Rethinking Positive and Negative Liberty 2019026190, 2019026191, 9780415665513, 9780429428173

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Rethinking Positive and Negative Liberty

This book argues that the distinction between positive and negative freedom remains highly pertinent today, despite having fallen out of fashion in the late twentieth century. It proposes a new reading of this distinction for the twentyfirst century, building on the work of Constant, Green and Berlin, who led the historical development of these ideas. The author defends the idea that freedom is a dynamic interaction between two inseparable yet sometimes fundamentally opposed positive and negative ­concepts – the yin and yang of freedom. Positive freedom is achieved when one succeeds in doing what is right, while negative freedom is achieved when one is able to advance one’s well-being. In an environment of culture wars, resurging populism and challenge to progressive liberal values, recognising the duality of freedom can help us better understand the political dilemmas we face and point the way forward. The book analyses the duality of freedom in more philosophical depth than previous studies and places it within the context of both historical and contemporary political thinking. It will be of interest to students and scholars of liberalism and political theory. Maria Dimova-Cookson is Associate Professor in Politics at the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, UK.

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Rethinking Positive and Negative Liberty Maria Dimova-Cookson

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Maria Dimova-Cookson The right of Maria Dimova-Cookson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Dimova-Cookson, Maria, 1967– author. Title: Rethinking positive and negative liberty / Maria Dimova-Cookson. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Routledge innovations in political theory | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019026190 (print) | LCCN 2019026191 (ebook) | ISBN 9780415665513 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429428173 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Liberty—Philosophy. | Political ethics. Classification: LCC JC585 .D4875 2020 (print) | LCC JC585 (ebook) | DDC 320.01/1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026190 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026191 ISBN: 978-0-415-66551-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-42817-3 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To my mother Todorka Murdjeva and my philosophy teacher Stoicho Kyosev

Contents

List of tablesxi Preface and acknowledgementsxii List of abbreviationsxvi Introduction 1 What is freedom?  1 2 Reviving the positive/negative freedom project  3 3 What is the revised positive/negative freedom distinction and what are the new positive and negative freedoms?  7 4 The utility of the fourfold matrix of freedom  12 5 What do Constant, Green and Berlin say about the positive/ negative freedom distinction?  15 1

Benjamin Constant on modern people and their two liberties Introduction 21 1 Constant’s arguments in Liberty of the Ancients as Compared with That of the Moderns 25 2  Justifications of the changed status of ancient liberty  32 3 The curious survival of ancient liberty  36 3.1 The political rationale  36 3.2 The hedonic rationale  38 3.3 The virtue rationale  40 4 Modern liberty in the political and the moral contexts  46 4.1 Modern liberty and its ‘virtue-neutral’ aspect  48 4.2 Liberty, morality and satisfaction  50 5 On individuality and its link to the duality of freedom  52 Conclusion 58

1

21

viii  Contents 2

T.H. Green’s true freedom as the paradigm positive liberty concept Introduction 62 1 Analytical reconstruction of On the Different Senses of ‘Freedom’ 66 2 The features of true freedom  71 3 Freedom and satisfaction  73 4 The progressive nature of satisfaction and the development that underpins it  74 5 True freedom as acquisition of moral agency  78 6 True freedom, moral development and authorities  82 7 True freedom as a normative concept: it is possible and desirable  86 Conclusion 90

3

T.H. Green and negative freedom as well-being improvement Introduction 94 1  Formal freedom: the first freedom and its external conceptual boundaries 97 2 Juristic freedom 103 3 Analytical reconstruction of the Lecture on Liberal Legislation and conceptual alignment with On the Different Senses of ‘Freedom’ 107 4 Green’s moral argument in defence of negative freedom  112 4.1 Green’s polemic against self-reliance: why true freedom should not be seen as the only freedom  115 4.2 Positive/ability freedom as based on a state of citizenship and well-being  117 5 The internal freedom boundary  120 6 Positive/true freedom 123 Conclusion 124

4

Isaiah Berlin, positive freedom and the impact of moral authorities on human agency Introduction 129 1 Historical context, ideological positioning and philosophical contribution 132 2  Positive freedom as excellence in a recognised field  136 3 Self-transformation as the transition from the empirical to the higher self  141

62

94

129

Contents ix 4 Berlin’s positive freedom and political authorities  145 5 Berlin’s theory of the empirical self and the real threat of moral authorities: positive freedom and value affirmation  148 6 The pathologies of self-transformation and the normal agency capable of freedom  154 7 The third criterion for the distinction between positive and negative freedom and how the two freedoms swap places  159 8 Why the substantive objective of development matters for liberal theory: the issue of perfectionism  162 Conclusion 163 5

Berlin’s negative freedom and the conceptual work of the boundaries of liberty Introduction 168 1 Berlin’s negative freedom and personal well-being  171 2 Negative freedom as non-interference: can a liberty principle really be simple?  176 2.1 Non-interference and agency  178 2.2 Non-interference and external factors  179 2.3 Non-interference and the ideal scope of negative freedom  180 3  Negative freedom as defined by a frontier and an area  181 3.1 Beyond the frontier  182 3.2  Within the frontier: the fluctuation between the minimal and maximal area of negative freedom  183 4 The external threats to negative freedom  187 4.1 The ‘open doors’ metaphor and the need for democracy  189 4.2 Negative liberty and socioeconomic conditions  191 5 Berlin and the fourfold freedom matrix  193 Conclusion 195

6

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom Introduction 199 1 Is monism the villain of value pluralism?  201 2 Negative freedom and values: Gray’s provision of the missing link 205 3 The moral development underpinning the practice of values  209 4 The sources of incommensurability of values  214 5 The implications of value pluralism for the distinction between positive and negative freedom  219

168

199

x  Contents 6 Explaining the dynamics of the positive/negative freedom distinction 224 Conclusion 229 Conclusion

233

References 235 Index245

Tables

0.1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4a 1.4b 1.5a 1.5b 1.6 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 5.1 6.1 6.2

The fourfold freedom matrix The initial conceptual grid with the two liberties put in starkly contrasting terms The impact of war, trade and professions on the conceptual grid The impact of ‘satisfaction’ on the liberties in the conceptual grid The transferal of ancient liberty in modern times Rethinking ancient liberty in the context of modern times The moral and political dimensions of the ancient liberty of modern people The full fourfold freedom matrix of the liberties of modern people The fourfold freedom matrix as applied to Constant’s ideas The apparent two concepts of liberty in LLL Linking Green’s concepts of freedom and their original texts with the concepts of positive, negative and non-real freedoms endorsed in this book The fourfold freedom matrix applied to Green’s ideas Comparing Green’s true freedom and Berlin’s positive freedom as self-mastery Comparing Green’s understanding of the higher self to Berlin’s The empirical self as the imperfect predecessor of the higher self Hobhouse’s understanding of the objectives of the empirical and the higher selves The fourfold freedom matrix applied to Berlin’s ideas The parameters of moral development The internal boundary (IB) between the two freedoms and the external boundaries (EB) around them

10 27 28 28 31 32 47 47 59 109 115 124 139 142 149 151 193 210 227

Preface and acknowledgements

The positive/negative freedom distinction, known best from the work of Isaiah Berlin, does not have to create schisms. If properly understood, it can help explain existing divides and suggest ways forward. We cannot pretend that divides do not exist as we are surrounded by political clashes, ideological conflicts, moral dilemmas and conceptual dichotomies. But we also do not have to accept these as unchangeable facts of life. The capacity of the positive/negative freedom distinction to explain dichotomies and to suggest viable reconciliations is yet to be explored, and this book is a step along this road. The book examines the dual conceptualisations of liberty of three great thinkers  – Benjamin Constant, T.H. Green and Isaiah Berlin – and shows how they can explain the nature of freedom better by bringing together in a meaningful fashion questions of human agency with matters of social and political institutions. The best-known theories of liberty based on a single concept of freedom leave significant aspects of the exercise of liberty unaccounted for. In addition to incorporating a great number of factors related to the practice of freedom, the dual conceptualisation can address the moral and political tensions which threaten but also explain liberty. One of the tensions I had to face as an academic – a political tension of a kind – has been the divide between the history of political thought and analytical political theory. I have found this divide problematic as it questioned the legitimacy of my attempt to analyse the concept of freedom by exploring the ideas of past thinkers. The suggestion that the methods of studying the history of ideas are different from those of understanding and developing theories about political concepts is, I believe, counterproductive. It presumes that thinkers from the past reasoned in a fundamentally different fashion, that the questions they asked only seem to be similar to these we ask now and that the answers they gave are irrelevant in the historical circumstances in which we find ourselves. This schism militates against the very idea of philosophy as a way of generating knowledge through the analysis of our experience with the objective of finding some general patterns that help understand this experience better. Of course, the issue about what philosophy or knowledge in general is, is far from uncontroversial: indeed, it constitutes some of the reasoning behind separating the study of the history of ideas from the engagement with analytical political philosophy.

Preface and acknowledgements xiii Through his distinction between positive and negative freedom, Isaiah Berlin aimed, among other things, to criticise abstract rationalistic knowledge. He argued that positive freedom was the freedom of the monist, that is, the idealist thinker who believed in final truths and the possibility of the harmonisation of values. On the opposite side, the value pluralist saw the diversity of final ends and accepted that there are different often incompatible ideals and ways of life. The value pluralist approach was the one he associated with negative freedom. For Berlin, this argument showed the superiority of negative freedom. For me, on the other hand, this argument shows the interdependence between the two approaches towards final truths. The value pluralist sees better than the monist the existence of tragic clashes between final ends and ways of life. But if such clashes are tragic, then the ideals and ways of life of the monist must have been important. In other words, even if we accept that all final truths make sense only within their particular contexts, we may still want to argue that certain claims are more valid than others because they have taken into account all known contexts and they can function practically as ultimate ends. I believe that if positive freedom is associated with what Berlin calls monism, this only shows how embedded the former is in our ways of reasoning and acting. The capacity of knowledge to produce ultimate truths, like positive freedom, can be questioned but not unconditionally rejected. Truths may be contingent and understood best in their historical contexts, but this does not mean that we should not try to find moral ideals that appeal across cultures and transcend particular contexts. During the socialist years in Bulgaria – where I come from and where I lived until 1993 – the study of philosophy was a search for truths and values that were sufficiently apolitical to avoid censorship yet informative of how society works so they could teach us how to leave a positive mark. Ruling ideologies could be flawed and governments non-transparent, but there were truths worth finding as well as ethical ways of living. The end of the communist regime in 1989 opened opportunities for people like me to study political philosophy in Western Europe, in the countries where most of the philosophers we studied came from. In this sense moving from Sofia to York to take the MA programme ‘The Idea of Toleration’ on an Open Society scholarship felt like a smooth transition. I naturally gravitated towards the political theory of T.H. Green, a British idealist who carried the ideas of German idealism into liberal Britain and managed to lay the foundations of progressive liberalism – an egalitarian liberalism that aims to improve the quality of life of all groups subject to exploitation. The British idealist academic community has been immensely supportive. Among other things it brought philosophers, historians, theologians and political theorists together, and it took me quite some time – my first failed grant application – before I discovered the existing schism between the history of political thought and analytical political theory. But my initial failure to grasp my academic context does not have to be fatal. Once we understand where we come from, we can find better ways to convey our ideas. Also, with time, I appreciate more and more the toleration, patience and open-mindedness

xiv  Preface and acknowledgements of fellow academics: if I have been heard, it is because they have given me the benefit of their doubt. Writing this book has taken longer than a decade. I am indebted to my School of Government and International Affairs and to Durham University for the research leave provision and the generous financial backing of conference attendance and other networking activities. The book is based on my third-year module ‘Theories of Liberty’, which I started teaching in 2006. A warm thank you to all students who chose and completed the module – your essays and conversations played an enormous role in shaping my ideas. My intellectual debts stretch back to my years in Burgas, when I attended the philosophy club of Stoicho Kyosev. Stoicho introduced me to Zdravko Popov, then an assistant professor at Sofia University, who took me under his wing during my undergraduate years and helped me get my first job, at the Bulgarian Philosophical Association. Zdravko, Alexandar Andonov, Bogdan Bogdavov, Tsocho Boyadzhiev, Emilia Rangelova, Isaac Passy, Ivan Stefanov, Vladimir Teoharov, Hristo Todorov, Iskra Tsoneva, Nedyalka Videva and Kalin Yanakiev were among my most memorable lecturers. I flew the nest of the University of York in 1999 after I finished my PhD, and since then the support of Peter Nicholson, John Horton and Susan Mendus has been instrumental in my development as a research-active academic. Peter, my former PhD supervisor, has read and offered detailed feedback for every chapter of this book and indeed for every paper I have written. His faith in me and his constructive feedback have been a lifeline. John and Susan have supported me with my various research projects and responded generously to conference papers. I am also hugely indebted to Jeremy Jennings, who read the entire book manuscript and the revised draft of several chapters: he insisted that I gave the reader more ‘windows through which s/he can enter the task’. Important clarifications would not have been there without his prompts. Avital Simhony gave detailed feedback on Chapters One, Two and Six. Like Peter she has read many of my papers and has been a major inspiration for my work. Alan Kahan helped me out with the chapter on Constant. I am grateful to Steve Welch for proofreading the final draft: his editorial questions have led to substantive improvements. I owe special thanks to my colleagues from the Centre for Political Thought who have read and given feedback to several of my chapters in the context of our research seminar and informal debates: Ilan Baron, Jessica Begon, Thom Brooks, Gidon Cohen, Andy Hamilton, David Held, Christopher Finley, Beth Kahn, Lewis Mates, Richard Murphy, Eva-Maria Nag, Julia Stapleton, Peter Stirk, Stephen Welch and John Williams. The conversations with my former PhD students, Ravza Altuntas-Cakir, Militsa Boneva, Hesam Forozan, Matt Hann, Siyang Liu, Thomas O’Neil and Freshta Yosufi, have also been immensely motivating. I am indebted to my mentors Jo Fox, Emma Murphy and Ruth Wittlinger. My British idealist colleagues have provided the most supportive environment and helped the development of my ideas through the discussions at our conferences in Gregynog, Hull and at the PSA annual meetings. I  am particularly indebted to Leslie Armour, David Boucher, Gary Browning, James Connelly,

Preface and acknowledgements xv Alberto de Sanctis, Josie D’Oro, Bill Mander, Noel O’Sullivan, Stamatoula Panagakou, Adrian Paylor, Teresa Smith, Will Sweet, Adam Swinbank, Hanno Terao, Colin Tyler, Andrew Vincent and David Weinstein. I  would also like to thank Andrea Baumeister, Bruce Baum, Adrian Blau, Ian Carter, Diana Coole, George Crowder, Carol Gould, John Christman, Gerald Gaus, Kei Hiruta, Peter Jones, Nancy Hirschmann, Duncan Kelly, Cecile Labord, John Maynor, David Miller, Tatsuya Mori, Philip Pettit, Manjeet Ramgotra, Jonathan Seglow, Tim Stanton and James Tully for their comments on my conference papers and research projects related to modern liberty. I would like to thank my families in Bulgaria and the UK for their continuous support. My husband, Richard, my daughter, Laura, and my son, Harry, have been my main distraction yet my greatest motivation for work. Richard has been there from the beginning, drafting the tables for the fourfold freedom matrix, to the end, rewriting opening paragraphs and the book title. My late father, Aristotel Dimov, has been in my thoughts, smiling at me all the time from his portraits. My sister, Ana, has been my tireless counsellor. I dedicate the book to my mum, Todorka Murdjeva, who has given me strength and helped me put things in perspective and to my first philosophy teacher, Stoicho Kyosev, who talked to us, a bunch of teenagers, about the pre-Socratic school of the Eleatics, about Plato and Kant, and this was more interesting than anything we had heard before and possibly after. Maria Dimova-Cookson April 2019

Abbreviations

Adolphe Constant, Benjamin (1964 [1816]), Adolphe, Harmondsworth: Penguin. DSF Green, T.H. (1986 [1886]), ‘On the Different Senses of Freedom as Applied to the Will and the Moral Progress of Man’, in Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation and Other Writings, ed. Paul Harris and John Morrow, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 228–49. GMM Kant, Immanuel (1981 [1785]), Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James W. Ellington, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. HF Berlin, Isaiah (2002), ‘From Hope and Fear Set Free’, in Isaiah Berlin, Liberty, ed. Henry Hardy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 252–79. HI Berlin, Isaiah (2002), ‘Historical Inevitability’, in Isaiah Berlin, Liberty, ed. Henry Hardy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 94–165. IH Green, T.H. (1906 [1874]), ‘Introductions to Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature’, in R.L. Nettleship (ed), Works of Thomas Hill Green, Volume II, London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1–371. IN Berlin, Isaiah (2002 [1969]), ‘Introduction’, in Isaiah Berlin, Liberty, ed. Henry Hardy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3–54. ISL Berlin, Isaiah, and Steven Lukes (1998), ‘In Conversation with Steven Lukes’, Salmagundi, 120(2): 52–134. JSM Berlin, Isaiah (2002), ‘John Stuart Mill and the Ends of Life’, in Isaiah Berlin, Liberty, ed. Henry Hardy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 218–51. LACM Constant, Benjamin (1988 [1819]), ‘The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns’, in Constant: Political Writings, ed. Biancamaria Fontana, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 308–28. LLL Green, T.H. (1986b [1881]), ‘Lecture on “Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract” ’, in Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation and Other Writings, ed. Paul Harris and John Morrow, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 194–219. LPK Green, T.H. (1990 [1886]), Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant, in Works of Thomas Hill Green, Volume II, ed. R.L. Nettleship, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 2–194.

Abbreviations xvii LPPO

Green, T.H. (1986c [1895]), Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation and Other Writings, ed. Paul Harris and John Morrow, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 13–193. PE Green, T.H. (1890), Prolegomena to Ethics, Oxford: Clarendon Press. PPAAG Constant, Benjamin (2003 [1810]), Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments, ed. Etienne Hofmann, trans. Denis O’Keeffe, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. PPARG Constant, Benjamin (1988 [1815]), Principles of Politics Applicable to All Representative Governments, in Constant: Political Writings, ed. Biancamaria Fontana, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 170–305. PTS Bosanquet, Bernard (2001 [1899]), The Philosophical Theory of the State, in The Philosophical Theory of the State and Related Essays, ed. Gerald F. Gaus and William Sweet, South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 1–293. SCU Constant Benjamin (1988 [1814]), The Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation and Their Relation to European Civilisation, in Constant: Political Writings, ed. Biancamaria Fontana, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 44–167. TCL Berlin, Isaiah (2002 [1958]), ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, in Isaiah Berlin, Liberty, ed. Henry Hardy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 166–217.

Introduction

We never give up on freedom. When it is hard to attain, we fight for it or rethink our priorities: in either case new freedom is found. In this book I claim that freedom has two senses because it can be found in things that may fundamentally conflict. I argue that positive freedom is achieved when one succeeds in doing what is right, while negative freedom is achieved when one is in a position to advance one’s well-being. Isaiah Berlin’s positive/negative freedom distinction was articulated during the ideological conflicts of the twentieth century, and many believe it lost its relevance when these conflicts subsided. Building on the work of three great thinkers who developed a dual conceptualisation of freedom – ­Constant, Green and Berlin – I argue that this view is mistaken. The distinction, if properly understood, remains highly pertinent. It shows how political conflicts become personal moral dilemmas as they make it harder for us both to advance our well-being and to see what is right. In an environment of culture wars, resurging populism and challenge to progressive liberal values, the duality of freedom can explain the moral dilemmas we face and point to ways forward.

1 What is freedom? Freedom can mean many things. The freedom you want depends on the kind of person you are and the circumstances you are in. Some people consider themselves free if they are not in a relationship, while others find that the security of a stable relationship is crucial for their capacity to do the things they value. The threats we are under determine the ways we seek freedom: colonial oppression inspires people to fight for national independence; poverty and vast inequalities inspire people to seek freedom through class struggle; totalitarian regimes inspire people to fight for democracy and human rights; and citizens in liberal democracies see freedom as a real equality of opportunity which is hindered by institutionalised racism and sexism and also as a protection of their capacity to choose their own values which some feel is undermined by political correctness. Finding precise definitions of freedom is hard because of the diversity of aspirations that underpin it and the multiplicity of factors that shape one’s environment. But meaningful concepts of freedom are needed because we cannot protect our freedom unless we understand it. In this book I argue that freedom is about our capacity to advance

2  Introduction our own well-being, provided this well-being has a moral dimension. But freedom can also be found through a dedicated service to others that comes at a personal cost. Therefore, I argue that we can give a meaningful account of freedom only after we develop a viable dual conceptualisation of liberty.1 I argue that a single concept of freedom is bound to ignore significant aspects of liberty and to fail in addressing the moral dilemmas that often accompany its exercise. Is freedom threatened by existing moral norms or made possible by them? Is freedom about individuality, or is it about political structures? Can the freedom of a person be defined independently from the political establishment she2 lives in? If not, are there political institutions capable of advancing the freedom of all citizens?3 These questions have been at the forefront of modern political theory, and the specific ways in which various philosophers have answered them have produced contradictory accounts of freedom. Some thinkers, like John Locke, believed that entitlement to freedom is based on the divine nature of human beings. Hobbes also believed that freedom is a property of individuals – in his case, on the grounds that they are moving physical objects – which they can exercise if nothing external stops them. Rousseau, however, argued that freedom is only possible in the correct form of association shaped by contract and underpinned by general will. According to Kant, individuals can become free if they think independently and follow self-prescribed moral laws. Hegel and Marx had a lot to say about how social relations and political institutions are instrumental for the exercise of freedom. Although all these theories of liberty combine the individual, the political and the moral aspects of liberty in distinct ways, Isaiah Berlin argued that the specific concepts of liberty which emerge from such theories fall into the two broad categories: negative and positive. His idea of two main concepts of liberty has been controversial but extremely influential, and 60 years after it was aired,4 it continues to feature in nearly all textbooks in political theory. I argue that taking Berlin’s dual conceptualisation of liberty seriously and putting it on the correct footing is crucial for our capacity to explain freedom well. The dual nature of freedom – the fact the freedom can be found in pursuit of conflicting objectives – is an essential aspect of what freedom is. Understanding what makes freedom controversial throws light on how it is exercised, why it is sought and how it can be protected. Put in general terms, the distinction between positive and negative freedom, if properly understood, reflects the different ways in which individuals interact with authorities of political and moral kinds. Different ways of engaging with these authorities may result in exercises of freedom that are mutually exclusive. Seeing how authorities not only compromise but also advance our freedom would help us understand it better. For example, we tend to agree that authorities obstruct freedom: visa regulations limit our freedom to travel, codes of conduct limit the ways in which we could behave, management tells us what to do in order to earn our salaries, councils collect taxes from us, universities have entry requirements which make us study for grades and do extracurricular activities and so on. But we tend to notice less that most of our significant desires become possible through the existing institutions: university degrees open doors to cherished jobs, hierarchies provide career ladders which would not be there if

Introduction  3 institutions were less complex and vertically structured, clubs allow us to pursue hobbies and leisure activities which would be much harder or impossible to do on our own and charities allow us to help others more effectively. Institutions help us move forward, and this moving forward is, I will argue here, one of the significant aspects of the experience of freedom. Understanding that institutions are instrumental for the advancement of one’s valuable objectives poses a challenge for the conceptualisation of liberty that typically relies on the antithesis between liberty and authorities. The positive/negative conceptualisation of liberty allows us to explore and address the complex relations between individuals and authorities both of political and moral nature.

2 Reviving the positive/negative freedom project The positive/negative freedom distinction was made famous by Isaiah Berlin, although he is not the first to develop what I call here a dual conceptualisation of freedom. His negative freedom is defined as ‘freedom from’ external interference. It aims to protect the sanctity of the private sphere. His positive freedom is experienced when one achieves ‘self-mastery’ by living up to rational ideals and making the best of oneself. It is also known as the ‘freedom to’ (TCL: 174, 178; emphasis added). Positive freedom is the freedom associated with the ideals of collective self-determination and self-government. Negative and positive freedoms share some common ground, but both are ‘ends in themselves’ and, therefore, ‘may clash irreconcilably’ (IN: 42). Berlin acknowledges Benjamin Constant as somebody who came closest to him in seeing the need for a dual account of freedom, although he did so 140 years earlier.5 Constant also discusses two liberties: that of the moderns and that of the ancients (LACM). Modern liberty refers to the freedom of thought, conscience and choice of religion; to individuals’ right to property and to the protection of privacy. Ancient liberty is the freedom experienced in politics through direct participation in a republican government. We can list more scholars who speak of two liberties similar to Berlin’s negative and positive ones. Rousseau makes a distinction between a person’s natural liberty which consists of ‘the absolute right to anything that tempts him and that he can take’ and moral liberty which is ‘obedience to a law one prescribes to oneself’ (Rousseau, 1968: 65). Kant refers to freedom in two different ways. In his political writings, he says that a man’s freedom implies that ‘each may seek his happiness in whatever way he sees fit, so long as he does not infringe upon the freedom of others to pursue a similar end’ (Kant, 1991: 74), while in his works on moral philosophy, he argues that ‘a free will and a will subject to moral laws are one and the same’ (Kant, 1981: 447). T.H. Green, known best for his concept of positive freedom, sees freedom as capacity to do worthwhile things and contribute to the common good. But he also acknowledges a primary sense of freedom based on one’s exemption from compulsion by others so that one could do as one prefers.6 Indeed, the list of scholars who have referred to two different senses of freedom is much longer than that.7 I have chosen to study only three – Constant, Green and Berlin – because they have seen better than others, although each to

4  Introduction a varying degree, the significance of each of the two concepts and the complex relationship between them. Constant was the first to argue that the two senses of freedom were morally significant and that, although they were interdependent, they were not reducible to each other. Green was the best in explaining the way in which positive freedom was a real freedom yet different from the routine forms of exercising freedom. Berlin developed the most systematic theorisation of the positive/negative freedom distinction by showing the moral and political tensions caused by certain exercises of freedom. He also surpassed his two predecessors in outlining both concepts in considerable detail. It would be fair to say that the positive/negative freedom distinction meets with more scepticism than approval in contemporary political theory, even though it ‘remains a standard point of departure for the analysis of political freedom’ (Crowder, 2004: 64). I  will summarise five objections to the distinction which I believe to be important. The primary reason for this scepticism is that Berlin’s dual conceptualisation of freedom privileges the concept of negative freedom. Thus, the flaws in his negative freedom concept are seen as flaws in the distinction itself. Critics of Berlin’s negative freedom expose the failure of the concept to appreciate the significance of one’s capacity to do things and the essential link between freedom and economic conditions (Cohen, 1960; Macpherson, 1973; Miller, 1983; Simhony, 1993a; Crowder, 2004; Gould, 2013); between freedom and democracy (Gould, 2014; Myers, 2013); and between freedom and national self-determination (Chatterjee, 2013; Tully, 2013). It also fails to show the dangers of structural oppression and domination (Coole, 2013; Hirschmann, 2013; Pettit, 1997). A second, related, reason for the critique of Berlin’s distinction is the destructive impact it has had on the understanding of positive freedom and on the philosophical legacy of the thinkers who defended it. In this context the distinction has been deemed ‘a Procrustean bed . . . bleeding away [the] vitality’ of positive freedom and Green’s version of it in particular (Nicholson, 1990: 131). I believe that by casting a shadow over the desirability of positive freedom, Berlin ends up discrediting things which many may believe to be valuable, like harmonisation of values, pursuit of perfection in self-realisation, pursuit of liberty through moral action and the political ambition to mobilise support in order to advance a moral ideal. Third, the distinction has been blamed for undermining the legacy of thinkers whose version of liberty is seen by Berlin as belonging to his negative liberty camp. In other words, the bad press of his negative liberty has spread to those liberty concepts which he has embraced, such as Constant’s modern liberty (Vincent, 2004: 20; Rosenblatt, 2004: 30; Jennings, 2009: 72). One of the earliest critics of the distinction, Gerald MacCallum, regards Berlin’s idea that there are two concepts of freedom as erroneous on the grounds that the various dualities which the distinction reflects do not always overlap. He observes that each of the two concepts is based on a number of features, but it is not always the case that, practically, freedoms deemed as negative cover all these features and freedoms deemed as positive cover the corresponding opposite features. ‘The trouble is’, he argues,

Introduction 5 not merely that some writers do not fit too well where they have been placed; it is rather that writers who are purportedly the very models of membership in one camp or the other (for example, Locke, the Marxists) do not fit very well where they have been placed – thus suggesting that the whole system of dichotomous classification is futile, and even worse, conductive to distortion of important views on freedom. (MacCallum, 2006: 110) This is a strong and interesting objection. It registers the scope of Berlin’s conceptual ambition in developing a dual conceptualisation of liberty – that is, that it aims to reflect not one but a cluster of interrelated dichotomies – but it shows that the very scale of this ambition may be a major stumbling block to establishing a valid and meaningful distinction. The final, fifth, objection to the distinction I will mention here is one I have come to appreciate in the course of my own attempts to show how important it is: producing two concepts of freedom as opposed to one arguably fails to deliver a logically satisfactory completion to the project of explaining the nature of freedom. In this sense the distinction can be confusing and impractical. If the message is that freedom is itself and its opposite, one may feel uninformed about what exactly it is. Without some confidence about the meaning of freedom, it is harder for us to protect it. It is interesting to observe that despite championing two concepts of freedom, Berlin still speaks of ‘freedom itself’ (TCL: 171) or ‘liberty as such’ (IN: 50). In other words, his theory aims to deliver an overall understanding of freedom. In Berlin’s case, however, this overall meaning coincides with his negative freedom, and we would be right to question the compatibility of upholding a positive/negative freedom distinction while seeing only one of the two freedoms as the freedom itself. But, ultimately, I believe that Berlin is not inconsistent in speaking about freedom itself. The dual conceptualisation of freedom delivers a particular understanding how freedom in general should be understood. In the light of all these criticisms of the distinction, and particularly the last one, we can see why it is not accidental that the mainstream theories of freedom in contemporary political theory advance a single concept of freedom. These singleconcept theories include (1) the study of negative liberty and associated quantitative measurement methods (Steiner, 2006; Carter, 2015; Kramer, 2003); (2) the neo-republican approach that conceptualises liberty in terms of non-domination (Pettit, 1997; Skinner, 2002; Laborde and Maynor, 2008); (3) capabilities-based approaches that conceptualise individual liberty in terms of opportunity sets of valuable activities and states of being (Sen, 1999; Qizilbash, 2008); and (4) studies of positive concepts of liberty, including studies of autonomy (Christman, 2005b), social freedom (Gould, 2014) feminism (Hirschmann, 2013), and the concepts of freedom employed by the British idealists (Nicholson, 1990; Simhony, 2003; Wempe, 2004; Tyler, 2010a). But none of these single-concept theories of liberty accounts for all key aspects of liberty in a fashion in which a dual conceptualisation of liberty, if properly drawn, does. Pure negative liberals will

6  Introduction go beyond formal equality and embrace resource redistribution but do not explain the link between freedom and morality. Republican liberal theories take a distinct interest in the plight of discriminated groups, but their concept of freedom does not factor in the issues of well-being and personal development. The capability scholars are particularly good exactly at that, but their critique of perfectionism fails to take on board key aspects of positive freedom. Contemporary defenders of positive freedom might deny the existence of significant tensions between personal well-being and the common good. The benefit of having two concepts of freedom is that together they could cover all significant aspects of freedom in a way impossible for a single concept. The analysis of the practical situations which concepts of freedom need to address shows that all too often, a viable concept of freedom has to leave significant freedom aspects aside. This is because in certain contexts – for example, when the fulfilment of duty would come at the cost of loss of well-being – some significant aspects of freedom militate against others. It is such contexts that led Constant to defend modern as against ancient liberty, Green to defend true as against juristic freedom and Berlin to defend negative freedom as against positive. The distinction between two forms of freedom practically emerges in situations where one’s freedom can only be protected if defined differently from other understandings of freedom. Concepts in order to be functional cannot be all-inclusive.8 So the concepts of negative and positive freedom are not dissimilar to other single concepts of freedom like republican, capability or ‘pure’ negative freedom: they respond to particular normative concerns and deal with trade-offs in a particular fashion. Because a single concept of freedom cannot be all-inclusive, having two concepts of freedom allows us to account for most significant aspects of liberty. Having said that, it is important to point out immediately – and I will elaborate shortly – that even the two concepts of freedom put together do not cover everything that some would believe constitutes a significant aspect of freedom. Therefore, the dual conceptualisation is good not simply because it covers more. Its benefits are that it allows for a better understanding of freedom altogether. It gives more definitive content and vitality to the two concepts which it helps shape. Negative freedom as part of a conceptual couple would be different from negative freedom as a single and exclusive concept. I argue that a dual conceptualisation of freedom – one based on the dual conceptualisations of the three thinkers studied here – can help us explain freedom better and to protect it better in a diverse set of circumstances. As all three thinkers have shown, there are cases where only one of the two freedoms is desirable; therefore, having an understanding of the two freedoms helps protect that freedom best. The dual conceptualisation, like the single-concept theories of freedom, leaves out certain practices claimed by some as worthy of freedom. It is not all-inclusive. But it is based on a more complex conceptual work. The two freedoms in the conceptual pair are defined not only as against each other but also as against factors that are not considered to be aspects of freedom – for example, oppressive authorities. Like the single-concept theories of freedom, the dual conceptualisation draws what I call an external boundary, which keeps out what should not be seen as an aspect of freedom. But in addition,

Introduction 7 it draws an internal boundary that marks the difference between the two freedoms. If the internal boundary is not properly drawn, however, it may have a detrimental impact on the exercise of freedom. The positive/negative freedom distinction – as Berlin claims and Constant shows – is flexible, as it applies in some circumstances more than in others. Explaining this flexibility is a crucial aspect of making the distinction viable, and this is what I aim to do here. The dual conceptualisation of freedom, if properly understood, helps navigate the diverse political and personal contexts we may find ourselves in. It could be the case that in different contexts we may seek freedom through objectives that are mutually exclusive – it is then that we need the positive/negative freedom distinction the most. We will see how exercises of freedom that are significantly different from each other still represent legitimate forms of freedom.

3 What is the revised positive/negative freedom distinction and what are the new positive and negative freedoms? The key aspect of my reconstruction of the positive/negative freedom distinction is eliciting the fundamental role of positive freedom in the understanding of freedom altogether. In this book I show that the three exponents of the positive/ negative freedom distinction – Constant, Green and Berlin – assume a deep link between freedom and the practice of valued activities, and they all share a similar understanding of developmental agency. While the understanding of developmental agency is most apparent in the case of Green, who is a vocal proponent of positive freedom, I show that Constant’s modern liberty and Berlin’s negative freedom can be properly understood only after we appreciate how fundamental the link between freedom, personal development and value is for both thinkers. The dual conceptualisation of freedom of all three philosophers would be grasped best if we started with their concept of positive freedom – or its equivalent for the specific thinker – and then moved towards their version of negative freedom.9 Constant’s modern liberty and Berlin’s negative freedom are complex normative concepts whose justification rests on an intricate argumentation. This argumentation relies on the assumption of the desirability of the exercise of positive freedom. Once we appreciate the centrality of positive freedom for these three dual conceptualisations of freedom, the overall understanding of how the two concepts should be drawn changes. I propose new readings of both positive and negative freedom. I argue that negative freedom should be understood as advancement of one’s own well-being, while positive freedom should be understood as acquisition of moral agency or attainment of excellence in a recognised field. Importantly, both freedoms are based on the assumption of developmental human agency, and both contain a moral component in terms of some form of engagement with the common good. The idea is that personal well-being contains effective adjustment to the well-being of others. The essential difference between the two freedoms is in the agent’s perspective: in the case of negative freedom, she aims to advance her own well-being, while in the case of positive freedom, her primary objective is the service to some common good. I believe my new reading expresses the main

8  Introduction normative concerns of the three thinkers and maintains the spirit of the distinction expressed best by Berlin. It is, indeed, in recognition of Berlin’s contribution to the articulation of the distinction that I have decided to adopt his positive/negative freedom terminology, even if many would argue that my negative freedom is miles away from his. My rereading of negative and positive freedoms places the distinction on a new footing. We can see that even negative freedom is defined in terms of specific values, including the value of personal well-being, the value of personal development and the value of moral action. Thus, the generally known definition of negative freedom as non-interference is seen here as irrelevant and as failing to outline a viable concept of freedom.10 My redefining of negative freedom raises questions about what exactly positive freedom would be. If negative freedom incorporates practices of development and contributions to the common good, it would seem to encroach onto a terrain hitherto associated with positive freedom. Therefore, my suggested concept of positive freedom is actually narrower than the one more generally accepted. I associate the exercise of positive freedom with the actual acquisition of moral agency which marks a higher level of commitment to moral action than the routine fulfilment of duty done in the course of one’s advancement of one’s own well-being. Moral agency marks the point of reversed priorities: the point where one’s commitment to the common good overtakes, so to say, one’s pursuit of one’s own well-being, or at least of some of its main aspects. Alternatively, I associate the exercise of positive freedom with the attainment of excellence in a recognised field. In this sense positive freedom, again, marks the point of completing the process of a particular form of development. While the development itself, I believe, should be seen as an integral part of one’s well-being, and thus of negative freedom, attainment of excellence marks a point of exception and is part of a different form of freedom. I specify that the excellence that counts as an exercise of positive freedom has to be excellence in the context of a recognised field. I do that in order to elicit the common good aspect of this form of freedom. Arguably the constitution of positive freedom as the attainment of excellence in a recognised field is more delicate as it rests on a more intricate argument: I make the case for it in Chapter Four, where I show how Berlin’s philosophy provides resources for such a concept. The main definition of positive freedom, however, I believe is the one reflecting acquisition of moral agency: a definition based on Green’s understanding of true freedom as discussed in Chapter Two. Let me now explain how I believe the positive/negative freedom distinction should be understood. I base the distinction on three mutually related criteria. The first criterion I take from Berlin. Although Berlin draws the distinction on various grounds, he hits the nail on the head when he articulates the relation-to-authority criterion. At the end of the penultimate section of TCL, he declares that while the supporters of negative freedom ‘want to curb authority as such’, the supporters of positive freedom ‘want it placed in their own hands’ (TCL: 212). This book will show that this criterion is not the definitive one and that when we start applying it to real-life cases, it could lead to opposite conclusions – I will give some examples

Introduction  9 shortly. Importantly, however, this criterion is crucial for starting the analysis of the positive/negative freedom distinction. The criterion is highly abstract and potentially controversial, but Berlin captures in a symbolic form several things: something about the nature of negative freedom, something about the nature of positive freedom and the reason why the two forms of freedom could be mutually exclusive. But we need to do more work in order to turn the symbolic role of ‘authority as such’ into arguments that could be understood and accepted. For one, Berlin does not explain how exactly one places authorities in one’s hands while exercising positive freedom. The study of Green’s theory proves helpful here as it substantiates, and thus to an extent reinforces, the relation-to-authorities criterion. What Green’s theory allows us to do is to throw light on the link between ‘authority as such’ and the common good. The observation is that, typically, authorities aim to advance some form of common good – this is how they could claim the obedience of their constituency. In this sense placing authorities ‘in their own hands’ can be interpreted as ‘adopting a common good’ and, therefore, can be seen as an exercise of positive freedom. This first criterion can serve as a launching pad for the analysis of the distinction as it allows me to make an observation that conveys well Constant’s and Berlin’s normative concerns: my observation is that it would be helpful for us to distinguish between political and moral authorities. Both Constant and Berlin discuss the threat political authorities pose to freedom. But more importantly, both of them are particularly sensitive to, and therefore good at articulating, the threat moral authorities pose for freedom. By moral authorities I mean existing moral norms as embedded not only in social and political institutions but also in ideological or moral narratives spread through political propaganda or by public figures. Moral authorities have more powerful impacts than political authorities on individuals as they affect not just their behaviour but also their thinking and identity. This deeper-level impact is conveyed very well in J.S. Mill’s words about the dangers of ‘society’ which ‘practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression . . . [as] it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself’ (Mill, 2003: 76). Constant and Berlin, like Mill, were keen to expose exactly these deeper threats to liberty. So the term ‘moral authority’ I use aims to convey that in addition to the more overt limitation on freedom imposed by political institutions, we have another layer of authorities which underpin the political ones but function in a different fashion. I argue that neither Constant nor Berlin registers conceptually the difference between moral and political authorities, although this difference will help express better the exact nature of their social critique. This difference will also help show the pitfalls in their arguments – that is, the impossibility of rejecting such authorities in toto. What they both fail to appreciate is that moral authorities, to the extent to which they advance authentic forms of the common good, are instrumental aspects of one’s capacity to pursue valuable activities. So the critique of moral authorities has to be done in a qualified fashion. Moral authorities are so important for one’s capacity to develop moral agency that, if we have reasons to challenge

10  Introduction them, we must do so in a fashion that does not undermine ours or others’ capacity to exercise moral agency. For example, we can challenge political correctness – which is an example of what moral authority is – but we have to be aware that without sufficient respect for the identity of others, we may lose our own sources of identity and moral strength. Political authorities, on the other hand, can be challenged in a relatively more straightforward fashion. We could campaign to overturn an act of Parliament without risk of incurring fundamental threats to our values, sense of personal identity and sense of duty. In other words, moral authorities threaten liberty on a deeper level, but they are also instrumental to our capacity to engage with valuable activities and to act morally and are, therefore, constitutive of liberty in their own right. My observation that, when we discuss the link between liberty and authorities, we need to distinguish between moral and political authorities complicates the dual conceptualisation of freedom. Effectively it leads to a fourfold account of freedom as shown in Table 0.1. The vertical distinction between positive and negative freedom based on relation-to-authority is split in two by a horizontal distinction between two types of authorities: moral and political. This results in two negative and two positive freedoms, but I would like to note immediately that this does not lead to four concepts of freedom. The main concepts remain two: the positive and the negative. The fourfold matrix of Table 0.1 helps us to appreciate the implications of engaging with the different types of authorities for the exercise of freedom – I will say more in the next section. The matrix will be useful as a template which I  will populate with Constant’s, Green’s and Berlin’s specific arguments and examples of freedom. It will help show the limitation of the first – relation-to-authorities – criterion for the distinction. Chapters five and six will show how some of Berlin’s examples of the exercise of positive or negative freedom should be seen, on analysis, as examples of the opposite freedom. Berlin believes that, when we challenge authorities, we exercise negative freedom, and,

Table 0.1 The fourfold freedom matrix The ‘relation-to-authority’ distinction criterion Positive liberty: internalising authority

Negative liberty: resisting authority

Moral positive (internalising moral authority) Acquisition of moral agency

Moral negative (resisting moral authority) Capacity to resist the pressures of moral authorities and thus not to subordinate your well-being to a common good you do not accept Political negative (resisting political authority) Capacity for effective resistance to political authorities; effective opportunities to pursue one’s goals and to advance one’s wellbeing; protection of human rights

Political positive (internalising political authority) Participating in a democratic government; using political power to promote the negative liberty of all

Introduction 11 when we work with them, and thus implicitly reaffirm them, we exercise positive freedom. But the second criterion for the distinction, to which I will now turn, shows that this is not always correct. This is because the real difference between the two freedoms reflects whether one does or does not prioritise the pursuit of their well-being. The second criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction is the most important one. It captures best what the symbolism of the first criterion tries to convey, yet it avoids the controversial implications of assuming that negative freedom always challenges authorities while positive freedom always affirms them. According to the second criterion for the distinction, one pursues negative freedom in the context of advancing one’s own well-being and pursues positive freedom when exercising moral agency. The second criterion is based on Green’s understanding of true freedom, which I take to be the paradigm concept of positive freedom. True freedom is exercised when one develops the disposition from which one can engage with duty freely. Green’s true, or positive, freedom is freedom exercised in the context of moral action. Moral action is not simply an action where one shows concern for the well-being of others; it implies in some way prioritising a common good over and above a valued personal good. The presumption here is that, by default, or routinely, one prioritises one’s own well-being even if this well-being incorporates the well-being of others. This transformation of one’s disposition from a disposition to pursue personal good to a disposition to prioritise a common good marks the exercise of a different type of freedom. This second criterion is particularly important as it helps explain not just the difference between positive and negative freedom but also the two freedoms themselves. The opposition between well-being and moral agency captures well how all three thinkers tried to explain the difference between their two freedoms, even though they did not use the language of ‘well-being’. However, Constant’s understanding of modern liberty comes very close to an understanding of well-being. Constant describes modern liberty in terms of ‘repose’, ‘enjoyment’, ‘leisure’ and ‘happiness’ (LACM: 14–16). Interestingly, Benedetto Croce, who is critical of the distinction Constant made, expresses this distinction is terms very close to my second criterion: ‘well-being’ versus ‘virtue’ (Croce, 1941: 245–46).11 The third criterion is linked to the second, and it helps adjudicate which freedom is which when the second criterion is hard to apply. We can imagine a scenario where a person shows a very high level of dedication to the common good but arguably does not have to sacrifice any significant aspect of her well-being. Would this person be exercising positive or negative freedom? According to the third criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction that I propose, one exercises negative freedom in the context of one’s routine activities, while one exercises positive freedom in circumstances that can be seen as exceptional. This criterion is based on arguments made by Green and Berlin. Green’s discussion of true freedom as the freedom that reflects the state of perfection makes it clear that such perfection is hard to achieve and even harder to sustain. Berlin’s commentary on the higher self as the self that exercises positive freedom portrays this exercise as projected into the future, as resulting from significant effort and personal

12  Introduction transformation and as not being part of one’s actual here-and-now way of life. Conversely, he associates negative freedom with the real desires we have in our ordinary life and with dispositions and attitudes representative of what is ‘normal’ (TCL: 179–81, 210). So if somebody prioritises service to the common good but does this on a routine basis in a fashion that incorporated this service organically with her well-being, on the basis of the third criterion, we could say that this represents an exercise of her negative freedom. This possibility of positive freedom turning negative shows several things. It shows that the two concepts share common ground, as Berlin himself states (IN: 42), although he does not explain what exactly this common ground is. I argue that both freedoms imply the agent’s capacity to develop, to exercise some control over her well-being and to engage with a common good. It also shows how even the freedom which is considered to be basic – or which Berlin considers to be freedom ‘itself’ – is based on engagement with value and contains a moral component. If one were to accept the dual conceptualisation of freedom proposed here, what would ‘freedom itself’ then be? I would say that freedom itself is the freedom we chose to exercise. The third criterion suggests that it is more likely to be negative freedom, but this would be the negative freedom as defended here, that is, a freedom that has internalised many features typically ascribed to positive freedom.

4 The utility of the fourfold matrix of freedom The fourfold matrix of freedom emanates from the first, relation-to-authorities, criterion for the distinction and from the observation that we should distinguish between political and moral authorities. Thus, the matrix examines the positive/ negative freedom distinction in two contexts: moral and political. As I argue that the distinction functions within the two contexts, though differently in each, we end up with a fourfold account of freedom as shown in Table 0.1. But as I have said, this does not mean we end up with four concepts of freedom: we will see that the purpose of the matrix is to help examine the distinction and the two concepts in different contexts. Before I turn to explaining the utility of the matrix, let me show what it looks like. It produces the four categories of moral positive and moral negative freedom and of political positive and political negative freedom. Formally speaking, moral positive freedom is based on internalising moral authorities, while political positive, on internalising political authorities; moral negative freedom is based on resisting moral authorities, while political negative, on resisting political authorities. The fourfold matrix helps us avoid the mistake of associating positive freedom exclusively with the moral sphere and negative freedom exclusively with the political sphere; it helps us foreground the moral sphere as the terrain where the possible clash between the two freedoms occurs, and it helps us draw out more carefully the political implications of the positive/negative freedom distinction, as it is in the movement between the moral and the political spheres where many erroneous claims about the nature of positive freedom are made. Finally

Introduction  13 the matrix allows us to start the analysis of how authorities affect the exercise of freedom. Although it is not unambiguously the case that those who exercise negative freedom challenge authorities while those who exercise positive freedom reaffirm them, the focus on authorities is highly relevant for starting to understand the possible tension between the two concepts. Let me look at these four benefits of the matrix in turn. I believe that the distinction between positive and negative freedom would be understood best if we studied it in the two contexts of the moral and the political spheres and thus avoided the mistake of associating positive freedom exclusively with the moral sphere and negative freedom exclusively with the political sphere. The analysis of freedom in the moral sphere focuses on the understanding of human agency including the nature of the will, of desire, of satisfaction, of moral action and so on. Some, like Berlin, would argue that such analysis is metaphysical and thus cannot throw light on political freedom. He associates positive freedom with such metaphysics and views this as one of the demerits of the concept. He believes that political freedom is captured by his concept of negative freedom and should be seen as freedom from intended interference. In this sense, one may be led to believe that positive freedom operates in the context of the moral sphere, while negative freedom operates in the context of the political sphere. This narrow association of positive freedom with the moral sphere is aided by Miller’s categorisation of positive freedom as belonging to the ‘idealist’ family of the theories of freedom where the analysis of the concept focuses on ‘internal forces that determine how we shall act’ (Miller, 2006: 2–4). He places negative freedom in the ‘liberal’ family of ideas and sees the concept as ‘directly related to politics’. While he acknowledges that ‘political theorists may interbreed from different families’, the claim that positive and negative freedom belong to different families of ideas does not help us appreciate the deeper interdependence between the two concepts, particularly in the context of Constant’s and Berlin’s theories. I argue that the positive/negative freedom distinction does not coincide with the moral/political sphere divide: it cuts across it. In other words, it works in the context of both spheres, and it is worthwhile examining how the two concepts fare differently in the two contexts. I argue that the positive/negative freedom distinction foregrounds the moral sphere. Both Constant and Berlin resort to the need of a dual conceptualisation of liberty while they show the dangers of moral authorities. Their modern and negative liberties respectively aim to outline a space safe from moral pressures, social norms or political indoctrination. Constant talks about spaces for repose, leisure, following one’s whims (LACM: 314–16), while Berlin refers to the ‘sense of privacy itself, of the area of personal relationships as something sacred in its own right’ (TCL: 176). In doing so they admit that valuable things exist outside such spaces (IN: 48). So here is the birth of the distinction. It aims to keep an area safe from moral authorities in the full realisation that outside this area there are other highly valuable things, including the exercise of ‘moral faculties’ and of ‘positive freedom’ (LACM: 327; IN: 53). There are two valuable freedoms which nonetheless have to be kept apart because aspects of the one of them can militate

14  Introduction against the other. So both Berlin and Miller are right to associate positive liberty predominantly with the moral sphere: this context is crucial for understanding how exactly it works. But I argue that this context is also crucial for understanding the normative concerns underpinning the defence of negative freedom, as well as understanding the necessity to articulate a positive/negative freedom distinction as a part of this defence. I also argue that it is important to draw the political conclusions of the positive/negative freedom distinction rather carefully. Both freedoms have desirable and undesirable political implications. Constant and Berlin see well the desirable implications of negative freedom and the undesirable ones of positive freedom, but the picture remains incomplete with respect to the undesirable implications of negative freedom and the desirable ones of positive freedom. Both thinkers have been right to argue that negative freedom needs institutional protection in the form of guarantees of the exercise of human rights. Both of them have also been vocal about the dangers of the political deployment of positive freedom with the purpose to control and oppress. However, they only admit late in the day that modern liberty could lead to political apathy and relinquishing of political responsibility (LACM: 324) and that negative freedom could be put to bad political uses and lead to ‘exploitation, brutality and injustice’ (IN: 38). Furthermore, both thinkers have displayed limited understanding of the desirable aspects of the political employment of positive freedom. Along the right lines, they have seen the exercise of positive freedom in terms of participation in a republican or democratic government. But neither has seen how exactly participation in a democratic government represents an exercise of positive freedom. Not every form of political participation implies an exercise of positive freedom. That would only be the case if the political establishment one actively serves did genuinely support the exercise of liberty by its citizens. The participant in political life must be contributing to enhancing the negative freedom of others (Dimova-Cookson, 2003: 522). Contribution to the freedom of others is a form of positive freedom (LLL: 200). But not all governments promote the freedom of their citizens, so not all political participation amounts to an exercise of positive freedom. The matrix formally interprets the positive/negative freedom distinction as based on relation to authorities. Although this criterion is not conclusive in explaining either the difference between the concepts or their exact nature, it proves helpful in starting this analysis and leading it to relevant conclusions. For example, it raises the question about how exactly positive freedom works as a form of appropriation of authorities. Berlin does not have much to say here, but Green’s theory of freedom provides useful answers. The conclusion of this study is that, pace Berlin and Constant, authorities are constitutive of freedom, not just detrimental to it. Indeed, we can only appreciate how exactly authorities really detract from freedom after we have understood how they are constitutive of it in the first place. In other words, only a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of positive freedom can lend support to some of Constant’s and Berlin’s concerns about it. In this sense I argue that positive freedom is logically and morally prior to negative freedom. Constant’s knowledge of Rousseau’s moral freedom

Introduction 15 and Berlin’s knowledge of Green’s positive freedom are crucial for their capacity to articulate their modern and negative freedom, respectively. But neither of them gave enough credit to the rejected positive freedom concept and recognised sufficiently its legitimacy as a freedom concept. What I am trying to say is that the discussion of authorities triggers a productive analysis that helps us go beyond the definition of negative freedom as resistance to authorities and positive freedom as their affirmation.

5 What do Constant, Green and Berlin say about the positive/negative freedom distinction? The book examines the ideas of three thinkers whose philosophy of liberty is crucial for the articulation and justification of the dual conceptualisation of freedom: Benjamin Constant (1767–1830), T.H. Green (1836–82) and Isaiah Berlin (1909–97). A Swiss-French Anglophile, a British disciple of German idealism and a RussianBritish scholar of the European enlightenment – all three were liberal and cosmopolitan to their core. The first chapter of the book is dedicated to the study of Constant’s ideas, the second and the third chapters to Green’s and the last three chapters to Berlin’s. Each chapter examines the theories of liberty of these authors with an analytical agenda: not only to explain but also to reconstruct their version of the positive/negative freedom distinction and their respective concepts of positive and negative freedom. Each thinker has made an important contribution to the distinction and to the two concepts themselves, but all of them have left unfinished business in terms of inconsistencies and unanswered questions and in failing to develop two viable concepts of freedom. The problem is not that they had a clear preference for one of their two concepts  – Constant for his modern, Green for his positive and Berlin for his negative freedom – but that they did not develop a viable version of their less favoured concept. If the distinction were to be sustained as conceptually significant, both liberty concepts have to be viable even if in particular circumstances one of them is to be commended above the other. The book shows that the common ground between the three thinkers went beyond the fact that each of them had his own dual conceptualisation of liberty. They all share a similar understanding of human agency as developmental: developmental not only in the direction of personal flourishing but also in the direction of increased and deeper engagement with moral values. All three thinkers see the link between freedom and duty, even if only Green conceptualises this link in a sufficiently comprehensive fashion. I argue that the positive concept of freedom is fundamental in explaining the nature of the distinction and that it is the appreciation by all three thinkers of this freedom that led them to see the need for a dual conceptualisation of freedom. Also most of my critical input in developing the dual conceptualisation recommended here is based on my insight into how positive freedom works: insight based on the study of Green’s moral philosophy. Chapter One analyses and explains some significant developments of the dual conceptualisation of freedom in Constant’s seminal essay ‘The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns’. At the beginning of the essay, the

16  Introduction difference between two liberties follows the public/private divide, where ancient liberty is found in participation in republican government and modern liberty, in the enjoyments of private life. But gradually the picture becomes more complex as ancient liberty ceases to be merely the liberty of people of the ancient republics and becomes an essential aspect of liberty as practised in modern times. It turns out that modern people have two liberties – not just modern liberty but also ancient, or as Constant also calls it, political liberty. Importantly these two liberties cut across modern people’s private and public lives. I pay close attention to the link which Constant establishes between modern liberty and satisfaction and argue that this link plays a more significant role in understanding the freedom of modern people than it seems. Satisfaction is a measure not only of the enjoyment and happiness of private life but also of the authenticity of practised virtue. Modern people have two liberties, because like their ancient counterparts, they still have to fulfil their civic duty and exercise political freedom, but they can only do so if duty is freely chosen, that is, if they had their modern liberty protected. Chapter Two turns to Green’s discussion of true freedom in his lecture ‘On the Different Senses of “Freedom” as Applied to the Will and to the Moral Progress of Man’ – a concept which I take to be the paradigm concept of positive freedom. But in order to explain true freedom, Green engages in a discussion of human nature in terms of agency, willing, desire and motivation: a discussion which tells us much more than what true freedom is. The issue is that in order to understand how true freedom as acquisition of moral agency is possible, we have to understand the manner in which we experience freedom in principle. I argue that Green shows how the experience of freedom is embedded in a developmental human agency and how satisfaction is progressive in nature in the sense that in order to maintain satisfaction, we have to be in a process of improvement. While Green’s assumption that the development of human faculties and moral development go hand in hand has troubled his critics, I show here that if we want to explain the complex relation between self-improvement and moral development, we have to accept that true freedom is a ‘second’ form of freedom. It is not the freedom experienced in the process of development, but at the point of the acquisition of moral agency. Moral agency is achieved as a result of a process of adjusting personal interest to the service of the common good. In this sense, I argue that positive freedom is not the freedom of personal development but the freedom attained as a result of it, and in particular, as a result of moral development. The freedom preceding positive freedom is a different type of freedom, arguably a more complex version of Green’s juristic freedom. Chapter Three aims to construct what would be Green’s equivalent of a viable negative freedom concept. It turns to his ‘Lecture on “Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract” ’ in order to examine the practical implications of Green’s theory of true freedom. As I have shown in Chapter Two, Green works with two viable concepts of freedom, not just one – not just his true freedom. I have shown that true freedom captures particular forms of experience possible from a particular disposition: it is the freedom experienced in the context of one’s commitment to the common good. But his theory of developmental human agency throws light

Introduction 17 on a preceding form of freedom: the freedom experienced through the satisfaction of achieving daily objectives. I argue that this is the freedom Green conceptualises in LLL: that is, the freedom he defines as engagement with worthwhile activities and with capacity to contribute to the common good. This liberty is different from his true freedom. I argue that one of the reasons Green’s theory of liberty has been mislabelled as moralistic is the assumption that the freedom he describes in LLL is the practical version of true freedom. This is not the case. I argue that the practical application of true freedom is very particular: in the context of LLL, it applies only to those who are in a position to improve the working and living conditions of the poor in Victorian England. The freedom of the factory workers and tenant farmers which Green campaigns for should be seen as his version of negative freedom. Chapter Four turns to Berlin’s ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ and starts the discussion of his positive/negative freedom distinction by focusing on his positive freedom. The chapter elicits the weaknesses and the strengths of Berlin’s portrayal and critique of positive freedom. He fashions his vision of positive freedom on the idealist understanding of the concept, and Green’s in particular, but his failure to take on board all aspects of Green’s true freedom results in an impoverished grasp of the concept. Nevertheless, Berlin’s assessment of positive freedom is constructive in several ways. He is right to draw attention to the link between positive freedom and authorities even if he does not theorise this link well. His depiction of positive freedom as self-mastery throws light on a possible alternative understanding of the concept: not just in terms of acquisition of moral agency but also in terms of attaining excellence in a recognised field. The chapter also shows that a focus on Berlin’s reconstruction of the transformation of the empirical self into the higher self – a process underpinning the acquisition of positive freedom – is productive. It helps not only in showing where exactly Berlin fell short of a comprehensive grasp of the nature of positive freedom but also in finding a thinker who shared his normative concerns: L.T. Hobhouse. Hobhouse challenges Bosanquet’s ‘metaphysical’ theory of the state on the basis of rejecting the dynamics between the actual and the real selves as envisages by the British idealists. The study of Berlin’s and Hobhouse’s arguments in parallel helps spell out a genuine limitation of positive freedom: its potential threat to personal wellbeing and to the advancement of alternative understandings of the common good. This critique of positive freedom is important as it forms a key justification for an alternative concept of freedom, that is, negative freedom. The chapter also argues that Berlin’s depiction of ‘self-abnegation’ as a defective outcome of the exercise of positive freedom in essence achieves something different: it fails to deliver a successful critique of the concept but shows instead a link between quality of agency and capacity for freedom. Chapter Five turns to Berlin’s concept of negative freedom. In tune with many other critics, I argue that Berlin’s concept is unnecessarily technical and prohibitive. Neither Berlin’s definition of negative freedom as ‘non-interference’ nor his decision to exclude substantive discussions of free agency and of oppressive authorities can be justified, although we can understand the reasons behind Berlin’s approach to the concept. I  argue that his negative freedom should be

18  Introduction understood in terms of one’s entitlement to have one’s well-being protected, in terms of capacity for personal development and in terms of capacity to make the independent decisions without which one could not follow one’s conscience. In its last version, negative freedom is hard to distinguish from positive. But even if Berlin’s negative freedom is understood as suggested here, the distinction between positive and negative freedom remains valid. In Chapter Five I focus on Berlin’s conceptual work both in outlining the terrain of negative freedom and in drawing the line between the two freedom concepts. I argue that Berlin dedicates his energy to outlining what I call the internal freedom boundary, that is, the boundary between the two freedoms. However, he ignores the need for an external freedom boundary, that is, the need to be more specific about the threats to freedom which do not derive from misguided pursuits of freedom. As it is, his theory implies that the most significant threats to negative freedom come either from positive freedom or from its perversion. But he fails to acknowledge that significant threats to freedom come from factors unrelated to the exercise of positive freedom. In this sense he does not examine how exactly the distinction helps in assessing the external threats to freedom: a question answered in part in Chapter Five and addressed further in the final section of Chapter Six. Chapter Six turns to the theme of value pluralism: the theme which is the grand finale of Berlin’s TCL, securing its lasting legacy in contemporary political theory even more successfully than the theme of the positive/negative freedom distinction. But I  argue that the essence of Berlin’s ideas on value pluralism will not be fully appreciated if we do not take on board the positive/negative freedom distinction. At the heart of value pluralism, we find not the plurality but the incommensurability of values, and this incommensurability is underpinned by the same factors which explain the significant moral tensions that lead to the dual conceptualisation of freedom. The theme of value pluralism brings values to the centre of the discussion of liberty and uncovers a significant gap. Berlin does not develop a viable theory linking the exercise of freedom with the pursuit of value: while his positive freedom is based on such a link, his negative freedom is not. I argue that in order to fill this gap, we can turn to Green’s theory of moral development. The benefit of this is that it shows exactly how values and ways of life work as key components of one’s exercise of freedom. The important observation is that Berlin’s value pluralism assumes that engagement with value is part and parcel of one’s daily life. Seeking freedom through engagement with valuable activities is not something that belongs to the idealistic pursuits of those who cherish excellence and moral action – those, in other words, who seek positive freedom. The discussion of value pluralism assumes that the basic freedom which we practice on a routine basis is freedom based on the values we hold and the ways of life we are accustomed to. Bringing Green’s theory of moral development into the discussion of value pluralism helps us observe that the incommensurability of values is based on two types of clashes: the clash between two common goods or between personal well-being and the common good. It is the possibility of such clashes that throws light on the need for two concepts of freedom. Such clashes lead to

Introduction  19 moral dilemmas and pose threats to personal well-being and, therefore, to negative freedom. Coping with moral dilemmas often entails an exercise of positive freedom: freedom which most single-concept theories of liberty fail to embrace. Chapter Six reaches important conclusions about the dynamic nature of the positive/negative freedom distinction, or in the terminology introduced here, of the internal freedom boundary. I argue that sometimes the internal freedom boundary has to be upheld for the protection of negative freedom. Undue moral pressure may lead to exploitation and thus to incapacity to exercise any freedom. In other words, there are circumstances where the best way to protect freedom is to protect negative freedom. But there are circumstances where the internal freedom boundary has to be upheld in order to protect positive freedom. Excessive focus on one’s own well-being can lead to failure to honour significant duties with damaging consequences to the well-being of others. This, in turn, is likely to undermine the person’s own well-being by creating an environment of conflict and hostility.

Notes

1 2 3 4

I use the words ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ interchangeably. Throughout the book I will refer to ‘one’, ‘he’ or ‘she’ interchangeably. If yes, would that be a freedom that helps advance one’s well-being? Isaiah Berlin’s essay ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, hereafter TCL, was given as his inaugural lecture on 31 October 1958. 5 Berlin claims that ‘no one saw the conflict between the two types of liberty better, or exposed it more clearly, than Benjamin Constant’ (TCL: 209). Constant gave his speech, which later became an essay, ‘The Liberty of the Ancients Compared to That of the Moderns’, hereafter LACM, in 1819. 6 Green is one of the three scholars whose ideas of liberty will be a primary object of analysis in this book. His two main lectures on freedom are ‘On the Different Senses of “Freedom” as Applied to the Will and to the Moral Progress of Man’, hereafter DSF, and ‘Lecture on “Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract” ’, hereafter LLL. 7 In his analysis of Constant’s ideas, Dodge lists a number of thinkers who spoke about two concepts of liberty similar to Constant’s ancient and modern liberties. These include Guido de Ruggiero (1888–1948), Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), Madame de Staël (1766–1812), Sismondi (1773–1842), Edouard Laboulaye (1811–83), SaintMarc Girardin (1801–83), Lord Acton (1834–1902) and Francis Lieber (1800–72). See Dodge, 1980: 43–50. For discussions of the dual nature of freedom after Berlin’s TCL see Cohen (1960), Nicholls (1962), MacFarlane (1966), MacCallum (2006 [1967]), Kocis (1983), Reed (1980), Dworkin (1991), Harris (1996), Crowder (2004), Polanowska-Sygulska (1989), Silier (2005), Putterman (2006), Riccardi (2007), Dénes (2008), Bode (2011), Podoksik (2010), Kis (2012), Elford (2013), Ang (2014), among many others, 8 The point I am making echoes Hillel Steiner’s claim: ‘The problem, however, is that ordinary usage is notoriously promiscuous in its disclosures of the conceptual properties of freedom: it licenses us to employ the word “freedom” and its cognates in many ways that are – and are generally acknowledged to be – mutually inconsistent’ (2012: 213). 9 Chapter Three shows that even Green has his equivalent of negative freedom. 10 In other words, what Taylor calls a ‘caricatural version of negative freedom’ is no longer deemed a viable concept, and both positive and negative liberty are considered anew, in view of this (Taylor, 2006: 142).

