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In the modern
world we’re all seeking to recreate and reestablish the value of personal liberty
that is considered in the Western world as one of the unalienable rights of a
citizen and a human. The notion “personal liberty” is often used in mass media,
is declared by legislation of various modern countries. But the peculiarity of
this phenomenon is understood differently by different people as they are
influenced by their cultural context, personal values, etc. So, there exist
various and even opposite ways to solve the problem of personal liberty.

It’s worth
mentioning that liberty is one of the basic philosophical categories that can
determine the phenomenon of a human being and his/her existence in the real
world. I should also mention that in the history of philosophy this concept
evolved from negative liberty to the positive one. This concept was widely
analyzed by Kant, Hegel, Sartre, Jaspers, etc. And the range of representation
of liberty is quite wide: from the full negation of the free choice (in
behaviorism) to the necessity to avoid liberty provided by modern life (E.
Fromm).

This essay is
devoted to the phenomena of liberty explained by I. Berlin and Ch. Taylor. I
should mention that negative liberty shall be treated
as the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints for a person. Positive
liberty shall be considered as the possibility of acting and even the fact of
acting, so it’s possible to gain over one’s life to fulfill the major goals and
purposes. As negative liberty shall be attributed to some individual agents,
positive liberty may be considered in application to collectivities and to
individuals as well.

The idea of further distinguishing
between negative and positive liberty may be traced back at least to Kant.
Further this concept was deeply examined by Isaiah Berlin in the XX century. The
major fields to discuss the concepts of positive and negative liberty are
political and social philosophy.

Discussing the idea of negative liberty,
I. Berlin considers the key ideas of philosophers of past times stressing that
according to previous concepts liberty is as vast as the human does not meet
any obstacles created by other people and the basic idea was the principle of
human personal free will. He also mentions that further English philosophers
elaborated the idea that liberty shall be restricted by law, leaving to a human
a specific patch of personal liberty where he/she has the right to act as he
wants, without any limitations. According to Mille, all people have equal
rights for minimum liberty, so the idea of law is to keep them from stealing
liberty from other people. Berlin mentions that the role of a state is to
regulate and protect such personal liberty.

Berlin also recalls that for Mille the
seeking for protection of personal freedom is essential because he believes
that only in case of having such a liberty civilization can develop further and
create something new. He also believes that without these new ideas any society
will die under the common things without new fresh ideas.

So here Berlin comes to the concept of negative liberty as its main goal
is to preclude any intervention and possible threat to personal liberty. He
claims that there is no need to determine the higher goals and perspectives of
those who limit liberty and intervene the field of personal liberty. But he
develops this concept further and claims that not only those civilizations that
provided such liberty flourished, so, according to Berlin, this concept is not
essential for development. The other Berlin’s idea states that the concept of
personal liberty was created comparatively recently, so the ancient world and
its great culture were built on other grounds. Berlin states that personal life
and personal relations are the result of the concept of liberty created only in
the XVI century. So, it’s definitely important for Western civilization, but
cannot be applied to any world’s culture.

Berlin also provides the idea that
negative liberty has direct connections with state management systems. He
mentions that democracy as a political concept does not guarantee any personal
freedom at all, furthermore it may restrict a person from may freedoms provided
by other political systems. So, there is no direct correlation between
democracy and liberty. So, the key question of the concept of negative liberty
is “What am I free to do?”. I. Berlin states that the will to govern your own
life may be as vast as the will to have your own field to act. So, negative
liberty shall be considered as liberty from something.

The second key concept of Berlin is
positive liberty. This concept roots to the personal will to be the host of his
own life. So, the key idea of this concept is to guarantee that the life and
decisions depend strongly on the particular person and not on third forces.
Moreover, according to the concept of positive liberty a person is the acting
subject, not an object. He/she desires to be and consider himself a free acting
being responsible for the decisions made and able to face the consequences.

It’s worth mentioning that there exists a certain paradox that the
liberty implying that a person is the host of his own life and that liberty is
the freedom from obstacles are not opposites but the positive and negative
aspects of the same phenomenon – the phenomenon of liberty. But Berlin states
that these concepts of liberty historically developed in opposite directions
that made them collide.

Berlin mentions that there is a big
difference between claiming that we know what is good for others and thus
ignoring his needs and claiming that such a person has made such a choice as he
is the host of his life. The philosopher also claims that according to history,
theory and practice the positive concept of liberty implying self-owning
creates the transcendent host and empirical sack of will and desires that
should always stay under control. So, according to Berlin, liberty directly
depends on the ideas that define the personality. He also states that there
have always been made a lot of manipulations with the definition of personal
liberty.

The other idea described by I. Berlin is
that throughout human history there existed the profound belief that casualties
and massacres made to establish liberty were never in vain. But on the other
hand all the regimes created on this belief resulted in establishing a system
implying unification without any specific personal liberty.

