21.12.

2023
Intro to Philosophy / Lecture 10

Politics 2:
pp. 88-101

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The concept of freedom
• Two aspects of freedom
in political context:
positive and negative;

• Isaiah Berlin (1909-97),

“Two Concepts of
Liberty”

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 What is freedom in negative sense?
Freedom is the absence of coercion

• Coercion – when people force you to behave in a

particular way, or trying to stop you from behaving in a
particular way.

If no one is coercing you, you are free in a negative

sense.

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 What is negative freedom?
• I am in prison;
• I want to leave the country but my passport is
confiscated;
• I want to live openly in a homosexual relationship, but
I will be prosecuted if I do so;

Negative freedom is being free from any obstacle or

restraint.

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 Negative freedom and government
• Every government wants to restrict the freedom of
individuals to some extent.

• We need to restrict freedom of some members of

society in order to protect people (i.e. for public
protection);

• As members of society, we cannot have liberty to do

anything we want to do – we need to be restricted to
some extent;

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 John Stuart Mill on liberty
• Mill’s hedonism: ‘higher’ and ‘lower’
pleasures. Liberty is one of the
‘higher’ pleasures;

• Mill would advocate for individuality

[bireysellik, kendine özgülük] – no
one, including government, can
interfere with my liberty to live a life
I want, if I am bringing no harm to
anybody.
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 Criticism of negative freedom
• What counts as harm?

If we accept Mill’s understanding of liberty, how then

will we define ‘bringing no harm to anyone’? Is hurting
someone’s feelings count as ‘bringing harm’? If yes,
then we have serious problem as members of society
(we will eventually hurt someone’s feelings, offend
someone). A fuzzy definition brings a problem of
demarcation.

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 Positive freedom
• Negative freedom is not something we should strive for. Positive
freedom is a far more important political goal;

• Positive freedom is: freedom to exercise control over your own

life. You are free if you are truly, genuinely exercise control of your
own life, and you are not free if you are don’t, even if you are not
constrained in any way.

Self-realization of an individual;
Making your own life-choices and being responsible for them.
 Positive freedom

• An alcoholic, who spends all of his income on addiction; when he is

sober, he regrets drinking alcohol, but cannot do anything with himself
and drink again;

• This person cannot exercise control over his life, even when no one is
coercing him – he is not free in the positive sense. He is rather
controlled by the impulse of drinking.
 Positive freedom: the case of an alcoholic
• It appears that in some cases, like in the case of alcoholics, we
should restrict freedom of these individuals – they are not fully
responsible for their actions;

• Mill: we cannot take part of anyone’s life – even if the choices are
foolish or reckless. Otherwise it will be paternalism [babacılık] –
i.e. taking responsibility for an action of someone who already
achieved the age of competency [erişkinliğe ulaşmış bireyler].

• An alcoholic should not be interrupted unless he is harmful only

to himself, and is not dangerous to society (he will only reach
freedom when he will consciously decide to quit drinking).
 Positive freedom

Last remark: the concept of positive freedom might be

helpful to protect people from unjust coercion – when
governments want to prevent us from doing something
under the veil of protection, but actually only seeks its
own aims, or wants to put restrictions of different sort.

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 Freedom of speech

• Freedom of speech is one of the most important

characteristics of a democratic state. Only with liberty
to speak without censorship and being able to have
access to all sorts of information we can form our own
rational opinion about certain public event (or person).

• However, there should be certain limits – pornography,

child abuse, etc.

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 Mill on freedom of speech

• Freedom of speech is foundational, if you don’t harm

anybody you should not be censored. We can offend
other people – it is not treated as ‘harm’. Mill used
arguments to defend freedom from censorship. Here
are two of them:

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 Mill on freedom of speech
1. Any censor must assume infallibility – s/he cannot be
wrong. But it is impossible – we all can be mistaken
in our views. Thus, there should be no censorship;

2. If ideas are not challenged, they become dogmas –

variety of different opinions and criticism of accepted
beliefs is necessary in order to achieve better
explanations, better arguments, discover truths.
Thus, no censorship should prevent this.

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 Criticisms of Mill on free speech
1. Censorship is not always applied to prevent truth – today,
in most of the cases, censorship is applied to clearly
dangerous cases – i.e. a video that explains how to make
a bomb at home from readily available chemicals;

2. Since Mill was a supporter of utilitarianism, his

considerations were about consequences of censorship.
We should always prefer to tolerate freedom of speech,
even if views expressed are clearly false.
 The stronger argument here will be to claim that every
individual has a right for free speech – it is a basic human
right to speak freely as long as it does not bring any
danger to other people. But then we can ask, why and
how should it be a human right?
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 Removing freedom: punishment
• How can taking away freedom can be justified? In
other words, what does it mean to restrain people
from their freedom (in a negative sense)? What is a
proper punishment?