20  Introduction 11 Here is the full quote: For, if within liberty could be discerned two liberties, each with its own particular character, it is evident that either one of them would not be liberty, or both would be superior or the only effectual liberty. And, therefore, the difference that these authors adduce, recognising among Greeks and Romans a liberty they called civil, adding that one corresponded to the concept of Virtue and the other to the concept of Happiness etc., these differences do not support critical examination. The reason for this failure is that there is no political liberty which is not at the same time civil liberty, and there is no society which can govern itself by means of virtue without well-being or well-being without virtue. (Croce, 1941: 245–46)

1 Benjamin Constant on modern people and their two liberties

Introduction Constant’s essay ‘The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns’ (hereafter LACM) is one of the most significant texts in the conceptual history of liberty. It should stand together with the most celebrated works on freedom like Locke’s Two Treatises on Government, Mill’s On Liberty, Green’s ‘Lecture on Liberal Legislation’, Rawls’s Theory of Justice and Berlin’s ‘Two Concepts of Freedom’. Undoubtedly, its most notable affinities are with the last. Berlin’s unreserved celebration of Constant’s ideas is not accidental. Constant’s essay anticipates some of the most innovative themes of Berlin’s famous inaugural lecture. Both thinkers endeavour to put centre stage a freedom concept which is morally controversial, unstable and incomplete, yet which aims to capture in toto some of the fundamental normative concerns of modern citizens who value personal independence and live in the political conditions of popular sovereignty. Constant’s concept of modern liberty and Berlin’s concept of negative freedom both operate on two levels, questioning simultaneously political and moral authorities. Indeed, it is this shared ambition for a comprehensive account of freedom that combines political and moral justificatory narratives that makes their respective concepts so hard to define in precise terms and so complex and controversial. I will try to show in this book that it is not simply by chance that these c­ oncepts – Constant’s modern liberty and Berlin’s negative liberty – appear in a conceptual duality of either ancient and modern or positive and negative liberties. The story which ‘modern’ and ‘negative’ liberties are telling on their own is incomplete without their conceptual counterparts: indeed, Constant and Berlin cannot sustain without contradiction that modern and negative liberties, respectively, capture the more significant aspects of freedom. The opposite is not sustainable either. Despite T.H. Green’s powerful defence of positive liberty,1 I will show that the ‘ancient’ and ‘positive’ freedom counterparts of modern and negative freedoms also cannot capture, on their own, all the significant aspects of freedom as experienced in the modern conditions of political equality. Before it was first published in 1820 LACM was given as part of a lecture series on the English constitution in the Royal Athenaeum of Paris. This particular lecture was given in December 1819. Key themes of this speech appear in Constant’s

22  Benjamin Constant on modern people previous political writings, including his Spirit of Conquest (1814) and Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments (1815), but none of his other works put his ideas together in the elaborate and compelling theoretical design of two contrasting yet mutually supporting liberties. The lecture deserves acclaim for both its rhetorical qualities and its analytical ambition. The difference between ancient and modern liberty is introduced in strictly opposing and relatively simple terms, and the complexity of their relationship is only gradually revealed. The lecture makes some dramatic and rather generalised historical observations straddling two millennia of historical development, but it also reflects, in a rather subtle fashion, the fast-changing political landscape of the French Revolution. It was given only 30 years after the start of the revolution in 1789, but those 30 years had witnessed the coup d’état of 18th Brumaire (1799), the rise of the First French Empire under Napoleon I  (1800–14, 1815) and the Bourbon Restoration under Louis XVIII (1814). Constant had to keep up with the changes within the French political establishment – changes that would put to stringent test the resilience of any thinker’s political and philosophical ideas.2 The quality of Constant’s conceptualisation of freedom can be appreciated against this backdrop: it was sophisticated enough to be valid in the days of the democratic terror as well as in the days of royal authoritarianism.3 Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) was born in Switzerland and took French citizenship in 1798 in order to enter French politics. In 1799 he was appointed to the new Tribunate. Constant was keen to protect the spirit of liberty and equality championed by the French Revolution but wanted to avoid the authoritarian tendency of the new political establishment. By 1802 his liberal views and association with Germaine de Staёl4 had alienated Napoleon, and in 1803 he went to exile in Germany and Switzerland. For the next 12 years, he was an outspoken critic of Napoleon. However, during his brief return to power in 1815, Napoleon invited Constant to be conseiller d’état (a counsellor of state). Constant then drafted a new constitution known subsequently as the ‘Benjamine’. Constant and Madame de Staёl were, in contemporary terms, progressive liberals who dedicated their intellectual energy to explaining how Rousseau’s revolutionary ideas of the general will and liberty had been used by Robespierre and others to transform the French Revolution into a reign of terror. How to protect liberty from the onslaught of a violent revolution fought in its name? Constant’s essay gives some of the most insightful answers to this question.5 In LACM Constant is critical of Rousseau’s reinvention of ancient liberty which aimed to set the agenda of modern times. Constant offers the alternative of modern liberty. The full set of conclusions we can draw from his lecture, however, show that it offers much more than a new concept of liberty: it offers two concepts of liberty which can be understood if we study them in political and moral contexts. Constant offers a dynamic, as opposed to an inconsistent, conceptualisation of freedom which reflects rather well the historical dynamism of his political landscape: the ideal political laboratory for moral ideas. The parallel between Constant’s and Berlin’s dual concepts of liberty has not always been seen as advantageous to the legacy of Constant’s ideas, but here I argue that this parallel is justified. If positively interpreted, it reinforces the significance

Benjamin Constant on modern people  23 of his legacy by adding a new dimension to it. Constant’s dual conceptualisation of liberty has been celebrated and dismissed in a trajectory that curiously reflects the level of popularity of Isaiah Berlin’s positive/negative freedom duality. In the 1980s Dodge argued that ‘Constant’s distinction between ancient and modern liberty is the same as Sir Isaiah Berlin’s between positive and negative freedom’ (Dodge, 1980: 42, emphasis added), and this was said as an attempt to assert the significance of Constant’s political theory. Following Gauchet’s comment that Constant became ‘liberal’ only in 1806, scholars argued that Constant’s critique of republicanism and political liberty made him a true exponent of Berlin’s negative freedom (Rosenblatt, 2004: 28).6 However, Constant scholars of the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century like Holmes, Jennings, Vincent, Pitt and Rosenblatt are unanimously sceptical about adopting Berlin’s distinction as the lens for interpreting Constant’s liberalism.7 This scholarship wants to distance Constant from conclusions reached exclusively on the bases of his understanding of modern liberty. For example, Rosenblatt warns that those who see Constant as an exponent of negative liberty, economic liberalism and laissez-faire and limited government risk missing his ‘essential message’ in support of political institutions (Rosenblatt, 2004, 29).8 In tune with this scholarship I argue that Constant is not merely an exponent of modern liberty, but I also believe that his dual conceptualisation of freedom is significant as it succeeds in capturing the moral and political concerns of modern people in a holistic fashion. Constant shows that modern people need modern and political (or ancient) liberties. The reading of the positive/negative freedom duality offered in this monograph addresses the concerns of Constant’s critics who warn against one-sided interpretation of his ideas. In this line of reasoning, we can note that Constant’s terminology puts him in an advantageous position compared to Berlin. The name ‘modern liberty’ is better than ‘negative liberty’ even though the two concepts share deep similarities. ‘Modern’ is a richer term than ‘negative’, and it indicates Constant’s intention to explain the psychology and ethics of modern citizens in more comprehensive terms. However, I argue that, like Berlin’s negative liberty, Constant’s modern liberty cannot tell the full story of the freedom sought in modern times. The ‘modernity’ which Constant aims to capture through the concept of modern liberty proves to incorporate essential aspects of the ancient past. In this chapter I aim to show the conceptual development of Constant’s dual account of liberty throughout LACM. I divide the lecture into two parts, arguing that while the clarification of the natures of the ancient and modern liberties occurs in the first part, the real issues that necessitate a dual account of liberty only emerge in the second part. Therefore, the grounds for a consistent, as opposed to a historically contingent, distinction between two concepts of liberty can be elicited through some additional analysis. It is only in the second part of the lecture that it becomes clear that modern people have two freedoms, but Constant does not explain how political (or ancient) freedom, which was initially introduced as the freedom of the ancients, will fit with the conditions of modernity: conditions which in the first part of the lecture were exclusively associated with modern liberty.

24  Benjamin Constant on modern people I will show that from start to finish, Constant’s analysis of liberty takes place in two contexts: political and non-political. It is the non-political context which is the centre ground of modern liberty, and it is this context that itself undergoes development throughout the lecture. This context initially appears to be the ‘personal’ context: indeed, the association between modern liberty and the private sphere is there from the beginning until the end. But I argue that Constant’s arguments in the second part of LACM suggest that this context should be better understood as the ‘moral’ context. We will not understand modern liberty if we associate it with the private sphere only. Modern liberty uncovers the significance of a non-political moral domain. My main argument in this chapter is that the conceptual battleground in which the duality of liberty emerges as necessary is that of the moral domain. The political domain is present and relevant throughout the lecture, but we will not understand the need for two concepts of liberty unless we pay close attention to the parallel moral one. This chapter will show that for Constant, enjoyment, satisfaction and the fulfilment of duty are interconnected, and the study of these is crucial in understanding the process which makes freedom complex and results in two liberty concepts. The chapter has five sections. Section 1 starts the analytical reconstruction of LACM by focusing in more detail on the first part of Constant’s lecture. Although it seems that the key differences between the two concepts are sketched there, in fact, the first part of LACM does not make the case or give a justification for the need for two freedoms. What it achieves, however, is to show why and how modern people are different from their ancient counterparts. It also shows that the analysis of liberty will occur in two contexts – a personal and a political one – and takes the first steps in fleshing out the personal context. Section  2 turns to the unexpected twist at the end of LACM. Although Constant is critical of ancient liberty throughout his lecture, at the end he rehabilitates it and declares that modern people have to attend to the two liberties, not just to the modern one. I review the changes in the historical context that explain this alteration of emphasis, but I argue that it fits with the conceptual transformation of the two liberties which occurs in the second part of LACM where ancient liberty is no longer the liberty of the ancients, but, in a transformed shape, it becomes one of the two liberties of the moderns. Section 3 examines in detail this transformation of ancient liberty: it reviews three types of critique which Constant wages against it, but it also shows that two legitimised versions of ancient liberty reappear in modern times. Section 4 examines the consequences for modern liberty once it stops being the sole liberty of the moderns and becomes one of their two liberties. This discussion foregrounds the significance of the theme of satisfaction that runs throughout LACM, which, in turn, helps show the significance of the moral context for the understanding of modern liberty. Section 5 turns to a statement where Constant connects modern liberty with ‘individuality’. I argue that the theme of individuality throws light on how modern and ancient liberties can be balanced in practical terms. I  conclude the chapter  by spelling out the grounds which Constant has given us for a dual conceptualisation of liberty.

Benjamin Constant on modern people 25

1 Constant’s arguments in Liberty of the Ancients as Compared with That of the Moderns This section starts the analytical reconstruction of Constant’s ideas in LACM. It will focus more closely on the first part of the lecture where Constant lays out the differences between the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns. The second part of his lecture turns to the modern employments of ancient liberty and concludes with the argument as to why modern people need two freedoms.9 The reason why in this section I pay closer attention to the first part of the lecture is that here Constant introduces the distinction between the two liberties in a particular two-context setting. Later, we will need this setting in order to explain the more radical conceptual transformation that takes place in the second part of the lecture. In the first part of LACM, the distinction between modern and ancient liberties is not based on a particular criterion: it is simply temporal. Ancient liberty is the liberty of the ancients, and modern liberty is the liberty of the moderns. We could, of course, deduce a criterion on the basis of the particular differences he points out. I argue that a consistent criterion emerges only after we assess the development of the argument of the entire lecture. In the first part of LACM, however, Constant lays out the difference between the two freedoms in a particular setting, that is, in the two parallel contexts of the political and the personal. Here ancient liberty occupies almost exclusively the political context, while modern liberty occupies the personal one. As the first part of the lecture progresses and the argument uncovers its subtleties, both liberties start to occupy the two contexts. It becomes notable that the discussion of modern liberty foregrounds the personal context, and because of this prominence, I pay special attention to this context and trace its development. I will show that the personal context can also be seen as ‘non-political’, as it reflects what happens not merely in the private sphere but more broadly in the non-political social sphere. After the relocation of ancient liberty from the ancient past into the modern present, this context will be seen as a ‘moral’ one and will become crucial for the possibility of articulating a conceptual, as opposed to a historically contingent, distinction between ancient and modern liberties. Constant starts his lecture by announcing his intention to explain ‘a few distinctions . . . between two kinds of liberty’ which have not been fully appreciated. On the one hand, there is ancient liberty – the liberty exercised by the citizens of ‘the free nations of antiquity’, and on the other hand, modern liberty – the liberty ‘the enjoyment of which is especially precious to the modern nations’ (LACM: 309). Constant gives two reasons why this distinction is needed. First, the confusion between the two types of liberty has been ‘the cause of many an evil’ (LACM: 309). One of the main arguments of the lecture is that the authoritarian practices of the post-1789 French governments have been a result of a conceptual blunder: instead of advancing modern liberty, the ideologues of the revolution advanced the ancient one. This is an intricate and controversial argument, however, and Constant does not turn to it until the second part of his lecture. The other reason

26  Benjamin Constant on modern people why the distinction is needed is that without it, one would not be able to understand the extent to which almost every single aspect of the life of modern people is different from its equivalent in the republics of antiquity. In other words, the distinction is needed because the contrast between the two liberties can show the real characteristics of modern people. The message of the first part of the lecture is that ancient liberty belongs to the ancient past, and it should stay there. Because it has been erroneously transplanted into modern times, it has corrupted the outcomes of an otherwise significant and ‘happy revolution’ (LACM: 309). In the first part of the lecture, modern liberty alone captures the condition of modern people; hence, Constant’s objective is to show the difference between the two concepts in clearly contrasting terms. Ancient liberty consisted in exercising collectively, but directly, several parts of the complete sovereignty; in deliberating, in the public square, over war and peace; in forming alliances with foreign governments; in voting laws, in pronouncing judgements; in examining the accounts, the acts, the stewardship of the magistrates; in calling them to appear in front of the assembled people, in accusing, condemning or absolving them. (LACM: 310) But, Constant argues, there was a catch. This ‘collective freedom’ was compatible ‘with the complete subjection of the individual to the authority of the community’ (LACM: 310). Modern liberty, on the other hand, focuses on the protection of individual rights, including rights to express opinion, choose a profession, control one’s property, associate freely and profess a religion of one’s own choice. Modern liberty also includes a person’s right to exercise influence on the political authorities, however not directly but ‘by electing all or particular officials, or through representations, petitions, demands to which authorities are more or less compelled to pay heed’. Crucially, however, Constant distinguishes between representative and direct democracy. Modern people choose to influence politics through representation, and thus, their impact on politics is limited. But note the following: in complete opposition to ancient liberty, modern liberty includes the right of men ‘simply to occupy their days or hours in a way which is most compatible with their inclinations or whims’ (LACM: 311). Constant demonstrates the difference between the two liberties in two contexts: that of government and that of personal life. The contrast is stark and straightforward: ancient people are free in government but unfree in their personal life. Modern people, in reverse, are free privately, but, politically, their ‘sovereignty is restricted and almost always suspended’: Thus among the ancients the individual, almost always sovereign in public affairs, was a slave in all his private relations. As a citizen, he decided on peace and war; as a private individual, he was constrained, watched and repressed in all his movements; as a member of the collective body, he

Benjamin Constant on modern people 27 interrogated, dismissed, condemned, beggared, exiled, or sentenced to death his magistrates and superiors; as a subject of the collective body he could himself be deprived of his status, stripped of his privileges, banished, put to death, by the discretionary will of the whole to which he belonged. Among the moderns, on the contrary, the individual, independent in his private life, is, even in the freest of states, sovereign only in appearance. His sovereignty is restricted and almost always suspended. If, at fixed and rare intervals, in which he is again surrounded by precautions and obstacles, he exercises his sovereignty, it is always only to renounce it. (LACM, 311–12) Table 1.1 conveys the initial conceptual grid. It shows that the freedom of modern people happens in the domain of the personal, while that of the ancient occurs in the political domain. This can explain why Constant refers to modern liberty also as ‘individual liberty’ (LACM: 315, 323) and to ancient liberty as ‘political’ liberty (LACM: 324, 327). This association between ancient and political, on the one side, and modern and individual, on the other, is captured in the conceptual grid of Table 1.1. The analysis in this chapter will show that the contrast can only be partially justified. The grid of Table 1.1 is useful because it conveys both the contrast between the two freedoms and the ways in which its starkness will be partially eroded due to complications. The table shows that although, for the time being, the personal sphere of the ancients and the political sphere of the moderns are devoid of freedom, these dimensions are later looked at more closely when, as we will see, they acquire specific freedom contents. The conceptual grid is a good launching pad for the assessment of the two freedoms. It indicates Constant’s intention to produce a multilevel analysis. We can now superimpose onto this grid the new elements Constant introduces in the lecture. Table 1.1 The initial conceptual grid with the two liberties put in starkly contrasting terms Ancient people’s liberty

Modern people’s liberty

Personal sphere

No freedom: they are slaves in their private relations.

Political sphere

All freedom: they are almost always sovereign in public affairs; their freedom consists in ‘exercising collectively, but directly, several parts of the complete sovereignty’ (LACM: 311).

Most freedom: they are independent in private life; their freedom consists in their right to express their opinion, choose a profession, dispose of their property, associate with others and profess religion of choice, not be accountable for their motifs (LACM: 311). Almost no freedom: their sovereignty is restricted and almost always suspended.

28  Benjamin Constant on modern people In the first part of LACM Constant presents two new aspects of the argument: the opposition between trade and war as two different means of livelihood (Table 1.2) and the explanation of liberty through the lens of satisfaction (Table 1.3). Both of these developments foreground the personal sphere as the significant terrain of liberty for modern people. They also help rethink and ultimately re-conceptualise this sphere. We will see that this sphere can also be viewed as ‘non-political’. Ultimately, in its final iteration as discussed at the end of Section 3, the ‘personal sphere’ context will be understood as a ‘moral’ context. Once the initial opposition between the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns is established, Constant proceeds to engage in a rather broad-brush geographical and socioeconomic comparison between the republics of antiquity and modern nations. In addition to a significant increase in the size of the latter, he Table 1.2 The impact of war, trade and professions on the conceptual grid Ancient people’s liberty

Modern people’s liberty

Personal sphere; also Some freedom: Athenians, through All freedom: commerce provides the means their trade, had greater individual the sphere of trade for individual and all other liberty but limited by the existence independence. professions: nonof slavery and the practice of political sphere direct democracy and of ostracism (LACM: 315–16). Political sphere Most freedom: ‘Among the No freedom: ‘For the Also the sphere ancients, a successful war moderns, even a of war increased both public and private successful war costs wealth in slaves, tributes and land infallibly more that it is shared out’ (LACM: 314). worth’ (LACM: 314).

Table 1.3 The impact of ‘satisfaction’ on the liberties in the conceptual grid

Personal sphere as the sphere of satisfaction Political sphere

Ancient people’s liberty

Modern people’s liberty

Some freedom: because the experience of political freedom is satisfying, ancient liberty can be seen as having a personal dimension. Most freedom: the discussion of satisfaction gives further evidence that ancient people had freedom in the political sphere.

Most freedom: it is in private life or in the domain of nonpolitical professions where modern people find most satisfaction. Almost no freedom: but now this is a problem: due to increased population and diminishing personal impact on public affairs, modern people are alienated from political engagement, and thus the exercise of freedom in the political sphere has become objectively harder.

Benjamin Constant on modern people  29 observes a major reform in the means of subsistence. While the ancients fought wars in order to survive politically and economically, the moderns engaged in trade, and this resulted in radical changes of attitudes and lifestyles. Commerce, through its capacity to provide modern people with ample means of subsistence, was by this token the practical environment of individual independence. While the personal sphere is the terrain of modern liberty, trade is the social and economic framework that allows individuals to realise their independence. The discussion of trade and commerce shows how modern people started to acquire independence. Commerce ‘inspires in men a vivid love of individual independence’; it ‘supplies their needs, satisfies their desires, without the intervention of authorities’ (LACM: 315). In addition, the abolition of slavery opened up ‘all professions’, and modern people can enjoy a much larger range of ways in which they can earn their living independently from the political authorities. Trade thus adds a new dimension to the understanding of the personal sphere as the terrain of modern liberty. Trade connotes social not just personal space. Stephen Holmes’s commentary on Constant’s advancement of the modern distinction between state and society is pertinent here. Holmes argues that Constant was a spokesman of one of the ‘historical innovation[s] of modern theory’: the ‘talk of “the political” and “the extrapolitical” as distinct spheres of social interaction’ (Holmes, 1984: 55–56). Thus we can argue that what Constant is trying to show is the existence of a non-political space within which modern men can achieve economic gain, which for the ancients was only possible in the political domain. Table 1.2 shows how we can reflect this by adapting the initial structure of Table 1.1. We can see how the ‘trade versus war’ theme not only develops but also consolidates the original matrix. It shows that the personal sphere can be also seen as the ‘non-political’ sphere. But it confirms that for modern people the terrain of politics – in this particular instance as dominated by war – is devoid of freedom. In order to consolidate the difference between ancient and modern liberties, Constant turns to the theme of satisfaction. By now the differences between the two liberties have been explained, and the role of satisfaction is to make an additional emphasis, not to offer a new explanation of the nature of freedom. Consistent with the matrix of Table 1.1, ancient liberty consists ‘in an active and constant participation in collective power’, while modern liberty reflects ‘peaceful enjoyment of private independence’ (LACM: 316). The new observation Constant makes is that while ancient people found satisfaction in engaging with the life of politics, modern people find a deeper sense of enjoyment in the occupations of their private, or non-political, lives. The message is that ancient liberty does not belong to modern times because it fails to bring the satisfaction it used to give to ancient people. Although ‘satisfaction’ is not intended to offer a new way of defining modern liberty, the way in which it is explained makes it more significant than it appears to be. I argue that, on analysis, it is one of the main features of liberty as experienced by modern people. The proximity between ‘satisfaction’ and ‘enjoyment’ is hard not to notice, and a reference to ‘enjoyment’ is present in most of Constant’s descriptions of modern liberty throughout the lecture (LACM: 309,

30  Benjamin Constant on modern people 316, 317). Modern liberty is about individual independence, and Constant goes to great length to show how satisfying the experience of this independence is. Modern liberty is ‘the enjoyment of security in private pleasures’ (LACM: 317). Indeed, the argument about the satisfying nature of modern liberty has a twist which complicates the initial conceptual grid. Constant comments that both ancient and modern liberties are satisfying but in different ways. In a fashion consistent with their socio-historical profiles, the citizens of the ancient republics had to sacrifice their individual independence, while those of modern nations have to sacrifice participation in politics. But each party is happy with the final outcome. The ancient people’s sacrifice paid off because their participation in government had an impact. ‘The will of each individual had real influence: the exercise of this will was a vivid and repeated pleasure’ (LACM: 316). Therefore, their loss of freedom in private life received ample compensation in the public domain. The case of modern people was exactly the opposite. The developments of modern life have led to changes that have increased the range of non-political activities that bring satisfaction: ‘the progress of civilisation, the commercial tendency of the age, the communications among people, have infinitely multiplied and varied the means of personal happiness’ (LACM: 316). On the face of it, it seems that the satisfaction theme simply fortifies the clear contrast between ancient and modern liberties captured in Table 1.1: ancient liberty is clearly political and nonindividual, while modern liberty is exactly the opposite. The following conclusion of the ‘satisfaction’ discussion affirms this conceptual state of affairs: ‘It follows that we must be far more attached than the ancients to our individual independence. For the ancients, when they sacrificed that independence to their political rights, sacrificed less to obtain more; while in making the same sacrifice, we give more to obtain less’ (LACM: 317). However, on analysis, we can see that the theme of satisfaction adds complications to the conceptual grid. First, the observation that the citizens of the ancient republics experienced satisfaction in the performance of public duties indicates that their personal domain was not entirely devoid of freedom. Although they found satisfaction in the political sphere, the experience of satisfaction is deeply personal. In Section 4.2, I will question whether this experience itself is constitutive of the liberty of the ancients at all. However, at this stage, Constant’s commentary on ancient people’s ‘vivid and repeated pleasure’ derived from political participation leads one to think that ancient liberty had a notable personal dimension.10 Second, Constant’s discussion about the inability of modern people to find satisfaction in politics is actually very important. This is not merely stating an issue which is comfortably compensated for by the joys of private life; it is observing a problem that will throw crucial light on the predicament of modern people. They can no longer acquire a sense of ‘personal importance’ as a result of their investment in politics. ‘This compensation no longer exists for us today. Lost in the multitude, the individual can almost never perceive the influence he exercises’ (LACM: 316). The second part of Constant’s lecture will show, however, that withdrawal from politics is not an option he would recommend. Political participation is not rewarding for modern people, yet it is in their interest, and is their

Benjamin Constant on modern people  31 duty, to attend to it. Therefore, the incapacity of modern people to find satisfaction in public life is highly problematic. The most important aspect of the theme of satisfaction is that it becomes a yardstick of the freedom of modern people. The intricacies of the process of satisfaction will throw light on why and how the liberty of modern people is both possible and difficult and also what exactly its nature is. This will be the focus of Section 4.2.11 Table 1.3 aims to capture the ways in which the theme of satisfaction develops the initial conceptual grid of Table 1.1. The second part of LACM then proceeds to show that the reformers and ideologues behind the French Revolution committed the error of trying to revive the spirit and practice of ancient liberty. How this was done and why this was a mistake will be discussed in Section 3, and in Subsection 3.3 in particular. The essence of the argument is that the re-employment of the concept of ancient liberty provided ‘deadly pretexts for more than one kind of tyranny’ (LACM: 318). The discussion of modern uses of ancient liberty concludes with an unexpected twist. While everything said so far advanced the idea that ancient liberty is not just outdated but also dangerous, the final message of the lecture is that modern people have to exercise their political rights in order to protect their liberty. In other words, they should value and attend to both their individual and political liberties and learn how to balance them best. Political liberty is the guarantee of modern liberty and is, therefore, ‘indispensable’ (LACM: 323). What happens in the second part of LACM is that the duality of ancient and modern freedoms is relocated: it no longer straddles two epochs but is repositioned in full into the temporal domain of modern people. Modern people now have two freedoms. This leads to a substantive development in the conceptual grid underpinning Tables 1.1 to 1.3. The resulting conceptual grid excludes completely the liberty experienced in past epochs and focuses entirely on the freedom of modern people. Interestingly, an almost identical grid re-emerges there as now modern people have their equivalent of ancient liberty, which in the final section of LACM is referred to as political liberty. Table 1.4a gives a graphical image of Table 1.4a The transferal of ancient liberty in modern times Ancient people’s liberty Modern people’s liberty Personal sphere

Political sphere

Ancient (or Political) liberty

Modern liberty

32  Benjamin Constant on modern people Table 1.4b Rethinking ancient liberty in the context of modern times Liberty of modern people

Would this sphere be best understood as ‘personal’ or something else? Political sphere

Ancient liberty

Modern liberty

If ancient liberty would be relevant not just to the political, but also the personal, sphere of modern people, what would it refer to? The exercise of ‘an active and constant surveillance over their representatives [in government]’, and of the ‘right to discard them if they betray their trust, and to revoke the powers which they must have abused’ (LACM: 326)

‘peaceful enjoyment and private independence’ (LACM: 316); personal happiness; not having to ‘account for their motives and undertakings’ (LACM: 311) institutional protection of individual rights; ‘the enjoyment of security’(LACM, 317) which institutions afford them

vacating the space of the freedom of ancient people and relocating the full fourfold conceptualisation on the terrain of the liberty of modern people. Table 1.4b zooms in to the liberty of modern people as ultimately this is what is relevant and this is where the final and significant conclusions of LACM are to be found. The conclusion of the lecture clearly conveys the message that modern people have two liberties. This, however, raises new questions which the lecture does not proceed to address directly. If modern people have two liberties, what are the implications for the nature of modern liberty? If political liberty is one of the liberties of modern people, on what ground is it liberty at all? After all the attacks on ancient liberty – some of which we are still to look into – how could Constant make the case that political liberty is a liberty modern people can exercise? The new conceptual grid of Table 1.4b gives us the template on which we can start to build these missing but needed answers. Constant’s analysis of liberty in the second part of LACM continues to operate in two contexts, which will allow us to fill in the empty boxes of the new grid. It is only after this relocation of ancient liberty from ancient to modern times that the distinction between the two liberties becomes conceptually significant. Only now do the two liberties enter into a direct tension, a tension which needs to be practically managed.

2  Justifications of the changed status of ancient liberty What I have outlined through the grid of Table 1.4b is the answer to the perennial question surrounding Constant’s lecture: the question why Constant changed his position about the significance of the liberty of the ancients. Throughout the first

Benjamin Constant on modern people  33 and most of the second part of LACM, he is highly critical of the liberty of the ancients, while toward the end of his lecture, he regards it as a necessary counterpart to modern liberty. My solution to this problem is the following. Constant’s attitude towards ancient liberty has changed, because the political freedom he discusses in the latter parts of his lecture is no longer the liberty practised in the ancient republics but a modified equivalent which is suitable for, and commendable to, modern people. In the end, ancient liberty is no longer the liberty of the ancient past but the second liberty of the modern present. The nature of this transformation and the resulting new ancient liberty will be discussed in the next section. Here I would like to turn to how the issue of the changed status of ancient liberty has been tackled by Constant’s critics and indeed by Constant himself. This controversy can be handled in various ways, and in this section attention will be given to the changes of the historical setting,12 proposed philosophical solutions and Constant’s own assertion that the times have changed but his argument has not. This study will make clear one of the main achievements of Constant’s scholarship – his perceptive analysis of the nature of modern authorities. This focus on modern authorities is a needed detour in our study of his conceptualisation of liberty. As frequently commented, there is a distinct change of tenor at the end of LACM  – Constant’s multilevel and uncompromising critique of the modern revival of ancient liberty is replaced by an appeal for moderation and balance. Holmes notes that ‘we cannot escape the impression that we are witnessing a dramatic alteration in Constant’s tone as well as a reversal in his theoretical stance’ and that ‘it is not easy to integrate these final pages with the earlier part of his argument’ (Holmes, 1984: 39). Constant warns moderns about the danger of withdrawing too much into their private lives and relinquishing matters of politics into the hands of political rulers. That should not happen. Modern people should keep an eye on and indeed take an active interest in politics because only thus can they properly guard their rights, their modern liberty. At this point Constant speaks of the liberty of the ancients approvingly: ‘We still possess today the rights we have always had, those eternal rights to assent to the laws, to deliberate on our interests, to be an integral part of the social body of which we are members’ (LACM: 324). Ancient liberty is now viewed as a necessary counterpart of modern liberty. It is instrumental to it. Without political involvement, modern people may jeopardise their modern liberty. ‘It is not political liberty which I wish to renounce; it is civil liberty which I claim, along with other forms of political liberty’ (LACM: 324). There are historical and philosophical justifications for this shift. Holmes draws our attention to the changing political background and the fact that Constant had written sections of this speech 20  years prior to its delivery in 1819 (Holmes, 1984: 33). During that period the political situation in France changed significantly. The first sections of the speech were written in 1798 during the time of the Directory, which lasted from 1795 to 1799. Constant aimed to discredit the ambition of the political authorities to mobilise mass support by manipulating public feeling. In that time Constant ‘was still haunted by the experience of the Revolution’ (Holmes, 1984: 43). Twenty years later the threat of resurgent Jacobinism has passed. Constant was then facing his ‘right-wing foes’ who had no democratic

34  Benjamin Constant on modern people intentions. At this stage the problem no longer was the ideologues’ ambition13 to enforce a resurrected version of ancient republican liberty but ‘the civic passivity that served the interest of the ultras’ (Holmes, 1984: 36).14 Holmes argues that this dramatic political swing in French politics from Jacobin republicanism to the authoritarianism of Napoleon and the Bourbon Restoration modified Constant’s own political convictions. ‘The Directory taught him the insufficiency of “limited” government, while Napoleon and the Bourbons helped revive his underlying republicanism, temporarily suspended in the convulsions of civil strife between 1793 and 1799’ (Holmes, 1984: 36). This historical reading explains the shift of Constant’s argument as a change of mind. In effect, it does not resolve the inconsistency in the lecture but simply explains it. Marcel Gouchet’s reading of the lecture, however, is that Constant does not waver from his initial critique of the liberty of the ancients. It is true that Constant faces two types of political enemies, but the underlying reason for their political sins is the same. Both the Jacobin terror and Napoleonic power pursued legitimacy and political dominance through intrusion in people’s reasoning and motivation: The Revolution’s swerve towards tyranny was central to Constant’s thought. For him, as for many other contemporary observers, that swerve was compounded by Napoleon’s despotism, which he saw as a close cousin of Jacobin dictatorship. As radically different as these two forms of tyranny were, both stemmed ultimately from the same source and obeyed the same political logic; they were merely the two faces of a usurpation that the principle of popular sovereignty made possible. (Gauchet, 2009: 4) Arguably, one of the most significant contributions of LACM is Constant’s analysis of the nature of modern social and political institutions. Dodge comments on how Constant was ‘one of the very first to grasp the real nature of Bonapartism, the first truly modern dictatorship’. This was a new form of despotism, radically different from the old ways of exerting political authority through ‘a union of throne and altar’. The new despotism was based on ‘the theory of popular sovereignty, which had been the very foundation of the French Revolution’ (Dodge, 1980:18). The effective manipulation of faith and personal conviction is part and parcel of popular sovereignty and as such is a distinctly modern phenomenon. The new powers have adjusted to the new mentality of modern people. The latter would no longer accept being ruled against their personal faith and conviction, so these have now turned into a primary target. Political power can only be held through an effective control of the public sentiment. Constant himself comments that the French political establishment at the time he was delivering his lecture no longer drew its inspiration from the liberty of the ancients, yet it continued to rule through ‘usurpation’: Several governments of our days do not seem in the least inclined to imitate the republics of antiquity. However, little as they may like republican institutions, there are certain republican usages for which they feel a certain

Benjamin Constant on modern people  35 affection. It is disturbing that they should be precisely those that allow them to banish, to exile, or to despoil. (LACM, 321) Constant then continues to discuss the unacceptability of political exile and censorship as punitive practices because these can no longer be justified in modern times. What we observe here is that both Constant and some of the contemporary commentators of his ideas point in the same direction when they try to show what has not changed during the tumultuous decades after the French Revolution: the nature of modern authorities. Although regimes of different types have constituted the political establishment, they have shared the same new mechanism of threatening the personal integrity of modern people. The authoritarianism of the republican, the imperial and the royalist powers undermines in a similar fashion the liberty of modern people.15 But we can nonetheless see why the changing political landscape has contributed to Constant’s transformed attitude towards ancient liberty. The authoritarianism of Bonaparte and the Ultras showed that not all oppression is done in the name of liberty. A cleavage has appeared here between the modern usage of ancient liberty which facilitated modern despotism and ancient liberty itself, which if properly understood, could have a legitimate space. In the final section of LACM, ancient liberty has acquired a different status. Lofty words of the following kind reveal that Constant has found a legitimate space for it: Moreover, Gentlemen, is it so evident that happiness, of whatever kind, is the only aim of mankind? If it were so our course would be narrow indeed, and our destination far from elevated. There is not one single one of us who, if he wished to abase himself, restrain his moral faculties, lower his desires, abjure activity, glory, deep and generous emotions, could not demean himself and be happy. No, Sirs, I bear witness to the better part of our nature, that noble disquiet which pursues and torments us, that desire to broaden our knowledge and develop our faculties. It is not to happiness alone, it is to self-­ development that our destiny calls us; and political liberty is the most powerful, the most effective means of self-development that heaven has given us. (LACM, 327; emphasis added) Something interesting has happened here. While the historical circumstances have put pressure on Constant to reconsider some of his professed ideas, they have actually reaffirmed his dual conceptualisation of liberty, even if it is now to have a different function. In the first part of LACM, he needed the two concepts in order to explain how fundamentally different modern people and their social and political setting are from the people and setting of the ancient world. In the second part of the lecture, he needs a second concept of liberty – a legitimised version of ancient liberty – not only in order to protect modern liberty but also in order to address aspects of the liberty of the moderns not covered by modern liberty. We now need to understand the newly found normative legitimation of ancient liberty so that we can appreciate what the exact implications for the nature of modern

36  Benjamin Constant on modern people liberty will be. In the next section, I  will examine the ways in which Constant’s multilayered critique of ancient liberty results in developing new justificatory arguments. This will help us explain Constant’s dual conceptualisation as a stable and meaningful depiction of the liberty that is sought and experienced in modern times.

3 The curious survival of ancient liberty As Dodge says, ‘Constant seems to have a love/hate attitude towards ancient liberty as he did towards Rousseau’ (Dodge, 1980: 39). Part of the conceptual difficulty surrounding Constant’s treatment of ancient liberty stem from the fact that it is simultaneously a form of critique of the nature of modern authority and a critique of a specific way of propagating freedom. So on one level, the rationale of the critique has little to do with liberty and much with how modern authorities inhibit the exercise of modern liberty. On another level, he makes the claim that the authoritarian political practices of the ancients and the moderns are intertwined with a particular understanding of liberty: that is, when Constant critiques ancient liberty, he disapproves not only of its unintended political consequences in the modern age but also of the actual understanding of freedom it advances. Arguably, he is doing both: critiquing ‘modern dictatorship’ (Dodge, 1980: 18) and also the manner in which ancient liberty has been re-employed to legitimise political power. In this section I will examine three different rationales through which Constant develops his critique of ancient liberty, and I will reveal not only the extent to which they undermine the legitimacy of the concept as a freedom concept but also the ways in which they actually reaffirm it. My strategy in this section is the following. I will review three grounds on which ancient liberty is criticised: a political, a hedonic and a virtue one. In this process I will demonstrate the manner in which Constant’s ideas have fluctuated and evolved from a critique towards an affirmation of ancient liberty. I argue that Constant ends up with two transformed senses of ancient liberty: a political sense, reaffirming a positive link between freedom and political authority, and a moral sense, sketching a link between duty and the experience of freedom. 3.1 The political rationale Ancient liberty takes its name from the first, the political rationale: for the citizen of the ancient republics, freedom was equivalent to political mastery. One could only be free through ruling. The background assumption is that there was no third option to the slave-master relationship: if somebody else ruled you, you were unfree. Therefore, for the ancients freedom meant ‘actually to belong to the ranks of the rulers’ (SCU: 104). This default identity between freedom and power is not the case for modern people. While for ancient men there were no opportunities for liberty other than direct exercise of power, modern people can ward off the negative consequences of being ruled through ‘being represented’ in, rather than being part of, the ranks of the rulers, and by ‘contribution to that representation by one’s own choice’ (SCU: 104). The socioeconomic developments of modern

Benjamin Constant on modern people  37 states allowed efficient safeguards from political power. Constant claimed that ‘as we [the moderns] are much more preoccupied with individual liberty than the ancients, we shall defend it, if it is attacked, with much more skill and persistence; and we have means to defend it which the ancients did not’ (LACM: 323). For modern people liberty is not to be found in political power but in ‘independence in all that concerns their occupations, their undertakings, their sphere of activity, their fantasies’ (SCU: 104). This rationale of ancient liberty portrays it as now redundant. Ancient liberty is needed no more in modern times. It is something modern men can let go. In addition to being replaced by the more viable alternative of modern liberty, Constant is sceptical about the moral value of the ambition to rule. Holmes argues that Constant tried hard to ‘deromanticize’ or ‘demystify’ the vision of the virtuous citizen of the ancient republics enshrined in the Aristotelian fascination with the political nature of man (Holmes, 1984: 61). ‘The ancient ethics of collectivism and democratic participation did not represent a victory of duty over interest. Rather, the idealisation of group solidarity resulted automatically from the meagre human possibilities available in the ancient city’ (Holmes, 1984: 59). Holmes notes that Constant was disapproving of ancient men’s need of slaves, of their resentment towards the material aspects of life and dependence on warfare (Holmes, 1984: 54–58). Also, the commitment to political power implied in the pursuit of ancient liberty stops one from appreciating the fact that power, political or social, detracts from modern liberty. Constant explicitly argues that power is a ‘plague’ and one should never dream of ‘relocating it’, only of ‘destroying it’ (PPAAG: 21). In his eagerness to demonstrate that the legitimacy of the political authorities is no excuse for the exercise of absolute political power, he claims that ‘it is in fact the degree of force, not its holders, which must be denounced. It is against the weapon, not against the hand holding it, that it is necessary to strike ruthlessly’ (PPARG: 176). The political rationale of ancient liberty – the rationale that explains ancient liberty as exercise of political power – leads to the conclusion that ancient liberty is redundant as concept of freedom in modern times; that the only real liberty is modern liberty because political authorities by default undermine individual freedom. Therefore, viewing political authorities as the vehicles of liberty is wrong. This, of course, is only the logical conclusion of the political rationale, and Constant embraces it only partially. In fact, Constant understands and indeed proclaims the significance of legitimate political authorities. Although some of his statements do leave the impression that he underestimates the significance of political legitimacy, the concluding remarks of LACM leave no doubt that he has a very clear idea about its nature and role. He argues that power based on ‘force’ is illegitimate, while power based on the ‘general will’ is legitimate (PPARG: 175). Note two points in his concluding remarks in LACM: the endorsement of political participation and the redefining of political power through its duties. We still possess today the rights we have always had, those eternal rights to assent to the laws, to deliberate on our interests, to be an integral part of the

38  Benjamin Constant on modern people social body of which we are members. But governments have new duties; the progress of civilisation, the changes brought by the centuries require from the authorities greater respect for customs, for affections, for the independence of individuals. They must handle all these issues with a lighter and more prudent hand. (LACM: 324) What Constant is saying here is that modern political authorities have changed, or have to change, in order to internalise new duties – duties towards citizens’ modern liberty. This is his vision of legitimate political authorities. Legitimacy, therefore, casts a whole new light on political authorities: political power can no longer be viewed as injurious to liberty by default. Legitimate political authorities have acquired instrumental significance on the grounds of their capacity to protect modern liberty most effectively. Could we push this further and even say that Constant argues that because of their legitimacy political authorities have not just an indirect, but a direct, link to freedom? This would not be an easy argument to make. My observation here is that Constant rehabilitates ancient liberty, and one aspect of the rehabilitation is his ultimate commitment to legitimate political authorities despite the scepticism implied in the political rationale of ancient liberty. Constant, however, explicitly objects to equating popular sovereignty with liberty, and, therefore, this kind of rehabilitation of ancient liberty is only partial. ‘The axiom of popular sovereignty has been thought of as a principle of freedom. It is in fact a principle of constitutional guarantee’ (PPAAG: 11). The more important aspect of the rehabilitation of ancient liberty, of its reshaping as a viable second concept of freedom suitable for modern people, is the renewed link between liberty and duty, in either its personal or its civic dimensions. We will find more about this significant re-establishment of ancient liberty by examining the hedonic and virtue rationales in the next two subsections. 3.2 The hedonic rationale The second rationale through which Constant explains and critiques the concept of ancient liberty builds on his claim that the citizens of ancient republics experienced satisfaction in their participation in politics. Constant connects the experience of satisfaction with the exercise of liberty in his assessment of both modern and ancient liberties. This is why I call this rationale hedonic. Although the exact way in which satisfaction constitutes liberty is more complex than the mere experience of pleasure, as we will see in the next section, one cannot fail to notice how often the language of enjoyment, happiness, repose and satisfaction is employed by Constant in order to disclose the value of a described activity. The psychological astuteness of his references to pleasure, to its intensity and tradability, cannot fail to impress. He comments on the pleasure of belonging to the ranks of the rulers as ‘a pleasure at the same time flattering and solid’; while the pleasure the moderns experienced in political representation is ‘less vivid[,] it does not include

Benjamin Constant on modern people  39 any of the enjoyments of power; it is a pleasure of reflection, while that of the ancients was one of action’; therefore ‘one could not extract from men as many sacrifices to win it and maintain it’ (SCU: 104). One of the first things we should note about this argument is that, although ancient and modern liberties are based on experience of enjoyment derived from different activities, they are both based on satisfaction: so oddly enough, they seem to have an equal existential status. The apparent conclusion here is that they are as good as each other, but each of them functions in its appropriate sociohistorical context. This conclusion, however, does not do full justice to what is specific about Constant’s critique of ancient liberty. The significance of the satisfaction an ancient citizen experienced in the practice of public affairs is not high in view of the limited opportunities presented in his private sphere where he is ‘constrained, watched and repressed in all his movements’ (LACM: 311–12). A modern person would never wish to go back in ancient republics and experience this satisfaction. Also, as mentioned earlier,16 modern people are expected to protect modern liberty, even if, on rare occasions, they achieve greater satisfaction through political activities rather than private enjoyments. So the balance of experienced satisfaction is not a clear guide as to which liberty a modern person is expected to pursue or protect. It could be argued that the normative value of the hedonic rationale is rather modest. It is valuable to the extent that it makes the duty of modern people to protect modern liberty a more appealing one. The new socio-historical circumstances have generated a diversity of occupations and leisure activities that allow modern people to find ample enjoyment outside politics. So they no longer need to seek fulfilment in ‘an active and constant participation in collective power’ (LACM: 316). Modern people are likely to enjoy modern liberty more than ancient liberty, and this is one additional reason why they should protect this liberty. Does ancient liberty ‘survive’ the critical force of the hedonic rationale? Does this rationale annihilate the significance of ancient liberty, or does it actually reaffirm it? It seems the rationale allows a narrow path to its survival: so long as modern people enjoy ‘the exercise of political rights’ (LACM: 316), there is some scope for ancient liberty in the modern world. The hedonic rationale, however, has a further role to play in the explanation of ancient and modern liberties. In Constant’s argument, satisfaction is not just a measure of experienced utility but a measure of the moral authenticity of an action. The satisfaction experienced by modern people is evidence that their action has been freely undertaken, and for Constant, only such action could count as free. As we will discuss shortly, Constant was adamant in rejecting Rousseau’s ‘forced to be free’ doctrine. The experience of enjoyment and comfort serves as a testimony of unforced activity. The reference to satisfaction, I argue, is a reference to voluntariness on a deeper level: it is an evidence that one’s will formation has been free, not just one’s external actions.17 On the grounds of this, more complex, account of the role of satisfaction in Constant’s argument, we could claim that ancient liberty does survive as a normatively viable concept of liberty because the exercise of political rights can be truly

40  Benjamin Constant on modern people satisfying. From Constant’s passionate apology of political freedom in the end of LACM, we can see that it is satisfying not merely on the rare occasions when the pleasures of private life do not surpass the enjoyment of political participation. It is satisfying because modern people can be authentically motivated to live up to their personal and civic duties. When in the concluding remarks of his speech, Constant bears witness to ‘the better part of our nature, that noble disquiet which pursues and torments us, that desire to broaden our knowledge and develop our faculties’, he points out that ‘[i]t is not to happiness alone, it is to self-­development that our destiny calls us; and political liberty is the most powerful, the most effective means of self-development that heaven has given us’ (LACM: 327). Ancient liberty survives as a liberty because it passes the test of authenticity that any liberty in modern times has to pass. It survives as the second kind of liberty that moderns experience, to the extent that they can experience satisfaction in the performance of duty. In this sense the ancient liberty of the moderns is different from their modern liberty. Modern liberty, according to Constant, is to be found in the enjoyment of private pleasures. These pleasures, however, are not all that one aims for. As much as modern men want personal happiness and treasure modern liberty for its sake, they should seek broader knowledge, development of faculties and spiritual nobility, and ancient liberty is based on the satisfaction they experience when they achieve those. The more complex dynamic relationship between modern liberty and the approved modern version of ancient liberty will be discussed in Sections 4 and 5. 3.3 The virtue rationale The sharpest critique of ancient liberty is developed through the third, what I call the virtue, rationale. On this account, ancient liberty stands for the particular redeployment of the liberty of the ancients for the purposes of the modern political establishment. This is not the historically authentic ancient liberty which is captured best through the political rationale but its reconstruction in the minds of the ideologues of the French Revolution and its subsequent republican establishment. As such it is already a complex concept of liberty of a modern type, not dissimilar to Kant’s moral freedom or the positive freedom of the British idealists, although these address some of the problems Constant exposes here. Its authors were people like Rousseau, Robespierre, Saint-Just and Abbé de Mably, whom Constant calls the ‘modern imitators of the republics of antiquity’ (PPAAG: 365). At the heart of this resurrected concept of ancient liberty is the triple link between liberty, authority and citizenship virtue. This is a conceptual link which did not exist in the context of the ancient republics. Even if it is true that the citizens of the ancient republics were free men who also exercised civic virtue, it is not true to claim that they were free on account of being virtuous. They were free on account of being masters, not slaves; rulers, not ruled. The link between political mastery, freedom and virtue is superimposed. The practices of the ancient republics were re-employed en masse on the presumption that this type of political behaviour is republican and therefore advances freedom. Robespierre and Saint-Just were keen

Benjamin Constant on modern people 41 to establish a new republic based on virtue, and they ‘were not squeamish about using violence against their real or imagined enemies’ and forcing all to yield to collective authority and public interest (Holmes, 1984: 47). If anything, they were more concerned with proselytising civic virtue than with representing it as a form of freedom. Rousseau is the one who does not just assume, but actually crafts in philosophical terms, the link between virtue and liberty. He develops the distinction between natural and civil liberty and theorises a process through which an individual cultivates civil liberty by consciously and painstakingly developing civic virtue (Rousseau, 1968: 64–65). Therefore, Rousseau is a prime focus of Constant’s critique. This modern reincarnation of ancient liberty has received a bad press not just from Constant but more famously from Isaiah Berlin. The newly developed link between political mastery, freedom and virtue – which are, in essence, the ingredients of popular sovereignty – has proven to have a phenomenal mobilisation capacity, and both Constant and Berlin express alarm about the disasters it has generated and the dire prospects it threatens for our political future. Constant argues that Rousseau’s ‘ideas of liberty’ have ‘furnished pretexts for all the claims of tyranny’ (PPAAG: 135). The argument here is that when political power is enshrined through a connection with liberty, the results are ominous. Why could not the mobilising power of liberty as advanced by popular sovereignty lead to the success of progressive social movements, one could ask. Constant’s reply would be that ‘[t]here are things too heavy for human hands’ (PPAAG: 20). ‘This doctrine [of the general will] creates and then carelessly casts into our human arrangements a degree of power which is too great to be manageable and one which is an evil whatever hand you place it in’ (PPAAG: 20). We should never allow a power beyond a certain amount to be generated – humans cannot be trusted with unlimited power, and mobilisation in the name of liberty seems to generate such power. Is this the heart of his argument? Is this the explanation behind statements like ‘[a] usurper who arrives after a revolution made for liberty or in her name has many more means of sustaining himself than any other kind of despot’ (Constant, 1829: 47)? The two problems Constant brings to the fore here are that, first, too much power is always bad and, second, that the appeal to liberty typically generates such excessive power. Such an argument can be deemed naïve and indeed as a failure on Constant’s part to fully appreciate the significance of representative democracy and of key ideals like liberty, equality and citizenship that are related to it. The fact of the matter is that power can be claimed in the name of liberty justifiably, and Constant was aware of this. He was an outspoken supporter of the ideals of the French Revolution, including equality (Jennings, 2012: 212, 572), and, some critics believe, he was a republican (Capaldi, 2003: xix; Kalyvas and Katznelson, 1999: 513). He also supported popular sovereignty (PPARG, 175; Dodge, 1980: 52–79). So Constant’s attempt to explain the damaging aspects of the tyrannical post–French Revolution regimes by evoking the link between popular sovereignty and liberty is bound to be unsuccessful without additional explanation. In fact, Constant’s theory of the dangers of modern political establishment is much more

42  Benjamin Constant on modern people clearly, and less controversially, channelled through his concept of ‘usurpation’. His concept of ‘ancient liberty’ leaves too much in the hands of the interpreter as this whole section bears witness. Ancient liberty is simultaneously bad and good and does not distil the worst aspects of modern dictatorships as successfully as does ‘usurpation’ (SCU). The latter reflects the newly developed capacities of the political establishment not just to oppress but also to degrade through manipulation and punishment of ‘wrong’ moral conviction. In this sense it is a more sinister form of power than despotism: ‘Despotism  .  .  . rules by means of silence, and leaves man the right to be silent; usurpation condemns him to speak, it pursues him into the most intimate sanctuary of his thoughts, and, by forcing him to lie to his own conscience, deprives the oppressed from his last remaining consolation’ (SCU: 96–97). The conclusion so far is that the sinister nature of modern dictatorships cannot be derived from the fact that the modern imitators of the republics of antiquity made explicit references to liberty while practising oppression. When regimes changed and liberty was dropped out of the propaganda narratives, the political despotism was just as bad. But there is still a pertinent ‘liberty’ question here. How was it possible for the partisans of the ancient republics to oppress in the name of liberty? My answer – echoing, but fine-tuning, Constant’s – is that this was possible on the bases of a skilled metaphysical error: they conflated two concepts of liberty, both present in Rousseau’s Social Contract. Even Constant, who sees a lot of danger in Rousseau’s ‘subtle metaphysics’, does not unravel this metaphysical error completely (SCU: 106). He blames the ‘new kind of intolerance’ on Rousseau ‘who cherished all theories of liberty, while offering pretexts for every claim that tyranny makes’ (PPARG: 275), but he does not explain which theories. One of my main arguments in this chapter is that Constant’s analysis of liberty operates in two contexts, and thus both ancient and modern liberties function on two levels. While Tables 1.1 to 1.3 label these levels as personal (or non-political) and political, I argue that the re-conceptualisation captured in Tables 1.4a and 1.4b invites us to reconsider the nature of the ‘personal’ level. I suggest that this level can be best seen as a ‘moral’ one. So my argument is that both modern liberty and the modern version of ancient liberty operate at two levels: moral and political. My observation here is that these two variants of ancient liberty already existed in Rousseau’s own political philosophy. This observation throws light on the mechanism through which the reference to liberty worked as a source of oppression. Rousseau’s theory, and eventually Constant’s, sketches two different phenomena: (1) the link between political authority and freedom, captured by the idea of popular sovereignty or self-government; and (2) the link between freedom and personal or citizenship virtue captured by Rousseau’s conception of ‘moral freedom’ as ‘obedience to a law one prescribes to oneself’ (Rousseau, 1968: 65). So the virtue rationale of ancient liberty conflates two different versions of ancient liberty – a political one and a moral one. The political one is based on ideas similar to those discussed under the ‘political rationale’ of ancient liberty. Popular sovereignty is a freedom through political mastery not unlike the freedom of the citizens of the ancient republics. It has new dimensions lacking from the ancient

Benjamin Constant on modern people  43 republics, key among which is universal equality of citizenship. However, this association between liberty and political power, in both of its ancient and modern guises, need not have a sinister dimension. The reason liberty injects a tyrannical element into the modern political establishment is the unspoken but clearly made assumption that Rousseau’s ‘moral freedom’ is the same as the political freedom of popular sovereignty. Constant’s claim that the ‘subtle metaphysics of The Social Contract can only serve today to supply weapons and pretexts to all kinds of tyranny’ (SCU: 106) reveals a somewhat unreflective conflation of Rousseau’s ideas. Liberty, virtue and sovereignty were taken as intricately and deeply interconnected matters. But Rousseau’s theory yields different meanings of freedom. Rousseau himself stated that ‘moral freedom’ reflects a philosophical dimension which is ‘no part of [his] subject here’, in The Social Contract (Rousseau, 1968: 65). The main and ‘real’ problem resulting from this undesirable conflation – of the freedom of popular sovereignty and moral freedom of Rousseau’s type – is the conviction, held and enacted by the modern imitators of the ancient republics, that it is acceptable and necessary to enforce virtue. The phrase ‘forcing people to be free’ does not capture the full extent of the problem. It is possible to interpret it as referring to the legitimate use of the coercive powers of the state to put in place and guarantee republican institutions. And Rousseau’s own commentary following the use of this phrase can be interpreted in this fashion: ‘for this is the necessary condition which, by giving each citizen to the nation, secures him against all personal dependence, it is the condition which shapes both the design and the working of the political machine, and which alone bestows justice on civil contracts’ (Rousseau, 1968: 64). Here Rousseau is not much different from Hobbes and Kant who believe that the social contract has to be backed by the coercive powers of the state. Rousseau’s phrase does not imply forcing people to be virtuous but forcing them to obey the institutions of a republican establishment. In addition to this, however, his philosophy advances the idea that one can be free through moral cultivation. Claiming that one can be forced to be virtuous is a conflation of two different ‘constitutions’ of liberty. This is the problem that most worries Constant: ‘The partisans of ancient liberty were furious to see that the moderns did not wish to be free according to their method’ (SCU: 110). Constant is not challenging ‘their’ commitment to liberty but their method. Is there a right and a wrong method for being free? ‘Our legislators . . . declared that despotism was indispensable as the foundation of liberty’(SCU: 110). I think here Constant is clearly alluding to the wrongness of forcing freedom understood as virtue, or put simply, to forcing virtue. What I will also observe, however, is that he does not object to the understanding of freedom as virtue. And this will be the observation on the basis of which I am making the claim that his ancient liberty survives the critique of the virtue rationale. To put it succinctly, Constant objects to the enforcement of virtue and not to seeing the experience of virtue as a form of freedom. He does not go as far as to develop an ‘idealist’ conception of freedom (Miller, 2006: 4–5) resembling Rousseau’s moral freedom or T.H. Green’s true freedom (Green, 1986a: 248). But he understands

44  Benjamin Constant on modern people the rhetoric of the concept and its appeal. And Constant makes the point that he objects to the ‘method’ of advancing freedom as virtue, not the idea of freedom as virtue. Let me bring forward the relevant commentaries he makes. In chapter 8 of SCU entitled ‘The Means Employed to Give the Moderns the Liberty of the Ancients’, Constant describes the propaganda mechanisms of the ruling elite. One of these is the use of ‘axioms that seem clear because they are short’ and that produce impact as they ‘insinuate themselves into a thousand heads’ and ‘are repeated in a thousand mouths’. The problem with them is that their ‘absurdity amazes us’ but only ‘when analysed’ (SCU: 110). An example of such an axiom is ‘Liberty is of an inestimable price only because it gives soundness to our mind, strength to our character, elevation to our soul’. And here is the analysis: ‘But do not these benefits depend on the exercise of liberty? If, in order to introduce it, you resort to despotism, what will you have established in the end? Only vain forms: the substance will always escape you’ (SCU: 110). This passage tells us that virtue cannot possibly be obtained unless you are free. It is not so much that liberty comes as a result of virtue but the other way round – virtue comes as a result of liberty. Virtue without freedom is a ‘vain form’ without ‘substance’. This passage points to the observation that modern people cannot be virtuous unless free. This passage also tells us that Constant and modern people do indeed take virtue seriously. If they did not, they would not fall prey to the allure of the propaganda axioms. Constant is not vocal enough about the importance of virtue for a reason: his concept of modern liberty aims to delineate what I call ‘a virtue-neutral zone’ (see Section 4.1). His staunch critique of the zealotry of the modern partisans of ancient liberty may leave the impression that the pursuit of virtue is to be blamed for the ills of modern dictatorship. This would be a wrong impression. Citizenship virtue inspires Constant, as he believes it does or should command the respect of his fellow citizens. This is clearly expressed in his words: ‘I bear witness to the better part of our nature, that noble disquiet which pursues and torments us, that desire to broaden our knowledge and develop our faculties’ (LACM: 327). More importantly he associates the pursuit of virtue with ‘political liberty’, which is the other term he uses for ancient liberty. He says that ‘political liberty is the most powerful, the most effective means of self-development that heaven has given us’ (LACM: 327). A scrupulous conceptual analyst could say that this is not yet the idealist concept of liberty where liberty is seen as the actual exercise of virtue. All that Constant is saying here is that political liberty is a ‘means’ to virtue. But he then goes on to say that ‘[p]olitical liberty, by submitting to all the citizens, without exception, the care and assessment of their most sacred interests, enlarges their spirit, ennobles their thoughts, and establishes among them a kind of intellectual equality which forms the glory and power of a people’ (LACM: 327). This could have been a passage from Rousseau’s Social Contract. Here the link between liberty and virtue is even stronger, although Constant’s statement still is that political liberty leads to virtue and not the stronger idealist claim that the attainment of virtue itself constitutes the experience of liberty. My argument

Benjamin Constant on modern people 45 here is that Constant’s ancient liberty survives the internal critique of the virtue rationale as it transforms into a normatively viable concept of liberty: liberty the exercise of which fosters citizenship virtue. The idea that Constant’s understanding of liberty is associated with attainment of virtue is in tune with what some of Constant’s critics say. Alan Pitt, for example, argues that Constant was ‘consistently a theist’, and his ‘ultimate understanding of liberty owes far more to an ideal of autonomy in the tradition of Rousseau than to any celebration of individual rights per se’ (Pitt, 2000: 68–69). Autonomy is a process of independent moral enlightenment based on ‘ever growing sincerity and purity of feeling’ (Pitt, 2000: 81). Pitt distinguishes between ‘modern freedom’ which is based on ‘toleration, or . . . crude anti-corporate individualism’ and ‘absorption in commerce’, on the one hand, and ‘modern feeling’ based on spontaneity and authenticity (Pitt, 2000: 81). He believes it is the latter not the former that captures the essence of Constant’s understanding of freedom. Pitt points to an evolution in Constant’s ideas, whereby the concern with ‘freedom of religion’ has been superseded by dedication to ‘religious experience itself’ (Pitt, 2000: 72). My analysis coheres with Pitt’s observation about competing understandings of freedom reflecting often conflicting ‘aspects of modernity’ (Pitt, 2000: 81). What I add is the claim that a transformed and rehabilitated concept of ancient liberty can capture this alternative understanding of freedom as experience of moral authenticity. Constant’s ancient liberty transforms from a concept that is outdated, inadequate and objectionable into a concept elements of which are normatively viable in modern times. A new version of ancient liberty which endorses popular sovereignty withstands the critique of the political rationale to the extent that popular sovereignty does give legitimacy to the political establishment, and unlike the ancient republics, modern governments do not have to rely on ownership of slaves. It survives the critique of the hedonic rationale because participation in politics can bring the satisfaction of being chosen, not simply the only available satisfaction it brought to the citizens of the ancient republics. The vision of political freedom evoked at the end of LACM is evidence that the virtue rationale not only has delivered a critique of ancient liberty but also has generated a version of it pertinent to modern times. I argue that, on analysis, we end up with two viable meanings of ancient liberty, both of which are distinct from the contents of Constant’s modern liberty: first, a political ancient liberty as implied in popular sovereignty and, second, a moral ancient liberty associated with attainment of personal and civic duty. Ancient liberty, in this rejuvenated moral sense, is about being virtuous through the right ‘method’, that is, freely. The reason I advance the vision of two variants of ancient liberty – moral and political – is to avoid the error of the modern imitators of the ancient republics who conflated the two concepts. Practising virtue freely is a deeply personal experience. Here the ‘freedom’ is derived from one’s capacity to find satisfaction in doing good. Practising your political rights in a legitimate, let’s say republican, establishment, is also a form of rejuvenated ancient freedom, but the ‘freedom’ here is derived in addition from the capacity of the political establishment to protect or enhance modern liberty.

46  Benjamin Constant on modern people Now we are able to fill the empty boxes of the grid in Table 1.4b. There we did not know what the equivalent of the personal sphere would be, but now we can appreciate the centrality of the virtue rationale in the critique and rehabilitation of ancient liberty (see Table 1.5a). We also did not know what the ‘non-political’ version of ancient freedom would be, while now we can say that it is about finding fulfilment in the exercise of moral and civic duties.

