Talk:Positive liberty

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The citations are done incorrectly, no? I don't have time to change them now.

why have an article where the criticism of the idea is twice as long as the idea itself?

If you had a different article in the wings the whole time, just waiting to use it, why didn't you use it? Instead you waited until I wrote my article so you could replace it with yours. Rather uncool. - I agree!;)

I didn't have a different article beforehand. I just rewrote it afterwards. Do you think it's worse? Evercat 00:51, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

No, not worse, just surprising to see a complete replacement.

Contents 1 moved from article 2 False dichotomy? 3 Weasel words 4 positive liberty versus positive rights 4.1 Active Liberty 5 Examples 6 What is postive liberty? 7 "Conservative"/"liberal" 8 Christian interpretation 9 Criticisms 10 Opening sentence

[edit] moved from article

' Also, Berlin's argument is not valid for any state that does not presume to know the wishes of its citizens. For example, if the state asks the citizens what they want instead of making that decision for them, positive liberty can be guaranteed without any hint of totalitarianism. '

this is IMO completely unsupported by anything other than POV. Sam [Spade] 21:38, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would like to add that John Stewart Mill's seminal "On Liberty", from the first paragraph on, deals specifically with the freedom from coercion by society, rather than "freedom of the will." Perhaps references to this should be in the "negative liberty" article instead?

[edit] False dichotomy?

I think you're basing what you call the views of "many anarchists, and others considered to be on the left-wing" mostly on your own views. Many anarchists readily use the terms "negative liberty" and "positive liberty", or "freedom" and "autonomy", to describe two sides of the same coin (freedom, liberty, or whatever you choose to call it). To say that the entire political philosophy of libertarian socialism "den[ies] that the concepts are even useful" is too imprecise. Anarchists simply deny that the two concepts can be separated or that one is more important than the other; the "coin" has two sides but it's still one coin. This is why I originally referred to the two concepts as "complimentary", because anarchists believe one is meaningless without the other. I'm not saying your use of the phrase "false dichotomy" is incorrect, to the contrary, it helps to emphasize the indivisible nature of freedom, but I do think it might be a bit confusing. -- Spleeman 18:09, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Anarchists simply deny that the two concepts can be separated or that one is more important than the other. So it is a false dicotomy, and this is a stronger statement than simply saying they are complementary. Personally, I'd like to see a reference where the anarchist refers to the two as being complementary. I haven't seen one, and the fact that anarchists (at least in what I've read, which is mostly newer interpretations of the philosophy) seem to ignore the concept of positive or negative liberty makes me think they don't really see the distiction as necessarily being useful. This is what I stated. I may have made the statement too strong by attributing it to many libertarian socialists, but I do feel that at least some of them simply fail to make such a distiction at all, thus it would be correct to say that they do not find the concept useful. Maybe this can be resolved by finding a source where a particular anarchist argues that the two are complementary, and then attributing it specifically to him or her. Otherwise, I would consider ignoring the issue to be implicitly implying that the concepts are not useful for analyzing ideas about liberty or freedom.

The "many considered on the left-wing" part was intentionally vague, since I'm unsure what other "leftists" think, but again out of the communist, and the social democratic stuff I have read ignores the issue as if its not important. The only time I ever seem to see the distiction is within right-wing/free market libertarian/classical liberal literature. This was the point that I was trying to make. The entire article seems to talk about positive liberty as if it were an obvious truth, and my point was to make the statment that this really isn't so, and to make it strong enough that the readers may see this. The way you put it, makes it seem like all political philosophers accept the concepts, even if they disagree on thir importance. This only adds to the obvious POV that this article has regarding the "truth" of this concept. millerc 00:52, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

BTW, I find the current revision acceptable, so don't take my complaints too harshly. I still support the language of false dicotomy rather than logically inseperable, but heck everyone has their own idiolect. millerc 01:04, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I had a long response to this written out and then the server fucked it up so I'll try to sum it up. For now, let it suffice to say that anarchists do use the concepts. One example that can be found easily with google is http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:-wo6Txf9dE8J:www.infoshop.org/faq/secF7.html+%22positive+freedom%22+anarchist&hl=en. And of course there are others, including a pamphlet that I believe was written by Chaz Bufe entitled "You Call This Freedom?" The difference in how anarchists and right-wingers use the concepts of "negative" and "positve" freedom is that to anarchists the distinction merely as an abstraction. They don't believe there's any practical value to it outside of the mind, that is, if people are to be truly free. Anarchists have always seen freedom holistically. This, however, does not mean that we as anarchists somehow deny the abstraction can be made by calling it a fallacy, as I thought was implied by "false dichotomy". The distinction certainly can be made, and is made all the time. This is why I prefer "complemetary" or "logically inseparable". Anyway, the critical point when talking about anarchism is that no two anarchists believe exactly the same thing about pretty much anything. When talking about anarchist beliefs, I think it's always good to keep this in mind and to couch things in appropriately vague language. By the way, when you say "implicitly implying" did you mean as opposed to "explicitly implying"? Hehe. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. -- Solidarity -- Spleeman 07:07, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree that many anarchists disagree about things, which is why I thought it might be good to give a particular anarchist who feels that way. I've been looking around for the terms positive and negative liberty/rights in anarchist literature, and I'm starting to become stronger in my belief that it's just a non-issue to most anarchists (not needed for anarchist analysis). The link you gave is similar to something I was going to post from the anarchist faq (here [1]). Note both are from the section refuting anarcho-capitalism (section F). I'm looking at version 10, the newest version of the faq, and it has scare quotes around the word positive ("positive" liberty). Both the pointer you gave and the one I found treat the subject ambgiously. They certainly don't advocate the ideas as true. And the ideas are only brought up to refute Libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism.

