Question: A211 Philosophy and the human situation
Explain Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between negative and positive liberty using your own examples.
Answer: Berlin’s major arguments on negative freedom mark out the acceptable parameters on the interference in the lives of people. “You restrict my negative freedom when you restrict the number of choices I make about my life” (Warburton, Arguments for Freedom 1999. p14.) However, the extent of negative freedom involves not just the number, but also the types of choices that are available. The right to choose your religion for example is far more important than the right to choose between twenty different newspapers you can buy. “The wider the area of non interference the wider my freedom” (Berlin. p156, Reading 1)
Berlin states that only restrictions imposed by other people affect my freedom (Warburton, 1999. p15). Say a person stole the milk from a doorstep one morning (theft aside), thus preventing the occupant from having cereal. Even though the occupant may have chosen to eat ...(short extract)
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- Subject: Philosophy
- Course: Philosophy
- Level: Degree
- Year: 1st
- Mark: 75%
- Words: 603
- Date submitted: June 02, 2014
- Date written: April, 2010
- References: Yes
- Document type: Essay*
- Essay ID: 5795