4 Modern liberty in the political and the moral contexts The previous section reviewed Constant’s critique of the liberty of the ancients and the transformation the concept underwent as a result of its temporal repositioning from the ancient republics to Constant’s modern-day politics. On the one hand, this repositioning made his critique even more acrimonious and uncompromising as revealed by what I called the virtue rationale. The worst form of tyranny for Constant is the one that forces people to be virtuous. On the other hand, the change of political regimes during the early decades of the nineteenth century led to changes of emphasis which resulted in a new, more balanced, attitude towards the liberty of political participation. So we witness a form of rehabilitation of ancient liberty seen in terms of political liberty. In the second part of LACM, political liberty is seen as instrumental in the protection of modern liberty. As I pointed out at the end of Sections 1 and 2, the duality of ancient and modern liberty re-emerges but in a new format: the dividing line between them is no longer temporal, as between ancient and modern times. This leaves us with questions about the nature of the new conceptual duality, however. Constant is clear that the two liberties are different, but this difference is no longer clear cut; it is no longer a difference between opposite, mutually annihilating, sets of values and ways of life. One obvious dividing criterion between ancient and modern liberties is the one implied in the terminology of ‘political versus individual’. One could say that modern liberty reflects liberty with respect to the person, while the new ancient liberty reflects the political liberty of modern people. This straightforward political/personal divide, however, will not reflect fully, indeed at all, the significant aspects of the new ancient/modern liberties’ distinction. I argue that the two-context template which we inherit from the first part of LACM is very useful in trying to consolidate the new conceptual duality. The complexity of the critique of ancient liberty produced several grounds for caution about the dangers of the concept. Revisiting these will allow us to see where the new normative barriers are laid out and where the new conceptual dividing lines will be positioned. There are two battlefields on which modern people have to fight in order to protect their liberty: first, against excessive political power and, second, against imposition of virtue. These two battlefields outline the two contexts in which the new distinction operates: the first is political, as we had it before, and the second one I would call ‘moral’. It comes in the place of what we referred to as ‘personal’ or ‘non-political’ sphere in Tables 1.1 to 1.3. Table 1.5b aims to complete the matrix of Table 1.5a. Politically, modern liberty has to be defined in a way which offers firm safeguards against political

Benjamin Constant on modern people 47 Table 1.5a The moral and political dimensions of the ancient liberty of modern people Liberty of modern people

Moral sphere Political sphere

(New) Ancient liberty

Modern liberty

Capacity to exercise virtue freely; finding fulfilment in living up to personal and civic duty Active participation in a legitimate political establishment which protects modern liberty

See Table 1.5b See Table 1.5b

Table 1.5b The full fourfold freedom matrix of the liberties of modern people Liberty of modern people (New) Ancient liberty

Modern liberty

Moral sphere

Capacity to exercise virtue freely; finding fulfilment in living up to personal and civic duty

Political sphere

Active participation in a legitimate political establishment which protects modern liberty

Protected space where one can explore moral values; protected, ‘virtueneutral’, private sphere; leisure activities; non-political social environments that allow genuine questioning of the dominant values Institutional protection of individual rights; ‘the enjoyment of security’(LACM: 317) which institutions afford the moderns; the freedom protected by civil rights

power. In addition, the ‘virtue’ rationale discussed in the last section revealed the mechanisms through which the modern political establishment exercises its most effective tyranny: commanding the obedience of subjects by controlling their moral sensibility, that is, by forcing virtue. Therefore, the protection of modern liberty crucially depends on placing an effective barrier against indoctrination and enforcement of duty. Hence, Constant needs a distinction that protects the domain of what one chooses to do from what one has to do. Constant’s distinction between ancient and modern liberties aims to capture this difference between duty and personal choice. I argue that this is a much more elusive and difficult distinction to make. This distinction reflects, in a specific fashion, the dynamics of moral development, and it will receive a lot of attention in the following chapters of this book. The remainder of this section focuses on the modern liberty of modern people. The political dimension of modern liberty captures the insight that a system of civil rights can offer protection from political authorities. The moral dimension of modern liberty is based on a particular understanding of the social environment and the personal dispositions needed for authentic moral action. As discussed in the previous section, modern people can no longer be virtuous according to

48  Benjamin Constant on modern people ‘methods’ used in the past. They rebel not only against political but also against moral authorities, and these two battles only partly overlap. Moral authorities are trickier to resist: on the one hand, modern people want to avoid indoctrination, but on the other, they still want to live up to their moral calling. I argue that notions like ‘private life’ or ‘leisure’ that Constant uses as key signifiers of modern liberty are not self-explanatory but derive their value from the activities they aim to protect and foster. Their significance comes from the fact that they are seen as the terrain where human development takes place. Virtue can be freely chosen only if there is an environment that allows one to resist the pressures for moral conformity. The distinction between the ancient and modern liberty in the political sphere is based on the difference between political institutions of executive power and political institutions aiming to safeguard citizens’ rights. The reason we need to view these as giving rise to different kinds of freedom is that executive political power threatens the exercise of civil rights. The freedom experienced in the context of active engagement with matters of government may militate against the civil liberties of individual citizens. This I believe to be relatively straightforward and non-controversial. Although these liberties are interconnected – as Constant claims, we need political liberty in order to support modern liberty – we can see the need for a conceptual distinction. The relationship between ancient and modern liberties within the moral sphere is more complex. Moral ancient liberty is experienced in ‘self-development’ (LACM: 327) and the exercise of moral or civic duties. Moral modern freedom, which will receive more attention shortly, is found in the experience of personal happiness or the ‘peaceful enjoyment and private independence’ (LACM: 316). These two kinds of freedom are even more organically interrelated than the political couple; therefore, it is harder to separate them into two clear-cut liberty concepts. I will show that the relationship between modern ancient and moral liberties is a result of two related things: Constant’s eagerness to develop effective resistance to moral authorities and the key role satisfaction plays in the constitution of the liberty of the moderns. I  will start by addressing Constant’s focus on pleasure, enjoyment and happiness and argue that it can be understood as an attempt to delineate a ‘virtue-neutral’ zone. I will then turn to the role played by the idea of satisfaction by explaining how it is constitutive of both the modern and ancient liberties of modern people. 4.1 Modern liberty and its ‘virtue-neutral’ aspect Constant’s discussion of modern liberty reveals an attempt to delineate a terrain free from the pressures of moral and civic duty. For him, modern liberty is based on ‘peaceful enjoyment of private independence’, having multiple ‘means of personal happiness’, and ‘enjoyment of security in private pleasures’; it protects ‘repose’ and ‘comfort’. Modern liberty is about the ‘[satisfaction of] desires, without the intervention of authorities’, about the prevention of ‘collective power’ from meddling with ‘private speculations’ (LACM: 314–16). He argues that modern

Benjamin Constant on modern people  49 liberty protects people’s right not to have to account for their ‘motives and undertakings’ and, as mentioned earlier, to follow ‘their inclinations or whims’ (LACM: 311). Constant intends to develop a concept that safeguards us from the moral aggression and attempts to force virtue of the partisans of ancient liberty. He comments on how one of them, Abbé de Mably, ‘detested individual liberty’ and tried to fill every moment of the day with duty. Therefore, everything that Mably hated and threatened, like ‘human passions’, ‘relaxation’ and ‘love’, Constant wanted to protect as constituting some of the most subtle and authentic expressions of modern liberty (LACM: 318–20). We can see clearly Constant’s intention to place modern liberty on a virtue-neutral terrain as well as his motivation for doing so. We could ask, however, whether Constant’s emphasis on pleasure and enjoyment was not an extreme and rather one-sided way of explaining the essence of modern liberty. The pertinence of this question is reinforced by Constant’s qualification of the value of the human pursuit of happiness. While numerous passages of his writings are dedicated to explaining the significance of happiness in private life and its intrinsic link to modern liberty, Constant’s famous remarks at the end of LACM make the clear point that ‘[i]t is not to happiness alone, it is to self-development that our destiny calls us’ (LACM: 327). This quote shows clearly that, however important, happiness is not all that matters to modern people. This is a strong indication that modern liberty, as the liberty practised in the private domain, is incomplete. So declaring that ‘happiness alone’ is not enough puts a question mark over the ‘virtue-neutral’ aspect of modern liberty. Should Constant, for the sake of consistency, give up on this aspect and focus only on the political, civil rights, version of the concept (see Table 1.5b)? Constant does not attempt to redefine modern liberty following this qualification of the scope of happiness, and I believe he is right not to do so. Some additional explanation is needed, however, in order to maintain the consistency of his descriptions of modern liberty. Many of Constant’s critics have worried that his ideas will be misunderstood precisely because of the one-sided nature of modern liberty (Vincent, 2004: 20; Rosenblatt, 2004: 30; Jennings, 2009: 72). Constant’s comments on pleasures and happiness, as well as on the importance of commerce and property, have invited undesirable categorisations of him as a utilitarian or an industrial liberal. The defence strategy has been to show that Constant’s scholarship taken as a whole overcomes this one-sidedness.18 Dodge has argued that Constant’s focus on happiness does not make him utilitarian (Dodge, 1980: 39), and Jennings believes that Constant’s ideas about the impact of commerce on modern society did not mean that modern men were predominantly interested in their own enterprises and projects (Jennings, 2009: 70). Rosenblatt (2007, 2008), Pitt (2000), Vincent (2004), Todorov (2009) and Brooke (2010) show that Constant’s less well-known ideas on religion reveal a profoundly spiritualist understanding of human nature that should dispel the impression that he espoused an industrial form of liberalism. While I agree with these critics, I believe that the one-­sidedness of modern liberty, and particularly its attempt to delineate a ‘virtue-neutral’ zone, can be justified on the grounds that such a zone is needed for the independent acquisition of virtue.

50  Benjamin Constant on modern people As discussed in the previous section, modern people can be virtuous only through the right ‘method’ – only by being free in the process of becoming virtuous; otherwise they ‘establish’ a ‘form’, without a ‘substance’ (SCU: 110). Constant’s claim that the modern imitators of the ancient republics ‘made duty out of what ought to have been voluntary’ indicates that forced duty is no longer possible for modern men (SCU: 109). Voluntariness is a test of the genuine nature of virtue. The need to establish a ‘virtue-neutral’ terrain has to be understood against this background. The assumption here is that such a terrain provides a necessary environment for free moral growth. 4.2 Liberty, morality and satisfaction I have argued so far that Constant’s ambition is to develop effective resistance not just to political but also to moral authorities. He wants not only to avoid subjection to somebody else’s arbitrary will but also to block the indoctrinating tendencies of the modern establishment. Hence, his concept of modern liberty is invigorated not only by a political but also by a moral rationale. The role satisfaction plays in Constant’s account of modern liberty reinforces, in yet one more way, the moral dynamic of his theorisation of liberty. When Constant claims that modern people value their individual liberty more than their ancient counterparts did, he is conveying an important insight in a clumsy and refutable fashion. This claim is empirically contestable and unnecessary. Citizens of the ancient republics may have valued the activities of their private lives and may have found satisfaction in them. The relevant issue is that their capacity to do so would not have been recognised as a legitimate claim for liberty. The important insight is that modern people, unlike citizens of ancient republics, can view their capacity to follow their choices as constitutive of their liberty. Personal experience of enjoyment and satisfaction has acquired legitimacy, which it did not have before. Pace Constant, modern liberty is different from ancient liberty not because the balance of satisfaction from public and private life is different in each period. The big difference is that satisfaction is constitutive of modern liberty while not constitutive of ancient liberty – and this would be ancient liberty as experienced in the ancient republics, not in its modern dimension. In this sense modern liberty is not only a negative definition of liberty, that is, defined against any kind of authority. It is defined as against moral authorities, but in addition, it is defined positively as premised on the experience of satisfaction. Constant’s argument in defence of modern liberty is based on the logic that ‘we need to protect what we value’. Modern people have to protect their private activities partly because these activities are exposed to deliberate intervention from social and political authorities but also because they value these activities, even when they are not threatened. Constant’s modern liberty reflects not only changes in the socio-historical environment, which he is vocal about, but also changes in the constitution of personality or what Charles Taylor calls ‘the natural condition of man’ in his attempt to explain what is distinctive in modern concepts of liberty (Taylor, 1984: 100). Therefore, the concept of modern liberty reflects not only the

Benjamin Constant on modern people 51 new phenomenon of the threat of indoctrination but also the new phenomenon of the increased significance of personal satisfaction.19 The role of satisfaction in Constant’s argument reinvigorates the moral dimension of modern liberty for at least two reasons. First, modern people can make a public claim to be left alone to enjoy private pleasures. Satisfaction has acquired legitimacy, which, in turn, imbues the claim for modern liberty with legitimacy. Second, satisfaction is constitutive not only of modern liberty in its moral variant but also of ancient liberty in its moral variant, where liberty is seen as related to the exercise of virtue in terms of personal or civic duties. Experience of satisfaction is indicative of the authenticity of virtue, as only freely chosen virtue counts as such for modern people. The moderns seek satisfaction not only in happiness but also in the pursuit of higher objectives. I argue that because the moderns find satisfaction in objectives that could clash with each other, modernity brings two concepts of liberty. The theme of satisfaction will receive further attention in the following chapter  when discussing T.H. Green’s concept of true freedom. If Constant champions the link between modern liberty and satisfaction, the British idealist will show how satisfaction is constitutive of positive freedom. But Constant is not too far from Green in his appreciation of the significance of duty and its appeal to modern people: even if he does not develop a conceptual link between freedom and development, as Green does, I believe that the centrality of the theme of satisfaction for the two philosophers indicates a very similar understanding of human agency. Where does the legitimacy of satisfaction come from? How can the desire ‘to do as you like’ turn into a public claim? One obvious answer is the increased significance of the individual. It is no accident that Constant calls modern liberty ‘individual liberty’. He also repeatedly states that the key difference between ancient and modern republics is based on the level of significance ascribed to individuals. Greek and Roman republics ‘submitted individuals to an almost boundless political jurisdiction’ and ‘had no notion of individual rights’ (PPAAG: 351). I believe that the legitimacy of satisfaction – legitimacy that turns it into a normative ground for modern liberty – stems from the fact that for modern people virtue has to be voluntary. Satisfaction is the natural evidence of voluntariness. But, ultimately, it is the role that it plays in the attainment of virtue that gives it special importance. So the increased significance of the individual in modern times, in itself, does not answer the question about the heightened status of the experience of satisfaction, because we still need to explain the former. The enlightening observation here is that both individuals and their satisfaction have become important because virtue is rooted in free experience and free experience is unique to each individual. Hence, I can argue that the lexical ordering – to use a Rawlsian term – within the political duality of modern and ancient liberties is the reverse to that within the moral duality. In the case of the political duality, political liberties are in service to civil liberties. ‘It is not political liberty which I wish to renounce; it is civil liberty which I claim, along with other forms of political liberty’ (LACM: 324). In other words, in the political context, modern liberty has lexical priority over ancient. In the case of the moral duality, the lexical order is reversed. We need the

52  Benjamin Constant on modern people ‘virtue-neutral’ terrain carved out by modern liberty in order to attain moral or civic virtue, associated with ancient liberty. We could ask, however, if happiness and duty depend on satisfaction, why place these within different concepts of liberty? Constant’s lecture shows the significant role satisfaction plays in the realisation of both ancient and modern liberties of modern people. If so, does the theme of satisfaction reinforce the insight about the need for a dual conceptualisation of freedom? We will be able to address this question in the next chapter through the discussion of T.H. Green’s concept of true freedom. At this stage what Constant has helped us achieve is the appreciation of the centrality of satisfaction in the realisation of the liberties of modern people and, relatedly, the significance of the moral sphere in the analysis of the fluctuating meaning of freedom. A study focused exclusively on legal and political institutions that protect freedom will not be able to address all key aspects underpinning liberty in modern times. However, in the framework of Constant’s philosophy, modern liberty in its moral dimension remains incomplete. This is because it is difficult to articulate a clear boundary between modern and ancient liberties when it comes to explaining the process of moral development. The difficulty of drawing a boundary against moral authority stems from the fact that modern people would like to resist indoctrination, but they also do not – or at least should not – want to avoid duty. One needs to be able to explain how exactly moral authorities, as represented by established social norms, impede personal development. Such argument will be developed in the analysis of T.H. Green’s and Isaiah Berlin’s ideas. This is an argument about the possibility of conflicting common goods, and it is based on the more developed concepts of positive freedom which these thinkers offer.

5 On individuality and its link to the duality of freedom In a statement summarising the essence of his theoretical endeavours, Constant brings together the concept of liberty with that of individuality: ‘for forty years, I have defended the same principle: liberty in everything . . . and by liberty I mean the triumph of individuality’ (Constant, 1997: 623). This declaration evokes a strong parallel with J.S. Mill in whose work liberty and individuality are deeply intertwined. And although, unlike Mill, Constant did not write much on individuality as a theme in its own right, we could, by looking at Constant’s ideas overall, draw conclusions about what individuality entails about the nature of liberty of modern people. The idea of individuality combines the belief in the importance of personal development with the commitment to a certain moral profile. This, on the one hand, dispels any impression that the liberty of modern people is individualistic and shuns moral responsibility. In this section I will spell out how uncompromising, but nevertheless nuanced, Constant’s commitment to moral and civic duties is. On the other hand, what this analysis will show is that the vision of modern liberty goes hand in hand with certain moral expectations. If this is the case, some questions arise. Will everybody be able to meet these expectations? Would all

Benjamin Constant on modern people  53 ‘deserve’ their modern liberty? If some do not need the benefits of modern liberty, is it actually good for their well-being? In other words, does Constant’s theory of liberty say something that is relevant to all modern people or only to a certain moral elite?20 We will be able to address these questions if we look into the reasons why, for Constant, individuality is synonymous with liberty of modern people. I argue that individuality puts the two liberties of modern people – their ancient and modern liberties – together in a way that also explains their interdependence. Individuality can be seen as the concrete personification of modern people which shows exactly how and why ancient and modern liberties are combined in their actual experience. Modern people feel compelled to fulfil their duties and thus to exercise their modern version of ancient liberty. But as discussed earlier, for them moral fulfilment has become even harder to achieve. The requirement of a voluntary embracing of moral and civic duties has only raised the bar of personal moral accomplishment. The fact that modern people should not sheepishly follow social convention, or be exposed to indoctrination, has not at the same time absolved them from the expectation of citizenship engagement. They have to be virtuous, but to become so through the correct method. They have to work hard on two fronts: not only in rising up to the call of duty but also in fending off social and political powers and by making sure that the latter do not overstep their legitimate remit of action. Modern people have to balance the attainment of their ancient (political) liberty with the exercise of their modern liberty. I find the following quote from LACM one that captures best the characteristics of modern people and the moral burdens that accompany them: We are modern men, who wish each to enjoy our own rights, each to develop our own faculties as we like best, without harming anyone; to watch over the development of these faculties in the children whom nature entrusts to our affection . . . and needing the authorities only to give us the general means of instruction which they can supply, as travellers accept from them the main roads without being told by them which route to take. (LACM: 323) These words show well the interdependence between modern people’s modern and ancient liberties. Modern people have the real opportunity and genuine desire to thrive by developing their faculties, but they could only do so if authorities are held to task. By flourishing Constant means ‘self-development’ and the exercise of ‘moral faculties’, and he claims that this is achieved through ‘political liberty’ (LACM: 327). However, modern people can only realise this opportunity for political or ancient liberty if they properly exercise their modern liberty, that is, if they make sure that authorities guide but do not control. There are several things that the theme of individuality helps us to do. First, it helps outline the moral profile of modern people and thus flesh out the modern version of ancient liberty – a concept that receives little substantive coverage by Constant. Second, it helps explain the moral dilemmas experienced by modern people as based on commitment to two interrelated but distinguishable liberties. Third, it throws further

54  Benjamin Constant on modern people light on the nature of modern liberty by eliciting its emphasis on spontaneity. We will thus see that modern liberty and its inherent egalitarianism hold the key to the ­universality – as opposed to moral elitism – of Constant’s understanding of liberty. I will review these in turn. Constant’s political and literary writings give ample evidence of his belief in the moral calling of modern people. There is direct and implied evidence about the moral features he values and recommends. Similarities with Mill are hard not to notice. Mill’s On Liberty sketches a character with particular moral dispositions like open-mindedness, spontaneity, capacity to take others as equals and aversion to power. The list of character traits Mill disapproves of speaks clearly about what character traits he supports: [c]ruelty of disposition; malice and ill-nature; that most odious of all passions, envy; dissimulation and insincerity; irascibility on insufficient cause, and resentment disproportioned to the provocation; the love of domineering others; the desire to engross more than one’s share of advantages; the pride which derives gratification from the abasement of others. (Mill, 2003: 142) Constant shares Mill’s passionate commitment to and distinct vision of the desirable moral characteristics of the modern citizen. Steven Vincent gives evidence of Constant’s concerns about the damage to moral dispositions caused by modern political regimes (Vincent, 2004). Vincent looks at Constant’s early work and his correspondence with Madame de Charriѐre where he discusses his disappointment with the moral decay resulting from the French Revolution: ‘One is not able to forget oneself, one is not able to be carried away with enthusiasm, one is not electrified by the recognition of equals. . . . Characters are too small for the spirits, they are worn down, as the body, by the habit of inaction by the excess of pleasures’ . . . Constant’s recurring fear, in sum, was that the Revolution has reinforced French character traits – fanaticism and self-interest – which undermined stable liberal politics. (Vincent, 2004: 14)21 The political tyranny of modern regimes brought character decay, which, in turn, thwarted ‘liberal politics’. So modern liberty will not be understood unless we see the moral dispositions it aims to protect and foster. I will sketch three features of Constant’s understanding of individuality, each of which represents a fine, and hard to achieve, balance of competing ideals. The person who has individuality is politically active and competent, but power averse; she has capacity for and appreciation of intellectual and moral excellence but carries an egalitarian disposition; she is reflective not impulsive though never lacking in enthusiasm for progressive reform. We can expand the list, but these features are enough to reveal a pattern. I will comment on each in turn.

Benjamin Constant on modern people 55 Modern people, as depicted by Constant, are resolved not to be dominated but very conscious of not turning into subjugators themselves. Constant’s belief that modern citizens are sceptical towards and willing to curb political powers is a major theme of his entire scholarship and hardly needs particular textual evidence. It is paralleled, however, by his aversion to the lust for power and his disapproval of slavery, which were discussed earlier in Section 3.1. These two dispositions are balanced by his commitment to representative democracy. Without this context one may find Constant’s strong and repeatedly stated preference for representative over direct democracy puzzling. Constant’s appreciation of the practice of intellectual excellence and moral courage can be evidenced in many ways. It is visible in the lofty words at the end of LACM appealing to ‘the better part of our nature, that noble disquiet which pursues and torments us, that desire to broaden our knowledge and develop our faculties’ (LACM: 327). It is visible in his ideas on religion that have received much approving critical attention by Vincent, Rosenblatt, Pitt and Todoroff. His commentaries on the ‘religious feeling’ are indicative of his understanding of the interdependence between our aesthetic sensitivity, ‘moral feelings’ and political self-awareness: Religion is . . . the most natural of our emotions. . . . All that appears to us without limits, and that generates the notion of immensity – the sight of the sky, the silence of the night, the vast extent of the seas – all that leads us to tenderness or to enthusiasm – the consciousness of a virtuous action, of a generous sacrifice, of a danger bravely confronted, of the pain of another aided or comforted – all that stirs up in the depth of our soul the primitive elements of our nature – the contempt for vice, the hatred of tyranny – feeds our religious feeling. (PPARG: 277) This is a passage that speaks volumes, and a lot would need to be said to capture the various ideas expressed here. But among other things, we can note how Constant’s moral and aesthetic sense is at the same time deeply egalitarian. For Constant the experience of the beautiful and the capacity for altruism, also summarised as ‘religious feeling’, are deeply natural and pertain to all human beings. If we could only live in an environment not polluted by political indoctrination and social pressures, our ‘religious feeing’ would guide us to all important human virtues. The naturalness of the religious feelings makes us all morally equal.22 This leads us to the third balance that individuality achieves – between reflectiveness, on the one hand, and passion in intimate and civic relations, on the other. As discussed in Section 4, on modern liberty, Constant’s philosophy gives moral legitimacy to personal sentiments, including passions. Indeed, Constant’s work may leave the impression that he is more strongly committed to free selfexpression as a key aspect of ‘individual freedom’ than to more traditional values like reliance on reason and moral responsibility. The retrospective recruitment of

56  Benjamin Constant on modern people Constant as a leading voice of Berlin’s negative freedom camp can reinforce this impression. But there is sufficient textual evidence in both directions. Constant believes in the importance of spontaneity and in the need of reason and moral responsibility. No doubt these are not easy to reconcile, and this is partly my point here: modern people are facing tough moral calls. The importance of spontaneity is akin to that of satisfaction, whose normative significance has been discussed in the previous section. Pitt comments on how important ‘religious enthusiasm’ and ‘authenticity in emotions and actions’ are for Constant (Pitt, 2000: 74, 86). It is interesting, however, to see how it can be reconciled with Constant’s critique of the enthusiastic nature of the citizens in the ancient republics. He famously claims that the ‘ancients were right in the youth of moral life’, and their enthusiasm was a sign of their moral immaturity, as the ‘first condition of enthusiasm is not to observe oneself too knowingly’ (PPAAG: 359). By contrast, the moderns ‘analyse and doubt’, and they ‘never stop observing themselves, even in the midst of their most sensitive or violent impulses’ (PPAAG: 359–60). Helena Rosenblatt argues that if Constant is only read through the prism of the ‘negative freedom’ liberalism and seen as a person embracing an individualistic morality, he will be misunderstood. In fact, she believes he ‘worried about the moral underpinnings of liberalism’ (Rosenblatt, 2002: 360). She argues that Constant’s romantic novel Adolphe defies the expectation that he will recommend moral sentiments, like affection and sympathy, as the most effective means towards moral virtue. In fact, these were the beliefs of his close intellectual associates like Isabelle de Charriѐre and Madame de Staёl. Constant differs from them in this respect. His ‘message is that sympathy, as conceived by Smith, is not an effective vehicle of moral reform . . . and it cannot socialise men in any meaningful way’ (Rosenblatt, 2002: 359). Constant’s Adolphe offers an unexpected verdict on the role of romantic love. Despite its capacity to challenge a society that is ‘too powerful’ and to stand against those who ‘hurt others by their zeal for virtue’, romantic love is more likely to lead to personal tragedy than social reform. This is because ‘even the most intense emotion cannot struggle against the accepted order of things’ (Adolphe: 123). Constant advises strongly against ‘mingled selfishness and emotionalism’ and ‘the vanity of a mind which thinks it excuses what it explains’, in favour of ‘character, steadfastness, fidelity, and kindness’ (Adolphe: 124–25). One would think that romantic love affirmed individuality, but this is not Constant’s view. A retreat into an intimate relationship will not change ‘the accepted order of things’, which he believes modern people should aspire to do. Constant’s link between modern liberty and individuality is very enlightening. The theme of individuality offers a context which allows us to see the purpose of modern liberty. Modern liberty is valuable because it fosters the development of personal traits of distinction and significance – traits including a sense of responsibility and capacity for enriched spiritual life. The idea is that only a free exploration of different values and a non-coerced choice to follow duty can result in the vibrant, able and outstanding personality captured by the term ‘individuality’. Constant’s link between liberty and individuality is very similar to Mill’s

Benjamin Constant on modern people 57 and predates the latter by 40 years. Twentieth-century liberals, including Berlin (TCL: 175) and Rawls (1999: 184), have been unhappy about this link  – they have argued that the value of liberty should not be made conditional on anything else, including individuality. But it is important to observe that Constant’s modern liberty is celebrated as a predecessor of both Berlin’s and Rawls’s concepts of liberty; therefore, its link with individuality cannot be lightly dismissed. This link confirms that the concept of modern liberty aims to capture and protect the conditions of personal development, and moral development in particular. It also shows that the anti-perfectionist strands of twentieth- and twenty-first-century liberalism are out of tune with Constant’s understanding of the liberty of the moderns. There is a second aspect to the link between individuality and modern liberty. We could observe that the ideals between which the modern citizen is torn are ideals advanced by two different understandings of freedom. We can see that the ideals of personal excellence, of intellectual accomplishment and of outstanding service are captured by the concept of moral ancient liberty. These ideals have to be balanced against a different set of ideals: appreciating an environment free from set standards, believing in spontaneity and the egalitarian disposition of seeing all people as possessing equal moral worth independently of their level of achievement. This second set of ideals is captured and advanced by the concept of modern liberty. Balancing these two sets of values is on a par with facing a moral dilemma. The profile of the person with ‘individuality’ reflects the moral dilemmas characterising the fate of modern people who are expected to balance off two liberties. This anticipates Berlin’s discussion of value pluralism in TCL and the tragic choices it entails. The proliferation of valuable objectives – in the case of LACM, the fact that modern people can find fulfilling lives outside politics – is not only liberating but also burdensome. When ends or ideals of liberty conflict, modern people have to face moral dilemmas, and those with individuality have the moral and creative resources to see and deal with these. The moral profile of ‘individuality’ is not dissimilar to that of the value pluralist which will be discussed in chapter six. As we will see there, Berlin’s value pluralist is expected to commit to his ideals without claiming that they are in any way superior to those held by other people. This is very much like Constant’s modern men who ‘wish each to enjoy [their] own rights, each to develop [their] own faculties as [they] like best, without harming anyone’, without asserting that their way of flourishing is more worthy than anybody else’s (LACM: 323). But this brings us back the questions raised at the beginning of this section. Is modern liberty needed only by those who have ambition and astute moral conscience? Are all modern people expected to acquire individuality? The answer could be that so long as some have individuality, all would benefit. Modern people with individuality will be instrumental in weakening the grip of set norms and expectations and creating an environment where difference is not penalised. Constant’s passion for modern liberty could be seen not so much as a desire to allow the talented and the conscientious to thrive but as an expression of an egalitarian vision of society, of a trust in all human beings who, if put in condition of liberty, will choose to honour their duty and will gravitate towards what is beautiful and good.

58  Benjamin Constant on modern people

Conclusion Ancient liberty as practised in the republics of antiquity has some attractions but is undesirable in the modern times of Constant and arguably the times in which we ourselves live. It is attractive because it manages to mobilise human talent and energy for the common good advanced by the political establishment. It is not possible because modern people do not have the same incentives to get involved in politics, because they will not tolerate the same level of political control and because they have more plural conceptions of the common good than were acceptable in the ancient republics. This is partly good news – modern times have opened more paths for happiness and flourishing. It is also partly bad: fulfilment of civic duty is no longer rewarded, although it is needed. Some version of ancient liberty is still necessary, and this is what Constant is alluding to in the final sections of his lecture. Political liberty should be seen as worthwhile in modern times as well, and a sense of duty should be encouraged. But it is not to replace modern liberty – modern liberty is here to stay. Modern liberty is not just a disposition to pursue private pleasures, nor just something modern people deserve because they have the wealth that could provide it for them. Modern liberty has moral underpinnings – without it duty cannot be freely chosen. The two freedoms can be exercised together only by being balanced. They could not merge into one freedom without compromising some essential value which liberty aims to protect. An exclusive exercise of ancient liberty will compromise spontaneity and the independent formation of values. An exclusive exercise of modern liberty will compromise one’s capacity for genuine excellence and duty achieved by dedication to a chosen cause. The discussion of this chapter aimed to show the process through which the concepts of the ancient and modern liberties of modern people have been shaped. The opening sections of LACM which placed ancient liberty in the political domain and modern liberty in the private could have led to the idea that modern liberty is individual while ancient liberty is political. Indeed, these are the alternative names which Constant gives to the two concepts. But this is only partly valid. The distinction between the political and the private serves a different purpose. It does not justify a conceptual distinction between two forms of liberty. It is needed to show that liberty in principle is linked not only to the exercise and experience of political power but also to enjoyment and satisfaction. Neither liberty would be understood if we did not study the political and the personal contexts in parallel. The real need for a robust conceptual distinction emerges when Constant explains the disastrous impact of the modern deployment of ancient liberty for the purposes of exercising political power. This deployment allowed modern political authorities to give moral justification to political violence. The purpose of the concept of modern liberty is to articulate safeguards against the possibility of such moral indoctrination. The distinction between the personal and the political cannot capture what is at stake in modern tyranny. Through his concept of modern liberty, Constant is trying to say that modern people should be able to resist

Benjamin Constant on modern people  59 moral authorities as well as political ones. The important conceptual distinction is not between the personal and the political and not even between the moral and the political, but one that cuts across both of these domains. In the moral domain, the distinction cuts between happiness and duty: it is needed in order to make it possible for people to choose duty freely. It is this subtle dynamic of wanting to be free to choose the most satisfying form of life on the one hand and the need to fulfil one’s duty, on the other, that explains the remit of and the interdependence between the two freedoms of modern people. The best way to capture Constant’s distinction between ancient and modern liberties in more formal terms is through their relation to authority. Modern liberty is the liberty exercised through the capacity to resist moral and political authorities, while ancient liberty is exercised through some form of engagement with these authorities: in the moral domain by living up to specific duties and in the political domain by taking part in the workings of legitimate political authorities.23 I try to capture this formal criterion for the distinction – ‘with or against authorities’ – in Table 1.6. This criterion is one of three criteria24 that I will advance in the following chapters of the monograph. This chapter took the first step towards developing a new dual conceptualisation of freedom based on a relatively new reading of both negative and positive freedoms. I  believe that Constant’s modern liberty should be seen in terms of negative freedom, but when correctly understood, his modern liberty can help us place the negative freedom concept on a new footing. We established that Constant’s modern liberty is only one of two liberties that modern people have and that it takes a stance against the capacities of political authorities to indoctrinate. But the freedom of conscience which he so highly values shows his appreciation of the human capacity for moral development. Modern liberty is not enough to accomplish this moral development. Constant gives heavy hints that political freedom is the one associated with the development of faculties and moral responsibility. The following two chapters turn to T.H. Green and his distinct contribution to the understanding of liberty in general but also of its dual conceptualisation. T.H. Green’s theory of freedom shows in detail what Constant’s theory has Table 1.6 The fourfold freedom matrix as applied to Constant’s ideas The liberty of modern people (New) Ancient liberty With authorities

Modern liberty Against authorities

Moral sphere

Capacity to fulfil personal or civic duties by committing to specific virtues

Political sphere

Participating in the workings of a political establishment which promotes modern liberty

Capacity to resist moral authorities which relies on a protected space where one could escape the pressures of established norms Capacity to resist political authorities through the institutional protection of civil rights

60  Benjamin Constant on modern people pointed towards: the way in which the dual account of freedom can accommodate and conceptualise the free exercise of duty.

Notes 1 T.H. Green’s concept of positive freedom will be studied in Chapters Two and Three. 2 This is a good commentary on the period in which Constant lived: Constant’s lifetime from 1767 to 1830 spans the very important and turbulent period of French history from the end of the ancien régime to the Revolution of 1830. It was an age of crisis and transition, much like the period in England from 1649 to 1689, which was always of special interest to Anglophiles in France, including Constant. (Dodge, 1980: 16) 3 As Alan Kahan (1992) argues, revolution and reaction are the Scylla and Charybdis of liberalism. 4 Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) was a writer and a scholar who epitomised European liberal culture in the aftermath of the French Revolution. She embraced the revolution but was critical of Rousseau’s philosophy and its illiberal implications. Her writings include novels, plays, moral and political essays, literary criticism, history, autobiographical memoirs and even a number of poems. Constant and Madame de Staël met in 1794 and had a great impact on each other’s lives. They shared the same political and philosophical ideas, and it was with de Staël’s encouragement and support that Constant entered French politics. For further discussion of the origins of French liberalism see Vincent (2000, 2011). 5 He argues that we need to understand the unique nature of modern liberty first, and then we have to learn to balance it with political liberty. 6 Rosenblatt refers to Marcel Gauchet’s (1988) paper ‘Constant’ published in Dictionnaire critique de la Revolution francaise, edited by Francois Furet and Mona Ozouf (Paris, Flammarion), p. 951. 7 While Dodge argues that the positive/negative, and the ancient/modern, distinctions captured significant controversies embedded in modern politics, like the tension between democracy and liberalism (Dodge, 1980: 41, 148), Stephen Holmes argued that ‘the idea of a deep wedge between liberalism and democracy does little to illuminate Constant’s position’ (Holmes, 1984: 73). 8 See also Holmes (1984: 54), who argues that modern liberty ‘cannot be interpreted as a purely negative principle, as a quest to desocialize man or to eject him from social life. Constant associated modern liberty with the option of freedom from politics, but not with anything so unthinkable as freedom from society’. 9 To be more precise, the second part of LACM starts on p. 317 with the opening line ‘I said at the beginning that, through their failure to perceive these differences, otherwise well intentioned men caused infinite evils during our long and stormy revolution’. 10 We will see later that this personal dimension of ancient liberty, and the satisfaction associated with it, is one of the reasons why it is transferable to modern times. 11 The link between liberty and satisfaction and how this link results in a dual concept of freedom will be discussed further in chapter two. 12 Holmes’s claim is that this is not one but two texts superimposed onto each other: ‘The lecture is a palimpsest’ (Holmes, 1984: 43). 13 By ‘ideologues’ here I refer to the people whom Constant called the ‘modern imitators of the republics of antiquity’ (PPAAG: 365). 14 Ultra-Royalists or simply Ultras were a reactionary faction which sat in the French parliament from 1815 to 1830 under the Bourbon Restoration. 15 However, neither of these responses to Constant’s changed attitude to ancient liberty help in consolidating his conceptualisation of liberty. Constant’s U-turn on ancient liberty

Benjamin Constant on modern people  61 may be justified, but without further explanation, one is left with legitimate uncertainties about the scope and exact nature of modern liberty. We are also uncertain about how political liberty differs from the critiqued modern employments of ancient liberty. 16 See the discussion of Constant’s disapproval of ancient citizens’ dedication to political power in Section 3.1. 17 In this context, it is important to note that the role of satisfaction in the formation of liberty is a modern phenomenon; therefore, in its rehabilitated version, ancient liberty will not be truly ‘ancient’. There is anachronism in Constant’s claim that the liberty of ancient men was premised on the satisfaction they experienced in participation in collective power: this is, in fact, a projection of modern people’s own understanding of freedom. We would be more historically accurate than Constant if we said that ancient men considered themselves free on the grounds of their political status as rulers, not of their existential experience of satisfaction, since the latter is only constitutive of modern liberty. This is because authenticity of motivation has become an important ingredient of what freedom is for modern people. Practising virtue in circumstances where one is forced to do so would not count as an experience of freedom for them. 18 Jennings argues that Constant’s scholarship accounts for ‘two broad moral systems’, as opposed to one. He takes this as an evidence of ‘the falsity of the dilemma between positive and negative liberty’ (2009: 72). While I  agree that Constant shows understanding of two sets of moral values and that we should avoid simple categorisation of Constant as ‘an advocate of negative liberty’, I do not agree that he should not be seen as a ‘protagonist’ of the positive and negative freedom debate. It is crucial, however, how we understand the nature of positive and negative liberty. If we do not see the distinction as a predominance of one set of value over another but as a way of articulating and conceptualising conflicting moral values, Constant will be a prime candidate for being a protagonist. 19 In this sense, I disagree with Biancamaria Fontana who claims that for Constant, unlike for Mill, ‘modern liberty, the protection of the private autonomy of the individual, was no metaphysical value’ (Fontana, 1988: 26–27). I think that Taylor’s reading of a ‘metaphysical’ aspect as a key feature of modern concepts of liberty is correct, as such concepts are premised on particular understanding of the moral constitution of the person. 20 Alan Kahan’s idea of ‘aristocratic liberalism’, which aimed to capture the essence of Mill, Tocqueville and Burckhardt’s scholarship, can throw light on Constant’s ideas as well. This is the liberalism not of the social aristocracy of the Old Regime, but of those who were in the Greek humanist sense ‘aristos’, or ‘the best, the elite’, who valued ‘diversity’ and believed in ‘primacy of individuality’. The case of Constant does not fully fit Kahan’s category as the category also captures ‘distaste for the masses and the middle classes’ (Kahan, 1992: 4–5). 21 Vincent takes the Constant quote from De la force du gouvernement actuel, pp. 367–68. 22 Constant’s egalitarianism is a complex and interesting topic on its own right. His commitment to the ideas of the French Revolution and indeed to the values of popular sovereignty was commented on in Section 3.1. In addition to the discussed naturalness of the religious sense as a ground for his egalitarianism, one could view his willingness to take individuals ‘as they are’ as a form of egalitarianism. According to Vincent, ‘Constant argued that modern societies must be more willing to take individuals as they are, which meant to take individuals as unheroic, self-regarding individuals looking, at least in peaceful times, for repose. The dispositions to be encouraged – those which would most likely contribute to legal and constitutional security – were the less-heroic “domestic virtues” like compassion and enthusiasm’ (2004: 20). 23 In this context political authorities are legitimate if they protect modern liberty. 24 For a summary of the three criteria see, the introduction of the book, Section 3 and Chapter Six, Section 5.

2 T.H. Green’s true freedom as the paradigm positive liberty concept

Introduction Green’s contribution to the theorisation of liberty cannot be overstated. First, I echo Nicholson and Simhony in claiming that he develops one of the most original, holistic and important understandings of liberty altogether.1 Second, Green lays out the most highly credited concept of positive freedom in political theory (Berlin, 2002a:180, 2002b: 41; Skinner, 2002: 240).2 Third, I argue that Green’s own dual conceptualisation of freedom – that is, of ‘juristic’ and ‘true’ freedom – allows us to articulate the most viable criterion for a distinction between positive and negative freedom (Dimova-Cookson, 2003). I believe that his dual conceptualisation is instrumental not only in justifying and explaining positive freedom – a concept that has been seen, traditionally, as more controversial than negative freedom and that has been sometimes fully rejected (Hayek, 2006; Weinstein, 1965; Nelson, 2005). It is also instrumental for developing a richer understanding of the mainstay concept of freedom, that is, negative freedom.3 Green’s vision of freedom ‘in the positive sense’ (Green, 1986b: 200) advances a cluster of analytical insights and normative ideas not fully appreciated by most who, following Berlin, see positive freedom in a very particular fashion. Green’s understanding of freedom as ‘the maximum of power for all members of human society alike to make the best of themselves’ (Green, 1986b: 200) sketches a view of freedom that is much broader than the standard, and not necessarily erroneous, depiction of positive liberty as self-mastery, self-fulfilment or commitment to moral perfection. Nicholson argues that Green’s theory provides ‘an intelligible sense of positive, or better, real freedom which incorporates negative freedom’ (Nicholson, 1990: 131). Along similar lines, Simhony claims that ‘Green employs a concept of freedom as opportunities and capacities’ (1993a: 41). Nussbaum recognises similarities between her capability approach and Green’s liberal ideas (Nussbaum, 2011: 124). Green’s theorisation of freedom sits at the heart of welfare politics (Bellamy, 1984; Freeden, 2005; Dimova-Cookson, 2012; Tyler, 2012b) – it is radical for its time and highly pertinent for ours. It anticipates contemporary ideas of freedom as development (Sen, 1980, 2009) and, as I will argue in the next chapter, the idea of freedom as ‘the capacity to command noninterference’ (Pettit, 1996: 589). In other words, Green has a major contribution to make

T.H. Green’s true freedom  63 not just to the theorising of positive freedom but also to the debate on how liberty should be understood in principle. In this context, he not only anticipates mainstream contemporary scholarship on liberty but also helps articulate new insights. In this chapter and the next, I will argue that Green is the first who shows that liberty is fundamentally premised on two interrelated phenomena: moral development and well-being improvement. T.H. Green (1836–82) was White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford, and he was recognised as the leading figure  of the school of British idealism. Under his influence philosophy started to be taught as an independent discipline, and he revolutionised the curriculum by introducing the study of the German philosophers including Kant, Hegel, Fichte and Lotze (Gaus and Sweet, 2001).4 However, Green ‘gave to Idealism a liberal aspect not always present in its German originals’ (Richter, 1964: 9). This liberal aspect became a key feature of his moral philosophy and his political theory, and it also affected his engagement with the broader non-academic community. Green was a member of the Liberal Party, a local councillor and an active campaigner for liberal reform of education. He fought in favour of legislative reforms aiming to alleviate poverty and the effects of alcohol consumption and the exploitation of workers and tenant farmers (Nicholson, 1997). Green’s highly regarded theories of political obligation, freedom and human rights5 were based on his understanding of the common good as a cultivated synthesis of personal and communal interests. I believe it is this unique vision of the common good6 – a concept that brought together morality and personal development – that gave his philosophy the capacity for a broader impact, particularly in advocating progressive liberal reform on moral and communitarian grounds.7 Green was a key influence behind the New Liberalism of L.T. Hobhouse and John Hobson (Simhony and Weinstein, 2001; Vincent, 2001; Weinstein, 2001; Freeden, 2005; Tyler, 2012a, 2012b) as well as the ethical socialism of R.H. Tawney (Carter, 2003). My study of Green’s theory of liberty will focus predominantly on two of his essays. The first, ‘On the Different Senses of “Freedom” as Applied to the Will and to the Moral Progress of Man’ (hereafter DSF), is based on the lectures on ‘The Theory of Duty’ Green gave to his Oxford students in 1879. As the title suggests, Green discusses freedom in relation to the will by pursuing the implications of the nature of human agency – that is, of human desire, motivation and reasoning – for the exercise of freedom. He reveals a constitutive link between freedom and moral development. It is in this moral philosophy context that Green discusses two senses of freedom that are different in an important way: juristic and true.8 Green’s second essay on liberty is the ‘Lecture on “Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract” ’ (hereafter LLL), given as an address at a gathering of the Leicester Liberal Association in January 1881 and published as a pamphlet the following month. In this lecture Green defends proposals for new legislation that would give workers and tenant farmers more rights and would restrict the sale of alcohol. Green shows that although this new legislation may seem to be illiberal as it aims to restrict freedom of contract and the unlimited consumption of liquor, it is, in fact, liberal in a more profound fashion. This political speech succeeded in making weighty

64  T.H. Green’s true freedom philosophical claims – nothing less than a redefinition of liberty in a manner that would transform the use of the concept thereafter. The juxtaposition of these two essays – one in moral and one in political philosophy – is a major asset of Green’s contribution to liberty. It allows him to examine liberty in two contexts and to explain it in very comprehensive and subtle terms. Green’s ‘two contexts’ study is indispensable for my analysis of the dual conceptualisation of freedom. The analysis of Green’s philosophy of liberty here starts with a focus on positive freedom: I  take Green’s concept of true freedom as developed in DSF as the paradigm concept of positive freedom. My overall understanding of positive freedom rests on my particular interpretation of Green’s true freedom. In essence, I narrow down the concept of positive freedom in a fashion that follows very closely DSF but goes some distance from the positive freedom of LLL. I argue that Green’s true freedom, and positive freedom in principle, should be seen as the acquisition of moral agency or attainment of excellence in a recognised field.9 But this ‘narrowness’ is justified. It allows me to show why and how there exist two viable concepts of freedom: a broad concept of positive freedom which incorporates development and engagement with meaningful activities takes too much away from the primary negative concept, or in the case of Green, juristic freedom. A narrower concept of positive freedom allows for a broader and more meaningful concept of negative freedom. Once positive freedom is firmly defined, it helps explain anew how negative freedom, as the ‘basic’ or the ‘mainstay’ concept of freedom, should be understood. I argue that Green’s juristic freedom from DSF and most of his positive freedom from LLL should be re-interpreted along the lines of a negative freedom concept. This negative freedom concept, as we will see in next chapter, has very little to do with freedom as non-interference and everything to do with freedom as capacity to do worthwhile things, to acquire (as opposed to have already attained) moral agency and to exercise control over one’s social environment. Green’s commentators, not unlike some of Constant’s critics, believe that Berlin’s dual conceptualisations of liberty should not be used as an analytical lens through which the British idealist’s ideas could be explained (Nicholson, 1990: 131; Simhony, 1993a: 38; Tyler, 2010a: 117). One reason for this is that Green’s freedom is a complex and rich concept which combines in an organic fashion aspects of both negative and positive freedom as defined by Berlin.10 My redefinition of the positive/negative freedom distinction addresses this problem. I believe that the richer and more complex concept of negative freedom which I articulate on the basis of Green’s juristic freedom from DSF and aspects of his positive freedom from LLL does capture Green’s most significant insights about the nature of liberty. But I also believe that a second concept of freedom along the lines of Green’s true freedom is crucial for a comprehensive conceptualisation of liberty. Although the positive freedom defended here is extreme, narrow and practised on an exceptional basis, it is vital in shaping the nature of negative freedom cast in an enlightened Greenian fashion. My analysis of Green’s theory of freedom will be developed in this chapter and the following one. The focus of this chapter is on Green’s concept of true freedom

T.H. Green’s true freedom  65 as a paradigm case of positive freedom. True freedom is the first of four of Green’s concepts that I will examine. In line with my analysis of freedom in the previous chapter, I  will show that Green’s dual conceptualisation of freedom works in two contexts: moral and political. This task is made easier by the fact that Green himself offers two studies of freedom in DSF and LLL, respectively. This parallel analysis of the dual conceptualisation leads to very significant conclusions. First, it shows that the political implications of the concepts of negative and positive freedom are very different from the ones spelled out by Berlin and generally accepted in political theory. Two big misconceptions are exposed: that negative freedom implies limited state action and that positive freedom implies mass exploitation of people in the name of big ideas. In fact, the situation is the opposite: the protection of negative freedom demands legislative reform in the direction of increased protection of the rights of workers and land tenants, and positive freedom implies enhanced levels of service to – not more exploitation of – the socially and economically disadvantaged. Second, the parallel study of the dual conceptualisation allows for a better understanding of the relationship between freedom and authorities. Following the conclusion of Chapter One, here I continue to claim that one of the key criteria for the positive/negative freedom distinction is relationship-to-­authorities. While negative freedom is exercised against authorities, positive freedom depends on some form of collaboration with them. This is the first distinction criterion this monograph endorses with two more to follow. As stated in the introduction of the book, this criterion echoes Berlin’s own words: those who pursue negative freedom ‘want to curb authority as such’ and those who aspire to exercise positive freedom ‘want it placed in their own hands’ (TCL: 212). Although the ­relation-to-authority criterion captures much of the essence of the positive/negative freedom distinction, it does not receive enough attention from Berlin himself. A crucial omission in his theory is a convincing explanation of how exactly the appropriation of authority constitutes an exercise of freedom. Green’s theory of liberty does this well – in a complex, multilayered fashion that has not received much attention so far. Sympathetic scholars may have resisted the examination of this link because it could affirm Berlin’s critique of positive freedom and thus weaken Green’s defence of it. But this link is crucial for the dual conceptualisation of liberty and for the legitimacy of Constant’s defence of modern liberty and Berlin’s defence of negative liberty. It is also crucial for the understanding of the political implications of both positive and negative liberty. A correct understanding of the link between positive freedom and authorities will defuse the critique that commitment to positive freedom signals failure to accept value pluralism (TCL: 212–17).11 The study of Green’s true freedom in this chapter will start to uncover the complex relationship between positive freedom and authority. For Green the concept of authority is derivative from his concept of the common good. So in order to explain how authorities impact upon liberty, one needs to understand first how the common good is constitutive of liberty. As this chapter will show, true freedom is premised on Green’s understanding of moral action and, implicitly, the common

66  T.H. Green’s true freedom good. Indeed, it is the discussion of Green’s true freedom and my attempt to ‘cut’ the concept in a fashion that makes it viable in its own right yet sufficiently distinct from a mainstay concept of freedom that leads to the articulation of the second criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction. According to it, negative freedom is based on a pursuit of personal well-being, while positive freedom is based on the acquisition of moral agency. This second criterion throws light on and consolidates the first. If we see authorities as embodying the common good, we acquire a more specific vision about what positive freedom is and why it is desirable. Basing our vision of authority on Green’s understanding of the common good also helps develop a critical angle towards existing institutions. This more nuanced understanding of authorities which Green’s philosophy affords us may seem to challenge the positive/negative freedom distinction because it hollows out the legitimacy of Berlin’s negative freedom. If authorities can be good, then they cannot be seen, as Berlin sees them, as compromising negative liberty by default. But we will see that understanding authority through the lens of the common good would allow us to explain more precisely the tension between authorities and negative freedom.12 This chapter continues with a summary of the main themes of DSF and then turns to the sketching the three features of true freedom and notes the exclusive and narrow nature of the concept. I initially challenge Green’s decision to define true freedom so narrowly, and I turn to his more specific arguments in order to show the implications of his theory of the will for the broader understanding of freedom. A closer study of Green’s argument reveals how important the link between freedom and satisfaction is. He shows that freedom is primarily defined by the nature of the object one pursues and only secondarily through the nature of the obstacles. We see that the quality of one’s action affects levels of satisfaction; hence, understanding the dynamics of satisfaction proves crucial in explaining how freedom works. I argue that by seeing ‘the progressive nature of satisfaction’, we are in a better position to understand the experience of real freedom. This, in turn, throws light on the link between development and freedom. I argue, however, that Green’s true freedom does not capture the entire process of development but only its point of completion. Once we have succeeded in outlining a viable concept of true freedom, we are in a position to examine constructively the link between freedom and authorities. In the end I show how the normative aspect of true freedom allows us to address critics’ concerns about Green’s spiritualistic or moralistic account of human agency. True freedom should not be seen as natural or necessary but as possible and desirable. It is the ‘second’ concept of freedom, and as such it leaves a lot of space for the ‘first’ one. But we will see that this first, or mainstay, concept could be understood in the light of what we find out about true freedom.

1 Analytical reconstruction of On the Different Senses of ‘Freedom’ DSF is a complex lecture as Green’s arguments are articulated within several thematic contexts. First, as the title suggests, Green tries to position his ideas in the

T.H. Green’s true freedom  67 context of the free will versus determinism debate. Second, he attempts to explain his theory against the background of Kant’s and Hegel’s ideas of freedom – ideas which are the closest to, yet still different from, his own. Finally, he also wants to situate his discussion of freedom in the context of the broader and most conventional understanding of freedom as an exemption from compulsion by others. Each layer adds complexity which makes it hard to summarise the contents of the lecture in a straightforward and continuous narrative. I will turn to all these three thematic contexts in turn, moving from the least to the most significant. The title of the lecture indicates that freedom here is analysed in relation to the will, and the reader will expect that Green has something to say about the free will versus determinism debate. Yet Green is keen to set this debate aside as he believes it is based on the wrong questions and produces unhelpful answers. But the discussion of the ‘free-will controversy’ (DSF: 236) occupies about a third of the overall lecture and helps explain why Green’s approach to freedom, although focused on ‘the inner man’ (DSF: 240), is nonetheless outside the scope of the ‘free will’ debate. The free will controversy as pursued by the ‘English psychologists’ Locke, Berkeley and Hume aims to establish the freedom of the will on the basis of whether the will is determined by external motives or not. If it is so determined, it is not free, and if it is not so determined, it is free. On the terms of this debate, freedom is ‘exemption from determination by motives, or the constitution by [oneself] of the motives which determine his will’ (DSF: 240). The solution of the free will debate, whichever way it goes, is always wholesale: one is either fully free or not free at all. Green finds it problematic that the terms of the debate do not allow us to assess more subtly the actions of the same person so that some of these actions are seen as free while others are not. He also finds it problematic that some motives are considered to be external, while others are seen as produced by the agent and viewed as internal, where only the latter allow for free agency. Green rejects the possibility of external motives. He argues that all things that spur us to action become motives as a result of being internalised. The will is always directed towards objects in which the individual seeks ‘self-satisfaction’. In the opening line of DSF, Green claims that ‘in all willing a man is an object to himself’ (DSF: 228).13 This means that all objects of desire have been internalised by the agent and that external motives do not exist. The backdrop of the free will controversy is important as it helps us understand the terminology in which Green expresses his ideas from the start of the lecture. Green’s opening lines state that ‘a man in willing is necessarily free’ and that ‘ “free will” is a pleonasm = “free freedom” ’ (DSF: 228). The claim is that the will is free by default as willing is always directed towards internalised objects. This makes sense in the context of the free will debate: if we are not determined by external motives, we are free. And this is what Green states to be the case. But what he tries to show at the same time is that establishing this does not tell us much about freedom. Indeed for him, this is the starting point of enquiry about the real meaning of freedom. In this sense the free will debate is not irrelevant to Green’s own enquiry – it does not take us to the distinct arguments Green wants to make, but it establishes the terrain for them. The nature of human agency, human

68  T.H. Green’s true freedom willing, objects of desire and satisfaction – all these issues are hugely relevant for the discussion of freedom Green himself wants to initiate. With this in mind, we are in a better position to appreciate what Green tells us in the opening paragraph of DSF. There he puts in a nutshell his entire view on what freedom is. Green argues that we are free or not, depending on the object we desire. Although we seek satisfaction in all the objects of desire, we find it only in some, and only then we are really free. The objects in which satisfaction and, therefore, freedom are found are those that contribute to ‘the realisation of the seeker’s possibilities or his progress towards perfection’ (DSF: 228). Freedom is found in ‘the fulfilment of the law of our being’, ‘by making its fulfilment the object of [our] will’. Only in the fulfilment of this law, or in the attainment of perfection, can a proper satisfaction be found: ‘not the satisfaction of this or that desire, but that satisfaction, otherwise called peace or blessedness which consists in the whole man having found his object’ (DSF: 228–29). This is what later in the lecture Green will call ‘true’ freedom, but as early as the opening section, we can see its main characteristics: commitment to a moral law, development of human faculties and attainment of some form of complete satisfaction. Green’s understanding of freedom distances him from the ‘English psychologists’ who do not base their adjudication of freedom on assessing the quality of one’s action, that is, on whether this action is good or bad (DSF: 239). His views position him close to ‘the Stoics, St Paul, Kant, and Hegel’, according to whom the attainment of freedom ‘depends on the character of the objects willed’ (DSF: 239). While for the participants of the free will debate, the division which determined the freedom of agency lay between internal and external motivation, the division which sets the limits of freedom for the above-listed thinkers is between the good and the bad will. According to them – and, to an extent, Green also endorses this – ‘[t]he good will is free, not the bad will’ (DSF: 239). It is at this point of the evolution of the ideas of freedom where Green makes his crucial contribution: he wants to avoid the schism between the good and the bad will. He believes that although this distinction is crucial in explaining the possibility and the nature of freedom, one should not allow it to result in a disjoint vision of the self. Green saw St Paul and Plato as typical examples of such disjoint vision where St Paul spoke ‘as if there was nothing in common between the carnal or natural man and the spiritual man’, and Plato represented ‘virtuous actions as coming from the God in man, vicious actions from the beast’ (DSF: 239–40). Conversely, Green praises Kant and Hegel for taking significant steps towards recognising ‘the common characteristic of all willing’ and that in good and bad actions alike, one is not determined by external motives. More importantly, the good and the bad will still belong to the same person, but they represent different stages of her development (DSF: 240). But although Kant and Hegel have taken some of the right steps towards bridging the two sides of a disjoint self, Green is the first to think through the implications of this unity of the will. What he argues is that one is free even when the will is directed towards the wrong object, that is, in some sense, even the bad will is free. It is at this juncture where the importance of ‘the different senses of freedom’, as declared in the title of the lecture,

T.H. Green’s true freedom  69 becomes obvious. ‘True’ freedom is one of the senses of freedom – indeed the most important sense. It is the real freedom, according to Green.14 But there are other senses of freedom, like ‘juristic’ freedom, which corresponds to the earlier stages of development – stages where the freedom one enjoys is not yet true freedom but is freedom nonetheless. I argue in this chapter that one of the most significant aspects of Green’s discussion of freedom in DSF is the depiction of the process of moral development which underpins the rationale of true freedom.15 Green’s story of the different senses of freedom outlines a process through which the pursuit of juristic f­reedom – to be explained shortly in more detail – develops into the pursuit of true freedom. Indeed, after he has sketched the meaning of true freedom in the opening paragraph, Green takes a step back so that he starts his narrative from a different vantage point. He acknowledges that he has assumed that there is such a thing as a ‘law of our being’ on which true freedom depends. The rest of the lecture is dedicated to making his case for this. His new starting point is freedom as conventionally understood – that is, juristic freedom which expresses ‘a social and political relation or one man to others’ (DSF: 229). In other words, the foundation of Green’s true freedom story is not in a particular metaphysics of the will – even if his theory of the will is going to play a crucial role – but in the conventional understanding of freedom as exemption from compulsion by others. It is the relation between this ‘primary’ or ‘juristic’ sense of freedom and freedom in its ‘true’ sense where one of Green’s significant contributions to the theorisation of liberty lies. I argue that the process of development is at the heart of the exercise of freedom and that without a concept of true freedom, we would not be able to understand the nature of this development. How many senses of freedom does Green discuss in the DSF? The answer is not straightforward. What is important to establish is not just the number of the senses but the dynamic between the different senses. It is this dynamic that tells us a lot about how freedom should be understood, why the general distinction between positive and negative freedom discussed in this monograph is significant, and how it works. I believe Nicholson is right in claiming that Green discusses three senses of freedom (Nicholson, 1990: 116–22). The first is ‘formal freedom’, and it reflects the formal nature of the will. As discussed already, and to be discussed further in this and the next chapter, our will is such that it makes us free by default. The will is our capacity for freedom. This sense of freedom, although discussed in DSF, does not receive much analytical attention in its own right.16 The second sense of freedom is juristic freedom, also referred to as ‘primary’, which reflects the most conventional understanding of freedom as an exemption from compulsion by others (DSF: 241). It is similar to formal freedom to the extent that it does not specify the nature of ‘the objects willed or preferred’ (DSF: 234). But unlike formal freedom, it does include reference to social relations, that is, to the fact that one is ‘secured from compulsion’ (DSF: 234). True freedom is the third sense of freedom: it is obtained when one reaches ‘the state in which he shall have realised his ideal of himself, shall be at one with the law which he recognises as that he ought to obey, shall have become all that he has it in him to be’ (DSF: 241). One is truly free in the acquisition of moral agency and in reaching the full development of one’s capacities.

70  T.H. Green’s true freedom Nicholson sees these three senses as linked in a dialectical sequence of Hegelian type (Nicholson, 1990: 120). Although I am not unsympathetic to this reading, I would argue that the important senses of freedom are two rather than three, that is, the main dynamics is that within the conceptual couples of either formal and true freedoms or of juristic and true freedoms. The limelight of DSF is on juristic and true freedoms, and it is the relation between these two that I shall examine in more depth in the following sections. As I said in the opening of this section, the third and most important context in which true freedom is explained is that of the conventional understanding of freedom, captured by the juristic sense: ‘freedom as exemption from external control’ (DSF: 241). DSF does take us into a discussion of freedom in the context of the nature of human agency, will and morality, but as already mentioned, Green himself approaches the free will debate with a lot of caution. In fact, his main objective is to elicit an understanding of freedom that can inform political decisions as much as moral philosophic debate. Early into DSF he declares that ‘every usage of freedom to express anything but a social and political relation of one man to others involves a metaphor’ (DSF: 229) and repeats this point several times throughout. The lecture does, however, examine in more detail precisely this ‘metaphorical’ sense of freedom where freedom is understood as ‘the state of the will’ or as ‘the notion of states of the inner man’ (DSF: 240) rather than relation between persons. It becomes obvious that true freedom is significantly different from the primary sense of freedom, thus raising the question about why a repeated reference to the ‘metaphor’ is being made. Why is it so important for Green to keep in sight the departure point of the metaphor, if the metaphor will turn out to be the real thing? The difference between the juristic sense of freedom and true freedom is significant, because for the juristic sense, ‘some exemption from compulsion by others’ (DSF: 229) is definitive, while true freedom is predominantly defined through the nature of the object one aims to achieve. Juristic freedom focuses on the existence of an obstacle to our will, whereas true freedom focuses on the contents of the object of our will. The distance between the metaphor and the primary sense is substantial as the message advanced here is that we would never understand freedom properly unless we understood what it is we aim to achieve in our pursuit of freedom, and we would know this only on the basis of a proper understanding of the will. In defining freedom, Green shows us that the nature of our objective is primary and the obstacle secondary. However, I believe that the repetition of the claim that true freedom is a metaphor is symbolic of his acknowledgement that the primary, or the juristic, sense of freedom derived from awareness of obstacles to our will is nonetheless significant.17 Although the primary understanding will be deemed deficient, it is persistently kept in the frame. This is indicative of Green’s ambition to apply his understanding of true freedom to the analysis of the political environment as he does in LLL.18 Also, the metaphor claim couples juristic freedom with the analysis of true freedom on a permanent basis. This two-freedom frame of the discussion is important because of the process through which Green would make his case for the cogency

T.H. Green’s true freedom 71 of true freedom. In other words, it plays a methodological role. He will constantly rely on our experience and intuitions about freedom: the true sense of freedom will be tested against these intuitions. Green will show that true freedom feels like freedom as it shares characteristics with primary freedom: it carries the sense of fighting obstacles.19 This reinforces the claim I made earlier: Green does not base his true freedom on an assumption about what is right but on a permanent reference to our experience, with strong focus on moral experience. In this sense, juristic freedom is the freedom everyone can recognise as freedom and use as a permanent reference point.

