Two Concepts of Liberty
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Two Concepts of Liberty was the inaugural lecture delivered by Isaiah Berlin before the University of Oxford on October 31, 1958. It was subsequently published as a 57-page pamphlet by Oxford at the Clarendon Press. It also appears in the collection of Berlin's papers entitled Four Essays on Liberty (1969) and was more recently reissued in a collection entitled simply Liberty (2002).
Berlin distinguished between two forms or concepts of liberty - negative liberty and positive liberty - and argued that the latter concept has often been used to cover up abuse, leading to the curtailment of people's negative liberties "for their own good".
Berlin believed that positive liberty nearly always gave rise to the abuse of power. For when a political leadership believes that they hold the philosophical key to a better future, this sublime end can be used to justify drastic and brutal means. Berlin saw the vanguard elite of the Soviet Union as a prime example of the dangers of 'positive liberty' and the concept can be seen as especially salient during the Cold War, where revolutionary sentiment was rife.
Berlin believed that a more precautious principle was needed, and that was 'negative liberty', where individuals are protected against radical or revolutionary messages, and thus have little grand or existential freedom but are granted the more 'internal' liberty to pursue recreational and consumer interests.
[edit] Criticism
Adam Curtis has illustrated what he believes are the paradoxical results of Berlin's distinction. Firstly, that it has produced a form of liberty that he believes to be peculiar and unfulfilling in what he describes as a world governed by numbers. He calls this 'the lonely robot', which has similarities to Nietzsche's 'Last Man'. Secondly, Curtis believes that the United States' efforts to enforce negative liberty in other countries (associated with the neo-conservative movement) itself represents a kind of violent coersion against authoritarian governments and those who support them, thereby abridging democratic and cultural influences against a 'free' society. He describes this as saying 'We will force you to be free'. This critique was narrated in his three part BBC documentary, 'The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom?'