According to Berlin, the explanation of
such a high vitality of this human belief is that this goal is reachable in
some ideal state or social system. But the real world demonstrates that it is
only a chimera that may not be reached at all as there is always a conflict
because a conflict is in the inner nature of a human life. And Berlin states
that this is the end of idealists as their concepts are only metaphysical and
unreachable in the world.

The philosopher claims that as we have no
apriori guarantee that the ideal harmony of genuine values is ever possible, we
should rely on our empirical knowledge and common experience. But these may not
provide us with a decent idea whether it is possible to reach the balance
between also personal liberty. The real world implies that in our common life we
should choose between important goals and requirements, inevitably leaving
apart some crucial ones as we cannot reach all of them.

Berlin explains that there is the ground
for the importance of the freedom of choice as if people were sure that any
proximity to ideal is ever possible, their goals would not contradict each
other thus eliminating the crucial importance of the freedom of choice for
humans. Thus any means to make this state closer would be explainable despite
any amount of potential loss.

As we may see, Berlin demonstrates that
the concept of positive freedom is the core of all banners and claims of
national self-governance inspiring the fight for justice.

Thus there may be no harmony at all as the
goals and purposes of people and states vary from state to state, from epoch to
epoch. So there can be no unified formula for everyone. The philosopher also
supports the idea that determining to which grade a person or a nation may use
liberty, we should take into account other values such as equality, justice,
happiness, safety, etc. So, liberty always has its limits.

Summing up the concept of freedom
elaborated by I. Berlin, I should mention that for him pluralism with a certain
part of negative liberty is much more true and human-like that just the
positive liberty in its essence. He believes that plural concept is much more
real as it admits the vast variety of factors limiting human liberties. If we
range the values equally, we deny the understanding of people as free acting
agents. Pluralism is much closer to real human life as it leaves people with
the possibility to choose – and to get some gainings at all. So pluralism
guarantees people the possibility to make a choice as they wish as the
fundamental moral categories and principles determine human lives and cognition
thus making them humans.

Charles Taylor also provides some ideas
regarding the phenomena of positive and negative liberty. Just like Berlin,
Taylor also provides some historical overview of the key philosophers of past
times who developed the idea of liberty.

Considering the concept of liberty
himself, Taylor claim that each person is the best who may determine his/her
own goals, so these should not be prescribed by third parties. He states that
there is a possibility of advice or recommendation, but there should be no
order or prescription if we speak about mentally sane adults. Taylor also
believes that self-realization is essential for any individual and shall be
treated as one of the definitions of personal liberty.

He claims that if we imagine the way from
negative to positive freedom it contains to steps: in the first one we get the
idea of distinguishing motivation and genuine self-management, in the second
one we create a so-called doctrine showing that we are not able to do what we
really want without being a part of a Rousseau’s social contract society.

Furthermore, Taylor claims that in any
case even the negative liberty implies the presence of background concept of
what really makes sense for a particular person. This concept helps ranging the
ideas from crucial to less important ones. So, the philosopher claims that we
all believe that liberty is crucial as we are goal-oriented creatures. And the
problem is that we all have different possibilities – determined either by
personal factors or by more global factors (state, epoch, national traditions,
etc.).

Charles Taylor claims that we should
refuse to understand liberty as possibility. According to the philosopher
liberty also includes the ability to recognize more important goals and the
ability to cope with relevant obstacles neutralizing motivational chains. Thus
the key requirement for a person is that he/she should understand his/her real
wills and desires, so it’s crucial to be in harmony with yourself.

Summing up the ideas of Charles Taylor, I
should mention that the philosopher strongly supports the positive and negative
liberties shall be balanced properly in the cognitive system of each particular
human. He claims that each person may reach his/her potential liberty only in
case he is in the harmony with himself as no one expect for the particular
person may know his/her real wills and desires.

Comparing both concepts analyzed, I should
stress that the key idea of Berlin is the necessity of liberty from outside
interventions (i.e. negative liberty), while the key point of Taylor is based
on the personal responsibilities of each person. Taylor believes that positive
liberty means that a person is free only if he/she is able to deal with his life
himself, without any outside regulators. So the key point of the argument
between the philosophers is the necessity of presence of such an outside
regulator.

All in all, it’s worth underlining that
the philosophical development of the concept of liberty is one of the most
popular in the history of philosophy. Starting from the ancient times
philosophers have been considering this problem. The idea of personal liberty
as the key idea of the development of the whole society was first elaborated
only in the Modern Age. But the research made by Taylor and Berlin demonstrates
that this concept is not as straight. The genuine liberty depends on each
person and his/her possibility to stay in harmony with his/her will.

I support the ideas of Charles Taylor
because his exercise-concept means reasonable responsible actions performed by
a human. Positive liberty does not mean restrictions from outside, the only
restrictor according to Taylor is the human himself. To my mind, this relates
to a real adult who is responsible for his/her actions, capable of making
decisions, free from inner limitations such as fears, weaknesses, lack of
competence, etc.