2 The features of true freedom True freedom has several definitive features which reflect certain characteristics of human will. The definitive features of true freedom, as Green sees them, are as follows: (1) it is based on achieving ultimate satisfaction, (2) it is found in the full development of our faculties and (3) it consists in the acquisition of moral agency. These features of true freedom reflect important aspects of the human will: (1) human action is premised on the pursuit of satisfaction; (2) human faculties can develop if the right steps are taken, and the more developed they are, the more satisfaction their exercise generates; and (3) we have the capacity to adjust personal interests to the common good and experience satisfaction in contributing to the well-being of others. Put briefly, human agency is such that true freedom is possible. True freedom reflects the state of human perfection, but the nature of this perfection is already embedded in the features of human agency. But which way round is it? Does the vision and knowledge of the perfection underpinning true freedom explain the nature of human agency in general? Is Green’s theory a teleological one, propelled by the apprehension of a final goal? Or is it the other way round: Green looks at how human beings here and now think and act, and on this basis, establishes a pattern with a particular logic and trajectory? Is it then this pattern that leads to the vision of perfection and true freedom accordingly? To a considerable extent, Green is doing the second. His analysis of the ‘inner’ freedom is permanently tested against the (typically) conventional juristic freedom, and, as we shall see, his main polemical points rest on the appeal to the experience of ‘any popular audience’ (DSF: 229, 242). True freedom is not an ideal held by an eternal consciousness but one articulated by a moral philosopher on the grounds of its possibility and desirability. I will take the following steps in my analysis of Green’s true freedom. I will start by focusing on the ‘exclusive and narrow’ nature of its features, and I will question and challenge it. I will show that if we look at what is important about the experience of freedom, we will discover the progressive nature of satisfaction and argue that one of the most significant discoveries of DSF is that freedom is underpinned by a process of development. Yet, once we try to explain the nature and content of this development, we will see the exclusive and narrow aspects

72  T.H. Green’s true freedom of true freedom in a new light. We will see that although the human capacity for general improvement of faculties is essential for the experience of liberty, it is the nature of moral development which could resolve the ethical problems of the juristic meaning of freedom. There is a common element in these three previously mentioned characteristics (1 to 3) of true freedom: they all represent a form of achievement or completion. In this sense true freedom is of an exclusive nature: it reflects the ultimate point of a process but not the process itself. This achievement or completion aspect of true freedom marks, according to Green, one of the significant differences between juristic and true freedoms. While juristic freedom is the freedom of ‘possibility’ or opportunity, true freedom is the freedom of a successful achievement of human perfection. This is how Green himself expresses this difference while describing the deficiency of juristic freedom: ‘It is a form of self-enjoyment, however, which consists essentially in the feeling by the subject of a possibility rather than a reality, of what it has in itself to become, not of what it actually is’ (DSF: 241, emphasis added). True freedom consists in the feeling of reality, not of what you could be but of having become it. Juristic freedom is open-ended and carries an unknown future, whereas true freedom is based on an accomplished end and is an occupancy of a cherished terrain. The big question now is why completion constitutes a distinct meaning of freedom. How could there be such a categorical difference between, on the one hand, opportunity or possibility or process and, on the other hand, achievement or completion? Obviously these are different things, but how can they be categorically opposed to each other to an extent that warrants two distinct concepts of liberty? Could the difference between a process and the successful completion of a process have such significant consequences? Indeed, theorists of liberty would be tempted to say that freedom should reflect the opportunity, the possibility, at most the process but not the point of completion. A closer scrutiny of Green’s theory of the nature of the will would allow us to address this issue and demonstrate the sense in which completion is constitutive of freedom. I will argue that the difference between true freedom and juristic freedom is not so much that true freedom completes what juristic freedom sets in motion but that true freedom reflects a qualitatively different state of the will that opens up opportunities of a different nature to those of juristic freedom. Without a certain level of character development, moral action will not be experienced as free. The concept of true freedom reflects the particular interdependence between personal development and moral action. True freedom would not exist as a distinct concept of freedom if it reflected solely self-improvement or self-realisation. The acquisition of moral agency, understood as developing the disposition for serving the common good, is the key aspect of true freedom. But let me return to my challenge of the exclusive and narrow aspect of true freedom as premised on the ultimate point of achievement to the exclusion of the process leading to this achievement. My critique is based on observing the crucial role played by satisfaction for the argument of DSF.

T.H. Green’s true freedom  73

3 Freedom and satisfaction For Green, the will, freedom and satisfaction are mutually definitive. Three points are to be noted here: the will is always free, the will is always directed towards satisfaction and all actions have an element of rationality in the sense that we are conscious of ourselves as authors of our actions. For Green, human will is free by default: his term ‘formal freedom’ reflects his understanding that the will is always free. It is our faculty for freedom. Also, the will is always directed towards satisfaction. Green claims that ‘in all willing a man is his own object to himself’ (DSF: 228) which means that the objects of one’s will are objects in which one seeks satisfaction. One’s will is always directed towards an object ‘which the man makes his own, or with which he identifies himself’ (DSF: 228). Formal freedom is premised on two things: that the will is always directed towards satisfaction and that this process is always to some extent rational. Will and reason are not identical as some form of ‘the reconciliation of will and reason’ is necessary for the attainment of true freedom (DSF: 246). However, the will always has elements of reason in the sense that one is always conscious of the objects in which one seeks satisfaction. Green defines ‘reason’ as ‘self-determining principle operating in man as his will’ (DSF: 231). His concept of ‘the self-distinguishing, self-seeking, self-asserting principle’ (DSF: 234) implies that every object which we pursue has been first internalised by us; it has been seen as an object in which we could find satisfaction. This process of adopting or internalising the object puts a human stamp on it. This is not a fully fledged rational process, but it is rational to the extent that it is self-conscious. The selfconsciousness bestows ‘authorship’ onto human action: ‘[T]he man is a free agent in the act because, through his identification of himself with a certain desired object – through his adoption of it as his good – he makes the motive which determines the act and is accordingly conscious of himself as its author’ (DSF: 228). So the function of the will, which is the pursuit of satisfaction, is always to some extent rational, because in every act of willing, one is self-conscious as one is aware of the implicit choices one makes through one’s actions. If we were to look at the way Green defines the will and freedom, and we had to pinpoint what exactly makes the will thus defined free, we could say that freedom is derived from this permanent orientation towards the self and this permanent presence of some form of rationality, seen as authorship or self-consciousness. True freedom is different from formal freedom. The complexity of the process of satisfaction introduces complexity in the notion of freedom. We seek freedom by seeking satisfaction, but we do not find satisfaction in all objects we pursue. The fact that the will is always free and seeks satisfaction by default does not mean satisfaction is always found. Simply following our will does not guarantee us satisfaction, and therefore, the freedom of our will, that is, formal freedom, could be of little value. Freedom does not acquire its value until we find satisfaction. If we see and accept this, we can then appreciate how much the understanding of freedom depends on the dynamic of satisfaction: explaining this dynamic

74  T.H. Green’s true freedom in a particular fashion is one of Green’s key contributions to the theorisation of liberty. The fact that the intention to find satisfaction is always there, but not the success of finding it, indicates a problem: this is a problem to which formal freedom does not, but true freedom does, have a solution. Green argues that satisfaction is only to be found if we seek it in the right object. It is possible, however, to seek satisfaction in the wrong objects, and then it will not be found. There are several leads about what counts as the right object. A right object is one whose attainment contributes towards ‘the realisation of the seeker’s possibilities or his progress towards perfection’(DSF: 228); one which accords ‘to the law of his being’ which is ‘the law which determines where this satisfaction is to be found’; it has to be sought in the right ‘spirit’(DSF: 228); we cannot have a full possession of this object ‘which we only approach to fall away from it again’; and we are drawn to it as it is an object ‘of which we know enough’ (DSF: 229). There is a problem, however. Although we know about, and are drawn towards, the objects in which we will find satisfaction, we ‘ordinarily’ desire the wrong objects. This is because ‘we have not brought ourselves to “gladly do and suffer what we must” ’ (DSF: 229). So the nature of the will is such that it is simultaneously pulled in two opposite directions: the ‘law of our being’ guides it towards the objects where true satisfaction will be found, but actual desires steer it towards the wrong objects. This double pull is captured well in the following quote: ‘a man is subject to a law of his being, in virtue of which he at once seeks satisfaction, and is prevented from finding it in the objects which he actually desires, and in which he ordinarily seeks it’ (DSF: 229). Put in this way, however, the link between true freedom and satisfaction is not very enlightening. The previously quoted segments convey an assumption that only true freedom is properly satisfying, yet we do not have much insight about why exactly certain objects of desire are more satisfying than others. Such insights are provided by Green in his discussion of the frustration we experience when our faculties are underdeveloped. This allows us to see the fashion in which we tend to attain greater satisfaction and correspondingly acquire more freedom.

4 The progressive nature of satisfaction and the development that underpins it There are several major quotes that enliven the argumentation of DSF and tend to convince its readers that what Green has to say about true freedom is relevant to the understanding of freedom in general. Green acknowledges that a general audience could be sceptical towards his endorsement of true freedom over and above juristic freedom. Such audience would be reluctant to accept a definition of freedom that sidelines the significance of unimpeded action in favour of a focus on the quality of agency, either in terms of moral perfection or in terms of development of human faculties. But this is what he has to say to such sceptics: To any popular audience interested in any work of self-improvement (e.g. to a temperance-meeting seeking to break the bondage to liquor), it is as an effort

T.H. Green’s true freedom 75 to attain freedom that such work can be most effectively presented. . . . Still the feeling of oppression, which always goes along with the consciousness of unfulfilled possibilities, will always give meaning to the representation of the effort after any kind of self-improvement as a demand for ‘freedom’. (DSF: 242) Here I  would like to focus on what makes Green’s observation so compelling. I believe it is his reference to the process of self-improvement and the feeling of dissatisfaction which accompanies the frustration of this process that makes a powerful point. First, the feeling of overcoming an obstacle to a valuable objective is one that is typically associated with a strong sense of freedom. This allows Green to show that such freedom has a deep similarity with the primary sense of freedom. Overcoming obstacles, whether of external or internal nature, is liberating. And note that the freedom at stake here does not rest on a metaphysical assumption of right or wrong but on an experience recognisable by a ‘popular audience’. Second, this observation shows the way in which the human capacity for improvement casts a particular light on the nature of satisfaction. It can explain what makes satisfaction temporary and what makes it longer lasting. Because development is a process of permanent change, the failure to keep up with it leads to frustration. Put briefly, the only way to keep satisfaction lasting is to keep developing. What I try to show is that working out the pattern in which we attain satisfaction is crucial for understanding fully Green’s theory of true freedom. I suggest this pattern is found in what I call ‘the progressive nature of satisfaction’. The importance of freedom reflects the level of satisfaction derived from an action. The idea is that the more satisfaction one experiences in a particular action, the more important the freedom to perform that action is. So much so, we could say that the difference between being free and not free, in the primary sense of freedom, is not as significant as the difference between failing to reach satisfaction within a free action20 and succeeding in reaching it. Put in another way, the significant differences between levels of satisfaction occur not so much depending on whether one is free or not free in the juristic sense but depending on whether one pursues a satisfying or non-satisfying object. Therefore, understanding the logic according to which some objects are more satisfying than others is vital, and as mentioned, my proposal is that for Green satisfaction is progressive in nature. It is progressive due to the fact that because human agency is capable of developing, every achievement is only temporarily satisfying. Thus, continuous satisfaction can be based only on a sustained process of development. The nature of the development Green consistently refers to is that of human faculties. But this type of development, as related to freedom, is always seen by Green in parallel with the development of moral capacities. As he repeatedly states, satisfaction can only be found in the pursuit of the ‘right’ object, and this ‘right’ has clear moral connotations. This brings us back to the question we asked earlier: is Green presuming what the right thing is – or what exactly the state of perfection rests on – or is he deducing it from analysis of human experience?

76  T.H. Green’s true freedom While his claim that human beings have faculties that can develop could be generally accepted, the claim that morally good acts are more satisfying might meet the reader’s scepticism. The way to resolve this difficulty would be by showing that satisfaction without further specification does not suffice to demonstrate how the acquisition of moral agency constitutes true freedom.21 But it plays a crucial role in helping Green articulate the intertwined processes of faculty development and moral development. What we need to show at this juncture is that true freedom offers something which juristic freedom is unable to offer. We can see that the process of explaining true freedom leads to appreciating the link between the significance of objectives and levels of satisfaction. This, in turn, guides us towards the analysis of the quality of our objectives. And the latter takes us to the development of human faculties. We can learn more about the nature and the purpose of the development Green refers to by returning to his claim that juristic freedom captures only the ‘possibility’, while true freedom the ‘reality’, of what we could ultimately be. The question still remains of why, for the purposes of explaining freedom, the ‘possibility’ is not enough. In other words, why it is the case that Green defines true freedom in the exclusive and narrow sense of completion as opposed to the broader terms of the process leading to it? The reply to this is that Green does want to show how true freedom is categorically different from juristic freedom. There are two problems with juristic freedom. The first is that it is incomplete and open-ended. The following quote throws good light on the reasons why. The second problem, which I will discuss in the next section, is that it is confrontational and thus creates a moral difficulty. This is how Green explains the incompleteness of juristic freedom. He argues that it is a stepping stone in the process of obtaining true freedom. It is ‘an achievement’ in its own right and ‘a first satisfaction . . . which is the condition of all other satisfaction’. To a captive on first winning his liberty, as to a child in the early experience of power over his limbs and through them over material things, this feeling of boundless possibility of becoming may give real joy; but gradually the sense of what it is not – of the very little that it amounts to – must predominate over the sense of actual good as attained in it. Further he adds that ‘to the grown man, bred to civil liberty in a society which has learnt to make nature its instrument, there is no self-enjoyment in the mere consciousness of freedom as exemption from external control, no sense of an object in which he can satisfy himself having been obtained’ (DSF: 241). The idea here is that even if juristic freedom is sought and is satisfying, the ‘self-enjoyment’ it brings is short lived. It is true that we want freedom from obstruction even if we are not certain what to do with it. Being unimpeded is a value in its own right. But being unimpeded is not a long-term objective. The obstacles we set aside in our pursuit of freedom are not absolute: they are specific obstacles to specific objectives. Once our specific objective is achieved, we

T.H. Green’s true freedom 77 are likely to turn to a new objective and face a new barrier. A broken barrier to an old objective no longer gives one a sense of freedom. A continuous sense of freedom, or sense of satisfaction from overcoming an obstacle, is possible only if we have the capacity to sustain a process of achieving objectives. That implies a capacity to fight newly emerging barriers to newly emerging objectives. But the barriers we face to what we want to achieve are not necessarily placed by others. Overcoming internal barriers can be as liberating as overcoming external ones. The important observation here is that the satisfaction we experience in attaining freedom is based primarily on the quality of the objective and secondarily, or derivatively, on the enjoyment of overcoming obstacles. The progressive nature of satisfaction shows how fundamentally development is linked to freedom. Development places us in an environment of change, where new obstacles emerge and need overcoming: it puts us in an environment of seeking freedom all the time. Furthermore, development, particularly in terms of developing one’s capacities, is enabling and makes us better at achieving things: it allows us to achieve a greater number of objectives and to combat successfully bigger obstacles. What Green shows is that true freedom, unlike primary or juristic freedom, is not only an unobstructed will. It is an unobstructed will directed towards a satisfying object – and now we know how satisfaction works. A lasting satisfaction is possible if we are in a process of sustained achievement, that is, it is progressive. We are free if we are in a process of development. We can maintain the sense of freedom by doing things that keep a horizon for future enjoyment open. Being on a developmental track seems to be such a thing. The problem with juristic freedom is not so much that it is only a ‘possibility’ and not a ‘reality’, as Green says. The problem is that it is essentially incomplete, so to say; that it does not contain a horizon for development. I would like to return to my challenge of the exclusive nature of Green’s definition of true freedom. What I have argued so far not only vindicates Green to some extent but also reinforces the ground of my challenge. Green’s intention to show a significant difference between true and juristic freedom is justified. The definition of juristic freedom as ‘exemption from external control’ (DSF: 241) does not afford it the conceptual remit needed for the analysis of the dynamics of human willing and the nature of satisfaction. But we have also seen that once we understand this dynamics we discover a correlation between freedom and development. This correlation demonstrates that freedom can legitimately be seen in terms of possibility and not just of reality. Therefore, it can be argued that Green does not need to define true freedom in an exclusive and narrow fashion. This in itself is no fatal blow to Green’s argument, but it does challenge the claim that both the juristic and the true freedom concepts represent two distinct senses of freedom. One of the conclusions of my re-assessment of Green’s argument is that juristic freedom is a deficient concept, and we need a new one, along the lines of Green’s true freedom, but more broadly defined. The comparison of the juristic and true senses has shown that only true freedom captures something without which freedom could not be properly understood. It seems that true freedom has

78  T.H. Green’s true freedom taken on board all that is valuable in juristic freedom – that is, the enjoyment of overcoming an obstacle – and has also added a crucial new element. Thus, one could conclude that it is not a real second sense of freedom but the only real sense. True freedom, it could be argued, pace Green, should not be seen as based on the state of perfection; it should be seen as reflecting the process of development which leads towards some form of full realisation of one’s capacities. This line of interpretation is highly plausible, but it would not be the one I would ultimately defend. I argue that even if freedom, properly understood, should be based on a process of personal development as it reflects one’s capacity to pursue progressive satisfaction, there is still a second sense of freedom along the lines of true freedom in its standard narrow definition. This is because, among other things to be discussed shortly, we need some understanding of the aim of the developmental process in order to understand the process itself. My emphasis on seeing freedom as based on personal development tallies well with Green’s ambition to overcome the weakness of some of his predecessors like the Stoics, St Paul and Kant. Although they have been right to associate freedom with the quality of the objects one aims to realise, they have been wrong to posit a rift between the good and the bad will. So Green has undertaken the hard task of adopting a distinction between good and bad yet avoiding the potential conclusions that people are either good or bad or that, if they act differently, they do so on behalf of different selves. Green insists that ‘if we use such language, it must be borne in mind that the pure and empirical egos are still not two egos but one ego’ (DSF: 243). It is through the process of development that the empirical ego acquires or at least approximates the characteristics of the pure ego. The language of ‘state[s]’ of development, ‘stage[s] of existence’ and ‘moral progress’ (DSF: 239, 243, 248), and the corresponding different senses of freedom, is distinctly present in DSF. More specifically, Green refers repeatedly to the process of selfimprovement, and I will shortly discuss passages from Prolegomena to Ethics (hereafter PE) where he explains the process of embracing the common good. So although he does not explicitly link freedom and development, this link channels well most of his significant theoretical commitments.

5 True freedom as acquisition of moral agency My reading of DFS as providing strong argumentation in favour of a link between personal development and freedom suggests a minor modification of some of Green’s claims. For example, Green’s famous statement about ‘the feeling of oppression, which always goes along with the consciousness of unfulfilled possibilities’ (DSF: 242, emphasis added) could be qualified. I would suggest that the ‘feeling of oppression’ would come only if one were not on the path of fulfilment. One would be frustrated not so much if one’s possibilities were not fully realised but if one were not even in a position to start fulfilling them, that is, if fulfilment were not available even as a prospect. So if I am right in this reading, then we do not need a second concept of freedom as ‘reality’ in addition to freedom as ‘possibility’: a single improved concept of freedom, that captures the essence of

T.H. Green’s true freedom  79 ‘possibility’, would be sufficient. True freedom will not be a second concept of freedom – as the most viable freedom, it will be the concept we need – and its definition will have to be adjusted: it has to be made broader and include the process of development as well as the state of perfection.22 But as I have said already, I would not endorse this interpretation. True freedom has been defined in exclusive and narrow terms for good reasons. Without understanding these reasons, we are likely to reject the link between freedom and development altogether. I will turn to two related reasons for defining true freedom as based on the full development of one’s faculties, as opposed to the process towards this – for defining it as marking the full, as opposed to the partial, acquisition of moral agency. First, once we understand the nature of moral agency, we will see that only when a certain level of development is already accomplished is one able to act freely as a moral agent. Second, and related to the first reason, the pursuit of true freedom rests on a turning point: transition into true freedom is at the same time moving out of the exercise of freedom based on personal well-being. It is this turning point that is at the heart of the need for two different concepts of freedom. I argue that true freedom should be understood as a second distinct concept of freedom as it is based on the need of a turning point. The progression from the freedom of improvement to the freedom of perfection is both gradual and dependent on passing a threshold. This will be clear once we pay more attention to what Green means by perfection. When he discusses the attainment of true freedom, he always refers to two things which he takes as interconnected. The full development of one’s faculties is only one of them. True freedom is also ‘the goal of moral endeavour’ (DSF: 242). It is attained in a person’s becoming not just ‘what he has in him to be’ but also ‘what he should be . . . in fulfilment of the law of his being – or to vary the words but not the meaning, in attainment of the righteousness of God, or in perfect obedience to self-imposed law’ (DSF: 240–41). I believe that the moral dimension of true freedom is more important than the faculty improvement one. Moral agency can be defined in a sufficiently clear fashion and thus could work as a final goal. One could not say what exactly the full development of one’s capabilities would look like. Green’s vision of perfection always rests on reference to moral agency. Perfection23 for Green means, as the previous quote suggests, ‘perfect obedience to self-imposed law’. It means unreserved adoption of an unsparing service to the common good. The clarity of the ideal is derived from its moral content. The moral content of true freedom is also linked to the moral problem posed by juristic freedom. In the previous section, I discussed why juristic freedom was essentially incomplete. Now we could turn our attention to the second problem it poses: juristic freedom opens a moral problem because it is achieved through confrontation with others. It is about ‘a man’s assertion of himself against other men’ (DSF: 241). If the definitive feature of juristic freedom is ‘exemption from external control’ (DSF: 241), then more juristic freedom would lead to less impact from others. Thus, investing in one’s freedom would not be an investment in human fellowship but detraction from it. True freedom offers a solution to this moral problem: it enhances one’s freedom by enhancing one’s bond with others. We could put this in stronger terms: juristic

80  T.H. Green’s true freedom freedom expands by diminishing the impact of authorities; true freedom relies on and employs authorities in its exercise. This will receive more attention in Section 6. Here I would like to turn to the nature of moral agency and explain the way in which its accomplishment rests on a turning point. For Green, the development of human faculties and the attainment of moral agency are deeply interconnected. Both of these have to be cultivated, and both depend on one’s determination to overcome the distracting ‘natural impulse[s]’ (DSF: 245). But if we look at these carefully, we will soon notice that the latter is not the same as the former. In order to develop our faculties, we have to work harder and resist the inclination to pursue easy pleasures. Developing a moral agency, however, implies a form of ‘adjustment’ (DSF: 249) of one’s own good to that of the community. In PE Green repeatedly refers to the process in which one brings together one’s personal and the common good, the process through which a person presents to himself ‘his own permanent well-being . . . as a social well-being’ (PE: 249/§232). This alignment of personal and common interest is indicative of a transformation resulting in a self that does not perceive itself as significant in isolation from others. ‘[T]he idea of a true good as for oneself . . . is ultimately or in principle an idea of satisfaction for a self that abides and contemplates itself as abiding, but which can only so contemplate itself in identification with some sort of society’ (PE: 248/§232). The process of gradual improvement of one’s faculties is not as fundamentally challenging to the self as one’s ‘identification of himself with others’ (PE: 248/§232). The significance of the process of adjusting personal interests to objectives advancing the broader common good cannot be overstated. This process explains what is distinctive about Green’s common good theory – a theory which is at the heart of his entire moral and political philosophy. The argument from PE explained previously shows that one’s personal well-being does incorporate commitment to the good of others. It also shows the way in which enhancing the engagement with others can also increase one’s levels of satisfaction and well-being accordingly. We can refer to this process as a process of moral development. Green wants to portray moral development and faculty improvement as part of the same organic process of development tending in the direction of human perfection. For analytical purposes, however, I would like to view these two – moral development and self-improvement – as separate, even if interdependent, processes. One way to explain the difference would be to observe that while the continuity of the process of self-improvement is generally easy to observe and accept, assuming continuity within moral development is more controversial. We could see how the process of developing capacities leads to progressive satisfaction, but it is harder to argue that the more good we do for the others, the better we feel. Green indirectly admits to this by saying one thing to his philosophical audience and a different thing to ‘any popular audience’, thus conceding that self-­ improvement is a much more obviously attractive objective than the development of moral agency (DSF: 240). To his philosophical audience, he says that ‘freedom’ is the natural term by which the man . . . describes to himself the state in which he shall have realised his ideal of himself, shall be at one with

T.H. Green’s true freedom 81 the law which he recognises as that which he ought to obey . . . and so fulfil the law of his being. Failing to do that, he would have ‘a consciousness of impeded energy, a consciousness of oneself as for ever thwarted and held back’ (DSF: 241). So the claim here is that one is naturally drawn towards developing a moral agency; therefore, in failing to do so, one will be frustrated. However, when Green wants to describe the same feeling of frustration to a ‘popular audience’, he only refers to self-improvement: To any popular audience interested in any work of self-improvement (e.g. to a temperance-meeting seeking to break the bondage to liquor), it is as an effort to attain freedom that such work can be most effectively presented. . . . Still the feeling of oppression, which always goes along with the consciousness of unfulfilled possibilities, will always give meaning to the representation of the effort after any kind of self-improvement as a demand for ‘freedom’. (DSF: 242) I argue here that while there is no necessary turning point or threshold in the process of self-improvement,24 there is such in the acquisition of moral agency. While faculty improvement is associated with progressive satisfaction, this is not necessarily the case with moral development. Let us remember Green’s statement that although the will is always directed towards satisfaction, it often seeks it in objects in which it cannot be found. But he also gives a clear indication that satisfaction will be found once we ‘gladly do and suffer what we must’ (DSF: 228–29). Indeed, the quoted passage contains a heavy hint that the process of reaching true freedom entails a period of unrewarded suffering. This can be seen as a contradiction within Green’s ideas. On the one hand, he links freedom with satisfaction in order to show the organic bond between what we value and what we find liberating. In this context the progressive nature of satisfaction was a key stepping stone in explaining why and how freedom rests on the quality of our objectives and only derivatively on overcoming obstacles. However, his claim that we often desire things which do not bring satisfaction, and that the latter is obtained only once a certain developmental state is reached, comes to contradict the progressive nature of satisfaction. This contradiction could be resolved if we introduced some division of labour between the two developments Green is keen to combine. We could say that the faculty improvement delivers progressive satisfaction and helps bridge the periods of loss of satisfaction during the suffering implied in moral development. Selfimprovement leads to progressive satisfaction: there is no necessary frustration in the process that would put at risk its continuous upward flow.25 However, the cultivation of moral agency, the aligning of the personal to the common good or, to use Green’s terms, living up to the law of one’s being is a more challenging process that cannot be guided exclusively by the experience of satisfaction. Still, once moral agency is acquired, then satisfaction will be experienced: indeed, this experience is a major evidence that true freedom is freedom. Moral agency is reached when the fusing of personal good and the good of others is so organic that one

82  T.H. Green’s true freedom obtains satisfaction from serving the good of others. Moral agency is a prerequisite of not seeing duty as an impediment to personal well-being. Without moral agency, obedience to law or to moral norms compromises freedom because duty and law could easily go against one’s desires. Only if one cultivates ‘good will’ does one not experience moral duty and the law as an obstacle. Thus, we can see the turning point between freedom as generally experienced26 and true freedom as a dispositional one: one has to have acquired a new disposition for acting as captured in the idea of moral agency. This disposition allows you to enjoy things which you have previously not been able to enjoy, duty being a prime example. The claim is not that moral agency enables one to perform duty – one could perform duty under duress – but that it allows one to experience its performance as freedom. We need to define this turning point in theoretical terms as well. It is not enough to say that moral agency is based on an organic fusing between personal and communal interests. This is because Green’s understanding of moral development, and of human agency in general, implies that some adjustment between personal good and the good of others exists from the earliest stages of one’s development. The default freedom of the will implies a kernel of rationality and of a sense of responsibility. Moral development is based on the human capacity to increase the share of the good of others in this adjustment. But at what stage is the share of the common good sizeable enough that moral agency obtains? We could argue that moral agency reflects more than an alignment between personal and communal. It is a turning point in the process of development in the sense that it reflects the capacity to subordinate one’s well-being to the service of the common good. Stating this is important as I believe it helps to elicit the best criterion for distinguishing between two concepts of freedom. While a meaningful negative freedom concept is based on the advancement of one’s own well-being, true or positive freedom is experienced in the service to the common good. The transition from negative to positive freedom implies a reversal of priorities: while in the context of negative freedom, the adjustment of personal to communal interest tends to advance one’s own well-being, in the context of positive freedom, personal wellbeing is subordinated to the common good. This reading of the two freedoms reinforces my support for a narrow and exclusive version of true freedom. True freedom does not capture all forms of meaningful pursuit of freedom but just the one implicated in service to the common good. However, once we have observed that this service comes at some cost to personal well-being, we may have grounds to say that true freedom should not be the default freedom we engage with. It would be too taxing to do so. The routine exercise of freedom should be reflected in an expanded and revised concept of juristic freedom, a task I turn to in the next chapter.

6 True freedom, moral development and authorities As discussed in the previous section, from the point of view of juristic freedom, authorities are an impediment to freedom. This is not the case with true freedom.

T.H. Green’s true freedom  83 For the moral agent, the law in its various forms, ‘the divine law, the civil law, and the law of opinion and reputation’ (DSF: 248), can be empowering. Moral norms, good social institutions and the state as it should be are instrumental in the realisation of true freedom. The relation between freedom and authorities is very significant from the point of view of the dual conceptualisation of liberty. I have endorsed one of Berlin’s own formal definitions of the distinction: negative freedom fights against authorities, while positive freedom engages constructively with them. This account of the distinction, however, is on its own too general and potentially misleading. Therefore, explaining more closely the link between liberty and authorities is important, if we aim to elicit the strengths of Berlin’s argument and to set aside some of its weaknesses. A concept of negative freedom based on unqualified rejection of authorities risks undermining the agent’s wellbeing. Also, distinguishing between moral authorities and political authorities is important. While it may be easy to see the individual as distinct from political authorities, it is harder to see her in isolation from moral authorities. In moral terms, the relation between the individual and authorities boils down to that between the individual and ‘the others’. In this sense, claims about significant tensions between individuals and authorities have to be made carefully. Green’s concept of true freedom is a prime target of Berlin’s critique. The latter rests on showing the dangers not just of the visible political institutions but also of their more subtle moral underpinnings. Berlin attacks authorities on several levels, and these levels are in fact present in Green’s moral and political philosophy. On the one hand, Green views moral authorities and political authorities as interdependent and refers to them jointly. For him there is a clear interdependence between the ‘moral ideal’ and political institutions: ‘the institutions and the rules of life, of which we acknowledge the authority, have arisen out of the effort, however blindly directed, after such an ideal’ (PE: 358/§327). Conversely, as we shall shortly see, existing institutions help inform and shape people’s understanding of the common good. But, on the other hand, Green is also acutely aware that institutions can be unjust, and this is because they fail to channel the good of all their constituents alike. In this case a distance between the moral ideal and the political institutions appears, and this distance is instrumental in enabling the ‘moral philosopher’ to perform social critique (PE: §310–28). As my fourfold matrix for the positive/negative freedom distinction suggests (see Table 0.1), the difference between moral and political authorities has to be appreciated if we are to understand correctly the implications of the distinction. In this section I will show how the connection between true freedom and authorities is revealed in DFS. Here Green views moral and political authorities as interrelated and their function as benign. The connection between true freedom and authorities emerges in two contexts: within the process of moral development and with respect to the capacity of institutions to channel people’s commitment to the common good. In the last two sections of DSF,27 Green turns to a highly enlightening discussion of the process of moral development. He explains what ‘the moral progress of the individual’ consists of by outlining a three-stage process (DSF: 247). The first

84  T.H. Green’s true freedom stage is ‘the adjustment of the self-seeking principle in him to the requirements of conventional morality, so that the modes in which he seeks self-­satisfaction are regulated by the sense of what is expected of him’ (DSF: 247). Green sees conventional morality as ‘a system of recognised rules (whether in the shape of law or custom) as to what the good of society requires’ (DSF: 247). So the abstract idea of harmonising the interests of the self with that of others practically implies the adjustment of our behaviour to moral expectations. The second stage reflects the process where we try to deal with the fact that the requirements of conventional morality may be felt as external to, and hence restrictive of, our will. We could completely ‘rebel’ against it, which may result in ‘suspension of moral growth’, or we may come to understand better its underlying rationale and adopt it as something fully coherent with our own objectives (DSF: 248). The third stage is about forming one’s own idea of what should be and attending to one’s duty with the belief that this is what should be done and not merely what one is expected to do. This stage is about the ‘autonomy of the will’, and it is something ‘higher’ than the ‘adjustment’ of the first stage (DSF: 248–49). Here we are doing our duties not because they are ‘merely determined by customs and institutions which are due to the operations of practical reason in previous ages, but are embodiments and expressions of the conception of what absolutely should be as formed by the man who seeks to satisfy himself in their realisation’ (DSF: 249). It is interesting to notice that here again, conventional morality still plays a part although as fully internalised by the individual. The third stage allows us to rewrite the moral norms, but it also allows us to adopt the existing ones. Green makes it clear that there is no ‘moral freedom, or anything of intrinsic value, in the life of conventional morality as governed by “interested motives” – by the desire, directly or indirectly, to obtain pleasure’ (DSF: 249). But there is moral freedom when duty, and this includes the duties of conventional morality, is ‘an object which the person willing makes his own’ (DSF: 249). We can see that authorities in the forms of rules, custom or law are instrumental in the process of developing moral agency through authentic harmonisation of personal and common good. The second context which throws light on the link between true freedom and authorities is that of social and political institutions. A reader of Green’s moral philosophy could justifiably ask about what things the good will  – the will of the moral agent – allows us to achieve. An immediate answer, following Green’s introduction of true freedom in DSF, would be that attaining moral agency would allow us to experience some ultimate form of satisfaction. The good will makes it possible for us to enjoy our service to others. It could be that this satisfaction is even stronger than the one experienced in more narrowly self-oriented actions. But I argue that true freedom is not only about authentic satisfaction. Satisfaction is important because it indicates that the action has been autonomous. It is the stamp that says the action has been free. However, true freedom is valuable not only because of the satisfaction it brings but also because it taps into a new horizon of possibilities. Like juristic freedom, it is also about increased powers,28 but these are powers with a larger scale of impact. This magnifying effect of the outcomes

T.H. Green’s true freedom 85 of the exercise of true freedom is achieved through social institutions (see also Dimova-Cookson, 2014a: 200–10). Green discusses this aspect of true freedom when he explains Hegel’s theory of ‘objective freedom’ and the realisation of freedom through the ‘state’ (DSF: 231). And although he is critical of Hegel because his ‘account of freedom as realised in the state does not seem to correspond to the facts of society as it is’ (DSF: 233), Green does believe that social institutions play a key role in channelling good will into actions that will have positive impact on many people. Because although true freedom is formally defined as the freedom experienced when we have reached perfection and perfection is a state where our capabilities are fully developed and we have moral agency, there still remains a question about what it actually consists of. In this sense Green talks about the ‘increasing concreteness in the idea of human perfection – its gradual development from the vague inarticulate feeling that there is such a thing into a conception of a complex organisation of life, with laws and institutions, with relationships, courtesies, and charities, with arts and graces through which the perfection is to be attained’ (DSF: 246). These institutions allow us to ‘practice’ our moral agency. If I want to do things that are simultaneously good for me and others, these institutions allow me to do that. They envisage the activities that are beneficial, and they help ‘deliver’ the goods I produce to the others. Green does not argue explicitly that true freedom extends our capacity to achieve things, but the claim is not hard to make on the basis of what he argues. Bosanquet argues this explicitly: The idea is that in it [the state], or by its help, we find at once discipline and expansion, the transfiguration of partial impulses, and something to do or care for such as the nature of a human self demands. If . . . you start with a human being as he is in fact and try to devise what will furnish him with an outlet and a stable purpose capable of doing justice to his capacities – a satisfying object of life – you will be driven on by the necessities of the facts at least as far as the State, and perhaps further. (PTS: 156) So the link between true freedom and authorities works on two levels. One needs authorities in terms of moral norms in order to build the good will and develop full moral agency, and second, one needs authorities in the form of the appropriate social institutions which allow the fulfilment of moral intentions. The effective contribution to the common good is the proof, the evidence, that the perfect character one has cultivated is the right one. The pay-off of true freedom is not only personal satisfaction but also practical increase in the well-being of others. As mentioned, in the context of DSF, moral and political authorities are interconnected and play a significant positive role in the constitution of freedom. Green’s perspective towards authorities, however, becomes more complex in LLL. His critique of the institution of free contract there will allow us to flesh out the negative concept of freedom, which we could deduce from Green’s liberal theory.

86  T.H. Green’s true freedom

7 True freedom as a normative concept: it is possible and desirable Green’s theory of true freedom and the underpinning theory of the will have been subject to a lot of criticism (Sidgwick, 1884: 183; Milne, 1967: 332, Bellamy, 1992: 45). It has been argued that these theories rely on a very benign vision of human agency lacking capacity to explain ‘the existence of sin and evil’ (Tyler, 2010a: 129–30). Tyler argues that Green is a spiritual determinist29 who is thus unable to explain moral responsibility. He points out that Green tends to explain evil actions as imperfect, that is, actions that lack full commitment to a moral ideal because a person is only on the path of her development, and implying that given favourable circumstances, she would increasingly approximate perfection and act rightly. One would be able to reach moral agency and thus true freedom if immorality was removed from the world (Tyler, 2010a: 130). In other words, for Green, human behaviour and the pursuit of true freedom are ‘fundamentally structured by human nature’, and Green assumes this nature to be spiritual. Tyler also refers to how Green was perceived by his contemporaries as somebody who genuinely did not see the darker sides of human nature.30 But if we pay more attention to the fact that true freedom is a normative concept, we could see that it does not need to rest exclusively on a particular understanding of human nature. True freedom is a normative concept of freedom in the sense that it is prescriptive. It commits to and advocates particular values. It is a recommendation about how we should pursue freedom. Green’s insight into the progressive nature of satisfaction does not carry us all the way to true freedom, but it lays the ground for it in the sense that it shows that his vision of true freedom should be possible. It is possible for us to experience satisfaction and sense of empowerment in the exercise of moral agency. It is possible but not inevitable. Pace Green, most people nowadays would agree that it is also possible to experience satisfaction in other less worthy causes. People’s lives follow different paths, and some of these may be worse than others. One could choose to lead a life of very little dedication to the well-being of others, despite her capacity to offer more, and still claim to be leading a satisfying life. Or one could choose to pursue satisfaction by investing exclusively in self-­ improvement and negligibly little in the acquisition of moral agency. With this in mind, we could argue that it would be better to think of the concept of true freedom as a recommendation about how we should self-improve rather than to see it as a reflection of how we actually develop our capacities. I believe true freedom should be seen as a normative guidance about how freedom should be pursued and promoted for others. It expresses a moral vision worthwhile campaigning for. When we seek self-improvement and self-empowerment, we should be advised to find these in ways of life that keep true freedom open as a possibility. One reason to see true freedom as desirable is that there are additional benefits to it, over and above personal satisfaction. In addition to the experience of freedom, the exercise of true freedom in an investment in the well-being of others. It is a freedom plus.

T.H. Green’s true freedom 87 These things, of course, have to be said with a lot of caution. Encouraging others to serve the common good could lead to exploitation. Indeed, this kind of message could have led critics to see Green as a Victorian moraliser (Bellamy, 1992: 46–47). True freedom is an extreme case of service to the common good in the sense that it may entail significant loss of personal well-being. Therefore, its desirability has to be qualified. It is desirable that one should be able to be truly free, but one should not be expected to pursue this form of freedom as a matter of course. The discussion of Green’s contribution to a negative concept of freedom in the next chapter will throw some light of the dynamic between exercising true freedom and ‘real juristic freedom’ (Dimova-Cookson, 2019). This normative/prescriptive aspect of true freedom allows it to have an input into determining the nature of authorities. Green’s discussion of the nature of the object in which satisfaction, and accordingly true freedom, can be found makes a clear reference to an objective standard. Such an objective standard of what is true or right is implied by Green’s reference to the ‘law of [one’s] being’, to ‘the idea of perfection’, to ‘something that universally should be’ (DSF: 247), in the statement that ‘there is some true will’ (DSF: 242) and so on. How do we know what is true or right? One of the answers given by Green is that the idea of perfection expresses itself in a ‘a complex organisation of life, with laws and institutions’ (DSF: 246). But Green’s critique of Hegel makes it clear that not all institutions represent ‘objective freedom’ (DSF: 233) as ‘customs and institutions’ reflect ‘the operation of practical reason in previous ages’ (DSF: 249). There is another source of rightness or truthfulness: one’s normative ideas, like Green’s ideas of social justice and fairness. The debate about the normative ideas that inform the contents of true freedom has to be part and parcel of the conceptualisation of liberty. In the context of discussing the normative aspect of true freedom, I will turn to Baldwin’s claim that Green is an ethical naturalist. Baldwin’s argument is also of special interest as it supports one of the key objectives of this monograph: it defends the idea that there exists a second viable sense of freedom. Baldwin claims that Green’s true freedom is a ‘second’ concept of freedom, or, in his own words, ‘positive freedom is not a negative freedom’ (Baldwin, 1984: 141). He challenges MacCallum’s and Weinstein’s assertions that there is only one kind of freedom. More specifically, he targets Weinstein’s argument that significant philosophical insights of a positive concept of freedom can be expressed, without loss, through the language of negative freedom. Weinstein critiques Green’s true freedom specifically and claims that the gist of his doctrine is perfectly at home with the language of negative liberty; for one can translate without distortion statements such as ‘A man is more free the more his talents and qualities are developed’ to ‘A man is morally better the more his talents and moral qualities are developed, and his liberty (in the negative sense) is worth more the more power he has to use it for the purpose of self-improvement’. (Weinstein, 1965: 153)

88  T.H. Green’s true freedom Or similarly, positive freedom is ‘the negative freedom to be virtuous’ (Baldwin, 1984: 138). Baldwin replies to this by using the relevant passages from DSF which show clearly that according to Green, one is not truly free unless one has developed moral agency. Moral agency is not simply something valuable in its own right, but it constitutes a particular form of freedom. In addition to showing that Green’s ideas resist Weinstein’s reading, Baldwin tries to convince a contemporary audience that it is meaningful to argue that moral agency is an exercise of freedom. His argument here is that this could be understood if we take into account Green’s particular understanding of human nature. Green is what Baldwin calls an ‘ethical naturalist’ in holding the belief that ‘human nature is essentially committed to some moral ideals’ (Baldwin, 1984: 141). On that ground, the British idealist would argue that any state of being short of moral agency is frustrating and unfree. ‘Green’s view, therefore, is that moral freedom is a freedom because it is the attainment of that condition in which we are not only what we should be, but what we really are’ (Baldwin, 1984: 139). In other words, Baldwin argues that moral freedom is a meaningful rendition of freedom if one were an ethical naturalist of the type described earlier. I partly agree with Baldwin. I agree that Green’s true freedom is distinct in that it can only be experienced once moral agency is attained. This is what Green argues, and his argument is based on his understanding of human agency. I disagree, however, with seeing Green’s theory of the will in terms of ethical naturalism, and this is for four reasons. First, Baldwin’s reading implies that no significant freedom is experienced short of the attainment of moral agency. I believe that Green’s theory contains resources for an argument that the experience of personal development short of complete moral agency, short of reaching the third stage of moral progress (DSF: 249), is also an experience of freedom. The next chapter will flesh out what Green’s ‘first sense’ of freedom, or his version of negative freedom, would look like. My second reason to disagree with Baldwin is that his reading implies that satisfaction does all the work in attaining true freedom and that we are driven towards it in order to be at peace with ourselves and to be who we are. For him, Green’s moral freedom is freedom not because it ‘provides a special opportunity’ for the agent but because it allows him the freedom ‘to be himself’ (Baldwin, 1984: 141). Baldwin’s justification of Green’s true freedom on the grounds of ethical naturalism places too much emphasis on the authenticity of the experience of freedom. But, as I  have argued in this section, Green’s understanding of moral agency and true freedom takes us further than the claim that for us as ethical beings, only moral freedom is real freedom. I believe the more pertinent message here is that because we are ethical creatures, moral freedom is possible. In addition, it is desirable. It is desirable because moral action is good in itself, and only through the cultivation of moral agency can we experience duty as other than a limitation of freedom. It is desirable because of the extrinsic goods it brings as well: moral action generates benefits for others. In this sense true freedom is also an opportunity concept: it gives you the opportunity to enhance your contribution to the common good. This leads to my third disagreement. While Baldwin sees Green’s moral freedom as a non-opportunity concept (‘it is not itself an

T.H. Green’s true freedom  89 opportunity concept’, Baldwin, 1984: 141), we could argue that it does open new opportunities, and this increases one’s potential to do things.31 Finally, Baldwin’s reading of Green as an ethical naturalist undermines the normative/prescriptive aspect of true freedom. We are drawn to true freedom both because satisfaction will be found in its exercise and because we believe that it will be found in an object that is ‘desirable in distinction from objects momentarily desired’ (DSF: 232). It advances values like social justice and fairness that are worth campaigning for. Such an interpretation of Green reflects better the range of arguments he makes and places less emphasis on ethical naturalism – a doctrine which Baldwin himself does not commit to. Nicholson advances a similar view to mine in arguing that ‘Green’s perspective extends beyond negative freedom in two directions. It includes the internal as well as the external side of the person, and it sets the person in the context of his society’ (Nicholson, 1990: 131). Explaining true freedom by reference to ethical naturalism captures only what Green has to say about the internal aspect of the exercise of freedom. But through the concept of true freedom, Green also makes a recommendation about the type of society which promotes freedom. It could be the case that Baldwin would not want to defend true freedom on the grounds of its normative content because he is committed to the view that the normative content of a concept undermines it validity. This is a premise he would share with Weinstein, whose reading of Green he otherwise critiques. I contend that Green’s conceptualisation of true freedom invites a reconsideration of the relationship between formal/analytical and normative contents of the concept of liberty. Green’s theory of true freedom shows how authorities, both moral and political, are deeply intertwined with the exercise of liberty. As authorities do advance specific moral values, the debate about these values cannot be excluded from the debate on the nature of liberty. Hence, the normative and the conceptual analyses are intertwined (Dimova-Cookson, 2004). Weinstein argues that the definition of freedom should be simple and basic, unaffected by a range of questions like the worth of liberty, the scope of choice implied in it, conditions that make freedom possible and particular values we may want to advance. All these belong to what he calls ‘a ring round the concept of “being free” ’ but should not affect how ‘being free’ is defined (Weinstein, 1965: 152–53). He then, however, goes on to critique the exponents of negative freedom for failing to take the issues in ‘the ring’ seriously: For what made the arguments of negative liberals unsatisfying was not their concept of ‘liberty’ nor even anything necessarily connected with it: they simply did not take seriously enough all the elements in the ring round the concept of ‘liberty’ and too much emphasized merely being free. Theirs was a failure of moral imagination and social observation. (Weinstein, 1965: 153) It is difficult to understand why one should engage with the issues from ‘the ring’ if the basic definition of freedom will stay unaffected. Or, the other way round, if

90  T.H. Green’s true freedom the important debate is on the terrain of ‘the ring’, then the definition of liberty is a mere formality, not just of little normative but of little conceptual value. Before concluding the section and the chapter overall, I would like to give a couple of examples of the desirability of true freedom. These examples would also throw light on the claim that, ideally, true freedom should be practised in exceptional circumstances. The capacity to exercise true freedom would become useful in cases where the fulfilment of one’s duty demanded nothing less than giving up on an important aspect of one’s well-being. Being able to do so would allow one to fulfil one’s duty. This may also be the best way forward towards restoring one’s well-being in the long run. The exercise of true freedom could in some situations be the only available path to maintaining mental composure and dignity. Embracing adversity as opposed to breaking down or living in resentment could be the best available alternative. So being able to be truly free is important even if one were to exercise this freedom seldom. The horizon of true freedom – when it exists – gives a framework for resolving conflicts and helps one shape one’s wellbeing in a way that is more rather than less inclusive of the common good.

Conclusion DSF analyses the concept of freedom against the background of the nature of the will. There are several aspects of human agency that throw crucial light on how freedom is exercised: the link between freedom and satisfaction, the link between satisfaction and the quality of the object one pursues and the human capacity for self-improvement. Freedom has different senses not only because linguistically the term allows for such variety but also because as a result of one’s development, one finds freedom in substantively different objectives. What Green’s argument shows is that the satisfaction of overcoming obstacles to the will lasts only as long as the objective one pursues is still desirable. Hence, the understanding of freedom rests on explaining what is desirable and thus capable of giving lasting as opposed to fleeting satisfaction. Green argues that real satisfaction can be found only in the fulfilment of one’s capacities and the attainment of moral perfection. I challenge Green here and argue that if the full force of his observations in DSF were to be utilised, we could claim that we obtain lasting satisfaction if we are in the process of developing our faculties. The process of self-improvement itself is satisfying and liberating. However, I argue that Green’s narrow and exclusive definition of true freedom as limited to the ‘reality’, and not including the ‘possibility’, of fulfilment is justified. This is because the development he believes to be fundamental to explaining freedom is moral development. This development takes place through stages, and only when one’s moral agency is acquired can one experience freedom in the performance of duty. The study of Green’s concept of true freedom allows us to gain insight into the intricate ways in which freedom and authorities are interconnected. On the one hand, eliciting the role of moral and political authorities in the exercise of true freedom bolsters Isaiah Berlin’s critical assessment of positive freedom. On the other hand, however, understanding the link between freedom and authorities

T.H. Green’s true freedom  91 is pertinent not only in the context of true, and, correspondingly, positive freedom. Green’s account of the three stages of ‘the moral progress of the individual’ (DSF: 247) reveals a complex and dynamic picture about the factors that help and impede human development. The next chapter will show that negative freedom also depends on the right kind of political authorities and possibly so to a greater extent than positive freedom.

Notes 1 Some of the most significant and extensive contemporary studies of Green’s theory of liberty include Nicholson, 1990; Simhony, 1991, 1993a, 2005, 2014; Tyler, 2010a, 2015. My own main publications on this topic are Dimova-Cookson, 2003, 2012, 2019. Other significant studies of the political theory of T.H. Green include Milne (1962), Morrow (1983), Weinstein (1993), Vincent (2000, 2001, 2006), Brink (2003), Leighton (2004), Wempe (2004), and De Sanctis (2005) among others. 2 See also Baldwin, 1984; Bellamy, 1992; Freeden, 2005; Gaus, 1983, 2000; Dagger, 2005; Miller, 2006; Nelson, 2005; Sandel, 2005; Silier, 2005; Vincent, 2010. 3 As already discussed in the introduction, this monograph develops a broader and more particular definition of negative freedom than freedom as non-interference. It incorporates aspects traditionally seen as a part of positive freedom. I argue that negative freedom can be seen as the mainstay concept of freedom as it covers routine as opposed to exceptional activities, as reflected in the third criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction. See the introduction of the book, Section 3 and Chapter Six, Section 5. 4 H.H. Asquith, British prime minister from 1908 to 1916 and a student of T.H. Green, commented that [b]etween 1870 and 1880 Green was undoubtedly the greatest personal force in the real life of Oxford. . . . It is not too much to say that by the time of his premature death . . . he had transformed both the atmosphere and the methods of philosophical thought and study at Oxford. (Richter, 1964: 158) 5 Green did not refer to ‘rights’ as ‘human rights’, but his theory of rights is highly relevant and is taken very seriously in contemporary analyses of human rights. See Nicholson, 1990: study V; Martin, 2001, 2011; Simhony, 2003, 2006; Gaus, 2005, 2006; DimovaCookson, 2011; Darby, 2009; Jones, 2012; Hann, 2016. 6 I have argued that Green’s common good should be understood as a principle of moral action as opposed to, as the term may suggest, an unconditional assertion of the priority of the common over the personal. This principle of moral action, as implied in Green’s common good theory, explains what it is that makes a motivation moral. One’s motive, and accordingly one’s action from this motive, has a moral character if it represents a synthesis of the agent’s interest with those of others. Capacity for moral motivation is gradually developed: this process reflects the developmental nature of human agency (Dimova-Cookson, 1999, 2001). Further studies of Green’s common good could be found in Nicholson, 1990: study II; Boucher and Vincent, 2000: chapter 1; Simhony, 1993b, 2005; Brink, 2006; Vincent, 2006; Tyler, 2012b: chapter 3. 7 Richter claimed that ‘Green converted Philosophical Idealism, which in Germany has so often served as a rationale for conservatism, into something close to a practical programme for the left wing of the Liberal party’. He also argued that the main reason British idealism succeeded in occupying such a prominent place was that the philosophy of its key figures managed to soothe the crisis of the Christian faith – a crisis caused by the undermining impact of empiricism and Darwin’s theory of evolution (Richter, 1864: 13, also chapters 1 and 10).

92  T.H. Green’s true freedom 8 In DSF, Green also discusses ‘formal’ freedom, and on this ground, critics argue that Green works with three senses of freedom (Nicholson, 1990: 116–22; Tyler, 2010a: 110). I have addressed this issue about the ‘two or three’ senses of freedom in DimovaCookson 2012, 2019. This is also discussed here in Section 1. 9 This excludes from the positive freedom concept a number of characteristics traditionally associated with it, including capacity to do things, engagement with good and meaningful activities and some aspects of self-realisation. All these I see as a part of the mainstay concept of freedom, or of negative freedom, understood as capacity to advance one’s own well-being. 10 Nicholson argues that ‘the dichotomy between positive and negative freedom cannot be applied to Green’s theory. It is a Procrustean bed, and laying Green’s theory on it leaves it truncated and bleeding away its vitality’ (Nicholson, 1990: 131). 11 See the discussion in Chapter Six. 12 See the conclusion of Chapter Three. 13 Since he conceives of satisfaction in the light of man being ‘an object to himself’, Green frequently writes ‘self-satisfaction’. But in view of the connotation of selfpraise now attaching to this term, I have generally spoken of ‘satisfaction’ only. 14 For a more extensive discussion of the relation between ‘true’ and ‘real’ freedom, see Dimova-Cookson, 2019. 15 We will see that moral development underpins not just true freedom, which I believe to be the ‘second’ real sense of freedom, but also juristic freedom, which, if properly understood, should be seen as the ‘first’ real sense of freedom. See Dimova-Cookson, 2019. 16 It is discussed further in LPK and will receive some attention in Chapter Three here. 17 This will come in support of my argument in the next chapter that Green develops a proper negative concept of freedom. 18 Green cares deeply about advancing freedom in practical terms so that identifying the obstacles to freedom is high on his agenda. And although he does not say much about the ‘real’ obstacles to freedom in DSF, he does say a lot about them in LLL, and we would not understand his argument there without the preparatory work on true/real freedom done in DSF. 19 It is on this basis that Nelson (2005) claims that true freedom could not constitute a second concept of freedom. I argue that the sense of overcoming obstacles gives true freedom some of its credentials as freedom. However, it is the second sense of freedom not on the grounds that it is not a ‘freedom from’ concept: even Berlin’s argument for two concepts of freedom does not rely heavily on a ‘from/to’ criterion. This monograph defends three different criteria on which a sustainable distinction between positive and negative freedom can be based. 20 Free action here is understood in the juristic sense. The point made here is very similar to Charles Taylor’s observation that ‘freedom is important to us because we are purposive beings. But then there must be distinctions in the significance of different kinds of freedoms based on a distinction in the significance of different purposes’ (Taylor, 2006: 151). Green’s point which I aim to reconstruct is that the level of satisfaction reflects the degree of significance a certain objective has for its agent. 21 This will be discussed in Section 6. 22 Such redefinition will of course prompt the question why one needs to include ‘the state of perfection’ within the concept of freedom at all. My defence of Green’s defining true freedom in narrow and exclusive terms addresses this issue. 23 Perfection is never fully attainable for human beings, according to Green, but they could come close to it.   In God, so far as we can ascribe reason and will to Him, we must suppose them to be absolutely united. In Him there can be no distinction between possibility and realisation, between the idea of perfection and the activity determined by it. But in men the self-realising principle, which is the manifestation of God in the world of becoming, in the form which it takes as will at best only tends to reconciliation with itself in the form which it takes as reason. (DSF: 244)

T.H. Green’s true freedom  93 24 This is not strictly true: there is a turning point in the process of self-improvement, and it is the reaching point of a recognised landmark of excellence – I will discuss this aspect of positive freedom in Chapter Four. 25 One could argue, however, that even the process of self-improvement is accompanied by the hardship of sustained effort. My overall point is that the positive returns in the process of self-improvement are faster than in the process of moral development. 26 This is the first sense of freedom which in this chapter I have not outlined in conceptually clear terms: this sense will be discussed in Chapter Three. 27 §§ 24 and 25. 28 See Chapter Three, Section 2. 29 ‘The spiritual determinist approach establishes that one’s motives and therefore one’s will are essentially self-determined. Green believes this entails that every person is morally responsible for her own actions’ (Tyler, 2010a: 132). 30 Tyler refers to a letter by John Addington Symonds who quoted Green saying, ‘People are not as bad as they fancy themselves’ (Tyler, 2010a: 129–30). 31 I used to argue that true freedom was a non-opportunity concept – see Dimova-Cookson, 2012: 143. However, I now believe that true freedom has its own horizon of opportunities.

3 T.H. Green and negative freedom as well-being improvement

Introduction As argued in the previous chapter, Green’s contribution to the understanding of liberty extends beyond his highly credited theorisation of positive freedom. Although in the 1990s and beyond, the status of positive freedom has risen to some prominence (Nicholson, 1990; Simhony, 1991; Gould, 2013; Christman, 2005a, 2013; Hirshmann, 2013), for many decades Green scholars had to defend him from the well-known and relatively influential critique to which Isaiah Berlin subjected the concept in general and Green’s version of it in particular.1 Some of these responses to Berlin have demonstrated that Green’s understanding of freedom includes significant aspects of a negative freedom concept.2 Renick is the only one who, to my knowledge, has suggested that Green’s concept can be seen in terms of negative freedom, noting the ‘irony’ of this observation (Renick, 1990: 333). This is what I myself will also argue here – that T.H. Green lays out the blueprint of a proper negative concept of liberty.3 My objective in this chapter is to show how he does it and what exactly this concept is. I also argue that this is how negative liberty should be understood in principle. Eliciting a negative concept of freedom from Green’s moral and political philosophy would allow me to bring his ideas to the heartland of contemporary political theory. After Berlin, most mainstream theorisations of liberty have been based around the negative concept, including Rawls’s use of the term.4 Green’s theory of liberty channels some of Berlin’s own most significant concerns, like the loss of liberty due to moral blackmail and exploitation.5 I will show that Green anticipates two of the most credited contemporary accounts of liberty: the republican and the capability ones. On the republican front, despite Green’s positive take on political authorities, he offers an explanation of how exactly authorities could be exploitative and a vision of the policies that could help individuals to develop what Pettit calls ‘the capacities to demand non-interference’ (Pettit, 1996: 589). On the capability front, Green balances, in a similar manner to Sen, the importance of substantive personal development with the availability of choice (Sen, 1999: 74–85). I argue that Green’s ‘would-be’ negative freedom can be understood in terms of well-being improvement. This term captures well the focus of this kind of freedom on what is good for the individual in her own right. It also suggests

Negative freedom as well-being improvement  95 how the process of moral development, so fundamentally definitive of human agency and true freedom, can be internalised in the negative concept of freedom. The understanding of well-being improvement includes both development of ­capabilities – or what Green also calls ‘self-improvement’ (DSF: 242) – and moral development, though in terms not of moral perfection or moral agency but of effective socialisation. In essence, the exercise of negative freedom captures the activities pertinent to the process of self-improvement and moral development preceding the acquisition of moral agency and thus the experience of true freedom. In this sense the understanding of true freedom is crucial for our capacity to see the nature of the freedom which precedes it. Negative freedom has to be such so that positive freedom is possible. It captures most but not every single human activity: it covers activities which can be seen as a part of the interrelated processes of self-improvement and moral development, which allow one to have control over her well-being. Green does not use the term ‘negative freedom’,6 and none of his own freedom concepts can be taken as fully equivalent to the negative freedom suggested here. Juristic and formal freedoms are the most obvious contenders for Green’s version of negative freedom as both of these are freedoms which precede true freedom and make it possible. In this sense both juristic and formal freedoms are not miles away from the negative concept proposed here. Therefore, I start this chapter with a section dedicated to each of these, suggesting how they should be amended in order to cover more precisely what negative freedom should include. In Section 1, I show that Green’s formal freedom throws light on the moral development preceding true freedom – a theme already partly covered in the previous chapter. Here I  focus on the differences between Green’s and Kant’s theories of liberty as this helps demonstrate the way in which Green’s freedom has a much broader remit than Kant’s and than his own true freedom. I also suggest that the remit of Green’s formal freedom should be qualified: I contend with Green that this remit should stay broad, but I argue that there are actions that cannot be seen as free, and excluding these is a significant aspect of explaining the parameters of the negative concept. Section 2 turns to juristic freedom, which is a more obvious contender than formal freedom for Green’s would-be version of negative freedom. On one level, juristic freedom is more problematic than formal freedom: its negative attitude towards others – already discussed in the previous chapters – introduces a moral problem and thus casts a dark shadow over the normative desirability of the concept. But on another level, this inclusion of a reference to interference by others is what makes the concept socially relevant and thus impossible to discard in toto. In fact, a closer study shows that it contains crucial features of the recommended negative freedom: (1) it can be a stage in the moral development, (2) it is based on an already existing personal power to achieve chosen objectives, (3) it implies the existence of legal arrangements and thus some form of protection of personal security and (4) it is based on genuine satisfaction even if this satisfaction is different from the one experienced in the context of true freedom. Therefore, an adjusted concept of juristic freedom – let us call it real juristic freedom

96  Negative freedom as well-being improvement (Dimova-Cookson, 2019) – could capture all the main characteristics of a proper negative freedom concept. Yet, among all the freedom concepts Green has developed, the one that comes closest to the recommended negative freedom here is the positive freedom he discusses in the ‘Lecture on “Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract” ’ (hereafter LLL). The definition of freedom Green gives in this lecture and the background social analysis he provides in support of his concept is what Green is known best for in the broader field of political theory. One can see the irony of the claim that it is not so much Green’s juristic but Green’s positive freedom which is the strongest contender for a negative freedom concept. This can be explained, however, through an argument I have previously made – that Green’s discussion of positive freedom in LLL conflates two concepts of freedom: positive/ability and positive/ true freedom (Dimova-Cookson, 2012). Positive/ability freedom is the would-be negative concept, while positive/true freedom is a proper positive freedom concept as aligned with the true freedom developed in DSF. In Section 3, I offer an analytical reconstruction of LLL in order to link Green’s argument to his conceptual conclusions. Although in LLL, unlike in DSF, Green conceptualises only one freedom – that is, positive freedom – practically, he also refers to the freedom he rejects, that is, ‘freedom from restraint and compulsion’ (LLL: 199). One could justifiably conclude that the positive freedom of LLL corresponds to the true freedom of DSF and that the freedom which Green critiques and discards in LLL is a version of the juristic freedom of DSF. The fact that Green uses the terms ‘positive’ and ‘true’ interchangeably throughout LLL only strengthens this conclusion. One of the tasks of my analysis is to show that drawing these parallels between the freedom concepts of LLL and DSF is incorrect and counterproductive. There is an alignment between the dual accounts of freedom in the two lectures, but the ‘real’ dual account implicit in LLL has to be brought to light: it is along the lines I have argued before, that is, we have a duality of concepts within the positive freedom depicted in LLL (Dimova-Cookson, 2012). My focus on conceptual dualities has strong practical and normative underpinnings. I argue that some of the strengths of Green’s analysis would not be appreciated unless we maintained the distinction between juristic and true freedom7 and carried it through, correctly, into the context of LLL. Without such a distinction, Green does remain vulnerable to Berlin’s critique of positive freedom. In the previous chapter, I argued that true freedom is a defensible understanding of freedom but that it is narrow and exclusive: it does not apply to most of one’s activities and, ideally, should not be expected on a routine basis. It is a second sense of freedom. So what I would like to show here is that in LLL, Green outlines what would be the first sense of freedom. We will see that the moral characteristics of negative freedom are different from those of positive freedom. In LLL, Green’s campaign for freedom is a campaign for investing in developing the basic social skills of members of an economic and social underclass. Green uses the expression ‘the moralising functions . . . of the magistrate’ (DSF: 233); however, this conveys an ambition not to indoctrinate but to teach citizenship skills. Such skills are important because they develop one’s capacity to resist exploitative pressures

Negative freedom as well-being improvement  97 from above. Green’s is not a campaign to enhance the power of the establishment but to enhance ordinary people’s power to effectively press their interests. The freedom of the workers, tenant farmers and victims of alcohol abuse, as sketched in LLL, is a negative freedom: among other things, it aims to provide security from social and political authorities. This argument will receive detailed attention in Section 4. Green’s progressive ideas in LLL have not been sufficiently well internalised in the critical portrayal of his conceptualisation of liberty. As mentioned, in broader political theory circles, Green has been seen as a paradigm exponent of positive freedom, and he continues to attract critiques focused on the moral and perfectionist contents of his concept. Defences of Green’s ideas of freedom aim to show that his positive freedom should be better understood. Simhony has taken some of the most decisive steps in bringing Green’s concept out of the positive freedom mould. She positions Green’s freedom in a MacCullum-based, meta-positive/ negative, freedom framework, with clear emphasis on the ‘opportunity’ aspect of Green’s freedom. Only Renick has gone as far as claiming that Green actually develops a viable negative concept, in addition to his positive freedom one, but nobody has backed this claim with a more substantive analysis. Due to the lack of a more formal negative freedom reading of Green, his radical liberal stance in LLL has been dismissed because of the moral contents of his true freedom.8 I argue that LLL gives us the key ingredients of a negative concept. Although a revised juristic freedom concept already contains these ingredients, in LLL, we see them applied in practice. The lecture develops a captivating sociological analysis of the types of practices, institutions and moralistic arguments that violate freedom. Green’s enlightened assessment in DSF about what freedom is like from the agent’s point of view now, in LLL, cashes out as an insightful vision of how political authorities should promote freedom and how certain social expectations could be counterproductive to it.