I only found one other pamplet on the subject (here [2] It's the same writer that you mentioned!). One writer is hardly indicitive of the "anarchist opinion". But maybe we may cite him as the source that I would like?

And I did mean implicit, as the opposate of explicit. You implicity imply something when you don't directly state it. They don't directly state their views on positive liberty, so one might guess that they don't endorse the concept. millerc 01:38, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Oh... I think I finally got it, "implicity implying"... Yeah, it is sorta' redundant. hehe. millerc 01:50, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words

The last two paragraphs begin with "Defenders say" and "Positive liberty can also be seen". Let's get with it, y'all! Who, exactly, is making these claims? The article can only be improved by including this information. -Seth Mahoney 04:35, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

In Political Spectrum you will see the Friesean Institute uses the specialized definition quite extensively in their 3-d political spectrum. Harvestdancer 28 June 2005 17:35 (UTC)

[edit] positive liberty versus positive rights

This article is wrongly equating positive liberty with positive rights. Positive liberty is the liberty to act. A positive right is a right to be provided with something by others. RJII 22:31, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Active Liberty

I think there should be a reference to Justice Stephen Breyer's book "Active Liberty", and to Benjamin Constant's speech "Liberty of the Ancients and Moderns" to which he refers.

[edit] Examples

The article needs concrete examples of positive liberties. - Quirk 20:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is postive liberty?

I read this article several times and I still have no idea what the concept means. It needs to be clarified or deleted or something.

Salvor Hardin 22:31, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Seems pretty clear to me. From the second paragraph:

Positive liberty is often described as freedom to achieve certain ends, while negative liberty is described as from external coercion.

Maybe it can be made more clear though. What part aren't you following? -Smahoney 22:55, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

That statement is incoherent. What is it supposed to mean? Salvor Hardin 00:09, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

At first I was kind of dismissive of Salvor's tag, but after, going over the article some more, I think the article is somewhat muddied, especially with confusion between Positive liberty and "positive rights." I think it needs to be cleaned up a bit using Isaiah Berlin's essay and other scholarly sources.--Bkwillwm 02:31, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The two paragraphs after, "The idea of positive liberty is often emphasized by..." should probably be moved to the Criticisms section, since it seems to offer opinions other than positive liberty. This might make it less confusing as to what parts explain positive liberty (in the Overview section), and clarify the whole article some. Jamesia 05:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Conservative"/"liberal"

The article uses these terms too loosely; it should at least be clear which sense of the word is intended. Also, the label of "conservative," with regard to Cotton Mather, is anachronistic.--WadeMcR 03:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Not only does the article use them loosely, it seems to be wrong about them. One part states that positive liberty is associated with liberalism while negative is associated with libertarianism, which I take exception with. If anything, positive liberty tends to be more common in 'right-wing'/conservative circles with negative liberty being closer to liberalism/left-wing thought as well as libertarianism. --The Way 11:30, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Christian interpretation

Among the right-wing, conservatives also embrace some forms of positive liberty. Most notably, Puritans such as Cotton Mather often referred to liberty in their writings, but focused on the liberty from sin (e.g. sexual urges) even at the expense of liberty from the government.

Please include a quotation to explain what you mean by "at the expense of liberty from the government."

I feel this statement about "right-wing conservatives" innaccurately implies their support for positive rights. A Christian understanding of freedom in Christ from sin (a positive liberty to reach our potential as human beings) does not necessarily imply anything regarding government and rights.

However, this my understanding and I have not thoroughly studied the issue. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Not all Christians believe that government must become involved in helping individuals achieve positive liberty in the form of freedom from sin; however, the Puritans placed many restrictions on individuals using government to restrain other liberties (ie freedom of religion) in order to promote their idea positive liberty. The statement should be clarified to show that this is only certain groups like the Puritans, not all right-wingers or Christians.--Bkwillwm 05:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticisms

The entire criticisms section is based off one article from the Cato Institute. Either that was one very good article, or too many references are being used from that source. In lieu of better examples, I didn't delete the whole section, though I believe it needs to be cleaned up. --Jamesia 05:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

after reading the 'criticism' i thought to myself, 'i imagine all this comes from the same guy and from a right wing conservative thinktank." according to wikipedia, kelley is an aynrandista and the CATO institute is, of course, a right wing conservative thinktank. this article, or atleast the 'criticism' is mostly a hit piece written by someone with a political opinion to get across —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.132.109.133 (talk) 20:06, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opening sentence

I don't think it is sensible to use metaphor in the opening sentence of an article when supposedly providing a definition of the concept under discussion!

I would fix it myself, however I can't really ascertain exactly what "positive liberty" is apart from a euphemism for government control and the subversion of true individual liberty.--Russell E (talk) 22:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)