On Negative and Positive Liberty

Abstract

Berlin's account contains a powerful argument in support of the claim that freedom consists in the non-restriction of options. This is seen when we consider his treatment of freedom, the concept and its rival conceptions, his discussion of descriptive and evaluative aspects of judgements about freedom, his account of the relations between freedom, power and the real will, his argument for the dependency of judgements about freedom on social theories, and his views on the place of a negative conception of freedom in the liberal tradition. Berlin is right to reject positive conceptions of freedom which depend on a rationalist doctrine; but mistaken in his view that all forms of positive libertarianism necessarily involve such commitments.