1  Formal freedom: the first freedom and its external conceptual boundaries My argument in the previous chapter led to the conclusion that there is a worthwhile freedom outside the scope of true freedom. Green’s theory of the will showed a fundamental link between the human capacity for self-improvement and the experience of satisfaction. He observed that the satisfaction we gain in the context of free action comes not so much from the joy of overcoming obstacles but from the desirability of the pursued objective. But what we find desirable changes in the light of our own development. New stages of development open new horizons of what is desirable. The conclusion from his analysis was that our experience of freedom is meaningful or ‘real’ only if our objectives are such that the satisfaction is not short-lived. This, in turn, is possible if we manage to maintain a process of development. Thus, although Green started DSF by claiming that true freedom is found in the full development of one’s capacities and the attainment of moral perfection, his actual argument led to the conclusion that

98  Negative freedom as well-being improvement what is important for the experience of ‘real’ freedom is our capacity to maintain a process of self-improvement. Despite this conclusion, however, I made the case that Green can still stand by his definition of true freedom even if it is narrow and exclusive in not covering the actual process of development. So finally, the conclusion was that true freedom is also a ‘real’ freedom, but it is the second ‘real’ sense of freedom. In this chapter I would like to outline the contents and characteristics of the first real sense of freedom, and I will start with a closer look at Green’s concept of formal freedom. The spotlight of this section is on a comparison between Kant’s and Green’s accounts of freedom: Green’s concept of formal freedom holds the key to the difference between two theories which are fundamentally similar. Formal freedom is particularly useful in explaining the moral aspects of the development preceding the acquisition of moral agency. It is also useful in outlining the external boundary of ‘real’ freedom. My claim here is that the boundary between the first and the second senses of freedom – that is, between negative and positive freedom properly understood – is an internal boundary. And the boundary between the real senses, on the one hand, and those usages of freedom that lack legitimacy, on the other, is an external boundary. Such a boundary is needed as there are human actions that could be seen as free but are not free in any meaningful or ‘real’ sense. On Green’s categorisation, only true freedom is real, and some of the inauthentic exercises of freedom fall within the remits of formal and juristic freedoms. As my task here is to show the ‘real’ credentials of both formal and juristic freedoms, I would like to push the external boundary beyond these concepts. So as I redefine Green’s concepts and turn them into ‘real formal’ and ‘real juristic’ freedoms, I will also argue that they do not cover absolutely all activities that fall out of the remit of true freedom. Green’s formal freedom is an important ‘background’ concept of freedom. It makes a modest appearance in DSF and none at all in LLL. But it is deeply integrated within his understanding of human agency and is discussed in more detail than juristic freedom, for example.9 Because Green says relatively little about juristic freedom, we can enrich our understanding of it by incorporating into the concept the insights developed in the context of the discussion of formal freedom. Formal freedom has normatively positive substantive content that allows us to improve the concept of juristic freedom with the purpose of making it a paradigm negative freedom concept. We will now see that Green’s concept of formal freedom marks Green’s development upon and improvement of Kant’s understanding of freedom. In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant (hereafter LPK), Green discusses at length the extent to which he embraces Kant’s understanding of freedom and where he differs. In Green’s summary, Kant is wrong (1) in identifying freedom thus understood [determination by reason] with autonomy (though it is truly the condition of autonomy), (2) in writing as if heteronomous actions were not free in this sense of freedom, (3) in reducing the determination by reason to determination by the judgement

Negative freedom as well-being improvement  99 ‘I ought’, (4) in speaking as if man, in respect of all desires not determined by his judgement, were a member of a merely natural world, (5) in speaking as if there were really two characters in a man, empirical and intelligible, one determined by motives in which there is no freedom, the other determined by reason only in a way which excludes determination by motives and is free. (LPK: 109, §93) To put this in context, while Green’s concept of true freedom is very close to Kant’s concept of moral freedom, which is based on determination by reason and is only possible if we act ‘from duty’, not just in conformity with duty, Green’s overall understanding of the nature of the will is very different. The problem is that Kant establishes an almost insurmountable gap between natural determination and determination by reason, and this makes freedom ‘an unrealised and unrealisable state’ attainable only ‘in rare acts of the best men’ (DSF: 231). So Green has a different vision of what precedes the accomplishment of moral freedom. While for Kant only moral freedom counts as freedom and thus most human action falls out of the domain of freedom, for Green all of it is in that domain. This is what he means when he claims that even heteronomous actions can be seen as free. For Kant, one is either determined by reason and thus free or determined by a motive and thus unfree. Green objects to the idea that being determined by a motive makes you unfree. An object becomes a motive only after a process of internalisation. A motive always implies consciousness by the individual of his own good as his end. Whatever good he presents to himself, the most ‘altruistic’ good possible, is necessarily conceived as related to himself, and is determined as good by that relation. ‘That is good’ = ‘that satisfies me’. An agent determined by a motive, then, is determined by himself, by that consciousness of himself as the absolute or unconditional end which makes the motive, and is so far free. (LPK: 95, §83) An object motivates us only if we seek satisfaction in it. The pursuit of satisfaction differs from the pursuit of pleasure, as the former is based on the previously explained element of ‘rationalisation’ of every object in which it is sought.10 The idea is that there is always an overall background understanding of who we want to be or what our well-being consists of, so an object becomes our motive only after it has been adjusted to this conception. One seeks satisfaction in an object, if in addition to the anticipated pleasure – or even without it – it fits with our background conception of ourselves (see LPK: §§199–20). For Green, what makes us autonomous, unlike the case with Kant, is not only our capacity to prescribe the moral law which we obey but that we are the authors of all our motives. ‘Formal freedom’ is characteristic of ‘the worst act and the best’ alike (LPK: 95, §83). A  good image that captures the difference between Kant’s and Green’s understanding of freedom is that for Kant, only the moral

100  Negative freedom as well-being improvement saint is free. Green, on the other hand, is interested in the entire terrain between the saint and the ‘sot’, as most people occupy this terrain. This is the terrain of formal freedom. If we look at the ways in which Green describes the vast majority of human actions, we will notice that all of them are at least partly moral. All the objects of our will represent a mixture of things that advance our own well-being and things that advance the well-being of others. This mixture conveys a degree of morality in all human action. The conceived object, to which in willing he seeks to give reality, may be a state of himself as enjoying certain animal pleasures, or a state of himself as fulfilling some vocation dimly conceived as belonging to him in a divine plan of the world. . . . Or it may be (and more probably is, most men being neither sots nor heroic philosophers), some state of himself as filling a certain position in relation to his family or neighbours or fellow-citizens and finding happiness therein. Or it may be an object which could not naturally be described as a state of himself at all, but which is still determined by the relation in which he places it to himself, the ruin of an enemy, the happiness of a beloved person, the success of a political movement, the painting of a picture, the writing of a book, the improvement of his neighbours, the conversion of the heathen. (LPK: 138, §118, emphasis added) There are several things to note here. While with Kant, the case for freedom is only an extreme case, such as the case of the ‘heroic philosopher’, with Green, all actions are formally free. For Green, even a man in his ‘worst act’ is formally free (LPK: 95, §83), including the extreme cases of the ‘sot’ or the ‘enlightened pleasure hunter’ (IH: 304, §4).11 What is also important is Green’s depiction of the pattern of our ordinary actions. In all the actions listed in the previous quote, one’s objectives represent some amalgamation of personal and social goals. And although this amalgamation only partially advances the common good, and falls short of the requirements for moral agency where significant aspects of the personal good are subordinated to the common good, it is an indication that moral agency is possible. So according to Green, all of human actions contain the possibility of the acquisition of moral agency and the exercise of true freedom accordingly. This leads us to appreciate an important aspect of formal freedom: it has to be such as to make true freedom possible. It is not accidental that Green’s examples of human activities in the terrain between the two extremes are examples that always contain an element, however small, or take the well-being of others into account. But it is exactly here that I would like to raise a caution: one could reasonably ask whether activities in which someone deliberately chooses to advance exclusively his own good could count as formally free. Green would insist that even the enlightened pleasure hunter or the ‘man whom we call the slave of his appetite’ is formally free as ‘the desire which moves their action is itself determined not by the recurring image of past pleasure, but by the conception of self’

Negative freedom as well-being improvement 101 (IH: 304, §4). So for Green, formal freedom reflects the universal nature of human action as rational in the sense of being always self-determined.12 I believe that formal freedom will be more accurately defined if it reflects not the universality of human action but the potential for moral action. Such redefining will be in tune with Green’s theory of true freedom. It will also fit better with the conclusions of Green’s social critique in LLL – conclusions that demonstrate that freedom can be genuinely compromised by external factors.13 If formal freedom applied to every single human action, freedom could not possibly be compromised. Green’s particular critique of Kant gives strong evidence that the essence of formal freedom is its role as a foundation for true freedom. Crucial here is his discussion of formal freedom in terms of our ‘capacity’ to be truly free. This point is made in a passage where he criticises Kant for associating rationality with the actual exercise of moral agency and counting only such rational behaviour as free. But Green thinks that, effectively, by rationality Kant means ‘capacity’. This is his own position: Green believes the definitions of what counts as rational should reflect ‘capacity’ for and not only ‘actuality’ of moral agency: If Kant had been asked what he meant by ‘rational’ in this definition he would probably have said ‘capable of being determined by consciousness of law’; and so far as rationality is understood to mean merely the capacity, as distinct from the actuality, of such determination, the definition will be equally applicable to the will as it exists in the morally good and morally bad, as ‘autonomous’ and ‘heteronomous’. But self-consciousness is capacity for determination by the consciousness of law. (LPK: 136, §117) Here again Green argues that we need a broader understanding of freedom than Kant’s, and such an understanding can be had if we read rationality and the will as making moral agency possible. In other words, the rationality of the will is not displayed merely in the actual exercise of moral agency but in most human actions, thus making most human actions free. There is more to freedom than moral freedom. Human will is free due to its capacity for moral agency. Green’s critique of Kant is important. Kant’s vision of rational determination is too restrictive, limiting the exercise of freedom to exceptional cases. Green broadens the understanding of freedom, because in addition to his true freedom, which is very similar to Kant’s moral freedom, he has a viable concept of formal freedom. However, I suggest that Green’s remit of formal freedom is unnecessarily broad. The problem is that it is inclusive of the extreme case of moral badness, and one could wonder how a morally bad behaviour could be read as a ‘capacity’ for moral agency. As we can see from the discussion so far, it is the natural amalgamation of personal and communal interests typical for the motivation of most of human action that constitutes the capacity to acquire moral agency. If one is already able to adjust individual to common objectives, one could then gradually increase the common good share until it reached the level needed for the exercise of true freedom.

102  Negative freedom as well-being improvement That is why I suggest that we should ‘read back’ the nature of formal freedom from the nature of true freedom. Formal freedom has to be such as to make true freedom possible. A deliberate exclusion of other-regarding objectives – or complete failure to include them for other reasons – makes true freedom unattainable as a matter of principle. This reading coheres very well with Green’s critique of the old liberal understanding of liberty in LLL. It is possible for the human will to regress: to develop not towards a greater incorporation of worthy objectives but a lesser one. To use the terminology from the previous chapter, the pursuit of selfsatisfaction could be the default condition of every human action, but the pursuit of progressive self-satisfaction is not a given. If formal freedom were to be seen as the capacity for true freedom, we have to understand it as an engagement with activities that lead to personal improvement and character development and that are likely to increase the level of self-satisfaction. Put figuratively, while formal freedom, properly understood, should reflect an upward trajectory of moral development, actions reflecting a downward trajectory should be seen as unfree. A downward trajectory would be one with a tendency to exclude self-imposed moral constraints. Green’s all-inclusive vision of formal freedom could be explained if we took into account his understanding of moral responsibility. The reason he argues that we are formally free even when we are bad, that is, wilfully not making an effort to pursue goals that combine personal and common good, is because only thus he can make the claim that we are always morally responsible. It is the self-conscious nature of human action that makes us morally imputable. Hence, without a concept of formal freedom, which applies to every single action, we would not be able to blame the person who failed to do his duty or who was wilfully bad, for having done anything wrong. It is possible to argue, pace Green, that neither formal freedom nor moral responsibility should be viewed as default conditions. We could limit the scope of both and claim that we are morally responsible only when formal freedom is understood in the way suggested here – as actual pursuit of objects which at least to some level combine personal and common good. This adjustment would reflect rather faithfully one of Green’s main insights in his LLL that failure to improve the living and working conditions of workers, tenant farmers and people dependent on alcohol would make it impossible for these people ‘ever to become free contributor[s] to social good in any form’ (LLL: 201). Here Green makes a very clear acknowledgement of the possibility of compromising somebody’s formal freedom but formal freedom understood in the qualified version suggested here. In other words, formal freedom should not be seen as reflecting a default human condition but a condition that enables one to develop moral agency. If this condition does not exist or has been compromised, then a human being is denied their formal freedom, and they should be absolved from full moral responsibility. This analysis not only confirms but also offers a response to Tyler’s critique that ‘Green’s spiritually determinist theory of moral responsibility [faces] significant problems’. He challenges ‘the very foundation of Green’s whole approach to deriving the imputability of all human actions from the fact that they are formally free’ (Tyler, 2010a: 132). Tyler builds on Sidgwick’s point that one cannot be held

Negative freedom as well-being improvement  103 morally responsible when one’s actions have been influenced by circumstances or ‘past history’ over which one has had no control. I accept this point, and I believe it confirms my observation that formal freedom, understood as capacity for true freedom, and moral responsibility cannot be taken as a universal or default condition of the will.14 The pattern of willing may change in different circumstances. But as we will see in Sections 3 and 4, Green discusses exactly such circumstances and their impact on the will in LLL.

2 Juristic freedom As already noted, juristic freedom is the same as formal freedom but for the fact that it takes into account overcoming of external obstacles to the will. Having a fuller vision of the nature of the will can help us better understand the concept of juristic freedom. The redefining of formal freedom suggested in the previous section will now be transferred to juristic freedom. I argue that juristic freedom should be understood as power to protect one’s own well-being. Thus, the analysis of juristic freedom will elicit a feature missing in formal freedom. Indeed, the concept of formal freedom on its own cannot explain or illustrate the point that marks the transition to true freedom. One of the normative justifications of true freedom has been its capacity to address the moral problem raised by juristic freedom: the potential of juristic freedom to exacerbate tensions with others. In this sense, my analysis of juristic freedom can help outline the internal boundary of the negative freedom concept – the boundary between the two real senses of freedom. Overall, juristic freedom receives less sympathetic coverage by Green than formal freedom. Unlike formal freedom, juristic freedom is never studied in its own right: it is only discussed in relation to true freedom. Therefore, it is predominantly portrayed as the freedom that is short of true freedom. As discussed in the previous chapter, it is incomplete and morally controversial. The assumption that external obstacles, either in the form of other human beings or in the form of rules and laws, compromise our freedom is deeply troubling for Green. Seeing the others or the law as an impediment to freedom can distract us from understanding the nature of true freedom and diminish the chance of pursuing it. There are, however, at least four affirmative comments about juristic freedom in DSF. The first is that it is an essential step towards true freedom. It is the ‘possibility’ of the ‘reality’ of true freedom. It ‘is an achievement of the self-seeking principle . . . a first satisfaction of its claims which is a condition of all other satisfaction of them’ (DSF: 241). The second affirmative reference is the defining of juristic freedom in terms of ‘power’: it is ‘power to act according to preference’ (DSF: 241). The third positive reference is to legal arrangements meant to protect the security of citizens’ choices. The fourth and final positive aspect of the concept is its official status as the ‘primary’ sense of freedom, indicating that this sense of freedom has significance in its own right and that not all of its positive aspects are carried through to true freedom. Let me comment on each of these. In a similar manner to formal freedom, juristic freedom reflects the development of the will in the direction of the accomplishment of ‘good will’ or moral

104  Negative freedom as well-being improvement agency. So it does not merely refer to the state of the will before it becomes as it should be: it refers to a process. This is clearly indicated in Green’s claim that the different senses of freedom represent the ‘various stages of reflection upon the self-distinguishing, self-seeking, self-asserting principle’ (DSF: 234). Our will becomes a good will, not in a single leap but through a gradual process, directed towards the cultivation of this will. The assertion that juristic freedom represents a stage in this process and that it is the ‘condition’ of reaching the highest stage of the development of the self-seeking principle (DSF: 241) ascribes a greater significance to the concept than Green seems to afford it officially (Dimova-Cookson, 2012: 140–46). In defence of Green, one could say that on account of its own definition as exemption from external compulsion to the will, juristic freedom cannot claim significant positive content. This definition on its own lacks any conceptual resources for a specific positive account of the state of the will preceding moral agency. The response to this would be that once we have the concept of true freedom, we could ‘read back’ a richer actual content to juristic freedom. Bosanquet,15 one of Green’s most prominent disciples, uses such ‘reading back’ as an official analytical methodology. He believes that the meaning of juristic freedom can only be unpacked if we understand positive freedom, which he also calls political freedom. The connection . . . between juristic and political liberty should be observed at this point. It is merely an example of what we shall find throughout, that the apparently negative has its roots and its meaning in the positive, and, in proportion as its true nature becomes evident, its positive aspects become explicit. (PTS: 147)16 Therefore, juristic freedom does not reflect the will in general but a will that has undergone a certain level of cultivation. Green’s second affirmative reference to juristic freedom, as mentioned earlier, is its association with ‘power’ to act in a particular way – power to assert one’s will. This adds an important new dimension to that of the will, not discussed so far. Juristic freedom is not merely about unobstructed will; it is about the power to carry this will through. This aspect becomes particularly prominent in the context of the discussion of positive freedom in LLL.17 Green’s concept of juristic freedom conveys the message that if we overcome the obstacles put before us by others, we may be able to do more. This is captured well in the phrase ‘a man’s assertion of himself against other men’ as one of the ways of defining juristic freedom (DSF: 241). Thus, Green indirectly acknowledges that some form of well-being would be advanced through the pursuit of juristic freedom. But for him, theoretically, personal well-being does not have an independent value as it is justified by the person’s capacity to contribute to the common good. This is the reason why, for him, juristic freedom is only a step on the path to real freedom. I argue that juristic freedom itself should be seen as a form of real freedom, because personal well-being should be seen as valuable in itself. What does this practically mean? It means that citizens should be able to receive support towards their well-being

Negative freedom as well-being improvement 105 in an unconditional fashion – without an expectation for a specific public service in return. As we shall see in the next section, this is exactly what Green argues in LLL; hence, his arguments give us the resources to defend a ‘real’ juristic, or negative, freedom. But this argument will remain without conceptual consolidation and will be neglected by critics, unless we amend Green’s definition of juristic freedom. Therefore, I argue that juristic freedom should be conceptualised in terms of ‘real’ juristic freedom and defined as power to advance one’s own well-being. The dimension of ‘power’ is missing from the discussion of formal freedom. Green’s examples of such power include a child’s control over ‘his limbs and through them over material things’ and the experience of ‘a captive on first winning his liberty’. Green describes this experience of power as ‘self-enjoyment’ (DSF: 241). Similarities with Constant’s discussion of modern liberty as the liberty that provides satisfaction, comfort and enjoyment to modern citizens (LACM: 315–17) are easily seen. Despite Green’s low-key approach to the ‘power’ implicit in juristic freedom, the nature of this power is important, and this brings the third affirmative aspect of the concept. Juristic freedom, as its name suggests, is guaranteed by legal arrangements that secure one’s freedom to act on one’s choice. Indeed, Nicholson claims that Green’s juristic freedom ‘is the same as legal freedom’ (Nicholson, 1990: 117). ‘Juristic freedom requires that the individual be recognised as free by other members of his society and be given legal rights to secure him in acting on his choices’ (Nicholson, 1990: 119). This legal aspect of juristic freedom implies that individuals’ freedom to choose their own course of action has already received public recognition. The fourth affirmative reference to juristic freedom is one already discussed in the previous chapter: it is its status as a ‘primary’ freedom. Green introduced the true sense of freedom as a metaphorical one, and even if true freedom were to be portrayed as the only real freedom, Green never backed away from the ‘metaphor’ claim. The significance of this characterisation of juristic freedom as ‘primary’ should not be underestimated. Bosanquet disagrees with Green on this and points out that there is no solid justification for giving juristic freedom the primary status implied in the ‘metaphor’ claim: We have followed . . . the example of a writer [Green] whose caution equalled his enthusiasm, in admitting that the lower sense of the word ‘liberty’ is the literal sense, and that the deeper meaning may be treated as metaphorical. It is worthwhile to observe that the justice of this way of looking at the matter is very doubtful. . . . [I]f the fuller meaning is the reality and the lesser the symbol, it would be nearer the truth to say that the reality is the liberty of a moral being whose will finds adequate expression in its life, of which liberty [as] the absence of external constraint is only an elementary type or symbol. (PTS: 153) But this dissimilarity with Bosanquet’s position is indicative of Green’s different assessment of the status of juristic freedom. While both of them base their

106  Negative freedom as well-being improvement understanding of freedom on a human agency that inherently develops, there is a notable discrepancy. Bosanquet explains the different senses of freedom by commenting on the development of the ‘self’  – similarly to Green’s explanation in terms of the ‘will’. He argues that all kinds of liberty, juristic included, are rooted ‘in the claim to be ourselves’. He believes this claim is ‘evident’ and ‘convincing to average human feeling’ and that it ‘commands respect’ (PTS: 145). The big question, however, is how we understand what this ‘self’ is. ‘The claim to obey only yourself is a claim essential to humanity; and the further significance of it rests upon what you mean by “yourself” ’ (PTS: 152). Bosanquet believes that one’s real self is not ‘the given self, the mind from day to day’ (PTS: 152), nor ‘the sensitive self, when the man is most withdrawn from things and persons and wrapped up the intimacies of his feeling’, as this is ‘a caricature of the genuine experience of individuality’ (PTS: 138). One finds his real self in ‘a transition from the private self into the great communion of reality’ (PTS: 138). Hence, the idea of constraint implied in the concept of juristic freedom is a faulty idea. It is based ‘on the current distinction between myself and others as different minds attached to different bodies’ (PTS: 145). The difference between Bosanquet and Green is that while for the former, the self that seeks juristic freedom is not in any way authentic, for the latter, the agent of juristic freedom may be morally imperfect but is still morally adequate. As shown in the discussion of formal freedom and the comparison with Kant, Green believes that the majority of people in the majority of their experiences display moral awareness. Even if juristic freedom is oriented towards personal well-being, there is still moral value in it. The discussion of LLL in the following section will show that freedom is not only derived from non-interference by others but it also conversely depends on their positive input. In this sense, we can see the concept of juristic freedom as the one that bridges the moral discussion of freedom from DSF with the political discussion in LLL. The transition from the moral to the political context brings an interesting shift of perspective. The moral debate focuses on what one can do to become free. The political discussion shows how society can impact on one’s freedom. ‘Real’ juristic freedom elicits the significance of one’s power to do things and of the legal arrangements that secure free choice. It is this understanding of freedom – the blueprint of a negative freedom concept – that will receive further development in LLL. The restatement of Green’s juristic freedom proposed here helps to demonstrate more clearly the link between his moral and his political philosophy. This link has been misinterpreted, leading to some unfortunate outcomes. The first is the dismissal of Green’s moral philosophy in favour of his political ideas. This approach is propounded by Richter who claimed that, in Green’s political philosophy, ‘the whole is somehow superior to the sum of its parts; the conclusions are still alive in a way that their metaphysical and ethical “foundations” are not’ (Richter, 1964: 222). This take on Green has not paid off because his legacy for the concept of freedom has not, in its light, been fully appreciated. Richter does acknowledge that Green’s ideas in LLL have ‘challenged liberal orthodoxies and introduced

Negative freedom as well-being improvement 107 some novel propositions for public consideration: the possibility that an increase in government activity (in education, for example) might add to the liberty of individuals, rather than diminish it’ (Richter, 1964: 223). He does not conclude, however, that Green’s radical liberalism led to the development of a distinct and viable concept of liberty. So Richter accepts Green’s political ideas but not their full implications for the conceptualisation of liberty. The other unfortunate consequence of misreading the connection between Green’s moral and political ideas is the opposite one: it is a dismissal of Green’s political insights because of the perceived limitations imposed on them by the concepts of his moral philosophy. Berlin’s and Bellamy’s reading of Green’s positive freedom exemplifies this problem. They both see the positive freedom he discusses in LLL in terms of the full moral agency of true freedom. Their deep disagreement with true freedom leads to a misinterpretation of Green’s arguments and ultimately to a dismissal of some of his main ethical concerns.18 I believe that if Green’s ideas were read correctly and one sees not one but two normatively valid senses of freedom – a positive and a negative one – such misinterpretations would be avoided. Green’s positive freedom as depicted in LLL straddles these two senses; hence, it has to be understood in the light not only of true freedom but also of the revised juristic one.

3 Analytical reconstruction of the Lecture on Liberal Legislation and conceptual alignment with On the Different Senses of ‘Freedom’ LLL is one of the classical texts on the concept of liberty and in the history of liberalism. It is a direct engagement with late-nineteenth-century parliamentary debates on the introduction of new legislation regulating the terms of employment and land tenancy contracts. Both sides of the debate justified their position by reference to liberty, and Green takes it upon himself to analyse and redefine the concept in a fashion that allows it to channel and respond to the conflicting moral intuitions underpinning the dispute. The positive freedom Green articulates is a politically radical concept. And what has been recognised as Green’s original philosophical endeavour should also be seen as the successful articulation of a new liberal turn in British politics. This turn continues even now and still faces the challenges Green responded to. Green captures and rationalises the liberal paradox implicit in this turn. When the lecture was delivered in 1881, the political dispute centred around two new acts: the Ground Game Act and the Employers Liability Act. The Ground Game Act gave tenant farmers the right to kill game on the land they occupied – a right previously possessed exclusively by the landlords. The Employers Liability Act allowed workers to seek compensation for injuries resulting from the negligence of a fellow employee. The two acts shared common features: they aimed to improve the living and working conditions of disadvantaged groups but did so by limiting the freedom of contract. Thus, both were challenged on the grounds of restricting freedom. Green was strongly in favour of the new legislation. His

108  Negative freedom as well-being improvement task in this lecture is to redefine liberty in a way which shows that the legislation does not violate but advances liberty. And this is the liberal paradox: a legislation which formally restricts free contract nonetheless claims to advance the exercise of real freedom. Green takes an overview of the ‘reforming movements’ of British political history and observes three stages. The first marked the beginning of the reform of parliament under Sir Robert Peel in 1835, who fought against privileged corporations and oversaw the establishment of representative municipal governments. With this reformist wave ‘began the struggle of society against monopolies . . . [and for] the liberation of trade’ (LLL: 196). In the second stage, under Gladstone, this process continued until ‘there has been no exchangeable commodity in England except land – no doubt a large exception – of which the exchange has not been perfectly free’ (LLL: 196). These two reforming movements were liberal in a straightforward fashion. The reform advanced certain social objectives without restricting individual freedom. ‘In all this, while there was much that contributed to the freedom of our civil life, there was nothing that could have possibly be construed as an interference with the rights of the individual’ (LLL: 196). And this marks the contrast with the latest wave of liberal reform, to which the two acts in question belong. The wave started ‘with the more democratic parliament of 1868’ and included factory acts which limited the working hours of women and children, as well as compulsory education. On the face of it, this new reforming wave contravened basic liberal principles as it ‘put restraints on the individual in doing what he will with his own’ (LLL: 197). It is precisely because this ‘late reforming legislation . . . has not at any rate been so readily identifiable with the work of liberalism’ that the issue addressed by LLL arises. The reform represents an unusual liberal trend – within it liberalism is turning on its head. While earlier liberal reform culminated in the ‘realisation of complete freedom of contract’, the latest, eagerly supported by Green, started to introduce some restrictions on that freedom (LLL: 196). In LLL, Green is articulating in conceptual terms an emerging political trend. The conceptual schema of the lecture, however, has been misunderstood. This has not been entirely the readers’ and critics’ fault. I will show here that because there are two layers to the debates Green engages with, the apparent conceptual schema of LLL has weaknesses which can be put right if we align it to the conceptual conclusions from DSF reached in the previous chapter. For the sake of showing the apparent conceptual schema in LLL, I will call the freedom Green outlines and defends in LLL ‘positive freedom’ and the freedom which he critiques, ‘the old liberal freedom’. This is represented in Table 3.1. LLL develops a cluster of political arguments which belong to two debates conflated as one. It is important to pull them apart in order to appreciate the conceptual contribution of the lecture. First, Green challenges the old liberal idea that any form of restriction and regulation is bad for freedom. He argues that the promotion of freedom has to be regulated for the sake of social justice: freedom of some should not come at the expense of the freedom of others. Society should not protect freedom ‘that can be enjoyed by one man or one set of men at the cost of

Negative freedom as well-being improvement  109 Table 3.1 The apparent two concepts of liberty in LLL Old liberal freedom

Green’s positive freedom

‘freedom from restraint or compulsion’ ‘freedom to do as we like irrespectively of what it is that we do or like’ ‘freedom that can be enjoyed by one man or one set of men at the cost of a loss of freedom to others’

‘a positive power or capacity’ ‘of doing or enjoying something worth doing or enjoying’ ‘something we do or enjoy in common with others’ (all quotes from LLL: 199)

a loss of freedom to others’ (LLL: 199). This social justice dimension of positive freedom puts a moral filter on the way freedom should be protected. This layer of the debate is very important in terms of social theory, and Green’s proposals here are the direct target of Berlin’s attack. Even though Berlin fully endorses Green’s social critique, he rejects his conceptualisation. I argue that the conceptualisation of this layer of the argument is incomplete and in some senses unsatisfactory. I will show that it does not channel fully Green’s conceptual contribution to liberty. For clarity, we could call this layer the ‘social critique’ one. The second layer of the debate is more subtle and closer to the narrower conceptual debates on liberty. Here Green challenges the moral argument underpinning the defence of the old liberal freedom: the argument against ‘grandmotherly government’ (LLL: 202). Here Green’s opponents argue that that one should not be told what is good and that being told so and being helped to live well would weaken one’s moral standing and, implicitly, one’s freedom. This second layer of the debate we could call the ‘self-reliance’ one. In the context of the ‘social critique’ layer of argumentation, the impression is that the old liberals defend a pragmatic and relatively simple account of liberty: liberty ‘from restraint and compulsion’ (LLL: 199), while Green develops a normative concept of freedom. In the context of this second, ‘self-reliance’, layer, it becomes obvious that both sides are embroiled in overtly moral argumentation. It is here that Green’s conceptual strength could be elicited best – the more so if we show how we could align, better than Green did himself, his concepts from DSF with these from LLL. I will say more about these two layers of the debate in turn. LLL develops a social critique that tends to impress and captivate readers, and hardly any political theory critic, including Berlin, has spoken against it. Green comments on the poor working conditions in late Victorian factories, on the poor quality of much of the workers’ dwellings and on the insecurity and lack of incentive for tenant farmers to make improvement on the land they till. He argues that ‘free’ employment or tenancy contracts do not advance the workers’ freedom in any meaningful sense. Due to their destitution and need of work, they are likely to accept a deal that is highly unfavourable for their well-being. There is nothing ‘to prevent them from working and living, or from putting their children to work and live, in a way in which no one who is to be a healthy and free citizen can work and live’ (LLL: 204). Green’s critical observation is that the institution

110  Negative freedom as well-being improvement of the ‘voluntary contract’ (LLL: 194) does little for their freedom. Green also observes that those who insist on the old liberal understanding of freedom ‘are interested in keeping things as they are’ (LLL: 195) because they stand to profit from cheap labour. Indeed, this accusation, only hinted at the beginning of the lecture, becomes as it develops one of its most resounding messages. Green’s critique of the free contract is captured in a succinct and powerful fashion in the following statement: To uphold the sanctity of contract is doubtless a prime business of government, but it is no less its business to provide against contracts being made, which, from the helplessness of one of the parties to them, instead of being a security for freedom, become an instrument of disguised oppression. (LLL: 209) The message is that the defence of the old liberal freedom is not simply shortsighted about what holds value for the poor citizens of Victorian Britain but that it also advances a practice which is socially irresponsible and exploitative, nothing short of ‘social nuisance’ (LLL: 202, 210). We should also note the wording in which Green summarises the nature of old liberal freedom: it is about the ‘inherent right of every man to do what he will with his own’. The formulation, shortly repeated as the individual ‘doing what he will with his own’ (LLL: 195, 197, emphasis added), indicates that the old liberal appeal to freedom is closely linked to property rights. Green explicitly comments on the justification of property rights that they should not be taken as unconditional but as justified through their role in helping people develop moral responsibility.19 It is this ‘social critique’ layer of the argument which is behind the apparent conceptual schema of LLL. In an often-quoted definition of his proposed understanding of freedom, Green starts by listing three things which freedom is not and then three opposite things which freedom is. Thus, he simultaneously sketches the profile of the old liberal freedom and of his positive concept (LLL: 200). I have listed the contents of the two concepts in Table 3.1 in order to give a graphic image of the duality. Following this definition of positive freedom, Green places two emphases which make him a clear target of Berlin’s critique: Green argues for the significance of political institutions, and of state action in particular, for the promotion of freedom. He also uses the term ‘true freedom’ several times (LLL: 199, 200), thus suggesting affinity between the positive freedom of LLL and the true freedom of DSF. Indeed, defining positive freedom through a reference to ‘making the best’ of oneself seems to confirm its affinity with DSF’s true freedom: ‘the ideal of true freedom is the maximum of power for all members of human society alike to make the best of themselves’ (LLL: 200). In the spirit of showing the deficiency of the old liberal freedom, Green proceeds to argue, in no subtle terms, about the significance of political institutions for the exercise of freedom. He states that ‘to submit is the first step in true freedom’ because only through the social organisation introduced by civic institutions are

Negative freedom as well-being improvement 111 we able to coordinate our activities and make sure that diverse interests are duly recognised.20 This argument is made in a twisted fashion, however, and is easy to misinterpret or miss altogether. The ‘submission’ claim could be seen as part of the moral growth outlined in the true freedom from DSF and thus to imply some form of subordination of personal to communal interest. In fact, the example Green gives following this statement testifies otherwise. He observes that the institutions of ‘the small republics of antiquity’ did not foster liberty. This is because in the context of slavery, ‘the apparent elevation of the few [was] founded on the degradation of the many’ (LLL: 199–20). The essence of Green’s argument is that institutions which do not advance the common good of all are institutions that hamper liberty. Nicholson expresses this rather well: ‘Green’s very important point is that a man cannot be free except in a society, and that the degree of his freedom depends on the level of his society’ (Nicholson, 1990: 130). So after arguing for the indispensable role of the state in maintaining conditions for liberty, Green actually gives an example of a state – any of the small republics of a­ ntiquity – that violated liberty. What I would like to show here is that Green does not offer a blanket endorsement of political authorities, and while his example makes this clear, his conceptual schema captured in Table 3.1 does not. It conveys that the protection of positive liberty entails restraint on the freedom ‘to do as we like’. The conceptual duality of old liberal and positive freedom allows Berlin to argue that something of value would be lost if we were to discard the old liberal concept. If positive freedom allows the sanctioning of liberty in the name of social justice and if it is conditioned on full personal flourishing, some, or even many, valuable exercises of freedom would remain out of the remit of the positive concept. Scholars who have been sceptical towards Berlin’s overall argument have nonetheless argued that he raises a valid objection to Green’s positive freedom (McBride, 1990: 311). Others have strongly denied any legitimacy to Berlin’s critique (Nicholson, 1990: 122–31; Renick, 1990; Simhony, 1991; Tyler, 2010b: 109). I would also argue that all significant aspects of the old liberal freedom are carried into Green’s defended positive freedom concept. My view is that much of the power of Green’s argument is lost in the conceptual duality between old liberal and positive freedom, and this duality, taken at face value, does allow Berlin to raise legitimate concerns about the promotion of freedom. The full power of Green’s argument comes out when we look more carefully into the second layer of debate Green engages with: that on ‘self-reliance’. From the start of LLL, it becomes clear that one of the main arguments deployed in defence of the old liberal concept is a moral one. Those who opposed the new liberal legislation did so because they believed that ‘[i]f the law thus takes to protecting men, whether tenant farmers, or pitmen, or railway servants, who ought to be able to protect themselves, it tends to weaken their self-reliance, and thus, in unwisely seeking to do them good, it lowers them in the scale of moral beings’ (LLL: 194). Green’s reply to this argument is very important, and it will receive more attention in Section 4. His argument, in a nutshell, is that the state is not in a position to make people good: only individuals themselves could acquire moral agency,

112  Negative freedom as well-being improvement and nobody else could do this on their behalf. The state can, however, provide the conditions that support people in their development towards the acquisition of moral agency. In other words, LLL’s positive freedom is not only about moral agency but also about the opportunity to develop such agency. Indeed, positive freedom ‘consists in an open field for all men to make the best of themselves’ (LLL: 206, emphasis added). The problem, however, is that Green’s concept of positive freedom as developed in LLL conflates these two forms of freedom: freedom as moral agency and freedom as an opportunity to develop oneself. Thus, the LLL’s positive freedom, as it stands, is not able to address in conceptual terms the moral argument of the old liberal opponents. The way forward would be to observe that the LLL concept of positive freedom, in its greater part, corresponds not to true freedom but to the concept preceding it: the concept that captures moral development as opposed to its completion in the acquisition of moral agency. Only a small range of usages of the LLL’s positive freedom correspond to true freedom, and I will discuss these in Section 6. Therefore, I suggest we reserve the term ‘positive freedom’ only for the true freedom dimension of the concept and show that most of what Green has to say in LLL actually constitutes a negative freedom concept as it should be understood: as the concept that reflects real opportunities for valued choices. I am not the first to make the claim that, on analysis, the freedom concept in LLL has significant affinities with a negative freedom concept. Here is what Renick claims in a paper where he defends Green from Berlin’s critique: There is a powerful irony here. What Green, the embodiment of the selfrealisation doctrine, has done is to philosophically secure a realm of negative freedom (though he does not, of course, call it such). . . . Indeed, in the hands of Green, the common good is a double-edged sword which not only fashions obligations to society but also carves out a revered place for individual choice. By giving the common good this important dual role, Green offers philosophical substance to his claims that human beings are both social and individual in nature. The true freedom of individuals continues to be determined by a social end, the common good; but individuals retain the power to alienate that freedom – they retain their claim to individual choice – in all but the most socially significant of situations. (Renick, 1990: 333–4) Renick’s suggestion that Green’s scholarship, ironically, yields a negative concept of freedom is of particular interest to me as he also shows that true freedom still exists as a valid and separate concept.

4 Green’s moral argument in defence of negative freedom Green’s LLL starts on a different footing from DSF. The change of audience is obvious and well annotated in Harris and Morrow’s edition of Green’s lectures (Green, 1986b: 343). DSF is intended for an academic philosophical audience, while LLL is a lecture delivered in the Leicester Temperance Hall under the

Negative freedom as well-being improvement  113 auspices of the city’s Liberal Association. But one could also note that in the two lectures, Green is arguing for his vision of freedom from opposite perspectives. In DSF, the focus is on the will and the agent’s point of view towards freedom. Green’s moral freedom is a form of autonomy, although different from Kant’s, and his theory advances the belief that ‘no one can convey a good character to another. Every one must make his character for himself’ (PE: 365, §332). This is a position which Green firmly subscribes to and on the grounds of which critics like Bellamy argue that he is an exponent of Victorian moral values. Bellamy claims that ‘[h]is whole philosophy was premised upon seeing human history as the outcome of this Smilesean ethic of self-help’ (Bellamy, 1992: 40).21 The thrust of the argument in LLL, however, is almost the opposite: there Green argues that there are circumstances where freedom can only be protected by ‘the extended action of law’ (LLL: 202) and that one can be effectively free only ‘through the help or security given to him by his fellow-men’ (LLL: 199). It may seem that Green is arguing against himself, but he is not. In LLL, Green is engaging in a complex and difficult negotiation about the extent of external intervention that is, on the one hand, needed, and on the other, warranted, in the protection of freedom. Green does not waver from his belief that there should be room ‘for the play of our moral energies’ (LLL: 212) and that virtue could not possibly be forced. He is taking the balanced view that ‘it is the business of the state, not indeed directly to promote moral goodness, for that, from the very nature of moral goodness, it cannot do, but to maintain the conditions without which a free exercise of the human faculties is impossible’ (LLL: 202). One would think that such a clear statement should have pre-empted the later critiques of the moralistic nature of Green’s LLL freedom. But it did not. Following a quote from LLL,22 Berlin claims, ‘This is a classical statement of positive liberty, and the crucial terms are, of course, “true freedom” and “the best of themselves”. Perhaps I need not enlarge again upon the fatal ambiguity of these words’ (IN: 41). This ambiguity is ‘fatal’, because it seems to endorse what Berlin vigorously rejects: ‘the metaphysical doctrine of the two selves – the individual streams versus the social river in which they should be merged, a dualistic fallacy used too often to support a variety of despotisms’ (IN: 41–42). In his commentary on Green’s LLL, Bellamy says, ‘His concern was not the improvement of the material conditions of the poor per se, merely their status as moral agents’ (Bellamy, 1992: 42). This is an example of reading Green’s ideas exclusively in the light of true freedom and, as a result, misunderstanding them. The irony of the critique levelled against Green here is that it is not Green but his old liberal opponents who are promoting freedom on the moralistic grounds of self-reliance. Green not only does not do what he is accused of, but he also goes to great lengths to explain how unrealistic moral expectations can have a crippling impact. I will concede to Berlin his claim about undesirable ‘ambiguity’ in Green’s terminology, and as a first step to addressing this misinterpretation of his ideas, I would note that the positive freedom Green advocates in LLL does not coincide with true freedom. Only a part of it corresponds to true freedom. I argue that his vision of positive freedom brings together two distinguishable concepts which I have called ‘positive/true’ and ‘positive/ability’ freedom (Dimova-Cookson, 2012: 146–52).

114  Negative freedom as well-being improvement As the names suggest, the first corresponds to true freedom and should be seen in terms of the positive freedom endorsed in this monograph. Positive/ability freedom corresponds to the revised juristic freedom and is accordingly a form of negative freedom. Some degree of decoding of Green’s language in his LLL definitions of positive freedom will help resolve ambiguities that have been interpreted, I believe wrongly, in favour of true freedom. Our preceding analysis and the revisions of the concepts of formal and juristic freedom will make this decoding easy. When Green claims that ‘freedom in the positive sense’ should be understood in terms of ‘the power of all men . . . for contributions to a common good’ (LLL: 200), this has been understood as a reference to a type of moral freedom, along the lines of true freedom. The analysis in Chapter Two and the first two sections of this chapter has demonstrated, however, that there is a difference between acquisition of moral agency, which is a requirement for true freedom, and the capacity to become a moral agent, which is characteristic of the revised formal and juristic freedoms. The potentiality for moral agency is characteristic of most human actions: most objects of our will represent a mixture of things that advance one’s personal good and the good of the others. Few actions are completely moral – actions where significant aspects of the personal good are subordinated to the common good – but also very few actions lack completely a moral aspect – that is, any form of adjustment of the personal to the common. Capacity to contribute to the common good refers to this state of normality – in contrast to the more extreme circumstances in which true freedom is practised23 – as most human actions are at least partially moral. I argued in Section 1 that we should correct Green when he declares that all willing is free. We should exclude wilfully selfish behaviour from the remit of freedom. This exclusion fits well with Green’s sociological analysis in LLL. Green’s argument there is that unless the state introduces some legal regulation to voluntary contract – like imposing regulations on safety of the workplace or putting a limit to the hours one could work – the result ‘is demonstrably physical deterioration, which, as demonstrably, carries with it a lowering of the moral forces of society’ (LLL: 201). The point Green makes here is that there are circumstances which may destroy one’s capacity ‘ever to become a free contributor to social good in any form’ (LLL: 201). The crucial point here is that these are capacities implied in one’s formal freedom and, hence, should be seen as part of negative freedom. My observation is that Green is exposing conditions of exploitation of labour that destroy not one’s true freedom but one’s real juristic freedom. The difference between positive/ability freedom and positive/true freedom reflects the difference between our revised juristic freedom and Green’s true freedom understood as acquisition of moral agency. This is the difference between capacity to become a contributor to the common good and having acquired a moral agency in the sense of being prepared to sacrifice an important aspect of your well-being to the service of the common good. While the capacity to contribute to the common good should be held by most in normal circumstances, the acquisition of moral agency is the extreme case of subordinating one’s well-being to the common good. In other words, the capacity to contribute to the common good is an integral part of one’s well-being. Bellamy expresses the issue at stake

Negative freedom as well-being improvement 115 Table 3.2 Linking Green’s concepts of freedom and their original texts with the concepts of positive, negative and non-real freedoms endorsed in this book Non-real freedoms

Negative freedom

Positive freedom

DSF and LPK DSF

Juristic freedom lacking any moral component

True freedom

LLL

Old liberal freedom when doing something that is not worthwhile for you or which rests on exploitation of others; The freedom of the savage, of the overexploited worker and of the slave owners

Real formal freedom Real juristic freedom Positive/Ability freedom

True freedom Positive/True freedom

very well although he makes the exactly opposite claim to the one I make: ‘Green tended to gloss over the difference between being socialised into adopting the prevailing custom and a genuinely independent search to achieve moral goodness’ (Bellamy, 1992: 40). I believe Green’s conceptualisation of formal, juristic, true and positive freedom provides the theoretical resources to distinguish between positive freedom as based on moral agency and negative freedom as based on well-being inclusive of moral concerns. Table 3.2 shows the alignments within the terminology I have used so far. It shows how the dual conceptualisations of real freedom from DSF should map onto the duality of real freedoms in LLL. The table also shows how the recommended concepts of positive and negative freedom in this monograph align with Green’s terminology. I will elucidate the difference between the two real freedoms in LLL from two opposite angles making two different emphases. First, I will show that positive/ ability freedom is different from true freedom because it reflects a state of routine well-being as opposed to a state of moral agency. In Section 4.1, I will focus on Green’s argument against the old liberal doctrine and its emphasis on selfreliance. In Section 4.2, I will look into the characteristics of one’s well-being and observe that it implies a certain degree of moral development. I argue that wellbeing includes civility. Hence, understanding the early stages of moral development, and the difference between the early stages and the successful acquisition of moral agency, is very significant. The dividing line between these is the internal boundary between the two real freedoms, and this boundary is important for the integrity of each of the two concepts. I will say more about it in Section 5. 4.1 Green’s polemic against self-reliance: why true freedom should not be seen as the only freedom Pace Bellamy, Green makes a clear distinction between the independent search for moral goodness and being effectively socialised. I believe this is the distinction he is trying to explain to his old liberal opponents who, ‘in the sacred name of

116  Negative freedom as well-being improvement individual liberty’, resist every legal or state support for the deprived (LLL: 195). It is they who believe that any support from the state will weaken the workers’ ‘self-reliance’ because such aid ‘in unwisely seeking to do them good’ will actually ‘[lower] them in the scale of moral beings’ (LLL: 194). Green’s counterargument is that one cannot expect workers or tenant farmers in a state of deprivation to become self-reliant and to take full responsibility for their own fate. His opponents, he believes, do not understand what makes freedom possible; they ‘do not sufficiently consider the conditions of [freedom’s] maintenance in such a society as ours’ (LLL: 195). His idea is that before one can be expected to go higher on the ‘scale of moral beings’, one should be provided with a level of well-being which will open up the possibility of becoming self-reliant. It is not Green who is the Victorian moraliser: he is the opponent of the Victorian moralisers. Hence, Bellamy’s assessment that Green could never challenge the Victorian ‘ethics of self-help’ is not correct (Bellamy, 1992: 40). Green’s argument that full self-reliance can be expected only after a certain level of well-being is achieved becomes very clear in his recommendation for state control of the liquor trade. While the old liberal opponents believed that ­everyone should be able to control his own alcohol consumption, Green claimed that those who already had a decent standard of well-being and ‘respectability’ could but those who lived in ‘squalor’ could not. Better education, better housing, more healthy rules of labour, no doubt lessen the temptation to drink for those who have the benefit of these advantages, but meanwhile drunkenness is constantly recruiting the ranks of those who cannot be really educated, who will not be better housed, who make their employment dangerous and unhealthy. An effectual liquor law in short is the necessary complement of our factory acts, our education acts, our public health acts. (LLL: 211) The support of people’s freedom should not be based on encouraging them to be self-reliant. This is what Green actually calls ‘the delusive cry of liberty’ (LLL: 212). It is delusive because it assumes that freedom is always enhanced through non-interference. This is a misconception. True freedom may be enhanced by non-interference, but the basic freedom which allows you to be able to pursue true freedom is not. This basic freedom which Green outlines with frequent references to ‘well-being’ can be advanced through support from the state and one’s fellow citizens. It is possible to ‘interfere’ and advance someone’s freedom. Green points out that it has been done in the past with positive effect and that this could be taken further: ‘Act after act was passed preventing master and workmen, parent and child, house-builder and house-holder, from doing as they pleased, with the result of a great addition to the real freedom of society. The spirit of self-reliance and independence was not weakened by those acts’ (LLL 212). It is a poor sophistry to tell us that it is moral cowardice to seek to remove by law a temptation which every one ought to be able to resist for himself. . . .

Negative freedom as well-being improvement 117 When all temptations are removed which law can remove, there will be still room enough, nay, much more room, for the play of our moral energies. (LLL: 212) The essence of Green’s argument here is that seeing freedom merely in terms of true freedom is wrong. True freedom is viable only when a more basic form of freedom obtains. Those who could rise to true freedom in conditions of squalor are exceptions. Expecting this is unrealistic and unnecessary and amounts to political ‘sophistry’: it is a form of avoiding political responsibility. Green’s argument against his old liberal opponents demonstrates that when a political appeal is made for the exercise of moral goodness or of true freedom, the results could be ‘a social nuisance’ (LLL: 210). Asking the destitute to be selfreliant and to act in a morally responsible fashion either mocks their condition or constitutes a disguised effort to protect the status quo. In LLL, Green does not campaign for true freedom understood as acquisition of moral agency – he shows how doing so may be socially inadequate. That is why I argue that the positive freedom he advocates there is not a true freedom but a version of juristic freedom. What is more, LLL develops further his concept of juristic freedom by associating it with conditions of general well-being. 4.2 Positive/ability freedom as based on a state of citizenship and well-being So far I have argued that the positive freedom Green campaigns for in LLL is not the true freedom of moral agency but a more basic form of freedom along the lines of juristic freedom. Now I would like to turn to the exact nature of this freedom and demonstrate that it too is not a fully basic form of freedom. To start with, Green’s definition makes it clear that freedom, properly understood, does not apply to all human choices; it is not ‘the mere enabling of a man to do as he likes’ (LLL: 199, emphasis added). This comes to confirm my re-reading of formal and juristic freedom as applying only to the will that has the capacity to be directed towards the common good. What also becomes clear is that Green’s freedom as defended in LLL reflects a state of civility or a state of citizenship: I  will treat these as synonymous. My argument is that citizenship is a state of agency short of moral agency but with a moral constitution of its own. The moral constitution of citizenship implies internalisation of the moral norms contained in public laws. Citizenship is not a form of moral autonomy, but of moral adequacy. When Green campaigns for protecting workers’, tenant farmers’ and liquor consumers’ freedom, he appeals for investment in their citizenship status. Practically this amounts to envisaging the social policies that develop people’s skills for effective socialisation. Let me explain these in more detail. For Green, citizenship is a significant step above ‘savagery’, and it is the point where any meaningful freedom begins. ‘In one sense no man is so well able to do as he likes as the wandering savage. He has no master. There is no one to say him nay. Yet we do not count him really free, because the freedom of savagery is

118  Negative freedom as well-being improvement not strength, but weakness’ (LLL: 199). The freedom of the savage is not a step towards true freedom; it is beyond the remit of freedom altogether. This comment on the status of savagery (see Table 3.2) confirms my reading of juristic freedom as not simply ‘exemption of compulsion to any will’. This is also confirmed by Green’s explicit link between juristic freedom and citizenship in DSF. There he refers to it as ‘expressing the condition of a citizen in a civilised state’ (DSF: 240). The freedom which constitutes the step towards true freedom is the freedom of citizenship. It is important to distinguish the state of citizenship from the state of true freedom. Although both are based on a moral development of the individual, they represent different levels of this development. If we pay closer attention to how Green describes the ‘practice’ of citizenship’, we will note a similarity with what he described as the first stage in the moral progress of the individual (DSF: 247–49). The citizen is different from the savage because he has the experience of ‘restraint by society’. This restraint makes a crucial difference, because it is the ‘first step towards the full exercise of the faculties with which a man is endowed’ (LLL: 199). The idea is that the citizen accepts the laws of a civil society which, at least in theory, are aimed towards the advancement of the well-being of all.24 This is the spirit in which the following words should be understood: ‘to submit is the first step in true freedom’ (LLL: 199). Submitting means acceptance of the moral norms implied in the law. As we know well from DSF, however, such acceptance of the existing norms is characteristic only of the first stage of the moral progress of the individual (DSF: 247–48). It is true freedom which reflects the last stage, a stage that involves a critical endorsement, or indeed a revision, of these norms. I think Green’s argument in LLL helps explain why the acceptance of existing norms, as a means to the end of moral agency, is good and commendable. It is so, because the successful acquisition of citizenship contributes to the agent’s own well-being. It is empowering in a way that allows her a level of control over her own life. Successful acquisition of citizenship should be perceived as a basic and non-negotiable condition for all. This quote conveys these ideas well: ‘Without a command of certain elementary arts and knowledge, the individual in a modern society is as effectively crippled as by the loss of a limb or a broken constitution’ (LLL: 201). Citizenship for Green is integral to one’s well-being. The idea is that one could impose political and moral expectations on individuals only once such well-being is in place. Therefore, I argue, Green’s recommendations about what should be done in order to raise living and working standards are not recommendations for political submission or moral mobilisation on behalf of workers, tenant farmers and consumers of alcohol. His are recommendations for providing conditions, and these can be provided by the state or by those who have the socioeconomic powers to do so, like employers, landlords and liquor tradespeople. The new liberal legislation which Green advocates is not intended to indoctrinate or assert political control but to empower. Green sees this new law as ‘a powerful friend’ (LLL: 203). Throughout LLL, Green develops a clear vision of a two-step process towards individual independence. He and his opponents share the premise that individual

Negative freedom as well-being improvement  119 independence displayed in self-reliance is a good thing and a sacred form of freedom. Green insisted, however, that one could not aspire to achieve it unless certain conditions existed. These are the conditions of citizenship and basic wellbeing. The freedom which he recommends in LLL is the freedom of being able to fit in ‘a civilised state’ and being able to do things ‘worth doing or enjoying’ (LLL: 199). This freedom is the first step to personal independence and self-reliance. This allows us to place Bellamy’s comments in an illuminating context. Green does distinguish between the states of ‘being socialised into adopting the prevailing custom and a genuinely independent search to achieve moral goodness’ (Bellamy, 1992: 40). The former belongs to the first stage of moral development, and the latter to the last. It would be fair to say that Green has the ambition to foster moral virtue, but none of those who criticise his positive freedom appreciate the more subtle and powerful vision he has about this process. Green’s opponents who insist on selfreliance argue that help interferes with moral development. But Green believes that the capacity to be kind depends on an environment of fairness. One has to want to serve the common good. The path towards moral agency is complex and takes on a long and arduous task of adjusting the personal to the common. This adjustment depends on the capacity of institutions to promote the common good. The new legislation is the kind of institution that aims to advance the common good of all. This institution not only protects the underclass directly but also shows how the common good works and that it is worth engaging with. Fair institutions are crucial in shaping people’s capacity to serve the common good. Simhony’s interpretation of Green’s positive freedom is in many important respects similar to my understanding of Green’s positive/ability freedom. Her way of explaining the moral contents of Green’s concept is pertinent to the discussion at hand. In order to resist Sidgwick’s charge that Green’s idea of self-realisation ‘is too vague to yield practical guidance’, she claims that Green is sufficiently specific (Simhony, 1991: 306–7; Sidgwick, 1902: 61–71). She argues that the range of activities that would qualify as conducive to self-realisation and, therefore, to freedom is limited by two boundaries: non-selfishness and non-exploitation. So ‘self-realisation should be understood as a lifeplan pursued within the boundaries of non-selfishness and non-exploitation’ (Simhony, 1991: 307). This interpretation allows Simhony to resist effectively another charge against Green: that his positive freedom is monistic rather than pluralistic. Her retort is that within the boundaries of non-selfishness and non-exploitation, there is a lot of room for pursuing diverse moral objectives (Simhony, 1991: 308). I believe Simhony’s reading of Green’s freedom confirms my argument that positive/ability freedom has moral content, but this content is still short of the understanding of moral action as implied in the concept of true freedom. What I add to Simhony’s argument, therefore, is that there is need of a second concept of freedom, like true freedom, because the latter relies on a moral commitment which surpasses acting merely within moral constraints. LLL sketches an idea that receives a fuller articulation from Hannah Arendt: that the basic rights are not the natural rights but rights based on recognition

120  Negative freedom as well-being improvement (Arendt, 1949). For Green, the basic freedom is not freedom from compulsion but the freedom afforded through the recognition of a civil society.25 Although Green has his own theory of distinguishing rights based on recognition from natural rights (LPPO: 110–15),26 Arendt is particularly effective in voicing the argument that without some minimal recognition, one’s action cannot have practical impact on others.27 Through the process of recognition, one makes oneself not only noticed and understood but also capable of making an intended impact. The idea that freedom must afford you at least a minimal capacity to protect your own interests is integral to the argument in LLL. And this is one of the main reasons why I  categorise Green’s positive/ability freedom as a negative freedom. It is an investment, to use Pettit’s phrase, in the agent’s ‘capacities to demand non-­ interference’ (Pettit, 1996: 589). We can see why its moral constitution is even more complex than that of true freedom. Positive/ability freedom does internalise some authorities for the sake of effectively resisting other authorities. It internalises the moral norms of citizenship and specifically the moral norms of the shared social establishment, but it allows one some resistance to those who wield political or socioeconomic power.

5 The internal freedom boundary I have argued here that Green’s scholarship on liberty gives us not one but two real senses of freedom. The first sense reflects the freedom experienced in one’s routine activities in the context of the pursuit of one’s own well-being. This sense of freedom is real, because it reflects not only enjoyment from overcoming obstacles but also the satisfaction of pursuing things ‘worth doing or enjoying’ for the agent herself. It is real also because it contains a moral component and is thus desirable and normatively justifiable. This moral component could be a form of concern for others, it could be a form of a moral constraint and it could be a form of citizen’s self-awareness shown in the respect for civil institutions. This first real sense of freedom is how I believe negative freedom should be understood in principle. Green’s own concepts of formal, juristic and the LLL positive freedom are the basis for such a concept of negative freedom. The second real sense of freedom is how I believe positive freedom should be understood, and it is equivalent to Green’s true freedom as defined in the DSF: it is exercised through the acquisition of moral agency. True freedom is only possible after a process of moral development has been accomplished. It depends on voluntary and conscious commitment to service to the common good, and this typically relies on previous experience of alignment of personal and communal interests. It is a real sense of freedom because it is normatively desirable and satisfying from the agent’s point of view. It is experienced as freedom as it helps overcome the moral problem implied in the exercise of negative freedom: the latter does not pre-empt the possibility of a significant conflict between the agent and others.28 These two real senses of freedom cannot be properly and fully defined in isolation from each other. The dual conceptualisation of freedom is needed for us to explain each sense in its own right. This is because each sense excludes an element

Negative freedom as well-being improvement 121 that is vital in the understanding of freedom in principle. And the exclusion of this element is one of the key definitive features of each sense. Negative freedom as the well-being freedom excludes significant threats to one’s well-being. Some of these threats, like hostile social and political institutions, can be excluded without any conceptual controversy. These cannot be seen as integral to freedom in any sense. But other threats, like unconditional service to the common good and like social and political institutions in principle, are constitutive of positive freedom. They have to be excluded, in some qualified fashion, from negative freedom but not from the understanding of freedom altogether. This is the reason why some of the boundaries defining the real freedom concepts are internal: the definition of freedom relies on external and internal boundaries. This definition should indicate and exclude all factors hostile to liberty. If these factors threaten or do not advance liberty in any form, then the boundary between them and the liberty concept are external. But when these factors are pertinent to the exercise of freedom, but they need to be excluded, then they are sheltered in the ‘other’ concept, and the boundary is internal. Positive freedom does not allow the agent to prioritise her own well-being: it is not difficult to see why positive freedom cannot be the only concept of freedom. But it is a significant form of freedom in its own right, and its internal boundary needs protecting. We can envisage scenarios when a person’s capacity to exercise positive freedom depends on her ability to bar, temporarily, her focus on her own well-being. Kant’s example of the reason why one should not commit suicide comes to mind. When Kant explains the reasoning implicit in following the categorical imperative, he gives an example of a maxim that could not be universalised: ‘from self love I make it my principle to shorten my life when its continued duration threatens more evil than it promises satisfaction’ (GMM: 30, §422).29 Kant’s objective is to show that suicide is morally unacceptable, and his reasoning is that while we may be driven to contemplate suicide because of deep unhappiness, our personal happiness should not be the leading factor when deciding on the right course of action. What I am trying to say, using Kant’s example, is that sometimes our capacity to endure and survive adversity rests on our ability to put on hold our focus on our own well-being. The capacity to practise positive freedom depends on one’s ability to overcome one’s default concern with one’s personal interests. When the pursuit of negative freedom can lead to nothing good, positive freedom is an available alternative, but it is only available if the internal freedom boundary is in place.30 This internal boundary is equally, if not more, important from the perspective of negative freedom. There are circumstances when the exercise of negative freedom is possible only when one is protected from pressures to act as a moral agent. One’s well-being and thus one’s negative freedom can be seriously compromised if one is morally pressured to serve the good of others at a high personal cost. Therefore, the concept of negative freedom needs to articulate this internal boundary: this is a key feature of the strength and uniqueness of Constant’s concept of modern liberty and of Berlin’s concept of negative freedom. These two scholars developed dual conceptualisations of liberty precisely because of the internal

122  Negative freedom as well-being improvement boundary. They had to exclude from their defended freedom a feature which is a key aspect of liberty in principle but crippling for the exercise of freedom in the particular circumstances they faced. Green’s arguments against the old liberals’ insistence on self-reliance are arguments that, among other things, aim to establish such an internal boundary. Put in a nutshell, the idea is that the concept of true freedom can be misused if evoked in order to command people’s obedience for exploitative purposes. The old liberal focus on self-reliance is not dissimilar to Green’s focus on moral agency underpinning his true freedom. As noted earlier, both Green and his opponents employ moral arguments in defence of their recommended understandings of freedom. The significant difference between them is that Green has a carefully worked out moral philosophy which explains in a structured fashion the link between morality and freedom. Such depth of analysis and insight is lacking on the opponents’ side. Their moral argument does not stand up to scrutiny. Indeed, critics like Berlin and Bellamy who attack Green’s positive freedom on account of its moral underpinning would have little sympathy for the moral ethics of self-help as conveyed in LLL. But the strength of Green’s argument cannot be appreciated unless we expose the disturbing aspects of the moralism behind the self-reliance argument. This argument is faulty because, unlike the argument behind Green’s true freedom, it bypasses the need for moral development. The internal boundary needed to protect the exercise of negative freedom is a shield from the pressure of moralism. Moral pressures could be detrimental to liberty when expectations surpass what the individual is able to do without significant compromise to his well-being. Moral development takes its time, and its space needs to be protected. LLL consolidates the idea that freedom is about wellbeing; that well-being includes levels of satisfaction, typically derived from doing things that are worthwhile from the agent’s point of view. Also well-being should be understood in a fashion that protects the agent’s potential acquisition of moral agency. Green shows what could be detrimental to this well-being. So he draws a boundary around workers’ and tenant farmers’ well-being in order to protect them from unwise or exploitative moral pressures. We can see that without a properly developed concept of positive freedom one – in this case the government – stands in danger of undermining the negative liberty of vulnerable constituencies. True freedom is a real sense of freedom based on a genuine understanding of the process of moral development. The old liberal freedom is moralistic, and it lacks such understanding. Moral arguments are pertinent in the discussion and the defence of liberty; hence, they have to be taken very seriously. The moral argument behind self-reliance freedom lacks sensitivity to the social-economic circumstances of late Victorian Britain, and the freedom it promotes has the potential to damage the well-being of vulnerable groups. In different circumstances, it could be part of true freedom. We need the two concepts – the positive and the negative – in order to be able to protect freedom adequately in different circumstances. This is because, in certain circumstances, key attributes of freedom threaten the only freedom available to us, and we need to isolate these temporarily dangerous attributes in a different freedom concept.

