Positive Liberty: An Imposition on our Freedoms?

Rebecca SE Tan

29 October 2022

Introduction

What is positive liberty? As first defined by Isaiah Berlin, it is the absence of internal constraints on our best desires, to be “moved by reasons, by conscious purposes which are my own” (Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty 178). For the purposes of this essay, however, I will be using Charles Taylor’s expanded definition, which includes the ability to exercise these opportunities (Taylor 144). Essentially, theories of positive liberty set out 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?” (Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty 169). Through an analysis of the different perspectives of positive freedom, I argue that theories of positive liberty may seem to impose on our freedoms, but not necessarily meaningfully so. In fact, I assert that understanding positive liberty can even free us from our “determined” path.

The Case Against Positive Liberty

At first glance, it may seem that the concept of positive liberty does not impose on our freedom as it can be a way to “force people to be free”. Likened to a man under the influence of alcohol, one’s reasoning capacities may be constrained and hence, when left alone, unable to act in accordance with their best desires. Hence, by say, stopping the man from driving while drunk, one can argue that we are simply “helping” people make choices that they would otherwise make, had they been rational.

However, as Berlin critiques, this restriction itself implies value judgements and the existence of “higher” and “lower” desires. One’s “higher” nature is their “true” self, while one’s “lower” nature is irrational, and needs to be rigidly disciplined to rise to its “real” nature (Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty 179). Such a conception, Berlin argues, can be easily manipulated. “Conceptions of freedom directly derive from views of what constitutes a self, a person, a man. Enough manipulation of the definition of man, and freedom can be made to mean whatever the manipulator wishes” (Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty 181). Who then, is holding the power to determine what is good? This tantamount question, of course, is situated in Berlin’s time as a critique against the Soviet Union’s depiction of freedom as sacrificing oneself for the communist ideal. Hence, even in the case of the drunk man, disallowing the man to drive, in the absence of such an expressed intent by the driver when he had been sober, is not positive freedom because we independently made the judgement that it is better for him that he does not drive drunk.

To put this into today’s context, Berlin’s idea of liberal neutrality seems to make sense, because any restrictions on positive liberties necessitate a value judgement that may conflict with the desires of others. He says, “… we are faced by choices equally absolute, the realisation of some of which must inevitably mean the sacrifice of others” because the “ends pursued by [men]” are at times in conflict with others (Berlin, Liberty 213–14). Take, for example, the conflicting views of social conservative and liberal factions in society. On the one hand, social liberals may feel that encouraging traditional views of marriage is an imposition of their “true” self because it adds to an internal struggle in which there is an additional moral argument against, for instance, homosexuality. On the other hand, social conservatives may find that tearing these notions down may also create an imposition on one’s true self – the “higher” desire to be free from sin, compared to the “lower” desire of acting on same-sex attraction. This same contrast of ideas and conceptions is seen in the recent anti-abortion laws in Texas or the imposition of a “secular state” in France. In these examples, one can argue that the law acts as a symbol of morality and influences how we understand the nature of our choices. With so many conflicting value judgements, any restrictions on positive liberty decided by the state are paternalistic and necessarily infringe on our freedom, as it imposes their version of morality and influences the way we think about our choices. This imposition on our freedom may not necessarily be unjustified, depending on how you weigh different values such as freedom or social order etcetera, but that is beside the point. So long as the call was made, our freedom has been infringed. Indeed then, rather than having a top-down value judgement for various choices, perhaps what it means to be free would be the consolidation of the common good that each individual wills, whatever that may mean in that particular context or time (Rousseau).

Is there, however, a case to be made for an “unambiguous good”? What about, for example, health? Surely a restriction to protect health is not a meaningful imposition – is it not needed for us to live to our highest potential? This very argument, however, still presents a subjective evaluation of the value of health. Take for example the attitudes of adrenaline junkies who wish to “live fast and die young”, those with nihilistic attitudes, or simply those who prioritise other values or qualities. As Berlin argues, more than one choice may be “good” for different humans and their interests, and “health” need not be necessary to lead an “ideal” life (Berlin, Liberty). Thus, for example, necessitating Covid-19 vaccinations for those who are eligible to take them is still an imposition of our freedoms because it comes from an implied value judgement on the goodness of science, technology, and even health itself. As before, this is a different question from whether freedom should ever be traded for things such as health – regardless of your answer to that question, the argument here is that restricting positive freedoms still implies an imposition on our freedom, based on your personal definition of “goodness”.

The Case for Positive Liberty

However, upon further consideration, my final viewpoint is that these restrictions may not necessarily be meaningful. The claim that positive liberty imposes on our freedom, solely on the basis that it involves value judgements, is a null statement. Indeed, Taylor critiques that value judgements are actually made for both negative[1] and positive liberties, and hence this subjectivity should be embraced rather than rejected. He says, “the application of even our negative notion of freedom requires a background conception of what is significant” (Taylor 151) – such as what a state can or cannot restrict for negative liberty. If value judgements are used for both negative and positive liberty, then there is no reason that positive liberty necessarily imposes upon our freedoms. For example, a law against murder for negative liberty barely presents a meaningful imposition of our freedoms because it gives us the opportunity to not be murdered and live our lives. This argument in itself is a value judgement of our life, and hence, in the same way that negative liberty can be restricted in a way that does not impose meaningfully on our freedoms, Taylor argues that the same case could be made for positive liberty.

Hirschmann takes this argument one step further in the “Subject of Liberty”, where she explores the interaction of the “inner” and “outer” on how we form our desires and choices (Hirschmann 10). While at first she entertains the idea that we may be socialised or have adaptive preferences into making certain choices, she concludes that our very desires and choices are socially constructed (Hirschmann 17–28). She says, for example, that “feminists cannot operate from some abstract ideal of what a woman is ‘really’ like, what her desires and preferences ‘truly’ consist in” because they do not exist “beyond, or outside of, not only this particular (patriarchal) context but any context whatsoever” (Hirschmann 57). Hence, positive liberty may actually be helpful in understanding internal barriers without imposing on our freedoms, as individuals “can have divided wills and complicated desires that may implicate them in supporting the very structures that apparently restrict them” (Hirschmann 56). Further, the idea that these internal values are social constructions can also be an enabling condition. Social relations not only limit us as “objects in a system of control”; they are also produced by us, as “its subjects” (Hirschmann 57). This conception of positive liberty can therefore actually empower us to forge our options.

Conclusion

In short, while theories of positive liberty may seem to impose on our freedoms because of the subjective value judgements made in determining what a “flourishing” life is, I argue that this imposition is not meaningful. Since our choices and conceptions are all socially constructed in the first place, it renders the avoidance of value judgements practically impossible. Beyond that, though, social construction also implies that the very source of control or interference that makes us do something rather than the other, includes ourselves as “subjects”. Hence, concepts of positive liberty may actually empower us to shape our social formation and allow us to be “freer”.

[1] What someone can do or be, "without interference by other persons" (Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty 169).

Works Cited

Berlin, Isaiah. Liberty. Edited by Henry Hardy, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 213–14.

---. Two Concepts of Liberty. Clarendon Press, 1958, pp. 168–81.

Hirschmann, Nancy J. The Subject of Liberty. Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. 8–78.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. On the Social Contract. 1762. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 2019.

Taylor, Charles. “What’s Wrong with Negative Liberty.” The Liberty Reader, Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, CO, 2006, pp. 141–62.