. His view is quiet similar to C.B. McPherson. In his
view he maintains that liberty has a social aspect. Liberty does not belong to social beings. It belongs to
individuals who are part and parcel of society. Liberty is not seen or understood in isolation. He gives
importance to the idea of the interrelationship of liberty enjoyed by individual but in context of society.
Lasky says that liberty can never be real unless the government can be call into account and it should
always be accountable when it invades rights. The state or government can become atrocious in nature
can arrogate to itself and this can sacrifice the liberties of all on the premise of action of human rights.
So, Lasky’s positive concept of Liberty is suspicious of government and members of society do not
surrender all possible liberty to state.
Marxian thought on Positive Liberty
Marxian criticism of this view is that in a class divided society the condition for the realization of liberty
cannot be established without abolishing private property‐which is the fountain head of exploitation,
inequality and injustice. The supporters of positive liberty want to maintain positive liberty without the
abolition of private property in a class divided society. This is impossible because in a society based on
private property there will be exploitation of vast majority by a tiny minority and liberty will not be
meant anything. For Marxist, positive liberty is associated with humanism. They interpret rights,
freedom and morality on scientific basis and emphasize all round development of man and women. For
them positive liberty is associated with self realization, self development, self fulfillment
Criticism of Positive Liberty
The views of supporters of positive liberty are quite conflicting in this regard and assign the
responsibility of creating these conditions to the responsible government. It has been found in general
practice that the state misuses this responsibility and turns this duty into right to oppress the people in
the name of national interest, social welfare and unity. The positive view of liberty looks upon the state
as the instrument of social welfare. But the fact is that the state ultimately serves the interest of the
particular class rather than the whole society in order to defend liberty of that class, it manipulates the
liberty of other individuals in the name of positive freedom.
Positive liberty also includes the idea of collective control over common life. Maintaining a pollution‐free
environment is a collective effort for the common benefit. While this may allow a certain degree of
coercion, it is usually justified by the larger good involved. Many liberals, including Berlin, have
suggested that the positive concept of liberty carries with it a danger of authoritarianism. Consider the
fate of a permanent and oppressed minority. Because the members of this minority participate in a
democratic process characterized by majority rule, they might be said to be free on the grounds that
they are members of a society exercising self‐control over its own affairs. But they are oppressed, and so
are surely unfree.
SOURCES
Political Theory‐An Introduction by Rajeev Bhargava
Delhi University Notes
