Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty”

Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts” is undoubtedly among the most

influential of essays in the history of post-war political philosophy in
the analytic tradition. Even critics of the essay –Quentin Skinner, for
example—laud praise upon Berlin’s clear articulation of a distinction
between two opposed understandings of liberty or freedom.

Negative Freedom

Defining Negative Liberty

Negative liberty is opposed to interference or coercion. Berlin

characterizes it as follows: Coercion implies the deliberate
interference of other human beings within the area in which I could
otherwise act. You lack political liberty…only if you are prevented
from attaining a goal by human beings” (169). Or, as he puts it latter:
negative liberty “means liberty

Four features are of note here:

 Mere Incapacity Is Not Lack of Freedom: You are only free to do

what you could otherwise do, but for interference (so, although
you cannot fly, you are neither free nor un-free to do so).

 Only Human Violations Count, not unfavorable natural

circumstances.

 The Definition is Incomplete: it depends on an analysis of

interference or coercion.

 One can measure the ‘width’ of freedom by measuring the area

of ‘non-interference’.

Economic Freedom
Berlin first applies this analysis to the idea of ‘economic freedom’. He
suggests that a worker who is too poor to buy bread can only be
regarded as unfree if his inability is “due to the fact that other
human beings have made arrangements” that prevent him from
doing so.

The Classical English Tradition

Then, he argues that this conception of freedom can be traced back

to “the classical English philosophers”—originally to Hobbes, then to
Locke, Mill and Bentham. All agreed: (1) freedom could not be
unlimited: it could be curtailed for various ends—at least for the sake
of freedom itself, perhaps for the interests of order, equality or
justice; and (2) there ought to be a certain level of liberty –a
minimum of liberty–which on no account be violated.

Regarding (1), Berlin argues that, when do curtail freedom for the
sake of (e.g.) liberty, we must nevertheless acknowledge that a loss
of liberty occurs. Regarding (2), Berlin notes that, although meeting
people’s basic needs comes before freedom, the meaning of
freedom is the same everywhere.

Berlin on Mill

The difficult issues about negative freedom concern, Berlin then

notes, concern “how wide [the area of freedom] could or should be”
(170) or what “a minimum of personal freedom” amounts to. He
examines J.S. Mill’s work as illustrative of the liberal view.

According to Mill, justice demands that all individuals be entitled to a

minimum of freedom, and thus that other individuals must be
restrained from depriving people of it. Mill confuses two liberal
justifications for freedom—(a) Freedom as an intrinsic good and (b)
freedom as necessary condition for developing certain perfectionist,
individualist values (a certain kind of character). These two might be
inconsistent

Three Further Points

 Negative freedom, in Berlin’s sense, is a ‘comparatively

modern’ political idea, not present until (at the latest) the
1600s (176).

 Negative freedom is “not incompatible with…the absence of

self-government” (176): a benevolent despot who does not
interfere with his subjects does not impinge on negative liberty.

Thus, negative freedom does not imply democracy: ‘the answer to

the question “Who governs me?’ is logically distinct from the
question ‘How far does the government interfere with me?” (177).

 It is difficult to estimate the extent of negative freedom in any

given case (see fn 1, 177).

 Positive Freedom

Defining Positive Freedom

Positive freedom derives from ‘the wish on the part of the individual
to be his own master’. It concerns my desire to be self-directed, self-
governing or self-realizing. Berlin has in mind here what often goes
under the heading autonomy, and he links the idea to many
historical figures: Hegel, Fichte, Kant, and Rousseau, for example.

Berlin’s Argument

Although positive and negative liberty might seem quite similar,

Berlin will ultimately argue that certain understandings of positive
freedom have lead, at times, to “a specious disguise for brutal
tyranny” (178) because of some of the peculiarity of the way in
which the notion of positive freedom has “historically developed”
(179).

In this section, and several of the next, he begins to survey some of

those directions (III-V). I won’t go into the details of each, but only
sketch the basic critique Berlin offers.

The Dangers of Positive Freedom

Two Selves

When talking about being ‘one’s own master’, one can think of both
external (a coercer) and internal obstacles (an insatiable desire or
passion). Thus we arrive at a distinction of a ‘real’ or authentic and a
less real or inauthentic self. This view takes two forms.