Negative freedom as well-being improvement  123 Seeing negative freedom in the context of the conceptual dichotomy has the tendency to emphasise the differences between the two concepts and the significance of the internal conceptual boundary. But the concepts do not have to be at loggerheads with each other. The boundary between them does not have to be one of protection and exclusion – it could also be a symbolic and practically open border. One could imagine scenarios where unconditional service to others could become part of one’s routine well-being, like, for example, leading the life of Mother Teresa. Alternatively, one may have a form of well-being that accommodates a very high level of commitment to others – the example of people with caring duties for family members or friends comes to mind. In other words, the internal boundary may be blurred. Indeed, arguably this is the kind of freedom Green likes to explain and recommend: one that can be practised routinely and thus be a part of one’s own well-being but one nonetheless deeply committed to the well-being of others. The idea is that in a friendly social environment, negative freedom should be exercised in a fashion that internalises an upward developmental gradient towards an increasing level of dedication to the common good. This reading of negative freedom allows us to keep the liberal commitment to liberty as a major value and individual well-being as an unconditional goal but with a proviso attached. While in circumstances of deprivation, negative liberty should be unconditionally protected, in the normal run of events, individuals should endorse their own well-being in a critical fashion, always searching for capacities and opportunities for a greater service to the common good.

6 Positive/true freedom So far I have not said anything about positive/true freedom, that is, the way in which true freedom features in LLL. Positive/true freedom is the exercise of moral agency in a specific political setting. The paradigm example of positive/true freedom, taken from LLL, would be controlling your consumption of liberty in the light of the impact it will have on the liberty of others. This is how we can meaningfully interpret Green’s claim that positive freedom is ‘something that we do or enjoy in common with others’ or ‘the liberation of the powers of all men equally’ (LLL: 199, 200). If I am an employer with a significant legal and cultural capacity to exploit my workers, I exercise positive/true freedom if I choose to limit their working hours and my profit for the sake of improving their working conditions. This is true freedom because I act as a moral agent: I have cast my vision of my good in the light of what is good for others. I have acquired moral agency because I have developed the disposition to pursue the good of others as my own good. Positive/true freedom is the true freedom positioned in specific social circumstances, and, in the case of LLL, it consists in enhancing the freedom of others.31 This positioning of true freedom in the LLL context allows us to see some of its practical implications and gain further theoretical insights. Positive/true freedom is a double freedom. First, it is freedom on account of being true freedom. Second, it is freedom because it helps enhance other people’s positive/ability freedom. If you remember, the discussion of true freedom in the previous chapter led to the

124  Negative freedom as well-being improvement observation that it is ‘freedom plus’ (Chapter Two, Section  6). The concept of positive/true freedom commits to a particular vision of what is the plus: it is the enhancement of the freedom of others. Green’s positive freedom includes ‘the liberation of the powers of all men’. If we did not identify two separate concepts of freedom in LLL, Green could be accused of circularity or infinite regress. If I am free when I make others free, what does it mean for them to be free? If their freedom consists in making me free, then the definition is circular; if their freedom consists in making yet some other people free, then it leads to infinite regress. The circularity and the regress are avoided if we make it clear that the freedom of liberating others is a positive/true freedom and the freedom we gain from the liberation is positive/ability freedom.

Conclusion At the end of this study of Green’s theory of liberty, we can bring together some of the conclusions from the study of Constant’s liberty in Chapter One with a set of conclusions we could draw here. In Chapter One I observed that the relationto-authority criterion for distinguishing between positive and negative freedom is more complex than it seems. The difference between moral and political authorities brings new dimension to the understanding of positive and negative freedom. The vertical divide between positive and negative is multiplied by a horizontal one between freedom as experienced privately or as I would refer to it here, in the moral sphere, and publicly, or in the political sphere. So we end up with the fourfold matrix of Table 3.3 similar to that of Table 1.6 from the conclusion of Chapter One. Moral positive and political positive freedom are exercised ‘with authorities’, while the moral negative and the political negative are exercised ‘against authorities’, referring to moral and political authorities, respectively. The most important concepts here are moral positive and political negative freedom. They are the paradigm cases of positive and negative freedom, respectively, as outlined and defended in Chapters Two and Three. They are the two real Table 3.3 The fourfold freedom matrix applied to Green’s ideas The relation-to-authority distinction criterion Positive liberty

Negative liberty

Moral sphere

Moral positive True freedom: acquisition of moral agency

Political sphere

Political positive Positive/true freedom: liberating others through public service

Moral negative Rejecting moral authorities: ‘a revolt against conventional morality’ which may result in ‘apparent suspension of the moral growth of the individual’ (DSF, 248) Political negative Being able to improve one’s own well-being; this includes capacity to resist authorities that undermine one’s well-being

Negative freedom as well-being improvement 125 freedoms. The fourfold matrix allows us to make interesting observations. First, moral negative freedom is a rather incomplete and unstable form of freedom. It represents a rebellion against moral authorities, and Green has an equivalent to this concept in his discussion of the three stages of the moral progress of the individual in DSF. Moral negative freedom would capture well the second stage of moral progress – this is the stage where the individual rebels against the conventional authorities which she had previously accepted in an uncritical fashion. This is a temporary rebellion according to Green, and it is a crucial stage in the process of developing one’s critical and moral capacities. Not being able to move beyond this stage, however, would lead to ‘an apparent suspension of the moral growth of the individual’ (DSF: 248). This observation is interesting as it throws light on how difficult the process of rejecting moral authorities – or as Green calls them ‘conventional morality’ – is. It is surrounded by personal and social instability. One can reject moral authorities, but this would be at the cost of the capacity to integrate, and there is little one could achieve in the context of social isolation. The third stage of moral development does allow for a critical perspective upon moral conventions, but it also involves a vision of alternative moral authorities. In other words the moral reformer is an agent of political positive freedom, not of moral negative freedom. Political negative freedom is very different from moral negative freedom in terms of stability. While the first is about ‘rejecting’, the second is about capacity to resist. Political negative freedom relies on institutional backing, and in this sense it is also backed by at least some social norms. A second observation this fourfold analysis allows us to make is that political negative freedom, which represents the well-developed and defensible version of negative freedom, is a concept that rests on moral positive freedom. This chapter shows that a meaningful concept of negative freedom can be developed only after one has established and accepted true freedom as a viable freedom concept. Without a concept of true freedom, one could not see key characteristics definitive of a real negative freedom concept, including capacity for moral development, the need for basic well-being and some level of control over it. This political negative freedom is not only against but also with authorities. A meaningful negative freedom concept is unthinkable for vulnerable constituencies without external protection. In this sense political negative freedom is only partially ‘against authorities’, and hence, this cannot be its only definitive feature. Here we can appreciate the significance of the second, ‘relation to moral agency’, criterion for the positive/ negative freedom distinction. The third important observation the fourfold matrix allows us to make is that political positive freedom – which is the equivalent of the positive/true freedom discussed in Section 6 – is very different from Berlin’s portrayal of the concept. Green’s LLL offers a specific vision of how true freedom should be practically exercised: through ‘the liberation of the powers of all men equally for contributions to the common good’ (LLL: 200, emphasis added). This is a targeted appeal to those who already have the capacity to exercise moral agency, that is, employers, land owners and liquor tradespeople (Dimova-Cookson, 2003). These are people whose negative freedom is secure as their well-being thrives in the context

126  Negative freedom as well-being improvement of the institution of the ‘voluntary contract’ (LLL: 194). They are in a position to exercise true freedom – an appeal to their moral consciousness would not be exploitative. These people should not enhance further their negative freedom but turn to positive freedom. They can do so by liberating others: by investing in the well-being of the less fortunate. The person who exercises political positive freedom is not, pace Berlin and many other positive freedom critics, an indoctrinator or a moraliser but a carer.

Notes 1 Renick notes that ‘Green and the school of thought he founded, is for Berlin . . . the very embodiment of the dangers of the so called “positive freedom” ’ (Renick, 1990: 323). Berlin engages with Green’s ideas directly, and many of his arguments reflect a significant level of understanding (TCL: 180; IN: 41). 2 See the second paragraph of the introduction of Chapter Two. 3 Using the term ‘negative’ with respect to Green’s ideas is controversial. ‘Negative’ is an unfortunate adjective. I chose to stick to it because this is how the mainstream exercise of freedom is generally understood. Typically, positive freedom is seen as the second concept of freedom, and I would like to work with this understanding. I keep this name for the concept also out of respect and recognition for Berlin’s heroic defence of negative freedom and his landmark dual conceptualisation of liberty: he went further than Constant and Green in justifying the need for two concepts. 4 Rawls does not engage directly with the ‘controversy between the proponents of positive and negative liberty’, but he shows a good understanding about the trade-offs between different liberties and maintains with Constant ‘that the so-called liberty of the moderns is of greater value than the liberty of the ancients’ (Rawls, 1999: 176–77). 5 Berlin’s ideas will receive more detailed coverage in Chapters Four, Five and Six. 6 Bosanquet, however, who is vocal about the significant impact of Green’s theory of freedom on his own, uses the term ‘negative’ freedom as synonymous to ‘juristic’ freedom (PTS: 145–47). 7 In the previous chapter, I defended Green’s distinction between juristic and true freedom to the extent that I argued that true freedom is a distinct sense of freedom associated closely with the acquisition of moral agency. This allowed for another, also ‘real’, sense of freedom that captures the moral development preceding true freedom. As the previous chapter did not outline in conceptual terms the first ‘real’ sense of freedom, the distinction will be properly completed in this chapter, after ‘real juristic’ freedom is outlined better. However, the previous chapter established that the juristic/true freedom distinction, properly drawn, represents the most significant criterion for the positive/ negative freedom distinction defended here: that between a focus on one’s well-being and a focus on the service to the common good. 8 For example, Isaiah Berlin fully endorses Green’s ‘plea for justice’ in LLL and his ‘denunciation of the monstrous assumption that workers were (in any sense that mattered to them) free agents in negotiating with employers in [Green’s] time’. However, he refuses to acknowledge that Green, therefore, develops a viable concept of freedom because of a ‘fatal ambiguity’ in his words, that is, because of Green’s commitment to true freedom which Berlin saw as ‘the metaphysical doctrine of the two selves’ (Berlin, IN: 41, note1). So practically, Berlin dismisses Green’s views which he otherwise saw as ‘exceptionally enlightened’, because of Green’s ‘misleading terminology’ (Berlin, IN: 42, note 1). 9 Nicholson interprets its relation to juristic and true freedom as a first stage in a threestage ‘teleological sequence’, where formal freedom is a person’s ‘ability to will (or not to will) what is right if he chooses to’, juristic freedom is ‘the outward expression

Negative freedom as well-being improvement 127 of formal freedom’ through one’s assertion of oneself against others and true freedom is ‘the Common Good’ (Nicholson, 1990: 119–20). Nicholson sees formal and juristic freedom as important predecessors of true freedom, and I believe this is correct. But this reading, although faithful to Green’s theory, suggests that both formal and juristic freedom represent imperfect forms of freedom, which are nonetheless necessary steps towards the perfection of true freedom. My objective is to elicit a preliminary form of freedom which is nonetheless complete in itself. 10 See also the discussion of freedom and satisfaction in Chapter Two, Section 3. 11 The reference is to Green’s Introductions to Hume’s ‘Treatise of Human Nature’, hereafter IH. 12 Tyler calls this characterisation of the nature of the will and human nature in general ‘spiritual determinism’. ‘The spiritual determinist approach establishes that one’s motives and therefore one’s will are essentially self-determined’ (Tyler, 2010a: 132). 13 See the discussion in Section 4. 14 I also agree with Tyler’s further assertion that the problems of Green’s account of moral responsibility stem from flaws in his overall theory of the will, which Tyler calls ‘spiritual determinism’. It is problematic because it does not allow the option for the will to ‘be motivated by a voluntarily chosen object as that would entail the incoherent idea of an unmotivated act of willing’ (Tyler, 2010a: 138). 15 Bernard Bosanquet (1848–1923) was a student of T.H. Green at Oxford and grew to become ‘the most popular and the most influential of the English idealists’ (Randall, 1977: 114) after Green. He was a professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews and was elected Gifford Lecturer for 1911–12 in the University of Edinburgh. He and his wife, Helen Bosanquet, were heavily involved in the work of the Charity Organisation Society. Chapter 6 of his The Philosophical Theory of the State (hereafter PTS) offers a good summary of his understanding of liberty. His explanation of the difference between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ freedoms (PTS: 147–48) is referenced by contemporary critics as one of the best challenges to Gerald MacCallum’s dismissal of the positive/negative freedom distinction (Baldwin, 1984: 126). For discussions of Bosanquet’s political philosophy and his concept of liberty see Sabine (1916), Bussay and Delia Crane (1916), Berki (1968), Nicholson (1990), Primoratz (1994), Sweet (1997), Gaus (1994, 2001), Tyler (2010a) and Panagakou (2016) among others. 16 The reference is to PTS. I am using the 2001 edition by Gerald F. Gaus and William Sweet, The Philosophical Theory of the State and Related Essays, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press. 17 It is this feature which Simhony celebrates as one of the most significant characteristics of Green’s freedom. ‘Freedom, for Green, is thus the coming together of opportunities (external ability) and capacities (internal ability)’ (Simhony, 1991: 361). 18 For Berlin’s reading of Green’s positive freedom, see footnote 8. Berlin’s commentary on Green’s definition of positive freedom shows well his decision to read it exclusively in the light of true freedom. See also the discussion of Berlin’s and Bellamy’s critiques in Section 4. 19 Green argues that ‘the true and the only justification of the rights of property’ is that they help contribute to ‘that equal development of the faculties of all which is the highest good of all’ (LLL: 200). John Morrow comments on the impact Green’s ideas have had on the work of C.B. Macpherson and his analysis of liberty and property (Morrow, 1983). 20 More will be said on this in Section 4.2. 21 Bellamy refers to the writer Samuel Smiles (1812–1905) whose works extolled the virtues of the Victorian self-made man including ‘self-culture, self-control, energy, industry, frugality, thrift, prudence, patience, perseverance, honesty, integrity, temperance, sobriety, integrity, manliness and duty’ (Bellamy, 1992: 10). 22 Berlin quotes the following passage from Green: ‘the mere removal of compulsion, the mere enabling of a man to do as he likes, is in itself no contribution to true freedom. . . .

128  Negative freedom as well-being improvement the ideal of true freedom is the maximum power for all members of human society alike to make the best of themselves’ (LLL: 199–200). 23 See the comments on the extreme circumstances of exercising true freedom at the end of Chapter Two, Section 7. 24 In the subsequent comments, Green makes it clear that only a society where the laws give equal opportunities to its citizens is a society where citizenship counts as advancement of freedom (LLL: 199–200). 25 Matt Hann has studied in some depth the similarities between Green’s and Arendt’s theories of recognition (Hann, 2016). 26 See his Lecture on the Principles of Political Obligation. 27 Arendt argues that the state of rightlessness is characterised by ‘a situation where . . . [a person’s] treatment by other people does not depend on what he does or does not do’. ‘The fundamental deprivation of human rights takes place first and above all in depriving a person of a place in the world which makes his opinions significant and his actions effective’ (Arendt, 1949: 29). 28 The possibility of a real clash between personal well-being and the common good will be discussed in Chapter Six. 29 GMM is the abbreviation for Kant’s Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. 30 We could reasonably ask whether if one is thrown into adversity, one actually chooses to be positively free. Is it her choice to subordinate her well-being to an alien objective? The question suggests the answer. One has to be able to imagine what she is forced to face as worthwhile. If she has developed a disposition to care for the common good, she could see the positive ramifications of the situation and take strength from them. 31 An agent of true freedom more generally (as opposed to the agent of positive/true freedom from LLL) could be committed to any kind of common good and not necessarily to other people’s negative freedom.

4 Isaiah Berlin, positive freedom and the impact of moral authorities on human agency

Introduction Berlin’s essay ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ (hereafter TCL) is a masterpiece in moral and political philosophy.1 Readers find in it different inspirational themes,2 and they do not necessarily agree with the specific conclusions of the essay. I believe that the essay should be celebrated for its contribution not just to the analysis but also to the conceptualisation of liberty, even if this conceptualisation can be revised and improved. Berlin has demonstrated, better than any other scholar, the need for two concepts of liberty. He has suggested how the internal freedom boundary – the boundary between the two real meanings of ­freedom3 – should be drawn, and he has alluded to the flexibility of this boundary. Because of the scale of his philosophical aspiration, some critics have categorised his intellectual conduct as ‘ahistoric’ (Collini, 1999: 203). His ambition was to capture in clear theoretical terms the history of liberty in ‘the Western tradition in ethics and politics’ of the past ‘two millennia’ (TCL: 200). Berlin, however, is explicit about both his universalistic analytical intention and his more narrowly historical positioning on the anti-communist side of the Cold War. TCL moves in and out of its specific historical and ideological context, and this is one of the things that makes it so unique: its elaborate theoretical design is frail and, if anything, easy to challenge, but it continues to inspire philosophical fascination: ‘generations of students have cut their teeth in analytical political theory on the distinction between positive and negative liberty’ (Coole, 2013: 199). The continuous attention TCL receives 60 years after its publication is a testimony that its ideas resonate with readers. Crowder is right in pointing out that ‘Berlin’s seminal formulation of the distinction between negative and positive conceptions of liberty remains a standard point of departure for analyses of political freedom in contemporary political theory’. Yet he is also right in observing that it is ‘highly controversial’ (Crowder, 2004: 64). One way to disentangle this mixture of popularity and rejection is to notice that Berlin got the distinction between the two concepts right but the actual concepts themselves wrong. This monograph champions one of Berlin’s articulations of the distinction as the first of three criteria for the distinction as it should be understood. I argue Berlin is on the right track when claiming that those who

130  Berlin and positive freedom aim to promote negative freedom ‘want to curb authority as such’, while those who pursue positive freedom ‘want it placed in their own hands’ (TCL: 212). This relation-to-authority criterion for the distinction is good because it captures key tensions at the heart of liberty, which necessitate two different concepts.4 This criterion on its own, however, cannot explain the nature of the two concepts in more substantive terms. This is because neither form of freedom is completely against authorities or completely with them. But because the distinction is so important for Berlin, it plays too prominent a role in his articulation of the concepts and leads to at least in some respects faulty definitions of the two forms. The ­relation-to-authority criterion for the distinction itself is not the only definitive factor for the concepts: it reflects only the internal freedom boundary but does not say much about the external ones.5 The second distinction criterion, which is based on Green’s scholarship – well-being improvement versus service to the common good6  – allows for a more substantive and holistic definition of each freedom while still demonstrating their difference. It does not take a stance on ‘authority as such’, and it allows us to explain the more complex relation between individuals’ and authorities’ characteristics of each concept. Berlin’s ‘relation to authority as such’ criterion captures to a significant extent the essence of the distinction but not the essence of the concepts. But it is Berlin’s focus on ‘authority as such’ that allows him to develop his unique contribution to the analysis of liberty. As already stated, this focus on the link between freedom and authority makes him the best recognised – and arguably, the best  – philosopher of the dual conceptualisation of liberty. He is the champion of the need for an internal freedom boundary. I will also show here that his unique contribution to the analysis of liberty is based, to a great extent, on his discerning of how moral authorities impact on human agency and thus on the exercise of freedom. With respect to this, Berlin has predecessors. As shown in Chapter One, Constant’s defence of modern liberty aimed to expose and defy the attempt at enforcing virtue undertaken by modern dictatorships (SCU: 110). Mill commented on how society ‘practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression . . . [as] it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself’ (Mill, 2003: 76). Chapter  Three showed that even Green made a strong case against unrealistic moral pressures, revealing their capacity to channel vested interests and perpetuate exploitation. However, even if this was the essence of Green’s argument, officially he remains the spokesman for service to the common good. Berlin, on the other hand, has little good to say about moral authorities: in TCL he shows at great length and detail how they can affect the normal functioning of human agency. His critique of moral authorities is central in his discussions of positive and negative freedom. I start my analysis of Berlin’s conceptualisation of liberty with an assessment of his positive freedom in this chapter, followed by the study of negative freedom in the next chapter. There are several reasons for attending to positive freedom first. To start with, despite appearances, Berlin’s negative freedom is the more complex concept. It receives less direct coverage: out of the 51 pages of the essay,

Berlin and positive freedom  131 only 12 are dedicated to the discussion of negative freedom, compared to the 26 apportioned to the positive concept. But the shorter assessment of negative freedom could not be fully appreciated without taking on board Berlin’s extensive critique of positive freedom. Second, it is in the course of this critique where most of the argument of the essay is done. Berlin’s analysis of the process of personal transformation underpinning the concept of positive freedom is highly perceptive and produces original insights that allow us to discover previously undetected intellectual affinities. Berlin’s analysis of the agency transformation underpinning positive freedom shows why his significance extends beyond the context of Cold War liberalism and allows us to see why his negative freedom, if redefined in a fashion which internalises Berlin’s analysis, should not be seen as a vehicle for neoliberal values. I show here that Berlin’s contribution regarding positive freedom does not consist solely in his insightful critique of the concept. He also pushes forward the development of this concept in constructive terms. Chapter Two defended a concept of positive freedom as an acquisition of moral agency – a concept based on Green’s understanding of true freedom in DSF. Berlin’s scholarship helps advance the case that positive freedom is also found in the achievement of excellence in a recognised field.7 Finally, this chapter demonstrates that the explicit link which Berlin forges between positive freedom and authorities both moral and political is correct in principle – although in need of qualification – and has to be acknowledged as one of his successful contributions in making the case for two concepts of freedom. However, we shall see that Berlin’s depiction of positive freedom needs some adjustment if it is to give a credible account of the link between positive freedom and authorities. For this purpose, it is important that we disentangle the narratives which embrace from those which reject positive freedom. My overall intention of developing two real senses of freedom does service to Berlin’s own ambition. He himself believed that there are two ‘central’ senses of freedom (TCL: 168), but he also realised that his endorsement of positive freedom in TCL should have been more convincing (IN: 50; ISL: 92–93). In an interview with Steven Lukes given shortly before his death, Berlin says that he ‘ought to have made it clearer that positive liberty is as noble and basic an ideal as negative’ (ISL: 93). Berlin’s claim that positive liberty ‘becomes virtually identical’ with authority (TCL: 194) should have been qualified. While the link between positive liberty and authority is a necessary one, he should have done much more to explain how, in the light of this link, it remains a sense of liberty. Liberty and authority are apparent antonyms, and one needs nothing less than a theory to make these work as a unit. Berlin constructs several narratives to this effect in TCL, and we will look into these in Section 2. After engaging with the historical context of TCL and offering a brief summary of the essay in the next section, the chapter turns to a closer study of Berlin’s positive freedom seen in terms of self-mastery. I argue that assessing Berlin’s exposition of the concept through the framework of British idealist moral philosophy allows us to articulate best some of Berlin’s most significant insights. In Sections 2 and 3, I assess the extent to which Berlin’s depiction of positive freedom

132  Berlin and positive freedom manages to reflect the key characteristics of Green’s true freedom. I observe that while Berlin starts by registering nearly all of its main features, he gradually limits the contents of the concept to the process of self-transformation and to the agent’s internalisation of rational ideals. Although this does not allow Berlin to assess correctly the nature of positive freedom and its political implications, it does allow him to develop claims which help enlighten the nature of moral authorities and their impact on freedom – as shown in Section 4. Berlin’s scholarship leads to a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the nature of personal development. His critique of the transition between the empirical and the higher self, as discussed in Sections 4 and 5, resonates with L.T. Hobhouse’s critique of Bosanquet’s metaphysics. Both thinkers believe that the goals of the empirical self are also normatively credible. The process of development has value independent of that of its successful completion through the attainment of the higher self – which is a term corresponding to Green’s moral agency. Berlin’s and Hobhouse’s reconstruction of the empirical self helps show how the process of achieving the higher self – or, by the same token, the exercise of positive freedom – tends to consolidate existing moral authorities. The practice of positive freedom leads to value affirmation. By spelling this out, I fill in a missing element in Berlin’s concept of positive freedom: a credible narrative about the link between ‘authorities as such’ and positive freedom. Particularly interesting and suggestive is Berlin’s discussion of the self-­ transformation implied in the process of ‘self-abnegation’: the opposite process to that of ‘self-realisation’. There Berlin gives some compelling examples of how the capacity for self-transformation can damage the normal functioning of human agency. Section 6 shows that Berlin thereby demonstrates that the quality of agency is a prerequisite for the exercise of freedom generally. Section 7 returns to the positive/negative freedom distinction and shows how Berlin’s positive freedom, seen as an excellence in a recognised field, helps articulate the third criterion for the distinction which I would recommend in this book: that between routineness and exception. Section 8 applies the conceptual analysis of this chapter to assess liberal scepticism towards perfectionism. It argues that neither positive freedom nor perfectionism properly understood undermines negative liberty.

1 Historical context, ideological positioning and philosophical contribution Isaiah Berlin (1909–97) was born in Latvia and lived in Riga and Petrograd until the age of 11 when his family moved to Britain. While in Russia he witnessed the February and the October Revolutions of 1917, and later in his life, he talked in interviews about the shock he experienced as a child seeing how a Tsarist policeman was dragged and killed by the revolution-inspired mob (ISL). Berlin was a pupil at St Paul’s School in London and then a student at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he studied Greats and took a First. He subsequently took another degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, winning another First after less than a year on the course. He was appointed a tutor in philosophy at New College and soon afterwards was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College. Berlin

Berlin and positive freedom  133 became an Oxford don and stayed so for the rest of his life, apart from the war period when he worked for British Information Services in New York and for the British embassies in Washington and Moscow. During this period in the Soviet Union, Berlin met with dissident writers like Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova. ‘These meetings sharpened his sense both of the fate of the individual under Soviet communism and of the Russian element of his own identity’ (Crowder, 2004: 6). After the war Berlin continued to teach philosophy but he also became a public intellectual providing commentary on the developing Cold War (Cherniss and Hardy, 2018). In 1957, he was appointed as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory in Oxford. His inaugural lecture the following year was the famous ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’. For his services, he was made a CBE in 1946, knighted in 1957 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1971. There are several related things that have been and continue to be stumbling blocks to a full endorsement of Berlin’s ideas on liberty by the contemporary political theory establishment, typically dominated by progressive liberal ideals.8 Berlin’s explicit ideological positing against the ‘Communist, authoritarian and totalitarian creeds of our day’ and his insistence that ‘liberty is . . . not equality’ (TCL: 191, 172) led critics to believe that his political affiliation with the West was not just a contingency but had deeper ideological roots. The ideological conflict between the communist East and the capitalist West is the historical backdrop of the essay, and the starkness of the conflict is expressed in no moderate terms: Berlin depicts it as an ‘open war that is being fought between two systems of ideas which return different and conflicting answers to what has long been the central question of politics – the question of obedience and coercion’ (TCL: 168). This ideological positioning has led scholars to see Berlin as an exponent of ‘Cold War liberalism’ (Kelly, 2002: 44) who endorsed ‘the liberalism of fear’: ‘a sceptical liberalism concerned primarily with avoiding the worst, rather than achieving the best’ (Müller, 2008: 48). Berlin’s extreme and minimalist casting of negative liberty, determined to exclude the value of equality, has been seen as highly objectionable (Gould, 2013: 105). He, however, made it clear that he took a critical stance towards all ideologies – indeed, in his essay he tried to expose the way in which ideologies, including that of ‘unrestricted laissez-faire’, can manipulate, exploit and oppress (IN: 38; Crowder, 2013: 55). But despite of this declared critical stance towards ideology, some scholars continue to be sceptical.9 Tully, for example, accuses Berlin of ‘strategically positioning himself within the ascendant right-wing liberalism of the Cold War’ (Tully, 2013: 27). Others comment that ‘Berlin often found himself quite close to the throne’ alluding to his involvement with ‘high politics’ (Hitchens, 1998: 7; Kelly, 2002: 32). I believe the portrayal of Berlin as a scholar whose liberalism is at odds with progressive liberal ideas is unfair. He was a Labour Party voter committed to the welfare state (IN: 45) who ‘saw himself as a social democrat . . . at the redistributive end of the liberal spectrum’ (Crowder, 2013: 54). What many contemporary western progressive liberals miss is the experience of having lived in a communist regime. Those like me, who have lived on either side of the iron curtain, could testify that there were genuine advantages to these regimes, including a sense of shared purpose and pride in the ideals of communism and the economic justice

134  Berlin and positive freedom they fostered.10 But the experience of living in an environment of common-good propaganda and the resulting sense of the small value of one’s individuality was a pervading feature of the regimes unfamiliar to those who grew up in a cultural environment of respect for individual rights. Berlin’s essay conveys a deep sense of understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of these regimes. It delivers his vivid sense of the attractiveness such ideals hold particularly for the more conscientious citizens. The moral ideals of twentieth-century communism were worthy but heavy. Many people held them in a sincere fashion and lived meaningful lives to that extent. But there was not a great sense of personal empowerment and entitlement, and without political conformism, no great ambitions could be entertained. In this context Berlin shows better understanding, compared to his fellow progressive liberals born in the West, both of the need for more personal power and of the ambition to thrive. His conflicted endorsement of positive liberty captures the anxieties of those who wanted to excel but thought self-advancement was morally wrong. Berlin’s exposure of the immaturity of the monist dream11 carries the undertones of self-deprecation. Communist regimes in Eastern Europe inflamed the passion for excellence and made this passion difficult to realise in a fashion which his essay manages to convey. Therefore, Berlin would be misunderstood if cast as a neoliberal. This is not the correct conclusion of his analysis of liberty either. At the heart of his analysis is a rather fine philosophical point which can be seen if one studies more closely his assessment of the British idealist theory of moral development. It is correct to say that Berlin’s insights are in the field of moral psychology (Müller, 2008: 58), but this should not mean they are irrelevant for political analysis. Yet the political conclusions that follow from Berlin’s moral philosophy are different from the way he sees them. One of the arguments of this monograph is that the distinction between positive and negative freedom would be wrongly drawn and misleading if we did not pay attention to the difference between moral and political authorities. Even if these authorities are mutually reinforcing and thus deeply related, they affect freedom in different ways. The transfer of the distinction from the moral to the political sphere should be carefully done – it is at the point of this transferral where Berlin made objectionable claims, including that negative freedom is fostered through non-interference and that the political deployment of positive freedom is dangerous. We will return to this in Section 4.4 and the conclusion of this chapter. There have been two upsurges in the theorisation of positive freedom following TCL – the first, in the immediate aftermath of the lecture, in the 1960s and the early 1970s, and the second, starting a couple of decades later, in the late 1990s and continuing until today. The first wave of critiques came from Berlin’s generation of left-wing liberals, like Cohen and Macpherson, who extolled the virtues of positive liberty on both a personal and a political level.12 They point out that positive liberty contains ‘the noblest strivings possible to any individualist theory’ (Macpherson, 1973: 116) and that ‘popular sovereignty’ and ‘governmental intervention in economic affairs’ are at the heart of ‘the great historical demands of liberals’ (Cohen, 1960: 217, 222).

Berlin and positive freedom  135 However, Berlin’s message that we have to be cautious and able to resist the allure of positive freedom captured and consolidated a liberal trend that endorsed negative freedom. Rawls’s ‘priority of liberty’ channels Berlin’s idea that pluralism can be sustained only if we take the trade-offs between liberty and redistribution, or between liberty and perfectionism,13 seriously (Rawls, 1971: 214–20). The second wave of defence of positive freedom emerged in the context of the liberal-communitarian debate and in the attempt to expose the weaknesses of this ‘negative liberty’ trend of liberalism more generally. Thinkers like Nicholson, Simhony, Gould, Christman and Hirschmann point to Berlin’s significant misconception of personal development, the nature of autonomy, the social implications of liberty and what actually counts as a condition for liberty. Taylor, Skinner and Crowder, although not apologists of the concept of positive freedom, acknowledge its legitimacy. Most of these scholars, however, see positive freedom in terms of self-development, self-realisation or autonomy. This is consistent with Berlin’s depiction of the concept but is different from my reading of it. I  have argued in Chapters Two and Three that self-development should fall in the remit of the viable concept of negative freedom14 as I redefine it in terms of well-being improvement. I believe that positive freedom should be understood as acquisition of moral agency or achievement of excellence in a recognised field. Most contemporary proponents of positive liberty aim to replace a poor negative concept of liberty with a superior positive one. But the consequence of this approach is that they end up with only one viable concept of liberty. A single concept of liberty implies lack of internal boundary: it does not guard against the eventualities where some key aspects of liberty pose major threats to other of its key aspects so that the way forward could only be by excluding them from the definition of freedom. Very few thinkers meet the two requirements which I aim at: develop a concept of positive freedom but as one of two viable concepts. Baldwin (1984) outlines a distinct sense of positive freedom, and this is in addition to his reconstruction of MacCallum’s triadic concept in terms of an ‘opportunity’ negative concept. Nicholson (1990: 116–31) develops a normative defence of both Green’s positive and juristic freedom. Macpherson (1973: 118) and Taylor (2006: 162) fit partially here as they have distinct re-castings of negative liberty – ‘counter-extractive liberty’ and ‘opportunity-exercise’, respectively – while still acknowledging a second, positive, concept. The problem, from the point of view of my categorisation, is that their positive concepts have not been reconsidered in the light of their new negative ones: in other words their revitalising of the negative concept has been at the expense of leaving their positive concept with little content and significance. Let me offer a brief outline of the structure of TCL before I turn to the closer study of Berlin’s positive freedom. The inaugural lecture has an introduction and eight sections. The introduction provides a vital backdrop to the subsequent analysis of liberty. Berlin discusses the neglected power of ideas and the duty of political theorists ‘who have been trained to think critically about ideas’ to engage with public debate (TCL: 167). Berlin comments on the deep and vehement ideological conflict between ‘the East and the West’ and the responsibility philosophers have

136  Berlin and positive freedom had in inflaming the conflict as well as to help control the scale of the foreseeable danger. The high esteem for moral philosophy conveyed in the introduction will soon be forgotten by the reader, when later in the essay she encounters Berlin’s consistent and relentless critique of philosophical rationalism. But his words ‘[p]olitical theory is a branch of moral philosophy’ should be remembered as they can help locate the critical strength of his analysis (TCL: 168). The first section of the essay is, as its title suggests, about ‘the notion of negative freedom’. It starts with the declaration that there are two ‘central’ senses of freedom and a brief outline of their difference. Note that the first introduction of the concepts is not the familiar shorthand of the distinction where the negative is the freedom from, while the positive is the freedom to. The first introduction explains the two freedoms as answers to two different questions. Negative freedom is the answer to the question of how big the personal area of non-interference should be, and positive freedom is the answer to the question of who or what the source of interference is. The succeeding discussion of negative freedom establishes that the concept should not be seen in terms of ability to do what we want but as being protected from an external and intended interference. Berlin elicits three key features of the concept: (1) coercion is always bad, even if applied against evil forces – all forms of coercion, including the law, violate negative freedom; (2) the idea of negative freedom is modern as it reflects the sanctity of private life and personal relations – such sanctity was not recognised in the pre-modern world; (3) there is no form of political authority that is a necessary prerequisite of negative liberty – it would be wrong to draw a causal link between democracy and negative freedom. After this section, Berlin turns to positive freedom and dedicates the following six sections to its explanation. The discussion of this chapter will focus on these and particularly on sections two to five. As we will shortly see, after a brief and compelling outline of positive freedom in terms of self-mastery, Berlin turns to a systematic critique of the concept. His most vehement and memorable critical claim is that positive freedom has served as a justification of political atrocities on a massive scale and has helped consolidate totalitarian regimes. Berlin only returns to negative freedom in section seven, on ‘Liberty and sovereignty’. There he associates negative freedom with ‘what it is to be a normal human being’ and defines the parameters of the concept through those of humanity and sanity (TCL: 211). A lot has to be said before we can see a meaningful connection between the outline of negative freedom in section one of TCL and that in the penultimate section: this will be the task of Chapter Five. The final section of the essay, ‘The one and the many’, sketches Berlin’s ideas on value pluralism and argues that there is a deep connection between positive freedom and monism, on the one hand, and negative freedom and pluralism, on the other. This will be the focus of Chapter Six.

2  Positive freedom as excellence in a recognised field Berlin’s positive freedom comes under four main headings. The first identifies positive freedom with ‘the source of control’; the second with ‘self-mastery’; the

Berlin and positive freedom  137 third with ‘some super-personal entity – a State, a class, a nation, or the march of history itself’; and the fourth with ‘collective self-direction on the part of a large body’ of people (TCL: 169, 179, 181, 208). The second of these will be the prime focus of attention in this section. The first I address briefly now, and the third will be discussed in sections 3 and 4 in the context of assessing the link between positive freedom and political institutions.15 Berlin’s opening definition of positive freedom in the introduction of TCL casts the concept as the answer to the question ‘What, or who, is the source of control and interference that can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?’ (TCL: 169). If left at that, the reader will have to do some guessing and reconstruction on his own. The implied argument here could be that some sources of control amount to exercise of freedom, while others do not. Supporters of positive freedom like Rousseau would be claiming that freedom is to be found in the construction of legitimate political power. We need to focus on authorities, not on individual agency, in order to achieve positive freedom. But this is not how Berlin himself proceeds to unpack the concept, as we will shortly see. Indeed, his discussion of self-mastery and self-abnegation later on leads to almost the opposite conclusions: that defenders of positive freedom are fixated on agency and ignore real political oppression. The virtue of this introductory definition is that it captures one key aspect of positive freedom, which is its link with authorities, but it leaves open what kind of authorities these would be. This brief definition also does not convey the sense in which the exercise of authority is a form of freedom. One of the authorities implicitly referenced here is the authority of reason. Berlin’s idea – as will become obvious in section four of TCL, ‘Self-realisation’, and section five, ‘The Temple of Sarastro’ – is that one of the sources of control exercised in the context of positive freedom is the truth or the knowledge of the right. While I believe it is fair to say that positive freedom is related to, indeed dependent on, the existence of credible narratives of what is good, it is not plausible to argue that the authority of the truth itself constitutes positive freedom. These issues will be addressed now as we turn to the more detailed explanation of the concept in section two of TCL, ‘The notion of positive freedom’, where Berlin defines positive freedom in terms of self-mastery. In the opening paragraph of this section, Berlin makes a compelling case for positive freedom. This paragraph has the desired polemical effect as it convinces the reader that the notion of positive freedom is a genuine notion of liberty and that it is sufficiently different from negative freedom. I  will shortly quote the opening paragraph in full and will refer to it as the First Paragraph. What is striking about the First Paragraph is that it touches upon nearly all essential characteristics of Green’s true freedom. In some sense it conveys an even more vivid sense of empowering than Green’s true freedom did as it taps better into one’s desire for achievement. The ‘positive’ sense of the word ‘liberty’ derives from the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master. I wish my life and decisions to depend on myself, not on external forces of whatever kind. I wish to be an instrument

138  Berlin and positive freedom of my own, not of other men’s, acts of will. I wish to be a subject, not an object; to be moved by reason, by conscious purposes, which are my own, not by causes which affect me, as it were from outside. I wish to be somebody, not nobody; a doer – deciding, not being decided for, self-directed and not being acted upon by external nature or by other men as if I were a thing, or an animal, or a slave incapable of playing a human role, that is, of conceiving goals and policies of my own and realising them. This is at least part of what I mean when I say I am rational, and that it is my reason that distinguishes me as a human being from the rest of the world. I wish, above all, to be conscious of myself as a thinking, willing, active being, bearing responsibilities for my choices and able to explain them by reference to my own ideas and purposes. I feel free to the degree I believe this to be true, and enslaved to the degree that I am made to realise that it is not. (TCL: 178) The words of the First Paragraph could have been uttered by T.H. Green in the context of his lecture ‘On the Different Senses of Freedom’ (DSF). We can see a similarity in methodology. Like Berlin, in the opening sections of DSF, Green points to the fact that the meaning of freedom is elastic and stretches over a broad spectrum of factors but also that in its extreme form, freedom comes to represent a second type of freedom, sufficiently different from the original meaning.16 What we see in the First Paragraph is a panoramic snapshot of the wide meaning of liberty. The observation is that various factors affect our pursuit of liberty: some come from political forces that aim to enslave us, and some come from nature which impacts on us in ways contrary to our plans. External and internal causes count as impediments to freedom. On the basis of this observation, Green argues that freedom as an inner state of the soul is also a form of freedom, even if metaphoric, that is, of a different kind. This is the direction Berlin is taking us – freedom is compromised by external and internal impediments, but resistance to the internal ones will constitute a different kind of freedom. While negative freedom is lack of external oppression, positive freedom is being one’s own master. Self-mastery here is described as following one’s own will and one’s own rational life plan and being morally responsible. What we can observe in the First Paragraph is that the search for self-mastery is the natural continuation of one’s pursuit of independence. It is continuous with the negative freedom of ‘warding off interference’. But ultimately, this continuity results not in an extended meaning of freedom but in the articulation of a second meaning.17 The two concepts are ‘not at great logical difference from each other’ (TCL: 178) as they are points along the same continuum. Mastery can be seen as the ultimate form of independence. But we can also see that mastery is control, and control is the opposite of freedom: the kernel of the difference is in clear sight. What follows in the subsequent sections of TCL is Berlin’s perceptive psychoanalysis of inner self-control and the ways it makes us vulnerable to oppression, indoctrination, escapism and self-harm. The subtle cleavage between the two concepts, hinted in the First Paragraph, will grow to become an almost unbridgeable abyss.

Berlin and positive freedom  139 My comments so far showed the methodological similarity between Green and Berlin: they both introduce the second sense of freedom by demonstrating its natural continuity with the original sense but then make the case that there is, in fact, a fundamental difference between the two senses. I would also like to show that the First Paragraph picks up on nearly all key aspects of Green’s positive freedom: the reference to moral responsibility and personal achievement, commitment to rational standards which are fully internalised and the understanding that positive freedom can be reached only through a process of development and will cultivation and is desired and brings satisfaction. There is also an implied presence of the political institutions needed to recognise one’s status as ‘somebody’. I will point out now that soon after the First Paragraph which sketches freedom as self-mastery, Berlin abandons several of positive freedom’s main characteristics. He proceeds to reduce positive freedom almost exclusively to agency transformation and exercise of internal control, and this is captured well in the term ‘self-mastery’. I will argue that this term does disservice to the conceptual work done in the First Paragraph and will, therefore, suggest an alternative definition of positive freedom that puts together what Berlin has sketched there and is thus a more defensible concept. I will show that the First Paragraph factors in nearly all key aspects of Green’s true freedom in Table 4.1, which shows in a graphic fashion how each feature of Green’s true freedom has its equivalent in Berlin’s own account of positive freedom, with one exception indicated by italics in the table. Our subsequent discussion will throw light on which of these elements of this positive freedom, as introduced in the First Paragraph, Berlin keeps and which he lets slip. The element to which he most firmly clings is the fourth one from Table 4.1: the capacity of the positive freedom agent to exercise inner control and thus to be a master of her life. But as Green’s concept of true freedom demonstrates, this is only one aspect of the full package. The concept of true – or positive – freedom would not work as a concept of freedom if the other elements were to be lost. If moral agency or the status of being ‘somebody’ were not desirable – as some Table 4.1 Comparing Green’s true freedom and Berlin’s positive freedom as self-mastery Features of Green’s true freedom

Features of Berlin’s positive freedom as self-mastery

1 Acquisition of moral agency 2 Attaining full development of one’s capabilities 3 Attaining satisfaction

1 Becoming morally responsible 2 Being ‘somebody, not nobody’

4 Based on a process of character development and will cultivation 5 Internalising a moral ideal 6 Existence of social and political institutions that channel one’s commitment to the common good

3 ‘Derives from the wish on the part of the individual’; it is desired 4 Being ‘self-directed and not acted upon by external nature’ 5 Being guided ‘by reasons, by conscious purposes’ 6 There is only an implied existence of institutions that recognise the agent as ‘somebody’

140  Berlin and positive freedom of Berlin’s later claims will suggest – and their attainment brings no satisfaction, then one would be justified in rejecting the claim that their attainment constitutes any form of freedom. Note, however, that the last, sixth, aspect from Table 4.1, that of the institutional dimension of positive freedom, is only implied in Berlin’s account of self-mastery – hence, I have placed it in italics. This connects with the observation that Berlin overemphasises the ‘internal control’ aspect of positive freedom and does not factor in well its external dimension. Berlin, however, holds on to a fundamental aspect of Green’s moral philosophy: the understanding that the attainment of positive freedom is a result of a process – a process which can be seen in terms of moral development. Berlin’s relatively good grasp of this process is the hidden strength of his theorisation of liberty. He refers to this process in terms of ‘self-transformation’ (TCL: 182) and discusses it in the context of the transition from the empirical to the higher self, which will be discussed in the next section. Berlin’s depiction of positive freedom in the First Paragraph strikes a chord with readers, arguably to a greater extent than Green’s true freedom in DSF. Both Green and Berlin speak to people with an aspirational disposition, but while for Green moral aspirations are those that matter most, Berlin’s vision of self-mastery seems open to all aspirations. The claim that ‘I wish to be somebody, not nobody’ taps into what most people at least in some stage of their lives would have hoped for. The desire to be visible, to excel, to be recognised for the achievements you value is similar to what Berlin later in the essay would call ‘the search for status’ (TCL: 200). Notably he argues there that the search for status is not part of either negative or positive freedom. The status which Berlin tries to dissociate from either meaning of freedom reflects one’s need for social belonging. Berlin describes it as a ‘desire to be understood and recognised, even if this means to be unpopular and disliked’. He continues to say that ‘the only persons who can recognise me, and thereby give me the sense of being someone, are the members of the society to which, historically, morally, economically, and perhaps ethically, I feel that I belong’ (TCL: 202).18 I  would argue, however, that Berlin’s initial intuition to include the ‘somebody’ status in the concept of positive freedom was correct. This can be explained by noting that what is at stake in the First Paragraph is the desire to excel, to acquire the recognition that allows you to do so. It is about exiting the status of anonymity and acquiring a higher status that gives you powers you did not have before. This aspect of positive freedom is important: without it, gaining inner control and self-mastery would not amount to much. If nobody around you would notice or be affected by this in any way, there is little sense of achievement. The sketch of positive freedom in the First Paragraph made it clear that ‘I wish, above all, to be conscious of myself as a thinking, willing, active being, bearing responsibilities for my choices and able to explain them by reference to my own ideas and purposes’ (TCL: 178). The agent of positive freedom depicted there is not an isolated person in charge of her isolated destiny – it reflects a person who wants to be ‘somebody’ in a visible and admired fashion. On these grounds I would argue that Berlin’s positive freedom should not be defined in terms of self-mastery but as attainment of excellence in a recognised field. Such a formulation summarises better the essence of positive freedom from

Berlin and positive freedom 141 the First Paragraph. Attainment of excellence is a form of freedom, because it is empowering, liberating and satisfying. It is also different from negative freedom, according to the first and the third criteria of my proposed positive/negative freedom distinction. It can only be achieved by affirming moral authorities, as will be discussed in more detail in Sections 4 and 5. And as the term ‘excellence’ suggests, it does not reflect a routine action but a state of exception, as will become clear in the discussion of Section 7, which explains the third criterion for the distinction. We can immediately notice that this way of defining positive freedom does not fully fit around the second criterion for the distinction: well-being improvement versus service to the common good. It actually straddles it and for this very reason raises conceptual and moral questions. This definition of Berlin’s positive freedom will later19 help explain why his negative and positive freedom, with respect to some of their depictions, swap places in the context of the positive/ negative categorisation recommended here.

3 Self-transformation as the transition from the empirical to the higher self Berlin portrays the pursuit of self-mastery as a process of transition from a lower, empirical self to a higher, rational self, and I accept this framework as appropriate in eliciting the nature of positive freedom. Berlin shows very good knowledge of Green’s moral philosophy of freedom and, in TCL, responds to it in direct and indirect ways. The power of Berlin’s ideas can be exposed better if we put them in the framework of Green’s terminology. This will help us achieve several things. First, as will be demonstrated in more detail in this section, it will make it easy to show the places where Berlin’s critique of positive freedom misses the target: every time his rendition of the concept omits or misrepresents some of its main elements, we can see that the phenomenon he describes and critiques is not positive freedom. Second, it will enable us to find out how exactly positive freedom relates to moral and political authorities, respectively. While Berlin’s portrayal of the link between positive freedom and political authorities is widely criticised, some aspects of the portrayal of its link with moral authorities are insightful and take Green’s theory of moral development a step further. This will be the focus of Section 4. Finally, as the discussion of Section 5 will show, the framework of Green’s moral philosophy of freedom as laid out in DSF allows us to articulate the thinking that underlies what Berlin calls normal agency. In some sense Berlin tries to write Green’s theory of moral development in reverse. Figuratively speaking, while Green sees moral development as a process of transformation of the empirical self into the higher self, Berlin tries to stop this transformation in its tracks in order to protect the empirical self from the stifling impact of the higher self. For Green, the higher self represents moral agency. For Berlin, the empirical self is the normal agency. What I would like to show is that this vision of normal agency needs unpacking and explaining, which we would not be able to do without the aid of Green’s moral philosophy framework. The upshot of the discussion will be that normal agency, like moral agency, is underpinned by a process of moral development, the difference between the two being their ultimate objective.

142  Berlin and positive freedom Let me turn to Berlin’s depiction of the self-transformation captured in the transition from the empirical to the higher self. Berlin’s discussion of the dynamics of this process is based on a generalised summary of modern western philosophy and is only partly accurate. But if we turn to Kant’s, and particularly Green’s, account of the two selves, we will be in a good position to establish how faithful Berlin’s rendition of these ideas is. Berlin is highly critical of the concept of the higher self, which could explain why he may have not seen all important connections between its key aspects. But as I say, the strength of Berlin’s own insights about how exactly moral authorities hinder real freedom would not be elucidated without the backdrop of the process of moral development captured through the parameters of the empirical and the higher selves. What we will see is that both Kant and Green have a lot to say about the higher self but relatively little about the empirical self. The latter could be seen as the self that precedes the higher self and has its characteristics in a less developed form. Nevertheless the clear and comprehensive understanding of the higher self which both philosophers offer tells us enough for us to understand the agency of positive freedom as well as the process of self-transformation preceding it. I will quote Berlin’s sketch of the two selves and focus my analysis on his depiction of the higher self: This dominant [higher] self is then variously identified with reason, with my higher ‘nature’, with the self which calculates and aims at what will satisfy it in the long run, with my ‘real’, or ‘ideal’, or ‘autonomous’ self, or with my self ‘at its best’; which is then contrasted with irrational impulse, uncontrolled desires, my ‘lower’ nature, the pursuit of immediate pleasures, my ‘empirical’ or ‘heteronomous’ self, swept by every gust of desire and passion, needing to be rigidly disciplined if it is ever to rise to the full height of its ‘real’ nature. (TCL: 179) Table 4.2 summarises the features of Berlin’s higher self by drawing direct comparison with the features of Green’s higher self. The left-hand side of the table Table 4.2 Comparing Green’s understanding of the higher self to Berlin’s Features of Green’s higher self

Features of Berlin’s higher self

1 Acquisition of moral agency 2 Attaining full development of one’s capabilities 3 Attaining satisfaction 4 Based on a process of character development and will cultivation

1 The aspect of moral responsibility is missing here 2 ‘my self “at its best” ’

5 Internalising a moral ideal 6 Existence of social and political institutions that channel one’s commitment to the common good

3 The aspects of ‘being desired’ is missing here 4 Internal control and process of transformation: it is the disciplined self that has risen to ‘the full height of its “real” nature’ 5 ‘identified with “reason”, with my higher “nature” ’ 6 The institutional dimension is not discussed in the context of the higher self as a person

Berlin and positive freedom  143 replicates that of Table 4.1: it lists the features of the agency of positive freedom as seen by Green. The right-hand side of both tables shows Berlin’s vision: in Table 4.1, of positive freedom as self-mastery, and in Table 4.2, of positive freedom as described through the agency of the higher self. The two tables allow us to see how Berlin’s depiction of positive freedom has changed: while in the first case, he did not pay due attention to the institutional dimension of positive freedom (feature 6), in the second case, he is abandoning two other significant factors of Green’s positive freedom: moral agency and satisfaction (features 1 and 3). This is why aspects 1, 3 and 6 of Berlin’s higher self are in italics. Berlin’s failure to include three crucial components of the higher self reveals some, partly wilful, misunderstanding of how the process of moral development works and how exactly this process gives vitality to the higher self. Drawing the correct practical implications of positive freedom depends on understanding well how all the features of the higher self interconnect. Berlin does not see the institutional dimension (6) of positive freedom as a feature of the higher self in its personal dimension but as an independent feature which belongs to a whole new level of positive freedom.20 In other words, the story of positive freedom, for Berlin, does not finish with the attainment of the higher self – it only starts there. Positive freedom reaches its climax in a new dimension that goes beyond the human individual. So the link between positive freedom and institutions, social or political, is saved for this level. This is wrong; many critics have objected to it, and Berlin himself has retreated on the super-human dimension of his positive freedom, as we will see in Section 4. My analysis here will show that this wrong move was possible because of Berlin’s misappreciation of how the higher self should have been understood in the context of moral development and Green’s and Kant’s respective concepts. I will raise three questions the answer to which will explain the link between the features of the higher self. How should the self ‘at its best’ be understood? What is the ‘reason’ it identifies itself with? How exactly does this identification take place? We can follow Kant’s answer to the first two questions and Green’s to all three of them. Kant’s answers to the first and second questions pre-empt very decisively Berlin’s subsequent move of seeing positive freedom as connected to a ‘superpersonal entity’. For Kant, the self ‘at its best’ would be self-legislating its own moral norms, and the ‘reason’ it identifies itself with would be its own reason. He famously states that ‘man is subject only to his own, yet universal, legislation and that he is bound only to act in accordance with his own will, which is, however, a will purposed by nature to legislate universal laws’ (GMM: 39, section 433). Human beings achieve autonomy in their moral action because they follow their own reason. Kant’s position, however, is ambiguous and needs additional unpacking in order to demonstrate how one’s own moral reasoning is simultaneously universal. Green’s answers to the second and the third questions will be helpful here as his theory throws more light on the contents of the moral ideal. His answer to the first question would be that the self ‘at its best’ is the self that has internalised and lives by the higher ideals prescribed by ‘reason’. Green’s answer to the second question would be that ‘reason’ should be understood in terms of an ideal of the common good. Where does the content of the

144  Berlin and positive freedom common good come from? This is where Green clearly differs from Kant as he does not think we are necessarily the authors of the moral norms we follow in acting morally.21 For Green, all moral norms articulate versions of the common good – some being more inclusive than others. Political institutions are based on moral norms and thus channel the advancement of the common good. In DSF, he refers to ‘a conception of a complex organisation of life’ such as ‘laws and institutions’, ‘relationships, courtesies and charities’, as the sources of our concrete understanding of the common good (DSF: 246). The common elements of Kant’s and Green’s answers, however, are that the higher self is always an individual and that the ‘reason’ which guides her action has moral content: it is not only about what is epistemically correct but what is morally good. Berlin’s discussion tends to omit this ‘other regarding’ dimension of the ideals that guide the higher self, focusing almost exclusively on the ‘truth’ dimension of Enlightenment rationalism (TCL: 187–20). The third question – about the practical fashion in which the higher self, in Berlin’s words, ‘is then variously identified with reason’ (TCL: 179, emphasis added) – is crucial for the understanding of the higher self as the agency of positive freedom. Green’s answer to this question is captured by his understanding of autonomy as a form of genuine adoption of an ideal of the common good.22 The autonomous person adopts and follows an ideal of what is most desirable. The autonomy is derived not from the authorship of the ideal but from its appropriation as one’s own and from some practical advancement of this ideal. Notably, Green’s understanding of autonomy allows Berlin’s subsequent move of seeing ‘reason’ as external to the individual. However, what is important here is Green’s vision of the process of internalising moral authorities: this is a process of gradual adjustment, or ‘fusing’, in Green’s terms (DSF: 249), of personal interests with communal ones. Berlin views the process of internalisation of ‘reason’ as a form of indoctrination. On Green’s terms, however, it is in fact a process of personal moral development which, as discussed in Chapter  Three, allows not only the attainment of moral agency but the advancement of one’s own well-being. Could not indoctrination weave its way into moral development, one might ask. This is exactly one of the scenarios Berlin envisages in his discussion of ‘selfabnegation’ (TCL: 181–87). Indeed, it is this organic fusing between the moral ideal and one’s own personal interests which Berlin finds problematic and which underpins his critique of the concept of positive freedom. Berlin’s discussion of the self-transformation from the empirical into the higher self is highly critical of the higher self and conveys clear sympathies for the empirical one. He believes that the ‘truth’ internalised by the higher self comes from a metaphysics which is hostile to one’s genuine concerns. The higher self is presented as ‘dominant’ and oppressive and the empirical one as spontaneous and authentic (TCL: 179). Berlin is not alone in developing such a critique – his critique of Green’s moral theory bears obvious similarities with L.T. Hobhouse’s critique of Bosanquet’s ‘metaphysical’ theory of the state. Bringing these two arguments together will help explain what exactly the agency of the empirical self is and why it can be negatively impacted by the moral ideals internalised by the higher self. I will return to

Berlin and positive freedom 145 this in Section 5, after the discussion of how Berlin positions political authorities in the context of his vision of positive freedom.

4 Berlin’s positive freedom and political authorities Subsequent to explaining the transition from the empirical to the higher self, Berlin’s account of positive freedom takes two further steps: (1) he identifies the higher self with a certain type of political institutions and (2) he claims that these political institutions have thus acquired the capacity to oppress in the name of freedom. With respect to the first step, I will be more sympathetic to Berlin than his critics in general as I believe that he is right to elicit a significant though indirect link between positive freedom and political authorities. My main critique of Berlin would be with respect to the second step. His argument here is that the self-transformation implicit in positive freedom allows it to establish an identity between liberty and authority. Such identity, in turn, opens the possibility of oppression in the name of freedom. This is what Crowder calls ‘the inversion thesis’ (Crowder, 2004: 68–71). Berlin’s argument here builds on a mistaken assessment of the nature of self-transformation and its relation to liberty. Let me discuss each step in turn. As I mentioned in the previous section, Berlin’s story of positive freedom does not finish but starts with the higher self. After he notes the transformation of the empirical into the higher self, he turns to the possibility of replacing the latter with a ‘super-personal entity’: ‘the real self may be conceived as something wider than the individual . . . as a social “whole” of which the individual is an element or aspect: a tribe, a race, a Church, a State’. These Berlin calls ‘organic metaphors’ (TCL: 179). Because these super-personal entities are seen as an extension of, or as coterminous with, the higher self, their directives carry extra power. I think that the observations on Kant’s and Green’s moral philosophy made in the previous section show that the super-personal entities Berlin refers to cannot replace the self. True freedom is achieved by the self, and political institutions are instrumental in the process. ‘The moral ideal is a personal ideal which can be achieved only by individuals: Green leaves no space for a self wider than the individual’ (Nicholson, 1990: 125). This makes it clear how far Berlin can go with the use of the organic metaphors. Critics have noted the steps Berlin takes in his explanation of positive freedom and have been generally unsympathetic towards his claims about its disastrous political implications. They have interpreted differently where exactly the logic of Berlin’s reasoning breaks down, but almost all of them part company with him before his argument reaches its final conclusions. For example, Macpherson believes that Berlin is right to think of positive liberty as individual selfdirection and sees this as the first stage of the argument. But he thinks Berlin is wrong to claim that this stage necessarily leads to positive liberty as self-mastery (Macpherson, 1973: 108–9).23 Taylor critiques Berlin for asserting a necessary link between freedom ‘as the ability to fulfil my purposes’ and freedom ‘as realizable or fully realizable only within a certain form of society’ (Taylor, 2006: 162).

146  Berlin and positive freedom While these two are typically seen as two aspects of positive freedom, Taylor believes that freedom as self-realisation should be subsumed under a meaningful version of negative freedom, while only the understanding of freedom as ‘collective control over the common life’ should come under positive freedom (Taylor, 2006: 141). I support Taylor with the former but disagree with his decision to place the institutional dimension of freedom in a separate concept. In other words, I believe Berlin is right to elicit the link between personal development and social institutions and to see this link as pertinent to the understanding of positive freedom. Simhony also believes that the role of political institutions has to be factored into the conceptualisation of positive freedom. She explicitly approves Berlin’s move from what she calls ‘step one’, that positive freedom endorses personal selftransformation, to ‘step two’, that positive freedom is realisable only in a certain kind of society (Simhony, 1991: 305). She affirms the link which Berlin draws between positive freedom and political authorities by showing its similarity to the link drawn by Bosanquet: Whereas Berlin recognises that positive freedom is not merely an internal condition of the true self, but takes shape in social institutions, he sees only the ‘dark’ side of this connection. Consequently, he misses the affirmative link, the ‘bright’ side, that Bosanquet, drawing directly on Hegel, forges between positive freedom and the world of social institutions. (Simhony, 2016: 5) Simhony argues that Berlin is right to see a link, but the difference between him and his British idealist counterparts is that he saw this link as detrimental, while the latter saw it as conducive, to freedom. The British idealist story about the link between positive freedom and political institutions is an affirmative one. Let me recall: as discussed in Chapter Two, authorities are constitutive of true freedom – the concept which I take to be the paradigmatic case of positive freedom – in at least two ways. First, the existing political institutions uphold moral norms which are instrumental in the process of moral development. Second, these institutions provide the much needed outlet to the moral agent’s intention of serving the common good. They channel the commitment to doing good into specific practices. They give recognition, visibility and affirmation of the person exercising positive freedom. If the constructive link between liberty and authority is understood, then it should be obvious that authority, by itself, is not a threat to liberty. Therefore, by simply uncovering this connection, Berlin is not simultaneously unveiling a flaw in the positive freedom concept. Berlin is right, however, to argue that the aspiration towards positive freedom can lead to stronger political authorities. The causal chain should be along the lines that, first, the aspiration towards a higher self implies commitment to an ideal of a common good, and, second, that the more compelling this ideal is, the stronger the power it could grant to the political authority which claims to advance it. What is contestable, however,

Berlin and positive freedom 147 in Berlin’s argument is the assumption that strong political power is necessarily oppressive.24 In summary, although Berlin’s claim that ‘super-human entities’ can epitomise positive freedom is wrong, his insistence that there is a link between positive freedom and political authorities must be taken seriously. But this link works differently from the way he suggests. It is not the case that institutions themselves become agencies of positive freedom, but that there is a two-way link between link between individuals’ exercise of positive freedom and the power social or political institutions hold. The link between individuals’ exercise of positive freedom and political authorities however is indirect, both for Green and Berlin: it is mediated by the moral authorities. Indeed, Berlin’s final step in his positive freedom argument – that ultimately, in the context of positive freedom, liberty becomes identical with authority – can be properly explained if we focused on the role of moral authorities. Let us now turn to this final step: that the exercise or the aspiration for positive freedom could lead, indirectly, to its perversion ‘into its opposite – the apotheosis of authority’ (IN: 39). This is what Crowder calls ‘the inversion thesis’ (Crowder, 2004: 68–71). This turning of positive freedom into the complete opposite of freedom is made possible through the transformation from the empirical to the higher self. This transformation allows a potential dictator to make the claim that her putative political power advances people’s real as opposed to their actual wishes. And only the fulfilment of real wishes makes one free. If a political institution makes you do what you should want, it is making you free. And because self-transformation is possible, you could learn to want what you should want. So it is the doctrine of the two selves that allows the conversion of liberty into its opposite. Self-transformation is the capacity that makes us vulnerable to indoctrination. In addition, it allows dictators to argue that enforcement leads to freedom, if it makes one do something that one could potentially have wished. This observation is important and has significant implications in the understanding of liberty. The self-transformation of the empirical into the higher self implies an internalisation of some moral authorities. Berlin is right to observe this. He is not right to conclude that this by itself compromises authentic agency and therefore freedom. My crucial observation here is that not all self-transformations lead to positive freedom – something Berlin assumes to be the case. Not all transformations compromise the authenticity of human agency – in fact, I will show in Section 6 that capacity to transform is an essential part of authentic agency: authentic, on Berlin’s own terms. By way of concluding this section, I will point out that ‘the inversion thesis’ makes a statement not about political but about moral authorities. It is here that Berlin has some radically new observations to make: observations that pose a legitimate challenge to certain aspects of British idealist moral philosophy. When political institutions oppress liberty, they can do so directly, that is, even without a feasible claim of enhancing freedom at the same time. Moral authorities play a more ambivalent role with respect to freedom: they can be liberating, but they can also stifle liberty, as we will see in the next two sections.