• Four main ways to implement punishment: as

retribution, as deterrent, as protection of society, as a
reform of the person punished.

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 1. Retribution
• Those who break the law deserve the punishment
they get – if you intentionally break the law, you
deserve to suffer. Any wrongdoing should be
punished;

• Mentally-ill individuals may have a milder punishment

(they did not break the law with intention);

• The severity of punishment should reflect the severity

of the crime (‘eye for an eye’) – proportional
punishment.
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 Criticism of retributivism
1. It appeals to baser feelings: like feeling of revenge.
We should have a more sophisticated system of
punishment (not simple ‘eye for an eye’);

2. If ignores effects (on the criminal or on society):

criminals should be punished if they committed a
crime; but we should apply punishment only if it will
work – if it will prevent more crimes from occurring.
Retributivism is oversimplified.

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 2. Deterrence
• Punishment should discourage people from breaking
a law – this goes to criminals, as well as to those who
did not commit any crime (they would still realise that
breaking a law will end in prison)

• Punishment is seen as a result of a crime – no one

here is concerned whether criminals will be reformed
by punishments;

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 Criticisms of deterrence
1. There is a chance that an innocent can be punished
– if we punish a scapegoat, it will have its deterrence
effect, will that be enough to justify convicting an
innocent person?

2. Deterrence does not work: even death penalties do

not deter serial killers – we still have many
psychopaths who can enjoy killing people. Thieves
return to theft as soon as they are freed from prison
(these are of course empirical arguments).
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 3. Protection of society

• We need to punish people who break the law in order

to protect other members of society – isolate law-
breakers. This is especially worth considering when
we talk about serious crimes – such as rape, or
murder.

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 Criticisms of protection of society
1. This type of punishment is relevant only for some
crimes – for rape, for instance. A rapist should be
isolated from society, since there is no guarantee
that he will not repeat his crimes after going out of
prison. But what about other cases, where law-
breakers pose no threat to society?

2. It does not work – while in prison, criminals teach

each other how to get away with crime. That, in turn,
brings more danger to society. It only works with life
imprisonment.
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 4. Reform

• We should punish law-breakers to reform them –

change them, so that they will not repeat their crimes.
While being imprisoned, we should change characters
of criminals – a form of treatment.

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 Criticisms of reform
1. This form of punishment is relevant only for some
criminals – some criminals cannot change, so they
will not be treated by punishment;

2. It doesn’t work – punishment rarely reform criminals.

Reformation techniques should be applied very
diligently in order for them to work on criminals, will
that be realisable? Reform may still be used in hybrid
techniques – i.e. deterrence + reform, or reform +
protection of society, etc.
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 Civil disobedience
• Can it be (morally) acceptable to break a law? Yes, at
least in the case of civil disobedience.

• Legal protest is useless, or does not work – we cannot

change the law through campaigning, letter-writing,
etc. In such cases people can apply the method of civil
disobedience – especially when government forces
unjust laws.

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 Civil disobedience
• Suffragette movement in
Britain – getting votes for
women by means of civil
disobedience;

• Mahatma Gandhi (Indian

independence);
• Martin Luther King, Jr. (racial
prejudice)

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 Civil disobedience
• [The tradition] of civil disobedience is one of non-
violent, public law-breaking designed to bring attention
to unjust laws or government policies.

• The aim is not to have any personal gain; the goal is to

draw attention of public to unjust laws and policies –
maximize publicity (the presence of media is
preferrable).

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 Civil disobedience and violence
• The aim of civil disobedience is to draw attention to
injustice, not to merely disrespect the law. It is always
non-violent;

• We can contrast civil disobedience with terrorism –

they prefer to use violence for political aims (drastic
difference in methods).

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 Criticisms of civil disobedience (1)
• It is undemocratic: if we talk about a legitimate democratic
state, acts of civil disobedience will stand against its
legitimate grounds (if majority of citizens chose its
representatives accordingly and no law was broken).
Minorities should accept the ruling of majority (if they want
democracy), and don’t have a moral right for protest.

Possible answer: acts of civil disobedience may actually

reinforce democracy (where everyone can have a voice), not
to destruct it. Acts of civil disobedience aim at reconsidering
unjust decisions, not to have a revolution in government.
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 Criticisms of civil disobedience (2)
• Under the veil of ‘fighting against ‘injustice’, civil
disobedience only encourages law-breaking. Law should be
respected and citizens should abide the laws, otherwise
lawlessness will prevail.

• Slippery slope argument – once you take a step in a

particular direction, you cannot stop the process.

Possible answer: civil disobedience is not about disrespecting

the law, it is about drawing attention when nothing else works.
Defenders of civil disobedience would want the law to be
equal for all, not only to some members of society (only white
people, for example).

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 That’s it for today!

We will begin with

“Appearance and Reality”
Chapter next week.

Have a nice weekend!

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