A first view identifies one’s ‘real’ self with reason. A second view
widens the gap between the two selves, by identifying (as Berlin
thinks Hegel and Fichte do) the ‘real’ self with society at large.

In both cases, it is thus open to justify a kind of paternalism or

coercion: “Once I take this view, I am in a position to ignore the
actual wishes of men or society, to bully, oppress, torture them in
the name…of their ‘real’ selves (180).

Berlin then identifies several directions in which such ‘two selves’

views have developed.

Self-Abnegation

Suppose I am autonomous. I have a set of desires I want to fulfill, but

which cannot be realized. Then, my only option is to get rid of my
desires (rather than wanting to be rich, I stop desiring money). But
this way of making people ‘realize’ then ends – by expunging them—
is in many cases hardly satisfactory.
Self-Realization

Berlin then critics the metaphysical rationalist view, which equates

freedom with the use of critical reason. The fundamental premise he
disputes is that one I understand the necessity of X, I cannot
rationally will otherwise. Thus, if X is a historical necessity, it is
irrational for me to (and I am not truly free if I) resist it.

Social Freedom

To be free is to accept certain rational principles. It is assumed that

all rational agents would endorse the same principles, and to be free
is incompatible with being irrational. If I know what these principles
are, I may then impose them on others.

Berlin then sums up the premises he takes to be problematic (200):

 All men have one true purpose—rational self direction

 The ends of all rational beings must fit a certain pattern which
some may detect better than others

 All conflict is due to irrationality

 When men have been made rational, they will obey their own
natures.

Thus, from seemingly liberal premises, we arrive, perversely, at

illiberal conclusions.

The Search for Status

Before reconsidering his own view, Berlin points on one other

“historically important approach” to the topic which confounds
freedom with “her sisters, equality and fraternity” and thus “leads to
similarly illiberal conclusions”. The idea here—again, Hegelian—is
that human beings are social creatures in a deep sense, and require
“proper recognition” (200-1) to be free.

Berlin makes two comments about the need for recognition:

First, although it might be important (204) and “in certain respects,

very close to the desire to be an independent agent” (205), it should
not be confused with liberty per se.

Second, especially when applied to groups, the drive for recognition

can be a source of illiberal oppression

The Liberal View Reconsidered

In the final sections of the essay, Berlin reconsiders the liberal view
of negative liberty. He makes several remarks:

 While any view of freedom must include ‘a minimum’ of

negative liberty, liberals like Mill and Constant typically wanted
to maximize the freedom (to the extent compatible with the
demands of social life) (207).

 For such liberals, the important question was not who wields
authority over me – whether I rule myself (e.g., through
democracy), but how much authority should be placed
in any set of hands (209).

 Liberalism involves a belief in the absolute inviolability of some

minimum of individual liberty (210)

 Thus, a society is not free unless (a) no power, but only rights,
can be regarded as absolute and (b) there are frontiers within
which individuals are inviolably not to be interfered with.

Value Pluralism
Berlin concludes (VIII) by making some general remarks about value
and political philosophy.

First, he argues that there is a plurality of values –freedom, equality

justice, and the like –and it is not possible for all these values to all
be fully instantiated together. The thought that they can is
dangerous, a prejudice, and in any case, not warranted by empirical
observation or history (212-3). Conflict among values is inevitable. As
he puts it,

“If, as I believe, the ends of men are many, and not all of them are in
principle compatible with each other, then the possibility of conflict
– and of tragedy – can never wholly be eliminated from human life,
either personal or social. The necessity of choosing between
absolute claims is then an inescapable characteristic of the human
condition” (214).

Second, although freedom is valuable in itself, it is not the sole, or

the most important value. There are sometimes grounds for
curtailing it. It must be weighed against other goods (214-215).

Third, negative liberty is nevertheless the ‘truer’ and ‘more humane’

meaning of freedom, when compared to positive liberty. It allows
people to choose between ultimate values.

Finally, Berlin suggests that a kind of temporal relativism about

values: although principles may hold absolutely in certain context,
they may not be eternal. To want anything more is perhaps a
metaphysical need, but is also a sign of immaturity.