148  Berlin and positive freedom

5 Berlin’s theory of the empirical self and the real threat of moral authorities: positive freedom and value affirmation When it comes to the critique of the British idealist moral philosophy of the empirical and the higher selves, Berlin has support from a hitherto unnoticed source: L.T. Hobhouse. Hobhouse was one of the founding fathers of New Liberalism and was a disciple of T.H. Green. He took the social justice argument of LLL25 – a step further by making practical recommendations about how the state can improve the working and living conditions of the lower social classes. Hobhouse, however, was a vocal critic of Green’s fellow British idealist Bosanquet. He dedicated a whole book to the analysis of Bosanquet’s political philosophy in the attempt to expose its faulty idealist metaphysics. Its title The Metaphysical Theory of the State (1918) mimicked Bosanquet’s The Philosophical Theory of the State (1899) and spoke volumes about the nature of Hobhouse’s disagreement. Hobhouse took to task Bosanquet’s philosophy of the actual and the real selves. At a fundamental level, this critique is very similar to Berlin’s own. The advantage of Hobhouse’s argument is that he does not reject fully the framework of the two selves and articulates his critique within its terminology. Thus, he helps expose more precisely why there is a tension between the two selves. He shows how exactly moral authorities undermine one’s freedom. Berlin’s unconditional rejection of the authenticity of the higher self does not allow him to expose the real tension at stake. Both thinkers challenge the transition from the empirical/actual self to the higher/real self. Their critique elicits two good justifications for questioning this transition. First, it undermines the value of personal well-being and, by this token, one’s negative freedom.26 It shows how exactly moral authorities limit freedom. Second, the self-transformation into the higher self is a process of value affirmation. It reinforces the existing moral authorities. So theirs is a two-way critique: on the one hand, moral authorities are not good but bad for freedom, and on the other hand, the exercise of positive freedom reaffirms existing moral authorities. So they find fault both with the British idealist commitment to positive freedom as self-transformation and with its endorsement of moral authorities as instrumental to one’s exercise of freedom. Although I agree that both of these critiques have substance and value, I will argue that the process of moral development captured by the transformation of the empirical into the higher self is part not only of achieving positive freedom but also of achieving personal well-being and thus negative freedom. I believe that by bringing together these two opposing theories – the Berlin/ Hobhouse one and the British idealist one – we can arrive at conclusions which the two parties, on their own, were not able to reach. Each of these theories is incomplete due to its failure to understand key features of the ‘other’ self. The British idealists did not appreciate that the recurring nature of the developmental process led to a much more complex constitution of the empirical self. Hobhouse and Berlin did not appreciate the function and utility of the moral authorities implied in the constitution of the higher self. What makes this juxtaposition of theories possible and productive is that all three thinkers shared very similar understanding

Berlin and positive freedom  149 of personal development and its potential for empowerment as well as increased vulnerability. The British idealist conceptualisation of moral development focuses almost exclusively on the higher self. Its features are well explained, as demonstrated in Green’s characterisation of moral agency in DSF. By contrast, their depiction of the empirical self is fuzzy: it is a somewhat abstract antithesis of the higher self. Practically, it is deficient on all six counts: the graphic depiction of this is in Table 4.3. For the British idealists, the process of transformation is energised by the unquestionable superiority and desirability of the features of the higher self. The contents of Table 4.3 should be read from right to left as the features of the empirical self are logically derived from these of the higher self. This rather extreme opposition between the higher and the empirical self is not helpful in explaining the real nature of the empirical self. It is only methodologically helpful – it helps us see the higher self in clear terms. But once we understand how the higher self functions, we can look back to the empirical self and make a better deduction. Because the process of aspiration is real, continuous and repetitive, the empirical self must increasingly internalise the qualities of the higher self. Its objectives are increasingly inclusive of the common good, capabilities are ever more developed, experiences of satisfaction are more frequent and objectives are increasingly informed by values and better adjusted to the expressed demands of the community. Notably, however, Berlin mirrors the British idealists’ exaggerated opposition between the two selves. For him, the empirical self is representative of human agency here and now, while the higher self embodies an abstract and overbearing ideal. For him, distinguishing what is empirical and ‘normal’ from what is ideal and rational becomes instrumental in defining negative freedom. When Berlin tries to establish some objective parameters of the defence of negative freedom, Table 4.3 The empirical self as the imperfect predecessor of the higher self The empirical self as deficient on all six counts

The features of the higher self as based on British idealist moral agency

1 Not purposefully oriented towards the common good 2 Underachieving, not as successful as it could be 3 Feeling of frustration 4 Uncontrolled desires, my ‘lower’ nature; pursuit of immediate pleasures 5 Driven by transient, trivial, insignificant objectives that do not internalise well the common good

1 Acquisition of moral agency

6 Not fitting well within the institutions of the social and political establishment

2 Attaining full development of one’s capabilities 3 Attaining satisfaction 4 Based on a process of character development and will cultivation 5 Driven by objectives that have internalised ‘reason’ or ‘moral authority’, that is, some external standard of what is good and right 6 Fitting in: making use of existing social and political institutions to channels its commitment to the common good

150  Berlin and positive freedom he turns to the notion of normality. He defines the ‘normal’ by reference to what is obvious, non-controversial and widely shared: I must establish a society in which there must be some frontiers to freedom which nobody should be permitted to cross. . . . What these rules and commandments will have in common is that they are accepted so widely, and are grounded so deeply in the actual nature of men as they have developed through history, as to be, by now, an essential part of what we mean by a normal human being. (TCL: 210, emphasis added) The implicit allegation is that the exercise of positive freedom leads us away from this sense of normality. The puritanism, perfection and rational completeness of the higher self sit at odds with how we normally are in our routine daily activities. In order to keep the opposition stark, Berlin even associates normality with ‘irrationality’. He is keen to maintain an opposition between the rationalism of perfection and the irrationalism of daily life. It is the latter which is the shelter of affection and artistic creativity: But I  think there are too many irrational drives in men that even universal psychoanalysts may not eliminate, which are nevertheless part of basic human nature as I conceive it. If people didn’t have deep irrational elements in them there would be no religion, no art, no love. None of these things are justifiable by purely rational means. . . . Therefore, I have to say that some of the elements in human lives which derive from emotional cravings have to enter into the total picture of the painful choices of the trade-offs. (ISL: 113) Here I try to show how Berlin mirrors the British idealist stark opposition between the empirical and the higher self – or in his case, between normal agency and agency corrupted by indoctrination – by conceding all the rationality to the latter and describing the former in terms of irrationality and emotion. In this context, Hobhouse’s commentary on the actual and the real self of Bosanquet’s metaphysics is highly relevant. On the one hand, it conveys Berlin’s own reservation about the superiority of the higher self. But on the other hand, it concedes some legitimacy to the higher self and its objectives. Indeed, it is the proximity between the two selves that leads to what is essentially a moral dilemma. Here is the place where Hobhouse targets Bosanquet’s dialectics between the actual and the real self, where the actual self is characterised by desires that are transient, unreflective and not sufficiently oriented to a common good, while the real self succeeds in combining an enlightened personal good with a common good. It is misleading to contrast real with transitory, trivial aims. It is not merely one’s superficial or casual interests that clash with others and exhibit contradiction with one another so that they interfere with the best life, it is also the deepest passions and sometimes the most fervid conscience. A man may

Berlin and positive freedom 151 feel, and a feeling may be no illusion, that a personal passion goes to the very foundation of his being, and yet the passion may be lawless or it may collide with the entire bent of his life in other directions, his devotion to public duty, for example, or perhaps deeprooted obligations to family and friendship. If the real self means that which goes deep, we cannot deny that it contains possibilities of contradiction far more serious than the collision between the permanent interest and passing desire. (Hobhouse, 1918: 48) Hobhouse uncovers the potential controversies of the British idealist developmental dynamic of the self in very stark terms. For the idealists, the superiority and desirability of the higher self is a given. A  major factor which defines the higher self is the quality of its objectives. It is directed towards a moral ideal. This ideal represents an understanding of the common good. The higher self – the self that has acquired moral agency – has managed to align its personal objectives to the requirements of the common good. Its aims and its will are ‘real’ because only they represent that kind of synthesis between the personal and the common good, which allows one to fit into and best serve one’s community. The real self has internalised the moral authorities, in the sense that moral ideals are forms of moral authority. The British idealist, as we established, underdeveloped view of the empirical self portrays the latter’s wishes as ‘transitory and trivial’. But this is not necessarily correct. If the empirical self has been engaged in the process of developing towards the higher self, this very process must have led to qualitative improvements of its objectives. These objectives must have internalised, even if only to a degree, common good values. So even if the empirical self has focused to a greater measure on its own good and to a smaller measure on the common good, its objectives still carry value that is more than just ‘transitory and trivial’. This means that the superiority of the higher over the empirical self becomes subtle and potentially contestable. The difference may be one of degree but not necessarily of quality. This is what Hobhouse tries to explain when he points out that some personal passions go ‘to the very foundation’ of one’s being. We may be torn between two options, neither of which is clearly morally superior to the other. If we were to place Hobhouse’s words in the graphics of the empirical and the higher selves, this is what it would look like: Table 4.4 compares only the fourth feature of the two selves as covered in Table 4.3. This feature reflects the different objectives of the two selves, and it is particularly significant as it reflects the impact of moral authorities on the formation of one’s objectives. The objectives of the higher self are clearly directed Table 4.4 Hobhouse’s understanding of the objectives of the empirical and the higher selves The objectives of the empirical self

The objectives of the higher self

‘passing desire’ ‘the deepest passions and sometimes the most fervid conscience’

‘permanent interest’ ‘devotion to public duty’, ‘deeprooted obligations to family and friendship’

152  Berlin and positive freedom towards publicly recognised moral norms. They contain explicit engagement with the common good. What Hobhouse’s commentary helps us see, however, is that it is not the case that the objectives of the empirical self are devoid of moral value. The reference to ‘fervid conscience’ indicates that the empirical self has a vision of the common good: the problem is that this vision clashes with the recognised social norms. So here is the issue at stake: existing moral authorities carry some understandings of the common good but not others. The difference between the objectives of the empirical and the higher selves is that the latter meet with public approval but the former do not. Hobhouse has identified a clear flaw in the idealist argument. The British idealists’ focus on the higher self, that is, on accomplished moral agency, has prevented them from recognising the extent to which the objectives of the empirical self also carry moral value. Therefore, when clashes between objectives occur, it is not obvious that the values of the higher self are necessarily superior. When a self is torn between a personal passion that cannot be morally discarded and a duty that is publicly sanctioned, what is the way forward? Hobhouse shows that the British idealist solution of choosing the publicly sanctioned norm is no longer obviously correct. What Hobhouse calls ‘deepest passions’ and ‘fervid conscience’ is in essence an alternative moral narrative that should not be discarded simply because it is different from the publicly approved ones. It seems that the idealist metaphysics of development is unable to account for the legitimacy of alternative moral norms, because they are bound to clash with the social norms crucial for the realisation of the higher self. My suggested reading of Hobhouse’s argument explains the tension between the empirical and the higher selves as a clash between two common goods. This tension could also be seen in terms of conflict between personal well-being and service to the common good. It could be the case that the moral values chosen by the empirical self are those that fit with her well-being more easily than the officially recognised ones. Obedience to the officially recognised moral authorities may be very costly to her. Such tension cannot be automatically resolved in favour of the moral a­ uthorities – as the British idealist approach might imply. A case can be made that the empirical self would be morally justified if she chooses to prioritise her own well-being. This way of explaining the tension at stake shows the context within which moral authorities threaten one’s well-being and accordingly negative freedom. The idealists, however, are right to emphasise the significance of recognised social norms, that is, of moral authorities, for the successful completion of the moral developmental process. The person envisaged in Hobhouse’s quote  – let us call him the moral rebel – is in real difficulty not only because he cannot do as he wants but also because he cannot develop in a more holistic fashion. Even if he practised the qualities of the higher self – in the sense of serving conscientiously his own chosen moral values – his hard work and altruistic intentions will not receive public recognition. The real problem then is not that his aspirations towards a higher self are misguided but that the existing social norms and institutions do not allow him to advance the ideals he holds dear. Hobhouse’s critique of Bosanquet’s developmental metaphysics would take us further if it were cast as a critique of existing moral norms. His critique uncovers the crudeness of the opposition between the unreflective actual and the reflective real self, but it implicitly

Berlin and positive freedom  153 affirms the idealist belief that development is a deep-seated need and that it cannot be realised without a fitting social environment. We can see that the idealist scheme of development relies on and thus indirectly affirms the status quo. Hobhouse and Berlin would argue that it blocks the avenues for effective social reform, because it may weigh heavily on the empirical self and its real anxieties and aspirations. Only if the empirical self is sufficiently free to pursue these will new rationales for social norms emerge and pave the way for social reform. Both thinkers are right in emancipating the status of the empirical self: this is an inevitable consequence of accepting that development is a perpetual process. What we have seen so far is that moral authorities are crucial for the exercise of positive freedom, and this is not the critiqued positive freedom of Berlin but the celebrated one of Green. We have also seen that the practice of positive freedom is value affirming. Positive freedom and recognised values reinforce each other. The successful alignment between personal and communal objectives depends on the existence of publicly recognised moral norms. This, however, poses a problem, which both Hobhouse and Berlin try to expose. The problem is that moral objectives that lack public recognition face a double threat: they do not receive public approval when successfully advanced, and, in addition, they may be subject to active rejection. The personal well-being of those who try to engage with alternative moral norms can be adversely affected by the existing moral authorities. Does this delegitimise the higher self and the process of moral development implied in it? It should not. This analysis should expose some of the ramifications of the process and indeed help us see how to navigate it in a way that deals with the pitfalls of clashes of values. Berlin, who goes to the extent of rejecting the normative validity of the higher self, does still end up advocating the protection of personal development. Berlin’s rejection of the metaphysics of the higher self, by the same token, establishes an alternative metaphysics of the empirical self. He emancipates the empirical self by denying the need for a higher self altogether. However, his examples of what the life of ordinary people consists of do capture, in essence, a process of development: a process of trying to engage with others on self-articulated terms. Berlin believes that normality is about spontaneous pursuit of one’s affections, artistic cravings, desires to engage with values and to fit amongst others – this will be illustrated in the discussion of the next section. What he is opposed to is the fixing of a correct objective, of a specific end point, of these aspirations. So in essence, his metaphysics of the self is one that sanctifies the process of development. It is the metaphysics of perpetual, but somehow incomplete, development. Development is an open-ended process, and Berlin wants to preserve this open-endedness. He believes that a commitment to the completion of the process jeopardises the essence of development. He is critical of true knowledge and rationalism because they pre-empt the choice: they tell us what the best course of action is and thus obviate the need for choice. Action is choice; choice is free commitment to this or that way of behaving, living, and so on; the possibilities are never fewer than two: to do or not to

154  Berlin and positive freedom do; be or not be. Hence, to attribute conduct to the unalterable laws of nature is to misdescribe reality: it is not true to experience. (HF: 257) The essence of freedom is having choice. Berlin here refers to choice on a deeper, metaphysical level. That is not simply the choice between options but between ends. He is an advocate not of the consumerism associated with neo-liberalism but of our capacity to question the deepest values. The choice we face in the ‘to be or not to be’ situation is a metaphysical one. This attitude to freedom conveys Berlin’s understanding of the self – as a self in perpetual development, perpetual questioning of values. Refusing to face up to the permanent trade-offs in life leads to fanaticism and bigotry (ISL: 113). Every time we commit to a particular value, we should do so with the awareness that this comes at the cost of another value. Hence, there is something tragic in every choice: ‘The need to choose, to sacrifice some ultimate values to others, turns out to be a permanent characteristic of the human predicament’ (TCL: 43). Berlin challenges the idealist metaphysics of development only to replace it with his vision of development without an end point. His objective is to undermine ‘all theories according to which the value of free choice derives from the fact that without it we cannot attain to the perfect life, with the implication that once such perfection has been reached the need for choice between alternatives withers away’ (TCL: 43–44). That is, according to Berlin, the value of free choice does not derive from the quality of the final end it helps advance. Although I will take Berlin to task for this particular claim, I believe he is right to argue that development is valuable in its own right, independently of whether or not its particular goals are successfully achieved. He would also be right to argue that the freedom experienced in the process of development is different from that experienced once a goal has been achieved. This is clearly implied in his polemic on the difference between the two concepts but is overshadowed by the fact that he visualises the end point of development in deprecatory terms. Arguably, Berlin does not need to go as far as undermining the legitimacy of achieving a goal, casting this achievement as something that undercuts the value of the whole process. He puts himself in the difficult position of not acknowledging that a vision for an ultimate objective is crucial for the process of development in principle, as I will argue in the final section of this chapter and in Chapter Six.

6 The pathologies of self-transformation and the normal agency capable of freedom Berlin’s ambition to develop a fundamental and systematic rejection of moral authorities has led him to be highly critical not just of rational moral ideals but also of the process of self-transformation itself. Berlin is worried that one’s unwavering will to pursue positive freedom may lead to pathologies like internalising one’s oppression, suppressing one’s natural desires and feelings, escapism, or self-seclusion. He discusses these in the third section of TCL, ‘The retreat to

Berlin and positive freedom 155 the inner citadel’, and views them as abnormal states of agency. The problem he wants to highlight is that our capacity for self-transformation, very much activated by the pursuit of positive freedom, is used as a strategy – alas not a good one – for dealing with circumstances of oppression. The ‘inner control’ we have over our dispositions can help us adjust our desires to the available external possibilities. If there is not much that we are allowed to do, we could teach ourselves to want less. Thus, we can increase our freedom not by fighting obstacles but by downscaling our demands. This observation aims to undermine positive freedom on two counts. The exercise of positive freedom damages the healthy function of our agency, and it isolates us from the real world in times when our action is needed to fight domination. Because positive freedom, Berlin believes, focuses exclusively on manipulating the inner human condition, it is impotent in dealing with political oppression. I will argue that while Berlin’s analysis is enlightening about the nature of the human condition, it exposes further his misunderstanding of positive freedom and particularly of the link between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ implied in the concept. I will look at the examples of ‘self-abnegation’ he gives and will show that, paradoxically, his solutions of the outlined problems appeal to an exercise of positive freedom. Finally, I will show that his analysis leads to the conclusion that quality of agency is essential for one’s capacity to exercise freedom. Through the notions of ‘self-abnegation’ and ‘self-fulfilment’, Berlin tries to make the case that the exercise of positive freedom implies transformations in two opposite directions: towards self-shrinking and self-enlargement. Here I  would like to focus on the notion of ‘self-abnegation’: the shrinking of the self, done in order to adjust to diminished possibilities. Examining Berlin’s narrative more closely will show that Berlin includes several types of behaviour under this category, implying that they all have the same constitution and all represent an exercise of positive freedom. I must liberate myself from desires that I know I cannot realise. I wish to be a master of my kingdom, but my frontiers are long and insecure, therefore I contract them in order to reduce or eliminate the vulnerable area. I begin by desiring happiness, or power, or knowledge, or attainment of some specific object. But I cannot command them. I choose to avoid defeat or waste, and therefore decide to strive for nothing that I cannot be sure to obtain. . . . The tyrant threatens me with the destruction of my property, with imprisonment, with exile or death of those I love. But if I no longer feel attachment to property, no longer care whether or not I am in prison, if I have killed within myself my natural affections, then he cannot bend me to his will, for all that is left of myself is no longer subject to empirical fears and desires. . . . I have withdrawn to myself; there, and there alone, I am secure. (TCL: 182) There are three interrelated types of experiences here, and I argue that their constitution is not identical. I call them escapism, adaptation and martyrdom. All

156  Berlin and positive freedom these are premised on some form of personal transformation, but Berlin wrongly assumes that this qualifies them as an exercise of positive freedom. Personal transformation is neither exclusively related to nor sufficient on its own for positive freedom. I will assess the type of freedom each of them represents – if they do represent any freedom at all. The case of escapism is characterised by turning away from high ideals because they are hard to achieve. If anything, it is the opposite to the pursuit of positive freedom. Berlin does not give a reason why a person has given up her aspirations for ‘happiness, or power, or knowledge’ other than the difficulty of achieving them. The analysis of the dynamics of the higher self in Sections 2 and 3 established that being able to become the self ‘at its best’ – that is, to achieve the higher self – is difficult but desirable. So we can understand why one could give up such an aspiration, but we also have to note that by doing so one has given up the exercise of positive freedom.27 It could be argued, nonetheless, that this depiction tells us something significant about the human condition which has implications for the exercise of freedom. What Berlin’s example of escapism shows is that the pursuit of high objectives like ‘happiness, or power, or knowledge’ has not only a personal but a social dimension. Our success in attaining them is also a success in fitting in with those around us: hence, giving up on them entails ‘retreat to the inner citadel’. The transformation which Berlin depicts here is one against our ‘natural affections’ against those desires that help our socialisation. This is a transformation that undercuts the natural process of wanting more and aspiring towards what is hard to achieve. What Berlin unwittingly admits here is that it is normal to aim to fit into the world around us and to engage with its values. Processes which he previously depicted as pertaining to the pursuit of the higher self, he now views as most natural and humane. He is critical of self-abnegation because he sees it as connected to the traditional self-emancipation of ascetics and quietists, of stoics or Buddhist sages, men of various religions or of none, who have fled the world, or escaped the yoke of society or public opinion, by some process of deliberate self-transformation that enables them to care no longer for any of its values, to remain isolated and independent, on its edges, no longer vulnerable to its weapons. (TCL: 182) Escapism is a pathology because it goes against the grain of the human natural disposition towards engagement with valuable activities and socialisation. This underlying message advances the ideas which the defenders of positive freedom like Green believe in and argue for. What we can take from Berlin here is the realisation that factors which undermine these natural dispositions also undermine freedom. And indeed, our natural dispositions are not aversion to high ideals and social engagement but attraction to them. One of the factors that crushes these dispositions is the unattainability of the ideals we aim at. If for some reason these ideals are beyond our reach, we may turn away from them in a way that turns our outward-facing disposition into an inward-facing one. Interestingly, this

Berlin and positive freedom 157 echoes Green’s argument against the old liberals’ insistence on self-reliance: if moral expectations are unrealistic, they could alienate people, not motivate them to improve. The second type of behaviour which Berlin includes in his discussion of selfabnegation is what I call adaptation. By this I mean a form of accepting one’s condition of being oppressed: adapting one’s desires to circumstances of diminished choice. This is very similar to what Amartya Sen calls ‘adaptation and mental conditioning’, which reflects the fact that our ‘desires and pleasure-taking abilities adjust to circumstances, especially to make life bearable in adverse situations’ (Sen, 1999: 62). Unlike the case of escapism, where the agent contracts her desires to avoid the hardship of pursuing higher ideals, in this case Berlin refers to the external circumstances that force her to give up on normal aspirations: circumstances of political oppression. This case is more worrying morally and politically. It is in this context that Berlin refers to the more troubling transformations of curtailing one’s affections for others and one’s aspirations to engage with values and with the external world. The political problem is the resulting refusal to confront and fight the oppressors. We could argue, however, that from the point of view of the agent’s well-being, the adjustment is a better solution than an open confrontation, particularly when the latter has little chance of success. In other words, we could claim that it is a morally legitimate form of dealing with domination. Berlin himself acknowledges this by claiming that such self-transformation ‘may contribute to his happiness or his security; but it will not increase his civil and political freedom’ (IN: 32). The interesting question is whether this reflects the exercise of positive or negative freedom. I would say that adaptation is a form of negative freedom on the grounds that the transformation discussed here aims to improve the agent’s own well-being. This reading is also based on the belief that our capacity to transform is part of our normal pattern of behaviour. In other words, processes of development, transformation and adaptation characterise our routine practices and not just those of moral action or achievement of excellence that are characteristic of positive freedom. The most politically poignant and morally complex type of behaviour Berlin refers to in his analysis of self-abnegation is that of martyrdom. This is a form of accepting one’s condition of being oppressed but by taking some kind of a public stance. The example of ‘the morally autonomous slave’ (IN: 32) is relevant here, although it needs some unpacking to expose its logic. I would argue that the morally autonomous slave is the slave who has reconciled himself with his status for the purpose of maintaining his dignity and making a public statement. His stance is the opposite to that of escapism as he is engaging critically and practically with his social condition. It is also more complex than adaptation as this is done not merely for the purpose of a less frustrated life. We could imagine his stance as similar to that of the Stoic sage Posidonius, who confronted his agonising disease with the words ‘Do your worst pain; no matter what you do, you cannot make me hate you’ (IN: 31). The morally autonomous slave could be saying this to his master. This stance, however, is not one that justifies oppression but one that confronts it in an open fashion. Here we have internal control and external engagement.

158  Berlin and positive freedom This will be a case of positive freedom in the sense that this confrontation with the master can be interpreted as a moral action based on commitment to the ideal of human dignity and involving some loss of well-being. And here is the paradox. Berlin denies that this is a stance that advances the cause of freedom, because he views it as an internal reaction as opposed to a public engagement. For him, nothing less than an actual challenge of the oppressor ‘will increase [one’s] civil and political freedom’ (IN: 32). But this is an even tougher demand on any oppressed person. Fighting oppression directly is likely to incur penalties that may jeopardise well-being or even survival. Berlin expects fighters for freedom to be braver than the Stoics and the morally autonomous slave. I  would argue, and I  believe that Berlin would agree, that symbolic resistance to oppression of a Stoic type is on par with an active, potentially self-­sacrificial, fight against it. Both are a form of rebellion against an oppressive status quo. But what Berlin will have to admit is that he places high moral expectations on the oppressed and that these cannot be met without actions characteristic of positive freedom. There are several significant insights we can take from Berlin’s discussion of positive freedom as self-abnegation. The first, and the only one that succeeds in developing a critique of positive freedom, properly understood, is about the danger of escapism caused by pursuing an ideal that is too hard to achieve. The second insight is about the link between positive freedom and experienced satisfaction. Berlin shows that our capacity for inner control allows us to regulate the amount of satisfaction we experience and, as argued in previous chapters here, satisfaction is straightforwardly related to freedom. But it is wrong to claim that this is all that positive freedom involves. Berlin misrepresents the nature of positive freedom when he casts it as the ‘spiritual freedom’ of teaching ‘a man that, if he cannot get what he wants, he must learn to want only what he can get’ (IN:  32). This neglects the fact that the personal development reflected by the concept of positive freedom is directed towards an ideal of the common good. Positive liberty carries the ambition to engage constructively with others and not just to better oneself. Ideals are outward looking. The case of martyrdom seems to defy this pattern as it appears to affirm the status quo. In essence, however, it is a symbolic protest against it. It acknowledges the power but not the superiority of the oppressor. What is problematic, however, is that the discussion of self-abnegation leads Berlin to denounce the link between negative liberty and desire satisfaction. At the end of the section ‘The retreat to the inner citadel’, he declares that ‘the definition of negative liberty as the ability to do what one wishes . . . will not do’ (TCL: 186). If what he means here is that negative freedom should factor in the quality of one’s wishes, he would be right, as we will shortly see. But if he claims that it is not at all related to desire satisfaction, this would be a controversial step to take as it goes against the grain of his association of negative liberty with the ‘empirical self’ whose wishes have to be protected by the disciplining forces of the higher self. On many occasions Berlin insists that negative freedom is about ‘the individual with his actual wishes and needs as they are normally conceived’

Berlin and positive freedom  159 (TCL: 180–81). Berlin is right that wishes can be internally and externally manipulated but wrong to argue that they should be factored out of the definition of liberty altogether. Such a move would be similar in its desperation to the act of ‘get[ing] rid of the wound by cutting off my leg’ (TCL: 182) – an image he uses to critique escapism and adaptation as forms of positive freedom. And finally, one of the most significant issues Berlin grapples with in this section is the quality of agency. Not every state of agency is capable of freedom. A person who has given up on the possibility to improve their well-being has lost their appetite for freedom altogether. Their wishes are not those of a free agent, and therefore, their satisfaction does not lead to freedom. A person with no ‘natural affections’ or ‘fears and desires’ (TCL: 182) has lost capacity for freedom. Such a pathological state of agency is possible as Berlin has already shown. There is a darker side to the martyrdom scenario, and it is the one that most worries Berlin. In an environment of political or social domination, self-­ transformation can lead to the internalisation of oppression. Practically this would mean accepting one’s state of subjugation as normal, viewing oneself as somebody of lower worth, and agreeing to serve the needs of others with no due recognition. A person who has accepted his subjugation has lost something he needs in order to be free. If he has accepted his inferior status as normal, if he has lost trust in his own judgement and only follows commands from above, he is not simply unfree as a matter of fact but incapable while in that state of agency of being free. We can press this further. If one has internalised one’s own oppression, one has also internalised a wrong moral norm: a norm that sanctions the subordination of one group of people to another. Therefore, when Berlin argues that ‘the definition of negative liberty as the ability to do what one wishes . . . will not do’ (TCL: 186), what he is essentially arguing is that quality of agency is a crucial determinant of the possibility of freedom. An agency capable of freedom is one with an open potential for development. Hence, Berlin is not right to see self-transformation as detrimental to the capacity for freedom. The right kind of transformation is in fact essential for it. When he argues that negative freedom is ‘not simply the absence of frustration’ but also the ‘absence of obstacles on roads along which a man can decide to walk’ (IN: 32), he suggests that the possibility to transform is an important aspect of freedom.

7 The third criterion for the distinction between positive and negative freedom and how the two freedoms swap places The discussion of positive freedom as an attainment of excellence in a recognised field allows us to articulate the third criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction: that between a state of normality and a state of exception. One of the ways to illustrate how this criterion works would be to put it in the context of the relationship between the process of development and the completion point of the process. This relationship is important as it throws light both on the continuity between the concepts of positive and negative freedom and on their distinctiveness. The idea is that the process of development underpins normal, that is routine,

160  Berlin and positive freedom activities, while positive freedom as reaching the ultimate point of a development process reflects a state of exception. This captures well Berlin’s vision of negative liberty as based on normal agency and of positive freedom as based on becoming yourself at your best. The dynamic between the process of development and its completion is more important for Berlin than it appears to be. TCL rejects the idealist metaphysics of self-transformation, but the argument in the previous section shows that the capacity for development is essential for the normal functioning of human agency. Furthermore, Berlin’s critique of the oppressive aspects of the moral authorities could not be fully articulated and appreciated without spelling out his own theory of the empirical self. The discussion in Section 5 reveals that the attainment of the higher self leads to value affirmation. Berlin wanted to emancipate the status of the empirical self because it was the likely beacon of new values, values not yet sanctioned by the social and political establishment. So for Berlin, the successful transition to the higher self had undesirable side effects: it led to strengthening further the already existing moral authorities. Thus, Berlin wanted to stop the development to the higher self in its tracks. His endorsement of radical choice expressed his commitment to value exploration: it was in essence a radical rejection of moral authorities. He showed that the attainment of the higher self injected additional power and credibility into these authorities so that our ambition to be the best had to be seen for what it actually is: he believed it leads to value affirmation and makes us all less free. We can see why, for Berlin, the relationship between development and the point of its completion is rather important: he wanted to keep development but question the value of its ultimate point. The understanding of positive freedom as achievement of excellence in a recognised field fits with Berlin’s theory of the empirical self and conveys his overall scepticism towards the concept. He believes that the craving for excellence is immature and dangerous. But despite his scepticism, this understanding of the concept is normatively credible: it is a form of real freedom. It is also a second kind of freedom – that is, it is distinct from negative freedom. In fact, the attempt to demonstrate why exactly it counts as a second kind of freedom leads to the articulation of the third criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction: that of normality or routineness versus exceptionality. The attainment of excellence in a recognised field is different from the other way we have defined positive freedom so far, that is, as an acquisition of moral agency, but it is still arguably a form of positive freedom. Yet it is easier to demonstrate that it is a real freedom than that it is a second kind of freedom. It is easier to explain why positive freedom as an acquisition of moral agency is a second kind of freedom: it requires a different disposition to that of negative freedom typically oriented towards the improvement of one’s own well-being. However, the level of satisfaction experienced in the context of that freedom – that is, positive freedom as acquisition of moral agency – is more problematic. It depends on the cultivation of the will to desire the common good as only then does one undertake one’s moral duty willingly.

Berlin and positive freedom  161 The attainment of excellence, on the other hand, tends to bring very high levels of satisfaction. It passes rather well the test for real freedom in terms of leading to ‘progressive satisfaction’.28 But it does not necessarily require a change of disposition in the sense that excellence, in the same fashion as self-improvement, tends to advance the agent’s own well-being. This makes it very difficult to categorise it as positive freedom. As previously discussed, the second criterion for the ­distinction – well-being improvement versus service to the common good – is the most important one. The attainment of excellence does meet this criterion to an extent, however. The clue is in the requirement for a ‘recognised field’. The attainment of excellence in a recognised field can serve the common good, if the recognised field reflects credible moral authorities. Attainment of excellence reinforces the standards by which it has been recognised and advances the public values implied in them. Society rewards excellence much more highly than selfimprovement because the former brings greater social impact in terms of affirmation of the institutions that produce it. This is the very reason Berlin cautions against it. It sustains the powers that be. Excellence affirms authorities. This shows that positive freedom as excellence in a recognised field fits very well the first criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction: relation to authorities. The only partial coverage of the second criterion, however, is rather problematic. In fact, we will shortly see that this is one of the reasons why, on analysis, Berlin’s positive and negative freedom, in some contexts of his discussion, swap places. The third criterion for the distinction helps solidify the positive freedom status of freedom as excellence in a recognised field. The rationale of normality versus exception helps explain why the attainment of excellence counts as an activity of a ‘different’ category and, hence, qualifies for being representative of positive freedom. Excellence is not simply one of the many steps on a continuous line of self-improvement. It constitutes a turning point as it is based on reaching a recognised landmark of achievement. The very term ‘excellence’ suggests reaching a status of exception. In this sense, it is existentially distinctive. In a similar fashion to the exercise of moral agency, it is hard to sustain as a routine. Typically its exercise demands a lot of willpower. However, the uncertain status of positive freedom as excellence with respect to the second, the moral agency, criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction can explain why, depending on the context, this freedom may stop being positive and become negative. If it is a clear case that the pursuit of excellence advances one’s well-being rather than the common good, then it loses its special positive freedom status. It could also lose the status of freedom altogether. The context of Berlin’s discussion of self-abnegation is such an example. In an environment of social and political oppression, Berlin appeals for an open fight with the oppressors. He despairs at one’s urge to transform in order to make oppression less painful and extolls the virtue of those who are brave enough to face the subjugators. This is a case of freedom reversal. What Berlin believes to be the positive freedom of trying to find the state of the soul best for a person’s particular circumstances is on analysis a form of negative freedom in the sense

162  Berlin and positive freedom that it is an attempt to protect the person’s well-being. And what Berlin believes to be the negative freedom of fighting against authorities is in fact an exercise of positive freedom as here one is prepared to jeopardise one’s own well-being in the name of liberating the whole oppressed constituency. The urge for making the best of yourself, Berlin believes, should be questioned like any other urge. It in itself does not a guarantee that we are reading our moral compass correctly. The British idealists wanted to bring together the aspiration to thrive and one’s moral conscience. But in an environment where moral objectives are not obvious or are contested, the desire for personal thriving could lead to advancing a questionable ideal. Or, looked at from the opposite perspective, in an environment of conflicting moral ideas, one’s capacity to thrive is limited. Moral authorities can be dangerous for people individually and collectively. But what Berlin did not appreciate was that the positive freedom of moral agency does not coincide with these authorities. The wrong moral ideals can lead to self-­abnegation and thus compromise the capacity of human agency for freedom. This happens when people are led to believe that they are inferior human beings. The capacity that gives us positive freedom could be put in service of unfriendly authorities. But this is not a critique of positive freedom per se – this is a social critique. The capacity which affords us positive freedom is the same as that which affords us negative freedom. We need to be able to develop key aspects of our agency including character, disposition, understanding and openness to others, if we are to be able to have control over our own well-being. But as demonstrated in this section, the capacity to transform can lead to loss of freedom altogether. This happens when one’s survival – the survival made possible through self-transformation – comes at the cost either of doing something wrong or of enduring the wrong somebody else perpetrates.

8 Why the substantive objective of development matters for liberal theory: the issue of perfectionism Rawls’s distinction between the right and the good carries very similar insights to Berlin’s metaphysics of the empirical self. Rawls believes that in order to protect the right – one’s capacity to shape one’s own moral, philosophical or religious ideas, one has to distinguish it from the good – that is, any specific expression of these moral, philosophical or religious ideas. One’s horizon for value formation is open only if no particular comprehensive values are upheld by the basic political institutions. The idea both Berlin and Rawls advance is that liberty will be properly protected only if one keeps an effective distance between the process of value formation and the active promoting of actual substantive values. Liberty is associated with the process of value formation, not of value promotion. The ‘principle of perfection’ – which is the commitment to ‘maximize the achievements of human excellence in art, science and culture’ – is seen to be in some tension with the principles of justice that secure most firmly ‘the basic liberties of a democratic regime’ (Rawls, 1999: 214, 285–86). The commitment to excellence brings perfectionism and positive freedom close together. Liberal scepticism towards both perfectionism and positive freedom

Berlin and positive freedom  163 stems from the argument that the aspiration for high achievement undercuts the conditions for free exploration of values. This scepticism, however, has had a detrimental effect on the understanding of both positive and negative liberty. The effective de-legitimation of the prioritising of chosen values29 has a negative impact on the process of forming these values. In the same vein, the limited understanding of the constitution of excellence results in a poor grasp of the process of self-improvement and value formation. I argue that negative freedom reflects our normal activities, but these activities should be understood as preceding the achievement of excellence. Our state of normality is a state of development. Understanding the direction our development is taking is vital in understanding what exactly it is as a process. The activities on which positive freedom are based – like acquisition of moral agency, attainment of excellence, high achievement, success – are complex and have a particular constitution that has to be unpacked. These activities are similar in certain aspects but different in others. The argument for their association with positive freedom is slightly different in every case. There is a kernel of truth in Berlin and Rawls’s critique of perfectionism that applies to positive freedom properly understood – the critique that value affirmation suspends value exploration – but this critique does not undermine the normative validity of the concept. Most crucially, the understanding of the ‘extreme’ activities of attaining moral agency or excellence throws light on the nature of the ‘normal’ activities preceding them and leading to them. Normality is also particular. Negative freedom, like positive freedom, reflects the aspirational nature of human desire, the developmental nature of human conduct. Because positive freedom is explicitly focused on phenomena of transformation, it engages more directly with the understanding of development, and this understanding, in turn, helps explain the constitution of negative freedom. The liberal aversion to perfectionism30 has led to the sanctifying of the process of value formation at the expense of the activities of practising particular values. The message is that we should challenge values, not reify them; we should live in a state of perpetual revolution. We should control our cravings for absolute values because they are a sign of immaturity (TCL: 217). Negative freedom, under this description, turns out to be much more taxing than positive. I personally will choose to be immature but take the chance to commit wholeheartedly to a cause I believe to be good. Green’s true freedom as the attainment of ‘peace or blessedness’ (DSF: 228) acquires new attractiveness in this context. We need to gauge better the exact relation between process and completion in order to understand the exact relation between negative and positive freedom. British idealists go too far in the direction of subsuming the value of process into the value of the attained goal, while Berlin and Rawls take away too much from the value of excellence. We cannot understand the process without understanding the logic of its success.

Conclusion Berlin’s is not an individualist as opposed to a communitarian ethics. His critique of the British idealist metaphysics shows, however, that moral ideals are

164  Berlin and positive freedom underpinned by a commitment to the common good and that this commitment has implications for our attitude towards our own well-being. This chapter has thrown light on the similarity between Berlin’s and Hobhouse’s critiques of the moral philosophy of the British idealists and on the philosophical significance of this critique. In this sense Berlin’s intellectual affiliation should not be confined exclusively to Cold War liberalism (Müller, 2008; Kelly, 2002; Shklar, 1989). It should be seen as a part of a philosophical tradition challenging the rationalism of the Enlightenment but still committed to upholding ethical standards and the political significance of philosophical scholarship. Berlin is not a nihilist, or a sceptic, or a deconstructivist or a relativist. He also is much more than a passionate, energetic and flamboyant intellectual of exotic continental background. He is an outstanding moral philosopher whose originality and significance are yet to be fully recognised. Many of the critiques of Berlin’s positive freedom target the link he establishes between personal development and oppressive exercise of political power in the name of noble political ideals. Berlin himself, however, retreats on this claim by basing his reservation about the concept only on the observation that it lends itself to bad uses. If anything, I believe that the association between positive freedom and authorities of moral and political types is correctly asserted. Positive freedom is a form of constructive appropriation of authorities. It has to be made clear, however, how exactly this appropriation of authorities is constitutive of freedom. In line with recent scholarship (Simhony, 2016), I  believe that Berlin is right to see a link between positive freedom and political institutions: this link, however, is indirect; it is instrumental for the exercise of positive freedom properly understood; and it is not necessarily detrimental for the exercise of negative freedom. The hidden strength of Berlin’s argument is in his critical assessment of the British idealist vision of development as captured by the transition from the empirical into the higher self. Berlin’s analysis allows us to elicit the ways in which moral authorities may impact adversely one’s well-being, may hinder the capacity of individuals to engage with alternative moral values and can lead to strengthening the existing social norms. Such analysis has significant implications for the understanding and the protection of negative freedom. However, because Berlin does not fully acknowledge the legitimacy of the British idealist understanding of true freedom, he does not explain the concept of positive freedom well, and he does not utilise the advantages of this concept for a more comprehensive explanation of negative freedom. Therefore, as we will see in the next chapter, he does not adequately connect one of his most significant conclusions – that quality of agency is essential for the exercise of freedom – with his conceptualisation of negative freedom. I have made the case that Berlin’s arguments do lead to a viable concept of positive freedom: as attainment of excellence in a recognised field. This version of positive freedom could be very close to the British idealist one – that of acquisition of moral agency – but it could also be different. Berlin’s version lacks firm moral commitment: one could achieve excellence without prioritising service to

Berlin and positive freedom  165 the common good. But I believe this concept is sufficiently different from negative freedom and that it also helps articulate the third criterion for a viable positive/ negative freedom distinction: that between routineness and exceptionality. The exercise of excellence affirms moral authorities more than routine activities: the excellent person is a champion of the values of his field of activities and, to that extent, a social conformist. The attainment of excellence is a cherished form of ­liberty – in certain instances, the most cherished one – but one’s well-being is much broader and the liberty experienced in its context has a different constitution.

Notes 1 Crowder claims that the essay is ‘Berlin’s masterpiece’ and ‘one of the most famous works of twentieth-century political thought’. Despite being ‘also hugely controversial’, it ‘on the whole . . . does deserve its classic status’ (Crowder, 2004: 64). 2 Scholars have argued that the theme of value pluralism is Berlin’s most distinct contribution in TCL (Crowder, 2004: 65; Kelly, 2002: 40). Collini celebrates Berlin’s capacity ‘to theorise complex emotional states; emotions are linked both to morality and to meaning and he gets very close to examining these links’ (Collini, 1999: 209). Müller extolls Berlin as a moral psychologist and a master in depicting the ‘frailties of the human psyche’ (Müller, 2008: 58). Gustavsson shows the capacity of his critique of positive freedom to elicit the threats to liberty coming not just from the rational ideals of the Enlightenment but also from the contemporary fetish for self-realisation (Gustavsson, 2014, 291). Even scholars who disagree fundamentally with his conceptualisation of liberty have abundant praise for his knowledge of the ‘European tradition running from Spinoza (even Plato), via Rousseau, Kant and Hegel, to Marx and his followers; a tradition whose legacy one feels he found more philosophically fascinating, if more politically dangerous . . . [which] is also associated with the critical discourse of modernity’ (Coole, 2013: 199). 3 See the discussion in the introduction of the book, Sections 2 and 5, Chapter Three, Section 5 and Section 7 of this chapter about the internal and external boundaries in defining the two freedom concepts. 4 These include the interrelated tensions between ‘the individual and political authorities’, ‘the individual and moral authorities, ‘self and others’, ‘self-interest and duty’, to name some. 5 Positive and negative freedom are two real accounts of freedom, and the boundary between them is internal. There are, however, faulty accounts of freedom that have to be excluded from the definition of freedom by an external boundary. Both boundaries are flexible by virtue of depending on the outcome of normative disputes. See also endnote 3. 6 See the introduction of the book, Section 3, Chapter Two, Section 5, this chapter, Section 7 and Chapter Six, Section 5. 7 Green himself argues that true freedom (his equivalent of positive freedom) is found in the full realisation of one’s capacities, but I have resisted including this within a reconstructed version of his concept. The reason for this is that Green sees moral agency and achievement of perfection in personal development as closely intertwined. In Chapter Two I have argued that distinguishing between these is instrumental in developing a viable second concept of liberty. Berlin’s case for positive freedom as an achievement of excellence is distinct from Green’s, as Berlin does not see excellence as necessarily having a moral dimension. As shown in Section 7 here, the case for seeing excellence as a representation of positive freedom rests on a different argument from that which links moral agency and positive freedom.

166  Berlin and positive freedom 8 I would like to think of myself as belonging to this establishment. 9 Gould claims that she sees Berlin’s polemic as ‘excessively ideological, even though it is presented in the guise of a critique of ideology’ (Gould, 2013: 105). 10 Some of these advantages could be appreciated further after several decades of the post-communist experience of economic crisis, chronic underinvestment in public services and brain drain. 11 Berlin’s critique of monism is discussed in Chapter Six, Section 1. 12 Tully comments that in the 1950s, Berlin was surrounded by ‘social-democratic and international liberals’ like Aldous Huxley, John Maynard Keynes, Harold Laski, Karl Polanyi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bertrand Russell, R.H. Tawney, Pierre Trudeau, Leonard Woolf and (the holder of the Chichele chair prior to Berlin) G.D.H. Cole (Tully, 2013: 27). 13 Berlin sees these trade-offs as constitutive of his positive/negative freedom distinction. Chapter  Six will show that if we see these in terms of a trade-off between personal well-being and a common good, then they could serve as a legitimate criterion for a distinction between two concepts of freedom. The idea is that clashes between common goods have to be taken seriously, and protection for each common good constituency has to be provided. I argue that a significant clash between personal well-being and the common good represents in essence a clash between two forms of common good. 14 I have Taylor on my side here (Taylor, 2006: 145–46). 15 I do not discuss the fourth definition of positive freedom  – that of ‘collective selfdetermination on the part of a large body’ – here. My argument would be that this is a form of political positive freedom as described in the fourfold freedom matrix in Tables 0.1, 1.5b, 3.3 and 5.1. It is a form of positive freedom on two grounds. First, if one’s participation in collective self-determination constitutes an exercise of moral agency and second, if the collective self-determination advances the common good of all. See the distinction of Green’s positive/true freedom in Chapter Three, Section 6. 16 For Green, the original meaning is the juristic one (see Chapters Two and Three) and for Berlin, that of negative freedom. 17 This dynamic between continuity and difference is important in understanding the relation between negative and positive freedom which I advocate. I argue that Berlin visualises this dynamic in a similar way, and I discuss this at a greater length in Section 7 here and also in Chapter Six, Section 6. 18 See Christman (2013) for a closer engagement with Berlin’s ideas from section six of TCL ‘The search for status’. 19 See Section 7 in this chapter, Chapter Five, Section 5 and Chapter Six, Sections 1 and 5. 20 This will be discussed in Section 4 of this chapter. 21 However, Green’s understanding of moral development allows for the possibility of advancing a critical stance towards authorities. For his concept of the ‘moral reformer’ and the ways individuals could reform existing norms and practices, see PE: §§300, 302, 344. 22 ‘The determination of will by reason, then, which constitutes moral freedom or autonomy, must mean its determination by an object which a person willing, in virtue of his reason, presents to himself – that object consisting in the realisation of an idea of perfection in and by himself’ (DSF: 249). 23 I am on Berlin’s side here as I believe positive liberty should be associated with the attainment of excellence, and self-mastery can be seen as an example of it. 24 This takes us to Berlin’s second contestable claim: that the process of pursuing a higher self creates justifications for coercion. This is one of those aspects of his argument on which he later took a softer stance. Hence, we do not need to expend critical energy to prove that coercion, pace Berlin, is not constitutive of the meaning of positive freedom. He retracted the claim that positive liberty is inherently oppressive and recalibrated his critique to the effect that the concept lends itself to be used for coercive purposes (IN: 37–38). Tully comments on this retracting and refers to the recalibrated claim as ‘his signature fall-back “historical fact” argument’ (Tully, 2013: 32). He refers to Berlin’s

Berlin and positive freedom  167

25 26 27 28 29 30

stance that positive liberty is not synonymous with, but may lead to, oppressive practices, as historical evidence proves. Tully argues that Berlin eventually abandons even this argument in favour of the claim that the perversions of negative liberty are ‘less bad, less common, and more transparent than the twisting of positive liberty’ (Tully, 2013: 44). See Chapter Three, Section 3. The link between well-being and negative freedom is developed in Chapter Three, Section 4.2 and also in Chapter Five, Section 1. We should also point out that the achievement of ‘happiness, or power, or knowledge’ does not necessarily imply acquisition of either moral agency or excellence, in which case even being successful in such project may not lead to positive freedom. See Chapter Two, Section 4. Berlin believes these activities are good but not for the purpose of promoting liberty. For further discussion of the relation between liberalism and perfectionism see Brink (2003) and Raz (1986).

5 Berlin’s negative freedom and the conceptual work of the boundaries of liberty

Introduction Berlin’s negative freedom is a conceptual masterpiece, even if imperfect. It comes under two types of definitions. The first and the better known type portrays the concept as a lack of obstacles to one’s actions. These obstacles vary: they could be purely mechanical, like ‘interference’, but they become increasingly normative as they evolve to be ‘authority as such’, ‘chains’, ‘imprisonment’, ‘oppression’, ‘exploitation’, ‘enslavement’, ‘bullying’ and ‘domination’ (TCL: 212, IN: 48). The second type of definition refers to an area delineated by a shifting frontier. In this context negative freedom is the freedom one is entitled to within such an area. The two types of definitions imply boundaries of the remit of negative freedom, even if this is more explicit in the second type. These boundaries are of great analytical interest – they are conceptual boundaries that tell us volumes about the nature of human agency, its moral ideals and its interaction with the world of others. The boundaries are flexible because they navigate the normative debates within which Berlin has a distinct contribution to make. But even though the contours of the concept are, for good reasons, not firmly fixed, the heartland of negative freedom is non-negotiable. The content of this heartland depends on the perspective from which it is defined. When Berlin defines negative freedom, he does not strictly focus on one out of two freedom concepts. He also defines ‘freedom itself’ (TCL: 171) or ‘liberty as such’ (IN: 50). Because for him negative liberty is the more authentic kind of freedom, it is the concept that captures what is essential for freedom overall. This permanent movement between negative freedom as one of two freedoms and negative freedom as freedom ‘itself’ leads to changes of emphasis. I will argue here that the best way to define Berlin’s negative freedom as different from positive freedom is to see it as the protection of personal well-being: this will be explained in Section 1. However, when negative freedom is defined in terms of the minimum area which has to be protected from interference at all costs, Berlin outlines it in terms of protecting the qualities without which one would not be able ‘to be a normal human being’, without which one would lose what is distinctly human and would ‘act inhumanely or insanely’ (TCL: 211). In this version, negative freedom reflects what freedom should be in principle. It captures what it is that a person

Berlin’s negative freedom  169 needs in order to be able to act responsibly and to maintain her dignity. It aims to protect one’s capacity to make the independent decisions without which one could not follow one’s conscience. Negative freedom in this guise is hard to distinguish from positive.1 Finally, negative freedom as defined in terms of ‘maximum degree of non-interference’ (TCL: 207) reflects Berlin’s understanding of developmental human agency. In this context negative freedom is about protecting one’s environment for personal development. Berlin, however, is not able to express the contents of his negative freedom in these terms due to self-imposed limitations resulting from his decision to keep negative freedom strictly distinct from positive. This does not allow him to appreciate fully the overlap between the two concepts, the ways they reflect different aspects of the same developmental process and the origin they have in the same understanding of human agency. The language of barriers, frontiers, lines and walls pervades Berlin’s discussion of negative freedom, and, as I have said, it is very important for the conceptual work he wants to do. Distinguishing between internal and external freedom boundaries, however – a distinction which came into view through the discussion of T.H. Green’s theory of freedom in Chapters Two and Three – would help explain better the originality, the significance and also the failures of Berlin’s analysis. Berlin expends a lot of energy in explaining the internal freedom boundary. This is because for him the distinction between positive and negative freedom is crucial in explaining properly the remit of negative freedom. The fact that the distinction is subtle and elusive only increases his determination to capture its nature and elicit its significance. But in his effort to pinpoint and explain the distinction, Berlin ascribes disproportionally high importance to the internal boundary and does not give enough recognition to the external boundary: that is, to making clear that certain factors are detrimental to both freedoms. As stated in the introduction to Chapter Four, both his concepts of freedom are shaped within the parameters of his positive/negative freedom distinction: parameters that at some point become detrimental to their authentic conceptualisation. Therefore, I argue that both freedom concepts will be improved not only if we understand the distinction better, but also if we pay more attention to the external boundary, that is, to factors that are detrimental to freedom altogether. Berlin defines negative freedom not only as against positive freedom, but also as against other values. In fact, the arguments distinguishing negative freedom from positive and those distinguishing it from other values are very similar. In this sense the internal boundary aims to delineate not just the divide between negative and positive freedom, but also the divide between negative freedom and other values. It is this aspect of the discussion of negative freedom which leads eventually to Berlin’s better recognised insights on value pluralism. The internal freedom boundary is incredibly difficult to draw but it is this boundary that helps outline one of negative freedom’s most distinct features: its focus on personal well-being. However, the normative insights of Berlin’s negative freedom go beyond uncovering the value of personal well-being. As argued in the previous chapter, Berlin makes a great contribution to understanding the quality of agency capable of exercising freedom. Much of the strength of his theory is to be found in his

170  Berlin’s negative freedom understanding of the variety and complexities of factors that interfere with independent reasoning and moral self-determination. Although he claims that negative freedom should be understood as the absence of ‘deliberate interference of other human beings’ (TCL: 169), his unique expertise is not on factors that force us to act against our will but on intrusions capable of affecting our reasoning, motivation and self-perception. Berlin is not the only one who saw the dangers of political indoctrination and manipulation and identified them as the main power instruments of totalitarian regimes. He belongs to a tradition of thinkers including Popper, Hayek, Aron, Talmon and Oakeshott.2 But he is only second to Constant in his success of turning his insights of political indoctrination into a distinctive concept of liberty. What I believe gave potency and special character to his negative liberty is his understanding of how indoctrinating powers affected human agency and accordingly what the experience and the qualities of free agency should be. Berlin has been criticised for failing to appreciate the true liberal credentials of institutions like democracy, national self-determination and redistribution (Cohen, 1960: 217; Gould, 2013: 107; Tully, 2013: 23), but he has not been praised enough for having understood the moral psychology of human agency and its implications for the meaning of liberty (Crowder, 2013: 58). It is with respect to quality of agency and the external factors most detrimental to it that the external boundaries to freedom become significant. In circumstances where there is a clear intention to exploit, degrade, subdue, even to commit genocide, freedom is compromised even without the pretence that this is done in its name. Although Berlin, like Constant, was particularly sensitive about oppressive powers disguising themselves as liberatory, both of them also saw the dangers of ruthless, unapologetic, autocratic regimes. Indeed, democracy as a type of government is exceptional in its overt commitment to freedom. In this sense, Berlin’s contribution to the analysis of liberty goes beyond the critique of democracy: he succeeds in exposing the oppressive mechanisms of a broader range of political powers. For this reason his say on the nature of freedom goes beyond the positive/ negative freedom distinction. But the recognition of this aspect of his contribution depends on the good will of his analysts: Berlin’s failure to recognize the external boundary to freedom as equally important as the internal one has prevented him from conceptualizing well his negative freedom and has resulted in a range of contestable claims. Contrary to the understanding that Berlin’s negative freedom is simple and straightforward (Baum and Nichols, 2013: 6; Gould, 2013: 106; Silier, 2005: 1; Macpherson, 1973: 103), I argue that it is complex and is captured better by his metaphors than by his definition as ‘non-interference’. In Sections 2, 3 and 4, I will examine three general definitions he gives of his concept: negative freedom as non-interference, as an area delineated by a frontier, and as open doors. Although Berlin sees these definitions as connected and mutually reinforcing, I argue that they are significantly different, that the first does disservice to his ideas and is normatively weak, while the latter two take steps in the direction of sketching an original concept that captures a broader liberal trend, much broader than the confines of Cold War liberalism (Müller, 2008; Crowder, 2013). As the discussion in

Berlin’s negative freedom 171 Section 5 will show, Berlin’s understanding of negative freedom reflects his belief in individuals’ entitlement to institutional protection of their human rights, in the value of their personal well-being and in the significance of their capacity to resist moral and political authorities. In this sense, Berlin’s negative freedom anticipates the republican concept of freedom (Pettit, 1997; Skinner, 2002) and the concept of freedom as defined through the capability approach (Sen, 1999). Section 1 addresses the distinct meaning of negative freedom as defined by the internal freedom boundary. I  show that Berlin’s effort to differentiate between positive and negative freedom does deliver a significant insight which is captured not by the claim that liberty is distinct from other values but by the assertion of the value of individuals’ well-being. Sections 2 and 3 examine Berlin’s definitions of negative freedom and the arguments behind them in order to demonstrate how exactly these definitions do disservice to the concept or are incomplete. Section 4 demonstrates the need for an external freedom boundary and how the fact that Berlin does not factor it into his conceptualisation of negative freedom has prevented him from conveying his normative insights in a more forceful fashion and has led him to erroneous claims about how exactly negative liberty relates to public institutions and policies. Section 5 applies the fourfold freedom matrix to Berlin’s conceptualisation of freedom. It shows, among other things, how demanding negative freedom can be both on the agent who exercises it and on the political institutions that have to be there to support it. The fourfold matrix also aims to demonstrate the need to differentiate between moral and political authorities. The essence of the positive/negative freedom distinction is captured by the way moral authorities affect the exercise of the two freedoms. This is because the distinction, as I believe it should be understood, reflects how moral pressures affect our wellbeing. The political implications of positive and negative freedom are also important – that is, the way they are determined through their interactions with political authorities – but these can be properly understood only after one appreciates the moral dynamics of the two forms of freedom.

1 Berlin’s negative freedom and personal well-being One of the most rhetorically powerful passages of TCL is the one where Berlin makes the claim that ‘[e]verything is what it is: liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or culture, or human happiness, or a quiet conscience’ (TCL: 172). It is here that he gives an example that aims to prove some of his important messages: that negative freedom is different from positive freedom and that both kinds of freedom are morally compelling. His example – I will shortly quote the full passage – is of a person who is prepared to sacrifice his own liberty in order to diminish the suffering of his fellow countrymen. The wording conveys well the sense of duty of this noble person but also the sense of personal sacrifice. However, while the example is compelling and gives most readers pause for thought, Berlin’s wording of his conclusions is not very helpful – it is indeed controversial. The claim that ‘liberty is  .  .  . not equality’ lets down, as Berlin would be prepared to admit, ‘the foundations of liberal morality’, which is that the liberal

172  Berlin’s negative freedom commitment to liberty is a commitment to equal liberty (TCL: 172). Berlin does not express well the full theoretical strength of the otherwise compelling moral intuitions rendered through his example. His expressed conclusion is that liberty is a value in its own right and it should not be confused with or substituted by other values. But what he actually shows is a genuine limitation of the British idealist theory of positive freedom. In a nutshell, this limitation consists of an insufficient recognition of the independent value of personal well-being. I believe that the capacity of Berlin’s concept of negative freedom to express this value is one of its main assets. I will look more closely at the whole paragraph where Berlin gives this example and will refer to as the ‘Everything is what it is’ paragraph. The narrative of the paragraph is somewhat disjointed: it starts with a theoretical assessment of the moral nature of Western liberalism, but then switches rather abruptly towards the example of the noble person ready to sacrifice his liberty. But it is the link between the theory that he criticises and the example he gives that can help us explain the real theoretical work accomplished here. What should be noted is that Berlin’s assessment of ‘Western liberals’ is in fact a very succinct and precise summary of T.H. Green’s social justice argument from LLL.3 I will quote Berlin’s words in full in order to show that although he does not explicitly reference Green, the normative argument behind positive freedom is well understood and reconstructed: What troubles the consciousness of Western liberals is, I think, the belief, not that the freedom that men seek differs according to their social and economic conditions, but that the minority who possess it have gained it by exploiting, or, at least, averting their gaze from, the vast majority who do not. They believe, with good reason, that if individual liberty is an ultimate end for human beings, none should be deprived of it by others; least of all that some should enjoy it at the expense of others. Equality of liberty; not to treat others as I should not wish them to treat me; repayment of my debt to those who alone have made possible my liberty or prosperity or entitlement; justice, in its simplest and most universal sense – these are the foundations of liberal morality. (TCL: 172) Interestingly, Berlin does not specify that this is the argument behind positive freedom: he conveys it as a moral concern underpinning the whole Western liberal commitment to liberty. His own vision of liberty, however, is different. His next sentence starts his own normative argument: ‘Liberty is not the only goal of men.’ He proceeds to argue that each value should be taken and protected in its own right without being put together in a package with the other values. The example he gives demonstrates that he shares wholeheartedly the moral concerns of Western liberals about fairness and justice, but he would like to distinguish liberty from other values: I can, like the Russian critic Belinski, say that if the others are to be deprived of it – if my brothers are to remain in poverty, squalor and chains – then I do

Berlin’s negative freedom  173 not want it for myself, I reject it with both hands and infinitely prefer to share their fate. But nothing is gained by a confusion of terms. To avoid glaring inequality and widespread misery I am ready to sacrifice some, or all, of my freedom: I may do so willingly and freely; but it is freedom that I am giving up for the sake of justice or equality or the love of my fellow men. . . . But sacrifice is not an increase in what is being sacrificed, namely freedom, however great the moral need or the compensation for it. Everything is what it is: liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or culture, or human happiness, or a quiet conscience. (TCL: 172) Berlin’s way of summarising this argument is that liberty should be conceptualised in a fashion that keeps it distinct from other values, so that one appreciates better the trade-offs – or the moral dilemmas – one has to face if committed to its protection. His argument would be better expressed if he had been explicit that the Western liberal argument he summarised was the argument in favour of positive freedom and that the liberty he tries to conceptualise is negative freedom. The strength of his alternative, negative, freedom emerges clearly if one can reveal a fault in the defence of positive freedom.4 This fault is neither fatal nor necessary, but a fault nonetheless. As we know from the previous chapter, the exercise of positive freedom involves a person’s aligning her well-being with the common good of the community. A problem may arise if this common good clashes with one’s conviction or when it comes at a high personal cost. Berlin’s vision of negative freedom aims to acknowledge this personal cost and protect individuals from being expected to pay that cost on a routine basis. The situation described in the previous quote conveys this well. My interpretation is that the protagonist is facing a tough choice. Due to harsh circumstances he could either do nothing and continue to enjoy his well-being, which is much better than that of those around him, or he could relinquish this well-being and thus exercise solidarity by sharing the fate of his ‘brothers’ who live in ‘poverty, squalor and chains’. The first could be seen as the path of negative freedom and the second that of positive freedom. The message is that even if the choice of positive freedom commends itself as the morally superior one in these particular circumstances, one is faced with a genuine dilemma. One would deserve praise for the choice of positive freedom, and this should imply an acknowledgement that his loss of negative freedom is regrettable.5 This message is central for TCL as it aims to convey simultaneously the nature of negative freedom and that of the positive/negative freedom distinction. But although the example Berlin gives is compelling and thought provoking, his theoretical conclusions are overstated, confusing and to an extent erroneous. The significance of the positive/negative freedom distinction is very subtle and it can easily be overstated. Negative freedom needs to be clearly distinguished from positive only in particular circumstances: circumstances of moral dilemmas which pose significant threat to personal well-being. In other words, the internal

174  Berlin’s negative freedom definitional boundary of negative freedom is pertinent in some setups more than in others. But because this difference is subtle, it is easy to ignore. As the example shows, conscientious people like the protagonist are so highly committed to the common good that they voluntarily jeopardise their well-being when the duty calls. Yet the fact that he is prepared to do so does not mean that we, the community, should accept his sacrifice as a matter of course and rely on it when needed. Individual well-being should be valued and protected in its own right. When Berlin says ‘it is freedom I am giving up’, freedom is symbolic of personal well-being. However, if we embrace the spirit of Berlin’s example and continue the line of reasoning he started, in less dramatic circumstances, when the disparity between people’s plights is not so stark and service to the common good does not entail significant personal sacrifice, then ‘freedom’ should not have to be given up when duty calls. The example conveys well the sense and the scale of threat to personal well-being, but it also conveys the extreme nature of the situation. Berlin’s theoretical conclusions are confusing, because here he conflates two theoretical narratives: the narrative of negative versus positive liberty and the narrative of liberty versus other values, or value pluralism. These two narratives run in parallel throughout the entire essay and they come together in its final section ‘The one and the many’. The rationale of the link between the two narratives will be addressed in detail in the following chapter. Without this fuller explanation one would be justifiably uncertain about the way in which positive liberty is seen as the shelter of all values alternative to liberty. But the link between positive liberty and the non-liberty values obtains for Berlin6 and this link can also be justified within the framework of British idealist moral philosophy. A  more explicit acknowledgement of this link would have allowed a better theorisation of the situation described in the ‘Everything is what it is’ paragraph. There he argues that we should not try to substitute other values for liberty. It is not fine, Berlin says, if one loses liberty but gains in advancement of fairness. He would have been equally unwilling to accept a replacement of negative liberty with positive. If we were to say that because the protagonist gained positive freedom his loss of negative freedom does not amount to loss of freedom overall, Berlin would not have considered this right. This however would not have allowed him to make his impressive rhetorical ‘Everything is what it is’ claim. Replacing negative liberty with positive is less dramatic than losing liberty altogether. Also, if positive liberty is a legitimate form of liberty, then such a liberty swap, if necessitated by circumstances, is not necessarily morally regrettable. In fact, Berlin proceeds to address and critique exactly such a swap of freedoms. I will now quote the next section of the ‘Everything is what it is’ paragraph: If liberty of myself or my class or nation depends on the misery of a number of other human beings, the system which promotes this is unjust and immoral. But if I curtail or lose my freedom in order to lessen the shame of such inequality, and do not thereby materially increase the individual liberty of others, an absolute loss of liberty occurs.7 This may be compensated for by a gain in justice or in happiness or in peace, but the loss remains, and it is

Berlin’s negative freedom 175 a confusion of values to say that although my ‘liberal’, individual freedom may go by the board, some other kind of freedom – ‘social’ or ‘economic’ – is increased. (TCL: 172–73) My argument here is that the internal freedom boundary is important for the understanding of negative freedom and without it, in some circumstances, negative freedom would be impossible. But it is not the only boundary definitive of negative freedom – other transgressions are more threatening to it. We have to remember that on the other side of the internal boundary there is still freedom. If negative freedom is fully lost but positive is gained, then pace Berlin, ‘an absolute loss of liberty’ does not occur. Let me turn to the final lines of the ‘Everything is what it is’ paragraph in order to show a change in tone. In the end Berlin is much less certain that everything is what it is, as the distinction between liberty and other values, or by the same token, the distinction between negative and positive freedom, turns out to be subtle and to rest on ‘practical compromise’: Yet it remains true that freedom of some must at times be curtailed to secure the freedom of others. Upon what principle should this be done? If freedom is a sacred, untouchable value, there can be no such principle. One or other of these conflicting rules or principles must, at any rate in practice, yield: not always for reasons which can be clearly stated, let alone generalised into rules or universal maxims. Still, a practical compromise has to be found. (TCL: 173) In order to protect negative freedom we need to draw a dividing line between different values. Such a dividing line, which establishes mutual exclusivity, is difficult to draw as, ideally, we would like to pursue all values that matter together. This, however, is made impossible, among other things, by circumstances where the advancement of a common good clashes with personal well-being. Such clashes may be rare but they are also likely to occur as all common goods – all values – put pressure on us to adjust personal well-being to the demands of others. In this sense the internal boundary of negative freedom should never be dispensed with. What Berlin did not allow for, however, is that the internal boundary can have a detrimental impact on the exercise of freedom. If the subtlety of the possible conflict between personal well-being and the pursuit of the common good is not appreciated, the unconditional protection of negative freedom could limit one’s horizons for moral development, social engagement and even greater personal prosperity. In fact, the positioning of the internal boundary does depend on ‘social and economic conditions’ and indeed Berlin could have given more credit to the suggestion that ‘the freedom men seek differs’ according to these conditions (TCL: 172). As Sections 3 and 4 will cover in detail, Berlin’s discussion of negative freedom makes frequent references to a ‘frontier’: the frontier which delineates the space of negative freedom. He also makes it clear that this frontier is flexible. What

176  Berlin’s negative freedom I argue in this chapter is that the conceptual role of this frontier – and I prefer to call it a boundary – is very significant. It is indicative of the fact that on both sides of this boundary there are normative forces that push it in opposite directions. What I add to Berlin’s analysis is the observation that there are actually two types of boundaries – the internal and the external – and in this section I have discussed the internal one. It is important to note that this boundary is flexible: it is based, to use Berlin’s words, on a practical compromise. My analysis here can also throw light on the reasons why it moves in this or that direction. We could observe that when service to the common good does not exact a high personal cost, the internal boundary could move in the direction of positive freedom, that is, towards increased engagement with different values. The compatibility of values, pace Berlin’s critique of monism, is actually good as it allows the scope of negative freedom to stretch safely into the terrain of positive freedom. This is because personal well-being can expand by accommodating a more extensive engagement with the common good. This will receive more attention in Chapter  Six, Section 5, in the context of linking Berlin’s value pluralism with his discussion of the positive/negative freedom distinction. The discussion there will show the circumstances where personal well-being is under threat and the internal boundary of negative freedom has to be more strictly protected.

