LIBERTY
Negative and Positive Dimensions of Liberty
The word “Liberty” stands derived from the Latin word “Liber” meaning “Free.” In this sense, liberty
means freedom from restraints and the freedom to act as one likes. However, liberty stands
conceptualized in two ways. They are:
A) Negative Liberty- In its negative sense, liberty is taken to mean an absence of restraints and
as a freedom to act in any way. In this form, liberty becomes a license to do anything without
any limitation. Such a meaning of liberty is not, rather cannot be accepted, in a Civil society.
Negative conception of liberty stands rejected in contemporary times.
B) Positive Liberty- Liberty in its positive sense is taken to mean freedom under rational and
logical restraints which have stood the test of time. Positive liberty means liberty under law
i.e., liberty under rational and necessary restraints imposed by law which are considered
essential for ensuring the enjoyment of freedom by all. In fact, people really need liberty but
not a license to act in any way. In a Civil and civilized society, only positive liberty can be
accepted and available to the people.
Positive liberty in fact means two important things: (1) liberty is not the absence of
restraints; it is the substitution of irrational restraints by rational ones. Liberty means
absence of only irrational arbitrary, illogical and immoral restraints but not all restraints; (2)
liberty means equal and adequate opportunities for all to enjoy their freedoms and rights.
Arguments in Favour of Negative Liberty
(a) Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty” is a fundamental explanation of negative liberty.
Berlin termed “being free as not being interfered by others. The wider the area of non-
interference, the wider my freedom.”
(b) According to Thomass Hobbes, “a free man, is he, that in those things, which he, by his
strength and with, he is able to do, is not hindered to do what has a will to,”
(c) J.S.Mill contended that the concept of liberty forbade any intervention with one’s self
regarding activity, despite the fact that there is a thin border separating activity. Mill asserted
that humanity really has no other rationale for meddling with the person’s liberty unless it
was to avoid direct material harm to others.
Arguments in Favour of Positive Liberty
(a) J.J.Rousseau in his Social Contract writes, “the impulse of mere appetite is slavery, while
obedience to a self-prescribed law is liberty.” He argues, the notion of liberty requires us to
not only decide on our own desires, but also to create rules that govern our lives.
(b) T.H.Green in his Essay “Liberal Legislation and Freedom of contract” (1881) wrote that we
shall probably all agree that freedom, rightly understood, is the greatest of blessings. When
one speaks of freedom, it doesn’t mean merely freedom from restraints and compulsion or
to do whatever one’s wishes; it doesn’t mean that freedom can be enjoyed by one man at
the cost of a loss of freedoms to others; rather when speaks of freedom, it should be the
positive power or capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or something which
in common with others in society.
In today’s democratic state, positive liberty stands universally recognized as the real,
accepted and productive view of liberty. Each civilized society has to create condition for the
enjoyment of rights and freedoms by its members and in the absence of these, it is not
accepted as a real civilized society.
