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Liberty is the state of being free within a society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority (such as the government) on ones way of life or behaviour. John Stuart Mill was a 19th century philosopher and political thinker who proposed the question: To what extent does society have the right to control and impose limits on thoughts, beliefs and actions of individuals? He believed that this would be a question of the future and tried to answer this question. In his famous essay On Liberty, Mill sets out to investigate “the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual” and who actually exercises power over individuals. Berlin defined being free as “not being interfered with by others. The wider the area of non-interference, the wider my freedom.” (Berlin, 123)
In this essay I explore and evaluate Mill’s conception of Liberty with the use of negative and positive freedoms. I will argue the how important it is to have freedoms for ones well being, and how negative freedom trumps positive freedom in any society by displaying the problems of …show more content…
Positive conceptions of liberty lean towards totalitarian ideals in which an individual may be forced to be free. For Berlin this tendency makes positive liberty a dangerous political idea. Positive liberty is often connected with the liberty given to collectives, which can also be seen as a Marxist outlook and positive freedom connects an individual with self-mastery. Berlins argument for this position is: the metaphor of self mastery lends itself to a distinction between a higher rational self and a lower irrational self where by in order to be a self master the lower self must be disciplined by the higher self. For example: my rational self has a desire to not have a cigarette, which therefore disciplines my lower rational self that has the desire to have a
Liberty is the state of being free within a society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority (such as the government) on ones way of life or behaviour. John Stuart Mill was a 19th century philosopher and political thinker who proposed the question: To what extent does society have the right to control and impose limits on thoughts, beliefs and actions of individuals? He believed that this would be a question of the future and tried to answer this question. In his famous essay On Liberty, Mill sets out to investigate “the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual” and who actually exercises power over individuals. Berlin defined being free as “not being interfered with by others. The wider the area of non-interference, the wider my freedom.” (Berlin, 123)
In this essay I explore and evaluate Mill’s conception of Liberty with the use of negative and positive freedoms. I will argue the how important it is to have freedoms for ones well being, and how negative freedom trumps positive freedom in any society by displaying the problems of …show more content…
Positive conceptions of liberty lean towards totalitarian ideals in which an individual may be forced to be free. For Berlin this tendency makes positive liberty a dangerous political idea. Positive liberty is often connected with the liberty given to collectives, which can also be seen as a Marxist outlook and positive freedom connects an individual with self-mastery. Berlins argument for this position is: the metaphor of self mastery lends itself to a distinction between a higher rational self and a lower irrational self where by in order to be a self master the lower self must be disciplined by the higher self. For example: my rational self has a desire to not have a cigarette, which therefore disciplines my lower rational self that has the desire to have a