Positive liberty

In his essay, Two Concepts of Liberty, Isaiah Berlin favours negative over positive liberty as it is “the truer and more humane ideal” and argues that positive law threatens individual autonomy by justifying paternalistic coercion. In his work, Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville views liberty as a benefit produced by political life under a free government and posits a conception of positive liberty as political participation. This essay will argue contrary to Berlin, that positive liberty is equally as important as negative liberty for liberalism as the latter is insufficient in ensuring self-realization. Further, it will argue that the establishment and maintenance of negative liberty is contingent on the exercise of individuals’…

challenging the crude version of negative liberty and proving that it is indefensible in a liberal society, and by doing so making negative liberty a form of positive liberty. In his famous work, “What’s wrong with negative liberty?”, Charles Taylor takes on Isiah Berlin’s argument against negative liberty. In this essay, we will see Berlin’s distinction of different kinds of liberties, then go through Taylor’s paper on criticizing Berlin’s idea of negative liberty. We will also look at Taylor’s…

discretion” and “mode of discretion”. I believe that there is a substantial limit for mankinds. Hence, we should be careful when we want to change the status quo. Moreover, since the mankinds are constrained, we could never find a way to allocate the resources that is perfectly fair, so that we should safeguard formal opportunity instead of intervening the outcome. This issue also can be described by using the different fairness suggested by Jonathan Haidt, whereby the thought can be explained…

feeling of being protected, however, there are loopholes. Such as the government hacking into your phones, computers or any electronic devices without probable cause. Realize, our world of technology has weakened the Fourth Amendment (Zwerdling 2013). What is most important Security or Freedom? Or why not both? Because one could benefit the other. Peter Levine now the 75-years-old psychologist who owns a blog of his own known as “ A blog for Civic Renewal”.His qualities to his standpoint of our…

The belief that freedom is worth having regardless of it including the freedom to make mistakes, is a misunderstanding in the lives of numerous people. The entire point of having freedom is to explore, discover, and learn something new by going beyond one’s own limitations. Additionally, whenever one attempts something he/she has never done before, he/she will usually make a mistake. However, he/she learns from that mistake and can utilize this new information to aid him/her in the future.…

“Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God (CCC, 1731). St. Thomas Aquinas supports this claim by stating that man’s natural inclinations to goodness, happiness, being, and truth are the very source of his freedom (Christian Ethics, pg. 245). By choosing what is…

Patriot Pen:What does Freedom Mean What does freedom mean to me? It means lots of things to me but I have two main things of what it means to me. My two reasons for what freedom means to me are, people can say, and act any way they want to without anyone telling them what to do. Number two is people can also get out of hand with freedom. In this essay I will include why I think those reasons are what freedom means to me. In this paragraph I will be sharing one reason to what freedom means to…

From my personal experiences, I have developed the interpretation that freedom is the unencumbered ability to lead a lifestyle that satisfies individual desires and aspirations. I also believe that possessing freedom allows an individual to make decisions to determine their own values as well as to express their perspective with the respect of others. The concept of liberation is for an individual to be relieved of any hindrances that prevents them from attaining freedom. I consider these…

conception of liberty, equality and neutrality posed three serious issues pertinent to the minority rights; (i) Liberalism focuses on individuals, thus ignoring group identities and the values individual obtain from them; (ii) Liberal ideal of equal citizenship undermines the ability of groups to determine themselves and to preserve what…

Can society advance without all of its people? In John Stuart Mill’s essay “On Liberty”, he makes the argument that we should have the freedom to perform any actions we wish, as long as those are not causing harm to any others. Mill makes a number of justifications for his argument throughout his essay. He understands that in order for society to function, there needs to be certain restrictions on individual’s liberty. He believes society’s control over an individual’s liberty should only be…