Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty Term Paper

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With this statement Berlin aims to make the point that those who have freedom have achieved it by exploiting others, and, at the same time, by placing those individuals within certain categories of social and economic degrees of freedom, to which they themselves are not subject.

Despite his high rhetoric which goes on for over 30 pages, Berlin does conclude that he is of the opinion that no matter whether liberty is negative or positive, it is, nonetheless, important, should be available to all, and simply because values are compromised does not mean that they are not eternal or secure. The reader, thus assumes by the end of the commentary that Berlin is indeed of the opinion that liberty is of the utmost importance to a functioning society.

Critique

There are various critiques upon Berlin's work. The one to be examined here will be that of Roberto Toscano who comments upon Berlin's concepts directly and may be of better assistance than my rendering above. Toscano being by illustrating once again the two concepts in his own view, but prefaces them by stating that it is impossible to truly categorize Berlin's actual beliefs or actual discipline (i.e. The man and his ideas are somewhat of a confused anomaly):

Negative Liberty: "A right to act without unreasonable external constraint or interference according to one's own purposes."

Positive Liberty: "A capacity to pursue and perhaps achieve one's ends, which capacity might demand constraints on oneself or others, or the provisions of certain basic conditions for that pursuit.

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In order to illustrate these definitions, Toscano also adds that, negative liberty means "freedom from" and positive liberty means "freedom to," and further adds that though unclear in Berlin's work, these simple statements are meant to clarify his definitions. Toscano's criticism thus begins after defining these various terms. The author thus analyzes Berlin quite neutrally, and accepts that the former may have been a victim of believe too much in the importance of privacy within liberty, but doing a great job in the paper to limit this sensibility.

The critique goes on to state:

"In other essays, Berlin spells out what he feels are the consequences of both negative and positive liberty if they are brought to their absolute and radical consequences. In his article on Johann Georg Hamann, on one hand, he shows the extremes of negative liberty, and warns: " Every creature has a natural right to appropriate all that surrounds it to the limits of its power." But this is indeed the core problem of negative liberty, if taken by itself."

Toscano examines Berlin's essay from a very detailed point-of-view, and eventually concludes by stating that in a totalitarian state one will act as a defender of negative freedom but when confronted with solidarity, one will gravitate towards positive liberty. Other authors support Toscano's claims, including Amartya Sen. Toscano is also of the opinion that Berlin did, indeed, give political indication as to how society should function morally and politically.

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