2 Negative freedom as non-interference: can a liberty principle really be simple? Berlin’s most famous definition of negative freedom is that of ‘non-interference’. Negative freedom, he repeatedly states, should be understood as ‘liberty from’, as ‘absence of interference’, as lack of ‘deliberate interference of other human beings’ (TCL: 174, 169). Berlin has his reasons to advance a simple concept of freedom of this kind. He wants to avoid two things: the need to specify the qualities of the free agent and the need to specify the nature of oppressive authorities. Berlin believes that any claims about the quality of agency would commit him to a metaphysical theory of human nature, which he is keen to avoid. His concern is that some forms of agency would be declared as free or unfree, independently of external constraints (TCL: 181–87, IN: 31). He also does not want to say much about different kinds of external constraints as he was reluctant to embrace any Enlightenment rationalist theory pronouncing certain forms of authorities or governments, such as democracy, for example, as liberating (TCL: 176, 212). He manages to avoid both of these by adopting the more technical approach of promoting liberty by warding off interference. One cannot help but note a number of paradoxes concerning this intentionally ‘narrow’ definition (Macpherson, 1973: 97, 103; Gould, 2013: 106). Its narrowness contrasts not only with Berlin’s complex account of positive liberty but also with his perceptive and comprehensive coverage of the various factors that compromise freedom. There is something puzzling about the mismatch between the vast scope of dangers to negative liberty, on the one hand, and the rather austere account of what this liberty means, on the other. As it happens, this is actually

Berlin’s negative freedom 177 the logic of Berlin’s argument  – an extensive defence of liberty premised on a complex concept risks employing the techniques of liberty deprivation. There is however something unconvincing in the claim that the more complex the threats to liberty, the simpler the concept of liberty and the strategies for its protection should be. Arguably, the more complex the attack on liberty is, the more complex the defence of liberty should be. What is behind this desire for simplicity is the intention to bypass moral debates, to avoid making the defence of liberty dependent on the quality of the cause it would advance. Berlin is not alone here – his most notable companion is Mill and his ‘simple principle’ of liberty.8 In a similar fashion Mill wants to define and protect liberty by reference to visible and non-contestable circumstances such as ‘harm to others’ (Mill, 2003: 80). He also wants to bypass the entrapment in complex and irresolvable moral debates by limiting the power of moral authorities in an unconditional fashion: ‘Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign’ (Mill, 2003: 80). But simple definitions are possible only if clear boundaries can be drawn. Berlin is all too aware that the boundary between self and others is anything but clear. Coole also comments on the odd nature of negative liberty’s ‘lamentably crude’ moral psychology and its reliance on ‘a mixture of analytical logic and appeals to common sense’. She notes that against the background of Berlin’s engaging and insightful treatment of the philosophers from the European tradition who developed the notion of positive freedom, his negative freedom ‘appears as a curiously austere, bloodless term conceived via an arid terminology of spaces, vacuums, boundaries, and frontiers’9 (Coole, 2013: 201–2). Silie points out that Berlin’s ‘strictly individualistic’ understanding of negative freedom ‘makes it impossible to talk about the objective social conditions of freedom’ (Silier, 2005: 167). But the problem here is that Berlin also says little about the subjective aspects of the concept. We have a double paradox: negative freedom is about ‘individual liberty’ (TCL: 207) but does not make strong claims on agency; it is focused on external impediments to freedom but refuses to differentiate between oppressive and nonoppressive authorities. There are several clues that the narrowness of the concept of negative freedom, seen as non-interference, is a problem not just for Berlin’s critics but for Berlin himself. First, in this constrained version the concept cannot carry the philosophical and political ambition invested in it. It is seen by Berlin as ‘an ultimate end for human beings’ (TCL: 172) and as standing at the heart of a great ideological clash ‘that dominates our world’ (TCL: 178). Although he makes a conscious effort to treat negative and positive freedom as equally valuable and claims that ‘[b] oth are ends in themselves’ (IN: 42), he still declares negative freedom to be the ‘true and more humane ideal’ (TCL: 216). The ‘doctrine [of negative freedom] is comparatively modern and its essence is often misunderstood’ (TCL: 176). Berlin’s mission of convincing others of the significance of negative freedom is one that meets a lot of resistance. The task cannot be achieved by an austere and bloodless concept, to use Coole’s terms again. Second, Berlin does not adhere to his commitment to say little about either the nature of free agency or the forces

178  Berlin’s negative freedom which constrain liberty. Third, the concept of ‘non-interference’ leads Berlin to controversial claims about the size and the normative status of the area of negative freedom. Fourth, it is an attempt to define liberty in purely political terms by deliberatively excluding its moral and metaphysical dimensions and this goes against his own understanding of the role of political theory scholars. I will say more about the second, third and fourth aspects shortly. Finally, non-interference is not the exclusive way in which Berlin defines negative freedom. The more important definitions, in my judgement, are those that explain negative freedom in terms of an area, delineated by a frontier, and in terms of open doors. Although the concept of a frontier still carries some of the mechanical nature of the ‘non-interference’ definition, it has the character of a metaphor which allows substantive interpretation. This is even more the case with the references to an ‘area’ and to the open doors, the latter of which Berlin himself calls ‘metaphor’ (HF: 171). So it is not only positive freedom that has been defined by its exponents through metaphors (IN: 48): he himself reaches for metaphors in order to explain his favoured concept. This is a giveaway that the concept is complex. Crowder echoes Berlin’s position well: ‘Berlin is rightly concerned by those versions of positive liberty that are open to inversion, and he is justified in standing up for the distinctive voice of negative liberty which is often drowned by the search for more “complete” conceptions’ (Crowder, 2013: 65–66). I believe that the distinct voice of negative freedom is not lost, but found, in a more ‘complete’ conception. 2.1 Non-interference and agency Let me say more on how exactly and why Berlin does not adhere to his intention to avoid a deeper analysis of the nature of free agency and of the nature of authorities inhibiting freedom.10 With respect to the first – the nature of free agency – Berlin himself openly renounces his initial stance. In a reply to his critics in IN, he casts aside the non-interference account of negative liberty precisely because it permits a type of agency that can compromise freedom. There he declares that he wishes ‘to correct a genuine error’ in the original version of TCL. While in TCL he argued that liberty is ‘the absence of obstacles to the fulfilment of man’s desires’, he grew to appreciate that in these terms one could gain freedom by ‘extinguishing one’s wishes’ and by ‘ignoring obstacles, forgetting, “rising above” them, becoming unconscious of them’ (IN: 30–31). Berlin wanted to redefine negative liberty in a fashion that made it clear that freedom is gained only when the barriers placed on one’s path by others are successfully pushed aside. ‘The sense of freedom in which I use the term entails not only absence of frustration (which may be obtained by killing desires), but the absence of obstacles to possible choices and activities – absence of obstacles on roads along which a man can decide to walk’ (IN: 32). I believe that Berlin has made an important clarification to his argument here and we should take seriously the fact that he felt the need to define negative freedom differently from non-interference even though he did not stop referring to

Berlin’s negative freedom  179 non-interference subsequently. This considered redefining of negative liberty is an admission that the concept cannot be properly conveyed unless it takes a firmer stance on what would be in his own terms a metaphysical issue: the quality of agency. The ‘non-interference’ take on negative liberty expresses a general and indeterminate stance on agency. Berlin’s initial instinct to define liberty as ‘the absence of obstacles to the fulfilment of man’s desires’ (IN: 30) expresses his intention to leave the domain of one’s desires as inclusive as possible and certainly not restricted by internally or externally imposed moral norms. The idea has been that one’s negative freedom is not compromised if one’s wishes happen to be in any way objectionable (TCL: 194). As Crowder puts it, negative freedom aims at the fulfilment of ‘a person’s empirical wishes’ (Crowder, 2004: 70). But the redefining of negative freedom in IN leaves behind this indeterminate stance on agency in favour of banning certain kinds of agency as capable of freedom. Flikschuh reaches the same conclusion: ‘for Berlin, freedom is not simply a state of non-prevented physical motion. To the contrary, the capacity for freedom has to do, for Berlin, with persons’ capacity to form and pursue their own intentions. In that sense negative freedom is for Berlin, a capacity of the will’ (Flikschuh, 2007: 21). Berlin concludes this discussion of his redefining of freedom by saying that negative freedom ‘ultimately depends not on whether I wish to walk at all, or how far, but on how many doors are open, how open they are, upon their relative importance in my life, even though it may be impossible literally to measure these in any quantitative fashion’ (IN: 32). It may seem that the ‘open doors’ definition is a renewed attempt to focus exclusively on the external impediments to freedom and to remain silent on the nature of free agency, but this is not the case. Berlin is clear that a correct account of negative freedom must find a way of barring ‘psychological conditioning’ (Berlin, 2002f: 77), and it would be fair to interpret this as seeing certain forms of agency as incapable of freedom. 2.2 Non-interference and external factors Let me turn to the second failed commitment of the ‘non-interference’ definition: not to analyse in depth the nature of the external forces that violate liberty. As stated in the first definition of positive and negative freedom, Berlin thinks that the ‘source’ of the powers that control us is irrelevant to the description of negative freedom (TCL: 169). Political power, the power other human beings have over us, limits negative freedom without qualification. Coole capitalises on this weakness and makes some damning charges. She takes to task Berlin’s restriction on what counts as political interference: only deliberate and empirically obvious interventions. This restriction is a result of his ‘interiority/exteriority dualism’ reflected in his insistence that negative liberty aims to resist external impediments and does not depend on internal dispositions (Coole, 2013: 203). The flipside of Berlin’s restricted understanding of political coercion is his failure to take into account ‘some crucial dimensions of modern power’, which include structural or socioeconomic power, psychological manipulation and micro-power (Coole, 2013: 200).

180  Berlin’s negative freedom The political interference which Berlin is prepared to recognise as an impediment to freedom has to be obvious and non-controversial – very much unlike the three powers which Coole considers important and Berlin, according to her, fails to conceptualise. What he recognises as political coercion ‘is by implication . . . visible and has lived, empirical verification as well as conceptual obviousness’ (Coole, 2013: 206). Coole is right to argue that Berlin’s technical account of negative freedom does not allow him to conceptualise structural oppression, psychological manipulation and micro-power as key factors that violate negative liberty. These three kinds of power straddle Berlin’s internal/external divide and elude the ‘non-interference’ definition. However, Berlin is aware of these factors and has much to say about them, particularly about the latter two. So the problem is not that Berlin fails to see the danger of psychological manipulation and micro-power – indeed he brings them to the forefront of our attention – but that there is an unfortunate mismatch between the straitjacket of his terminology and the breadth and depth of his commentaries and practical examples. Coole herself comments that if one reads Berlin’s essay ‘through more continental eyes as a work of critical theory’ and not through the lens of the Anglophone analytical tradition, one will be capable of ‘discovering evocative political implications that his purely conceptual analysis misses’ (Coole, 2013: 199). In this vein of thought, I will point out that the term ‘interference’ is not the correct category with which to sum the examples Berlin gives when he discusses violations of negative freedom. The power of his argumentation is built on examples of the pains suffered as a result of ‘deliberate psychological conditioning’ (Berlin, 2002f: 77), of being ‘bullied by others or pressed into conformity’ (HF: 256), of ‘the crushing of all ideas . . . and thought’ (ISL: 93), of the master conditioning ‘his slaves to love their chains’ (FH: 273), of ‘exploitation and humiliation’ (TCL: 175) and of the ‘imposition of one man’s will over another’ (TCL: 211). These are examples of psychological manipulation and micro-power and they show that, pace Coole, Berlin has a genuine understanding of the ‘crucial dimensions of modern power’ (Coole, 2013: 200). However, classing these violations of liberty as ‘interference’ does not serve as a good testament to Berlin’s insight into mechanisms of modern power. 2.3 Non-interference and the ideal scope of negative freedom I will now look at the mismatch in Berlin’s commentaries on the nature of the area of negative freedom. When Berlin defines this area via the category of non-­ interference, he sees it as ‘ideally’ unlimited: ‘the wider the area of non-­interference the wider my freedom’ (TCL: 170). This is pressed further when he contrasts negative to positive freedom and claims that the notion of liberty contained in the negative conception is ‘of a field (ideally) without obstacles, a vacuum in which nothing obstructs me’ (TCL: 190). However, the claim that the scope for negative liberty should be ideally unlimited apparently contrasts with the explicit reference to negative freedom as ‘a

Berlin’s negative freedom 181 minimum area’ for protection: ‘it is assumed, especially by such libertarians as Locke and Mill in England, and Constant and Tocqueville in France, that there ought to exist a minimum area of personal freedom which must on no account be violated’ (TCL: 171). One could argue that there is no real contradiction here, making the case that ideally we want an unlimited area of negative freedom but politically we could successfully campaign and aim to guarantee a minimum set of liberties. Berlin himself tries to bring the maximum and the minimum visions together but in a statement which needs much further clarification (see Section 3.2): ‘But the fathers of liberalism – Mill and Constant – want more than this minimum: they demand a maximum degree of non-interference compatible with the minimum demands of social life’ (TCL: 207). I think the contrast between the maximum and the minimum claims is indicative of a serious shift in the nature of the philosophical justification of negative freedom. The protection of a minimum space for negative freedom is imperative because it is needed in order to protect our capacities for moral agency: ‘a being who is prevented by others from doing anything at all on his own is not a moral agent at all, and could not either legally or morally be regarded as a human being’ (TCL: 207). The justification for a minimum area of absolutely protected negative freedom turns to a discussion of what constitutes human agency, which then resorts to moral and legal categories which are far from empirical. I will say more on this in Section 3.2, but for the purposes of this discussion I would like to point out that the resort to moral agency cannot be seen as continuous with – as obviously following from – an area of noninterference. When Berlin makes his political plea for an absolute protection of negative liberty, he makes the case for the minimum requirements needed for the protection of basic human dignity. This is the plea of the liberals before him and he joins this plea. But if we were to ask then, what it is that guarantees protection of basic human dignity – the answer cannot be ‘lack of interference’ or ‘lack of frustration’. When one needs ultimate justifications – and Berlin’s is an obvious case for such need – one turns to substantive values. The ‘minimum area’ of liberty turns out to hinge on a substantive conception of human agency which Berlin typically associates with a positive concept of freedom. Finally, the category of non-interference is part of Berlin’s attempt to define liberty in purely political terms by deliberately excluding considerations of truth and moral value. This sits at odds with his declared vision of political theory as a ‘branch of moral philosophy’ (TCL: 168). It is ironic that he blames some philosophers for their delusional belief that ‘all political and moral problems can . . . be turned into technological ones’ (TCL: 166), while he himself advances a technical account of negative freedom, genuinely ‘in danger of becoming an empty signifier’ (Coole, 2013: 203).

3  Negative freedom as defined by a frontier and an area Parallel to the narrative that negative freedom is simple and straightforward, Berlin makes explicit reference to the complexity of negative freedom, ‘this individualistic, and much disputed, concept of man’ (TCL: 175). Berlin saw himself as a

182  Berlin’s negative freedom disciple of Mill11 but also made the point that his own negative freedom is more complex than Mill’s liberty, not least because it internalised the lessons of ‘our psychologically less naïve age’ (JSM: 220). The concepts of non-interference, on one side, and those of a frontier and an area delineated by it, on the other, often come together in Berlin’s definitions of negative liberty. The frontier marks off the terrain of non-interference from the terrain of interference: negative liberty is ‘absence of interference beyond the shifting, but always recognisable, frontier’ (TCL: 174). But it does not take much scrutiny to see that there is a different emphasis leading to a host of different considerations. If we look at the first definition of negative liberty in TCL, we should notice that ‘non-interference’ is somewhat tacked on at the end. Liberty in the negative sense is to be found in the answer to the question ‘What is the area within which the subject – a person or group of persons – is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference from other persons?’ (TCL: 169). So negative liberty is defined through the area of non-interference, not by non-interference itself. Not all of the terrain of non-interference amounts to negative liberty but only a well-specified one. We would know exactly what negative liberty is only when we answer the question Berlin posed. The frontier is ‘shifting’ because the answers to this question are not straightforward. Once we appreciate that negative freedom is defined through the right demarcation of an area, we can see that non-interference is only one of the criteria that help us draw the frontier correctly. The latter criterion leads to a rather ‘black and white’ distinction, where everything on the outer side of the frontier, the terrain of interference, is hostile to negative liberty. We can see that all the additional information we get from Berlin about what is on either side of the frontier counters this black and white vision.12 3.1 Beyond the frontier The frontier delineating the area of negative freedom is pressed from either side: it is held in its place by internal and external normative forces. Berlin suggests that its location ‘is a matter of argument, indeed of haggling’ (TCL: 171), thus making it clear that not only what is inside but also what is outside has moral or political justification. I will look at the justificatory arguments for either side, starting with the external ones. There are good reasons why the area of negative freedom should be limited. First, uncontrolled exercise of liberties will lead to collateral damage. Negative liberties can collide: mine with that of others, or my own negative liberties themselves could clash with each other. Because ‘the liberty of some must depend on the restraint of others’, it is important to introduce control of some freedoms. Not all negative freedoms should be protected – only some will make it into the ‘area’. Therefore, Berlin’s claim that the ‘wider the area of noninterference, the wider my freedom’ (TCL: 170) is not strictly correct. Uncontrolled pursuit of negative freedom may lead to its reduced overall actual exercise. Second, some negative liberty should be curtailed for the sake of protecting other important values (IN: 48). Complete non-interference ‘would lead to social

Berlin’s negative freedom  183 chaos in which men’s minimum needs would not be satisfied; or else the liberties of the weak would be supressed by the strong’ (TCL: 170). Freedom needs to be balanced against other values such as ‘justice, or happiness, or culture, or security, or varying degrees of equality’ (TCL: 171). Interestingly, this is the origin of the concept of the ‘minimum’ area for negative freedom. This idea came from the early liberals like Locke, Mill, Constant and Tocqueville, who valued liberty together with all these other values and who were keen to promote the entire set. Like Berlin, they understood that some trade-offs had to be made and that unless some exclusive space for the protection of liberty be made, liberty is likely to suffer. However, because of the importance of all the other values, this space could only be limited. A desirable association must protect all values: in a sense, the protection of liberty results from the existence of a civic establishment based on these values. Indeed, the existence of some minimum guarantees for liberty could be seen as the crowning achievement of this civic establishment. The sphere of negative freedom is minimal because only so much can be afforded before we start to compromise other values. Berlin had fully taken this consideration on board by the time he wrote IN: the area of negative liberty which is in need of absolute protection ‘is no more than a minimum; its frontiers are not to be extended against sufficiently stringent claims on the part of other values, including those of positive liberty itself’ (IN: 53). This leads to a third justification of an area, external to that of negative freedom: the law. It was assumed by the liberal thinkers that ‘the area of men’s free action must be limited by law’ (TCL: 171). The positioning of the law with respect to the frontier of negative liberty is complex and potentially very significant, although Berlin does not do justice to all its implications. He positions the law outside the area of negative freedom: for him, the law is a paradigm form of authority and authorities of all kinds constitute a limitation of negative freedom. But it should be noted that in the vision of the liberal thinkers discussed by Berlin, the law simultaneously limits and protects negative freedom. Berlin’s position on this is that the law is important and therefore there should be a boundary to the acceptable exercise of negative freedom. The law, however, is a factor that undermines negative freedom and cannot be part of its area. 3.2  Within the frontier: the fluctuation between the minimal and maximal area of negative freedom Let me now look towards Berlin’s various accounts of what should be included in the area of negative freedom. I will turn again to his claims about the minimum and maximum areas and argue that this inner dynamism of negative freedom is symbolic of Berlin’s implicit assumption of a developmental agency. I will look into the minimal and maximal area arguments in turn. The minimum area arguments reveal Berlin’s understanding of the qualities of free agency and his vision of the factors that most radically compromise freedom. In this sense the boundary around the minimum area should be seen as an external boundary: it aims to exclude from the concept of freedom practices and influences that cannot be seen

184  Berlin’s negative freedom as good for freedom under any description, either negative or positive. Berlin’s maximal area arguments, on the other hand, reveal his understanding of the developmental aspects of free agency: in ideal circumstances we should have a large terrain of negative freedom because it is instrumental for personal development. In Section 2.3, I commented on the ‘minimum’ status of negative liberty, registering the need to resort to some ultimate definitions of humanity in terms of human dignity or moral agency. I would like to revisit these arguments in order to assess more fully their implications for the character of negative freedom. I argue that the minimum area arguments show not so much what is essential for negative freedom but what is essential for freedom in principle. The minimum area aims to protect human agency from influences and intrusions which make a person unable to follow his conscience or fulfil his duty. The arguments about the minimum area of negative freedom are made in the context of having to give some ultimate justification of its value. Berlin accepts that some sacrifice of negative liberties is warranted but ‘total surrender is selfdefeating’. This is so because ‘some portion of human existence must remain independent of the sphere of social control’ and it ‘must be guaranteed against arbitrary invasion’ (TCL: 173). Then Berlin poses the question about the exact contents of this area and replies that it includes what ‘a man cannot give up without offending the essence of his human nature’ (TCL: 173). As I have already commented in Section 2.3, in all his references to the essence of human beings in TCL and IN, Berlin turns away from his usual focus on people’s actual choices – or as Crowder calls them, ‘a person’s empirical wishes’ (Crowder, 2004: 70) – towards a sketch of the fundamental aspects of human nature. Negative liberty ‘must on no account be violated’ (TCL: 171) because without it one cannot become ‘a moral agent at all, and could not either legally or morally be regarded as a human being’ (TCL: 207). He even directs the reader towards thinkers and theories who and which in nearly all other parts of the essay come to exemplify the philosophical rationalism and misguided Enlightenment optimism that have been the hidden causes of liberty deprivation. So in his attempt to explain human essence he recommends we turn to our knowledge of ‘natural law or natural rights, or of utility, or the pronouncements of the categorical imperative, or the sanctity of the social contract, or any other concept with which men have sought to clarify and justify their convictions’ (TCL: 173–74). I  think it is interesting to observe that when Berlin explains the essence enshrined in the minimum area of negative liberty he is actually sketching human nature in the categories of the thinkers like Rousseau and Kant, who are paradigmatic exponents of positive freedom. This observation feeds into my argument from the previous chapter and also brought back in Section 2.1, that quality of agency is a precondition for negative freedom and that the agency of negative freedom is very similar to that of positive freedom. The objective of the ‘minimal area’ discussion is to establish what is the urgency behind negative freedom, what necessitates its protection at nearly any cost. The answer is that negative freedom is about individuals’ capacity to maintain their dignity, to act responsibly. And capacity for moral agency, as discussed in Chapter Two, implies the ability to think independently and to question moral

Berlin’s negative freedom 185 authorities. One should never be forced to act against one’s conscience.13 The minimum area of negative freedom suggests that there is a limit to the flexibility of the frontier of this area: the protection of this inner area is non-negotiable. Although the exact position of the boundary depends on the outcome of normative debates, the fact that such a boundary should exist is Berlin’s own normative stance – showing, incidentally, that Berlin is not a relativist. Two conclusions can be drawn from the minimum area discussion. First, Berlin’s argument suggests that it is imperative that there should be some protection of this minimal area, that the relevant legislation and the package of measures that make it effective should be put in place. This is how his vision of the negative notion of freedom as ‘a wall against oppression’ (IN: 38) can be interpreted. The image of ‘wall’ captures the urgent need to protect the minimum area of freedom and the solidity of the protection required. We can now look at the ‘maximum’ dimension of the area and bring out another very important aspect of negative freedom. The area of negative freedom should be protected not only when it is exposed to external hostility but in principle, because it is instrumental for the process of personal development, of which moral development is a major aspect. And there is no objective limit to how much we should invest in our personal development. To put it in starker and figurative terms – and I will say more about this shortly – positive freedom is about completing one’s moral development, while negative freedom is about starting it. Berlin’s argument is that protecting a minimum area for independent exercise of conscience is a non-negotiable ingredient of one’s moral development. So the area of negative freedom is minimal because one needs more than negative freedom, but it should also be maximised because there is no limit in principle to the investment we should make in aiding individuals’ moral development. I would like to distinguish two intertwined aspects of the arguments in favour of ‘maximising’ the area of negative freedom. First, and we have already discussed this in Section 1, through the concept of negative freedom Berlin takes a stance on the value of the individual’s well-being. He makes the point that this well-being may be voluntarily sacrificed in the name of the common good but such sacrifice should not become a moral expectation: one should not be under pressure to give up one’s well-being for that of others routinely. The protection of negative freedom is the protection of one’s personal space, which has intrinsic value. I believe that the notions of ‘personal space’ or ‘private life’ aim to express the normative value of personal well-being. Second, negative freedom is directly related to the enhancement of one’s development as a person. On this ground I argue that, even on the terms of Berlin’s freedom philosophy, development is not the exclusive domain of positive freedom. The analysis of positive freedom in Chapters Two and Four shows that positive freedom homes in on the successful completion of the developmental process, whether in the form of acquisition of moral agency or the attainment of excellence in a recognised field. But both T.H. Green’s and Berlin’s scholarship lends support to the idea that negative freedom understood as a normatively viable concept aims to bolster the process of personal development, of which moral development is a major aspect.

186  Berlin’s negative freedom I can bring two examples to illustrate this claim: first, Berlin’s observation that negative freedom is treasured by those who are ‘highly civilised and self-­ conscious’ (TCL: 207) and, second, his reference to ‘professors, artists and millionaires’ (TCL: 172) as those who actively seek negative freedom. Let me comment on each of these in turn. In the context of discussing the ‘maximum degree’ of desirability of negative freedom, Berlin states that It seems unlikely that this extreme demand for liberty has ever been made by any but a small minority of highly civilised and self-conscious human beings. The bulk of humanity has certainly at most times been prepared to sacrifice this to other goals . . . which appear wholly, or in part, incompatible with the attainment of the greatest degree of individual liberty, and certainly do not need it as a precondition of their own realisation. (TCL: 207) Among other things, Berlin claims here that the majority of mankind are unable to appreciate fully negative freedom. This claim is seen as highly controversial by some scholars,14 but I believe Berlin’s idea here is that negative freedom is related to certain aspirations the opportunity for which is not available to all. The nature of these aspirations is elucidated by the examples Berlin gives of people who value negative freedom highly: professors, artists and millionaires. It is worth looking at the whole quote as it also addresses the minimum-maximum relation: The Egyptian peasant needs clothes or medicine before, and more than, personal liberty, but the minimum freedom he needs today, and the greater degree of freedom that he may need tomorrow, is not some species of freedom peculiar to him, but identical with that of professors, artists and millionaires. (TCL: 172) Here Berlin is clearly saying that the more negative freedom we have, the better, and that we would trade it off only under the pressures of practical necessities. This quote also does some work in redressing the derogatory reference to ‘the bulk of humanity’.15 The reason some have high-minded aspirations and others do not is not that the former are more civilised but because they are more fortunate by circumstance. Berlin also tells us something, in a metaphorical fashion, about the contents of negative freedom. The activities that characterise these three vocations, exemplary of the need for a ‘greater degree’ of negative freedom, are the pursuit of truth, creativity and wealth acquisition. Negative freedom fosters these developmental activities. This is an unusual take on negative freedom, but I believe it is unusual only because Berlin has connected self-transformation, and implicitly self-development, with positive freedom. Personal development is associated with negative freedom for at least three reasons: first, because positive freedom covers only particular aspects of development, that is, its points of completion in terms of either acquisition of moral

Berlin’s negative freedom 187 agency or attainment of excellence in a recognised field; second, because personal development is an essential aspect of one’s own well-being and, as argued in Section  1, the concept of negative freedom affirms the value of personal wellbeing. Although the British idealists associate self-development with contribution to the common good, the relation between these is complex and goes through various stages, some of which are based on an individual’s rejection of existing social norms.16 Berlin’s ‘minimal’ argument for negative freedom is based on the observation that one’s development would be stunted if there were not a minimal space within which the individual could take her own decisions. In other words, self-development is not always intended as a contribution to the common good. When self-development is targeted at the common good, one is exercising positive freedom. When it is directed towards enhancement of one’s own well-being, one is exercising negative freedom. Third, development is part of negative freedom because it is in its context that we identify the need for negative freedom. The example of professors, artists and millionaires shows that when development is a pertinent possibility, the demand for negative freedom is high.

4 The external threats to negative freedom The discussion in Sections  2 and 3 has shown that the frontier/area metaphors lead to a more complex, relevant and normatively defined account of negative freedom than its characterisation as non-interference. These metaphors are particularly important as they throw light on Berlin’s conceptual work. The drawing of a line or of a boundary has been based on arguments demonstrating that certain factors, seen by some as aspects of freedom, are actually detrimental to it. The drawing of a line marks the completion of the normative work carried out through the argumentation. For example, the claim that ‘a frontier must be drawn between the area of private life and that of public authority’ (TCL: 171) concludes the preceding analysis, which revealed that the pressures of moral authorities – authorities underpinning the political authorities and social institutions generally – can be detrimental to both personal well-being and the normal functioning of human agency. This analysis has been particularly important because it has exposed an influential but erroneous interpretation of freedom. According to Berlin, ‘Western liberals’ have mistakenly17 made the case that freedom should be advanced in parallel with other values like justice, fairness or human happiness (TCL: 172). This ‘liberal morality’ however has led to loss of liberty, as demonstrated in the ‘Everything is what it is’ paragraph. So in order to explain what this lost liberty is, Berlin develops the concept of negative freedom by drawing a ‘frontier’ around it. The frontier or boundary has to keep out things that have so far been seen as integral to freedom. This is not an impervious boundary – it is a porous, indeed an ‘active’ one, with a hard job to do. It has to resist the pressures of ‘liberal ­morality’ – no minor task. Let me return to the discussion of the difference between the internal and external freedom boundaries. As mentioned before, Berlin does not himself register the difference between internal and external boundaries and this could be

188  Berlin’s negative freedom explained. For Berlin, the important boundary is the internal one. This is so for a couple of reasons. First, it is the one that is very difficult to draw: explaining why and how liberal morality is detrimental for freedom is a difficult task. It goes against strong moral intuitions as well as influential liberal traditions. Second, Berlin believes that once a convincing boundary between negative and positive freedom is drawn, then it will provide sufficient protection of negative freedom. This is because, according to him – although he modified his stance on this later – the most significant threats to freedom result from the ‘perversions’ of positive freedom. If he were right about this, then the internal boundary, if properly upheld, would pre-empt the dangers that should be kept at bay by the external boundary. Berlin admitted later, in his reply to his critics in IN, that not only is positive freedom liable to perversions into its opposite, but negative freedom is as well: ‘[e]ach concept seems liable to perversion into the very vice which it was created to resist’. He saw clearly that the exercise of negative freedom was ‘compatible with exploitation, brutality and injustice’ (IN: 39, 38).18 This realisation, however, has important implications for the understanding and the conceptualisation of freedom. If the exercise of negative freedom could, in certain circumstances, result in practices which cause real freedom deprivation, then the external freedom boundary becomes very important. In other words, the concept of negative freedom cannot be defined merely through the internal freedom boundary, merely by guarding against the potentially dangerous concomitants of positive freedom. I argue that Berlin’s unnecessarily strong emphasis on the internal freedom boundary and his insufficient attention to the external freedom boundary led him, very controversially, to deny the links between negative freedom and democracy, redistribution and national self-determination. As discussed in Chapter four, Berlin’s distinction between negative and positive freedom rests on his reservations about moral authorities. Although he refers to ‘authority as such’ (TCL: 212), not specifically to moral authorities, the essence of his critique of positive freedom rests on his analysis of the manner in which moral authorities affect adversely one’s capacity to support alternative values and to advance one’s own well-being.19 However, I have argued that both moral and political authorities have more complex relations with the two freedoms. Authorities can be detrimental but also be constitutive of positive and negative freedom. This was the reason why I argued in favour of a second, non-authority-based, criterion for the distinction between positive and negative freedom. In the same vein it is important to note that the concept of negative freedom cannot be consistently defined as against ‘authority as such’. By doing so Berlin fails to make a more important distinction: between good and bad authorities. Such a distinction would be the much-needed external freedom boundary. Bad authorities do not pertain to positive freedom: many dictatorships have triumphed without displaying the banner of liberty. Good authorities, on the other hand, are instrumental for negative freedom, most notably those that protect human rights. In the next two subsections I will show the significant links between negative freedom and democracy and between negative freedom and redistribution.

Berlin’s negative freedom  189 4.1 The ‘open doors’ metaphor and the need for democracy The open doors metaphor (TCL: 177, HF: 271) is used in Berlin’s attempt to revise his ‘non-interference’ definition of negative freedom. As discussed in Section 2.1, it aims to block the possibility of pursuing negative freedom by getting rid of the desires one is not able to pursue due to external restrictions. This new definition leads to two things which the ‘non-interference’ definition aimed to avoid. First, as previously discussed, it leads to the conclusion that the quality of one’s agency has a direct impact on one’s capacity to be free. Second, it shows that certain political institutions, like those protecting citizens’ political rights, are instrumental for the exercise of negative freedom. On the surface, however, the open doors metaphor is controversial as it is at odds with many of the declared features of negative freedom. It invites speculation on the nature of choice and gestures towards positive state action, both of which Berlin is keen to avoid. As Macpherson comments, it ‘seems to admit by the back door those factors which he had pushed out as mere “conditions” of liberty’ (Macpherson, 1973: 104). It is at odds with the frontier/area metaphors, which suggest associating negative liberty with the private sphere. The open doors refer to external circumstances of freedom and they must belong to the public sphere. The image also does not obviously fit with the ‘negative’ nature of negative freedom, which is based on its focus on the forces that deprive us of liberty. The move from ‘non-interference’ to ‘range of choice’ (FH: 272) changes the ethos of Berlin’s narrowly defined negative freedom, allowing for broader and normatively richer understandings of the concept. For the reasons just mentioned, the open doors metaphor can be and has been largely dismissed.20 However, if we elicit the specific examples Berlin has in mind when he uses the metaphor, we can see a confirmation of the ‘agential’ aspects which I believe to be central to the concept. We can also see that democracy as a type of government is not only indirectly conducive to negative liberty but also instrumental in its protection.21 Berlin’s dismissal of the direct link between negative freedom and democracy (TCL: 176–77) has been seen as one of the most significant weaknesses of his account of negative freedom (IN: 49; Gould, 2013: 105; Tully, 2013: 23; Pettit, 2012: 22; 2014: 146). For Berlin, democracy is an aspect of the exercise of positive, not of negative, freedom. This reflects his firm commitment to the relationto-authority criterion for the distinction between the two freedoms. So, on the one hand, this boundary between negative freedom and democracy is a result of his conceptual design: all authorities, political or moral, are bad for negative freedom. More substantively, his normative reservations about democracy are based on a critique of moral authorities. The moral ideal of democracy places certain demands on us as citizens which may weigh too heavily on our well-being: ‘a man may leave a vigorous and genuinely “participatory” democratic State in which the social or political pressures are too suffocating for him, for a climate where there may be less civic participation, but more privacy, a less dynamic and allembracing communal life, less gregariousness, but also less surveillance’ (IN: 49).

190  Berlin’s negative freedom But the open doors metaphor tells a different story. This is its outline: ‘When we speak of the extent of freedom enjoyed by a man or a society, we have in mind, it seems to me, the width or the extent of the paths before him, the number of open doors, as it were, and the extent to which they are open’ (HF: 271). This definition of negative freedom raises many difficult questions to which Berlin is not prepared to give an answer. He admits that the importance of these doors, not just their number, matters a lot. Hence, he is aware that the issues of agency, as well as of enabling political authorities, cannot be dismissed. What it is we value and what it is we are capable of doing must be in the frame of the overall assessment of our freedom situation. But he firmly resists answering these questions and engaging with agential and institutional matters over and above acknowledging that they are important. When it comes to negative freedom, it seems that Berlin is saying that quantity trumps quality. Having access to one option only, even if it were your most preferred one, would not make you free. A person whose ‘range of choice is wider’ would have more negative freedom. Having made this contentious claim that the number of paths enhances your freedom more than the quality of the paths, Berlin turns to the even more unconvincing argument that freedom does not imply ‘awareness of freedom’, that the essence of freedom ‘does not lie in its accessibility, although its value may do so’ (FH: 272–73). Although logically clear and linguistically correct – freedom is not the same thing as knowledge about freedom – one remains unconvinced that an open door enhances your freedom to an equal extent independently of whether or not you are aware it exists. Put in the right historical context, however, Berlin’s open doors metaphor does make an important point about the mechanisms of liberty deprivation. I believe his idea is that political authorities diminish citizens’ freedom not only by direct coercion but also by closing down opportunities, most obviously the opportunities for free expression and free association. He compares two cases: one of a person who has material comforts and social security but lacks freedom of speech and of association and the other of a person who only has the material minimum but has more opportunities for education, expression and association (HF: 171–72). Although Berlin refuses to say which of the two is freer, the ideological connotations here are clear, as are Berlin’s ideological sympathies. For Berlin freedom of expression, association and education is a more important aspect of negative freedom than one’s increased capacity to do things due to better material provision. More to the point, the government that shuts doors is the government of the communist regime: it proactively creates material opportunities, but it also proactively closes paths in an attempt to control the formation of its citizens’ ideas. In this context we can give credit to Berlin’s claim that a shut door is an evil in itself, independently of whether or not we want to use it. Indeed, the fact that it has been shut has a causal link to people’s apathy about it. This reading of the open doors metaphor enforces the insight that negative freedom is essential for the protection of people’s capacity for independent thinking and value formation. It also shows that the existence of political institutions which effectively protect freedom of thought and association is not simply desirable but indispensable for the exercise of negative freedom.

Berlin’s negative freedom  191 This proves that the protection of negative freedom from positive freedom is not enough and that at times it can be counterproductive. It is not enough, because not all dangers to negative freedom come from the exercise of positive freedom. By rejecting democracy one runs the risk of acquiescing to regimes that are worse. ‘In different historical circumstances some regimes grow more oppressive than others, and to revolt against them is braver and wiser than to acquiesce’ (IN: 50). But if negative freedom lacks conceptual capacity to distinguish between more or less oppressive regimes, then the concept will not be helpful in circumstances in which it will be needed. In other words, the concept is incomplete without an external freedom boundary: one that differentiates between political authorities that promote freedom and those that suppress it. The internal freedom boundary – in this case the boundary between negative freedom and democracy – can be counterproductive because in all circumstances when democracy is actually good for negative freedom, this boundary would only hinder the advancement of negative freedom. 4.2 Negative liberty and socioeconomic conditions Berlin believes that socioeconomic conditions should not play a part in defining the meaning of negative liberty. Negative liberty may be more desirable for some and less desirable for others, as the example of the Egyptian peasant suggests, but in its essence, it is the same for all (TCL: 172). This links to Berlin’s more general argument that negative freedom should be valued for what it is independently of whether the conditions that help its exercise obtain (IN: 42). However, I would argue that socioeconomic conditions are more substantively connected with Berlin’s negative freedom than he acknowledges. This is because they do not simply impact on one’s practical capacity to pursue negative freedom but also on one’s capacity to see its value. Hence, we can argue that these circumstances affect negative liberty not just in a practical or instrumental but also in an ontological fashion. I will look at some of the reasons why Berlin is keen to distance negative liberty from conditions of poverty. I will also show that by doing this he fails to support an essential aspect of his negative liberty concept: its commitment not merely to follow one’s own will but also to keep open the potential of one’s mental horizons in terms of capacity to challenge authorities and to expand one’s well-being, which includes development of one’s creativity, one’s pursuit of truth and one’s preparedness to engage with different ways of life. The implication of this argument is that the protection of negative freedom relies on carefully drawn external boundaries: boundaries that exclude those kinds of factors, like poverty, that affect negative freedom adversely. Poverty, whether caused by bad political authorities or by a natural disaster, leads to a significant deprivation of negative freedom; therefore, the protection of negative freedom should involve active measures to prevent it. One of the lowest points of Berlin’s analysis of freedom is his statement that ‘[t]o provide for material needs, for education, for such equality and security as, say, children have at school or laymen have in a theocracy, is not to expand liberty’ (IN: 46–47).

192  Berlin’s negative freedom Crowder, one of Berlin’s most sympathetic critics, admits that ‘Berlin has no good reason to separate liberty and capacity quite so sharply as he does, and therefore has no good reason to reject the idea of effective liberty, or freedom as capacity, as a genuine species of liberty’. Crowder sees ‘capacity’ as strongly linked to ‘access to the necessary economic resources’ (Crowder, 2013: 54–55). Coole also criticises Berlin for failing to take account ‘structural’ or ‘socioeconomic’ obstacles to freedom (2013: 203–6).22 Berlin is well aware of this critique from the much earlier commentaries of Cohen (1960) and Macpherson (1973), but he remains firm on his position of keeping conditions of liberty separate from liberty itself, because in ‘their zeal to create social and economic conditions in which alone freedom is of genuine value, men tend to forget freedom itself’ (IN: 42). There is a more specific reason why Berlin is very cautious about the causal link between poverty and liberty deprivation. He is known for his claim that poverty can be linked to unfreedom only if one demonstrates that ‘other human beings have made arrangements whereby I am, whereas others are not, prevented from having enough money’. This causal link, he claims correctly, relies on ‘a particular social and economic theory about the causes of my poverty’ (TCL: 170). We can glimpse the real issue at hand when we appreciate fully Berlin’s rejection of that ‘particular social and economic theory’ and his indignation at the way this theory was applied in the practice of the Russian and the subsequent communist revolutions. The causal link implied in Marxism and its twentieth-century political application was that the rich are guilty for the poverty of the poor and the rich have to be punished for that (ISL: 52–62). One may be sympathetic to Berlin’s rejection of this causal link: the violence exercised against members of the propertied classes by the twentieth century communist regimes is regrettable, to say the least. But there is another causal link between poverty and unfreedom which Berlin does not appreciate. It is to do with the idea that poverty makes one more likely to become a victim of exploitation or abuse: an idea that is conceptualised in terms of structural injustice and is currently at the forefront of social and political theorists’ attention. In other words, we could argue that the causal link between poverty and unfreedom should not be seen in retrospective but prospective terms. If we return to the comparison Berlin made between the Egyptian peasant, on the one hand, and the professors, artists and millionaires, on the other, we could raise a few further questions. Would a poor peasant facing starvation understand why the freedom of his, not just wealthy but also professional, counterparts has such a deep intrinsic value? Berlin’s claim is that he desires less negative freedom only on a temporary basis and only until the pressure of circumstances releases its grip on him. But does the peasant understand negative freedom in its full depth, so to say? Berlin’s negative freedom is not valuable only in the sense that one does not want to be told what to do but also because one does not want to be told what to think, to dream or to take risks about. Somebody in circumstances of deprivation has no appetite and vision for developing independent ideas, making works of art or taking entrepreneurial risks. In fact, what Berlin views as pathologies of positive freedom – the cases where people internalise their oppression and view it as normal or even desirable – are things very likely to happen exactly to people

Berlin’s negative freedom  193 suffering deprivation. When Berlin claims that people across the socioeconomic divides are equally capable of appreciating negative liberty – even if in some circumstances they desire it less – he implies that negative freedom is about not being told what to do. But his negative freedom in its richer form is about more than that: it is also about being able to expand your mental horizons freely. The issue is that from conditions of deprivation these horizons are not simply temporarily not desirable but not visible. Hence, the link between negative freedom and socioeconomic conditions is more substantial than Berlin is prepared to admit and this is because his distinctive concept of negative freedom is richer than implied in its short-hand formulations of ‘non-interference’ or ‘freedom from’. Berlin’s failure to treat the causes of poverty as prime threats to negative freedom is partly based on his exclusive commitment to the internal freedom boundary. His conceptual error is in trying to guard too much against the downsides of positive freedom and not enough against factors that are detrimental to freedom altogether. This extreme sense of caution against the downsides of positive freedom also led to poor articulation of the nature of freedom ‘as such’, of the way in which the exercise of freedom rests on a developmental human agency.

5 Berlin and the fourfold freedom matrix Here I would like to return to the fourfold freedom matrix which I also applied to Constant’s and Green’s ideas of freedom (see Table 5.1). The matrix is a conceptual grid of the positive/negative freedom distinction, based on the first criterion of the distinction as recommended here. It is split in two vertically on the basis of the relation of positive and negative freedom to authority. Positive freedom is on the left and it is the freedom that internalises authority, while negative freedom is on the right and it is against authority as such. In this sense the matrix takes Berlin’s criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction (TCL: 212) very Table 5.1 The fourfold freedom matrix applied to Berlin’s ideas Positive liberty: internalising authority Negative liberty: resisting authority Moral positive (internalising moral authority) A form of full self-realisation which includes internalisation of a rational ideal and duty

Moral negative (resisting moral authority) Capacity to resist the moral pressure to accept a status of being subordinate to others; to exercise uncensored choice; to advance alternative understandings of the common good Political positive (internalising Political negative (resisting political political authority) authority) Participating in a democratic Capacity for effective resistance to political government; using political power to authorities; effective opportunities to pursue promote liberty for all one’s goals and to advance one’s well-being; protection of human rights

194  Berlin’s negative freedom seriously. What I  add to Berlin’s distinction here is the observation that moral authorities, although related to and underpinning political authorities, function differently from the latter. So the matrix is split horizontally in two, where the upper half reflects the two freedoms’ relation to moral authority and the lower half their relation to political authority. This results in a fourfold account of freedom, where we can distinguish moral positive and moral negative freedom, as well as political positive and political negative freedom. The application of the matrix to Berlin’s theory of freedom is very interesting as it is Berlin who champions the distinction in explicit ‘authority’ terms, who has a lot to say about the impact of moral authority, and who, compared to his predecessors, has argued most consistently in favour of the conceptual distinction. If we pay more attention than he did to the difference between moral and political authorities we can reach some interesting conclusions. When I populate the boxes of the matrix, I describe the four freedoms in a way that is respectful to Berlin’s ideas but expounds them in a more normatively defensible manner. The important concepts in the matrix are moral positive and political negative freedom. They are the paradigm positive and negative freedoms. The exercise of moral positive freedom brings together the features that make us capable of being independent as human beings. The capacity to be independent depends on our ability to reason and to follow through what our reason says. Put simply, moral positive freedom is about our capacity to act in a morally responsible fashion. Positive freedom, as depicted in Table  3.3, both in its Greenian and Berlinian versions, shows how we could have control over our destiny in a world of interdependent human beings. It shows the best of what we are capable of: best both for us and for others. This moral positive freedom serves as the justification of all other freedoms. As we will shortly see, (1) the justification of political negative freedom rests on the possibility and desirability of moral positive freedom; (2) we need moral negative freedom, because without it we may not be able to exercise moral positive freedom; (3) those who exercise political positive freedom count as free to the extent that they also exercise moral positive freedom. Political negative freedom is the freedom concept which leading strands of contemporary political theory such as republicanism and the capability approach aim to articulate. It represents the freedom which political institutions should ideally guarantee. It is about individuals’ entitlement to personal well-being, which relies on protecting one’s human rights and on provision of conditions for personal development. It is about one’s right to be protected from the undesirable impacts of political authorities. This right is founded on arguments about the minimal conditions one needs for the preservation of human dignity: arguments which depict the nature of the agency, which cannot be fully explained without a concept of moral positive freedom. Moral negative freedom is Berlin’s trademark. It is a very significant but complex concept, which on analysis represents an exercise of positive freedom, understood as acquisition of moral agency. In this sense it is not a paradigm concept of negative freedom but is of importance in revealing Berlin’s contribution to the analysis of freedom in its various forms. Compared to Constant and Green, Berlin has the most developed vision of moral negative freedom: that is, freedom

Berlin’s negative freedom  195 as capacity to resist moral authorities. This is not surprising as Green is neither a typical nor a self-proclaimed defender of negative freedom: his negative freedom has to be read back from his concept of true freedom. Constant is Berlin’s only true contender on that front, but Berlin has the advantage, which he also has with respect to Mill, of more historical knowledge and experience of modern authorities due to having lived in a ‘psychologically less naïve age’ (JSM: 220). Moral negative freedom is about the capacity to challenge existing social norms and institutions and to pursue alternative visions of the common good. This is the freedom of the rebel. It comes at a great personal cost, because serving an alternative common good does not bring the recognition rewards which service to existing moral authorities does. In this sense it is an exercise of positive freedom: it is a form of service to the common good that claims a high personal cost. It could be classed as a negative freedom only according to the first criterion for the positive/ negative distinction, that is, because it is exercised ‘against authority’. Berlin’s contribution to liberal theory here is in showing how difficult it is to resist moral authorities. Our disposition to pursue positive freedom, that is, our sense of moral responsibility and preparedness to advance the common good through serving the existing moral authorities, prevents us from questioning and opposing these authorities. And our desire to be successful and recognised places further obstacles to our preparedness to examine and oppose the prevailing norms and institutions. Our desire to be good and our desire to be successful fuel our search for positive freedom but limit our appetite to question and challenge the darker aspects of the establishment. In this sense, the essence of the conceptual distinction between positive and negative freedom is captured by the tension between moral positive and moral negative freedom. Both of these freedoms are valuable but they could militate against each other. This is because moral authorities are indispensable for finding our identity, reaching fulfilment and living up to our human calling, but they could also lead to exploitation and to the damage of normal human agency by destroying our desire to develop, to socialise or to seek personal happiness. Finally, let me say something about political positive freedom – the freedom gained through participation in democracy or in any other form of freedomupholding government. This freedom has been openly contested by both Constant and Berlin. Both of them have recognised its legitimacy but only as providing the conditions for political negative freedom. I argue this kind of freedom can be seen as freedom on two accounts: instrumentally, as it enhances other people’s negative freedom, but also, it could be based on the exercise of moral positive freedom. In other words, doing your duty in support of a democratic establishment can be an exercise of freedom if it is based on the acquisition of moral agency. As we know from Green, the exercise of duty can be a chore but it can be also an exercise of freedom.

Conclusion In this chapter I have argued that Berlin’s negative freedom is a complex concept with a distinctive normative content which is misrepresented when cast in terms of ‘non-interference’. The metaphors of a ‘shifting frontier’, ‘area’ and ‘open doors’

196  Berlin’s negative freedom allow for much better insight into the nature of the concept. However, the formal definitions Berlin offers do not capture all the key dimensions of negative freedom. I argue that Berlin’s defence of negative freedom given not through the definition but the argumentation shows (1) the independent value of personal wellbeing, (2) some of the main qualities of free agency and (3) the importance of personal development.23 The chapter also focuses on the conceptual work accomplished through the language of frontiers or barriers. This language conveys well what goes on in the process of defining the remit of a concept in principle. The decision about what should be excluded from a concept rests on significant normative arguments. I argue that the concepts of positive and negative freedom are shaped by internal and external boundaries. The internal boundary is the one between the two freedoms. It aims to protect negative freedom from those aspects of positive freedom which may pose a threat to it and vice versa. I argue that in his definition of negative freedom, Berlin places too much emphasis on the internal freedom boundary. But in order to offer a conceptual protection of all his normative insights about negative freedom, he needs to take the external boundary to freedom more seriously and to make clear that certain major threats to negative freedom are threats to the two freedoms and do not result from misuse of positive freedom. This would have allowed him to avoid some of his most unacceptable normative claims like denying the direct link between negative freedom and democracy, redistribution and self-determination.24

Notes 1 Crowder argues that Berlin underappreciates the significance of autonomy even though his value pluralism indirectly endorses autonomy as an essential aspect of freedom. ‘Whereas Berlin had linked pluralist choice with liberty in the negative sense (freedom of choice), my reformulation endorses personal autonomy, which belongs to the positive category’ (Crowder, 2004: 168). Crowder argues that ‘liberal autonomy is the most distinctive of liberal virtues’ (Crowder, 2004: 167). I believe that Berlin’s defence of negative freedom implies protection of autonomy. This makes his negative freedom complex, as in some of its guises it amounts to positive freedom. 2 See Müller’s commentary on Cold War Liberalism (2008) and also Coole (2013: 199); Crowder (2004: 43). 3 See Chapter Three, Section 3. 4 This problem is similar to the one discussed in the previous chapter in the context of showing the affinities between Hobhouse’s and Berlin’s critiques of the British idealist metaphysics of the higher self. The pursuit of the higher self involves a commitment to an ideal of a common good. A problem arises however when the common good one is expected to adopt clashes in some form with personal convictions or significant personal interests. 5 I have argued that the last sentence from the quote on p. 173 could have stated, more to the point, that ‘everything is what it is: negative liberty is negative liberty, positive liberty is positive liberty’ (Dimova-Cookson, 2013b: 82). The important insight that comes through this example is that incommensurability of different values is based on the same principle as the tension between negative and positive freedoms. The commitment to different values, or to the two freedoms, can be seen in terms of facing a

Berlin’s negative freedom  197 moral dilemma. Raz (1986) and Hampshire (1983) also bring moral dilemmas into the analysis of liberty. 6 The proximity between the value pluralism narrative and the narrative explaining the positive/negative freedom distinction is captured well by Berlin’s reply to Spitz in IN: Consequently, when another of my critics, David Spitz, maintains that the frontier falls not so much between positive and negative liberty but ‘in determination of which complex of particular liberties and concomitant restraints is most likely to promote those values that, in Berlin’s theory, are distinctively human’ and, in the course of his interesting and suggestive review, declares that the issue depends on one’s view of human nature, or human goals (on which men differ); I do not dissent. (IN: 43)   Berlin does not dissent, because for him the distinction between positive and negative freedom reflects the same issue which lies at the heart of incommensurability of values. See Chapter Six. 7 There is a suggested possibility here which Berlin does not address. What if the loss of the protagonist’s liberty did in fact ‘thereby materially increase the individual liberty of others’? Would there still be ‘an absolute loss of liberty’? In fact, this is exactly the scenario Green envisages when he recommends the exercise of positive freedom as ‘the liberation of the powers of all men equally’ (LLL: 200). 8 Jeremy Jennings brought to my attention the similarity between Berlin’s decision to seek a simple definition of liberty and Mill’s ‘simple principle’. 9 I take a more sympathetic view than Coole towards Berlin’s ‘arid terminology’ as I believe the language of boundaries and frontiers delivers his ambition to conceptualise liberty. 10 This self-imposed epistemological restraint on both of these areas is implied in the ‘non-interference’ definition (IN: 30). 11 Berlin took pride in being a disciple of Mill and liked the symbolism of publishing his TCL almost at the centenary of Mill’s On Liberty. 12 Had non-interference been the sole criterion, it would have also led to some very disconcerting conclusions about the exact location of the frontier. Many would have thought that the area of non-interference is the individual himself, while the area of interference is that of all others, and therefore the terrain on which one is negatively free is only that of his self. Berlin would not wish to conclude this but his concept has suffered deserved negative publicity on this front. The language of a frontier starts to bring much-needed clarification but also a clear indication that it is not ‘interference’ that matters most: ‘a frontier must be drawn between the area of private life and that of public authority’. He then hastens to add that ‘no man’s activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others’ (TCL: 171). As private life is not characterised by lack of interference, the discussion on the nature of negative freedom seems to lie ahead. 13 The discussion of self-abnegation in Chapter Four, Section 6 showed that the essential qualities of the agency capable of freedom include willingness to advance one’s own well-being, willingness to engage with others, but also willingness to challenge authorities. 14 Tully takes Berlin to task for this and believes it to be at the heart of his failure to understand the spirit of the Third World anti-colonial movement: ‘for Berlin, the central division of the Cold War is between the negative liberty ideal of a highly civilised and self-conscious minority in the West and the relatively mindless self-assertive paganism of the majority in the Third World’ (Tully, 2013: 38). I agree with Tully that this statement casts ‘the bulk of humanity’ in somewhat degrading terms but I believe that this is not what Berlin intended. I believe Berlin’s idea here is that negative freedom is related to certain aspirations that are not open to all.

198  Berlin’s negative freedom 15 See note 14. 16 See the discussion in Chapter Two, Sections 4, 5 and 6. 17 Berlin argues that they are mistaken and the observations in Section 1 shows the extent to which his critique is justifiable. 18 Interestingly, Green’s positive freedom as developed in LLL tries to stop exactly the sleight of hand used by the champions of negative freedom  – to use Berlin’s own expression in reverse. 19 See Chapter Four, Section 5. 20 Pettit, who is overall very critical of Berlin for his claim that there is no necessary connection between negative freedom and democratic rule, takes very seriously Berlin’s open doors metaphor (Pettit, 2012: 22, 29). 21 Berlin argues that ‘[s]elf-government may, on the whole, provide a better guarantee of the preservation of civil liberties than other regimes, and has been defended as such by libertarians. But there is no necessary connection between individual liberty and democratic rule’ (TCL: 177). 22 See also Silier (2005: 167); Gould (2013: 104). 23 The idea that development should be part of the negative concept of freedom has also been advanced by Taylor. He argues that the portrayal of negative freedom in terms of non-interference is ‘caricatural’, ‘because it rules out of court one of the most powerful motives behind the modern defence of freedom as individual independence, viz., the post-Romantic idea that each person’s form of self-realisation is original to him/ her, and can therefore only be worked out independently’ (Taylor, 2006: 142). Berlin wholeheartedly shares this belief and his versatile polemic in favour of negative freedom bears this out. Although none of his definitions of negative freedom refers to the value of personal development, his arguments in support of a guaranteed protection of negative liberty, that is, of ‘a wall against oppression’ (IN: 38), allow such an interpretation. 24 The theme of self-determination was not discussed in this chapter, but one could see Chatterjee’s (2013) and Tully’s (2013) critiques.

6 Value pluralism and the duality of freedom

Introduction The last section of TCL, ‘The one and the many’, is Berlin’s final attempt to elucidate the nature of positive and negative freedom as well as the significance of the difference between them. The section achieves this and more. It sets the beginning of ‘a full-fledged value-pluralism movement in contemporary moral philosophy’ (Galston, 2002: 5).1 The topic of value pluralism has been celebrated as one of Berlin’s most significant theoretical achievements: critics argue that Berlin surpassed Rawls in explaining the ‘fact of pluralism’ and assessing its significance (Galston, 2011: 154).2 This chapter  turns to Berlin’s value pluralism with the objective of establishing how it affects the nature of the positive/negative freedom distinction. I show that the two discussions are mutually enlightening. Key aspects of value pluralism can be understood better if seen from the lens of the distinction and the distinction itself can be further elaborated in the light of the last section of TCL and its consequential sketch of value pluralism. My analysis of Berlin’s value pluralism and his two concepts of freedom in this chapter does not take into account the more complex interpretation of negative freedom I have developed in Chapter Five. Here I start my assessment of Berlin’s ideas with the assumption that prior to the final section of TCL, his understanding of negative freedom is in terms of ‘non-interference’ and as the concept that reflects a ‘person’s empirical wishes’ (Crowder, 2004: 70). Negative freedom is the freedom of ‘the individual with his actual wishes as they are normally conceived’ (TCL: 181). So the two freedom concepts we have at the start of this analysis of value pluralism is the negative freedom of the ‘normal’ individual who wants to pursue her empirical wishes without being impeded and the positive freedom of the ‘higher self’ characterised by the fulfilment of her capacities, the rationality of her objectives and her sense of responsibility (TCL: 178–81). Berlin has made his commitment to negative freedom clear: for him, it is freedom ‘as such’ (IN: 50). For him positive freedom is also an authentic form of freedom, but due to its dependence on self-transformation and its affinity to moral ideals, it is prone to perversions and likely to lead to freedom deprivation. Berlin’s discussion of value pluralism assumes the significance of a link which Berlin does not elaborate: the link between freedom and value. I argue that we

200  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom can conceptualise this link by using Green’s theory of moral development. This achieves several objectives. First, it undermines Berlin’s critique of monism, final values and compatibility of values as all these prove to be key aspects of moral development, and by this token, of the process of engagement with values. Second, it helps explain better what Berlin aimed to show: the limits of positive freedom, which are also the limits of the compatibility of values. Third, it throws light on the specific circumstances where significant clashes of values occur. I argue that Berlin’s value pluralism theorises the circumstances of clashes between common goods. The British idealists ruled out such clashes as they viewed them as impossible as a matter of principle. As a result, they failed to appreciate what Berlin did appreciate: the nature and the dangers of ideological conflicts as well as the significance of the personal costs of moral dilemmas. The positioning of value at the heart of freedom leads to an enlightening paradox. Positive freedom, seen as engagement with value, becomes the core, the mainstay, concept of freedom. Negative freedom, as the freedom of the value pluralist, becomes a noble but tough moral call. This chapter explores the implications of this for the nature of the distinction. The reversal of the positioning of positive and negative freedom does not undermine the relevance of the conceptual distinction. This reversal can be ‘put straight’ by pointing out and explaining why positive freedom practised in the context of value pluralism becomes negative freedom and why the negative freedom of the value pluralist becomes essentially a positive freedom. In this context we can sustain the conceptual duality by making use of the second criterion for the distinction: that between ordinary and moral agency. This reversal also throws light on the need and the nature of conceptual flexibility. If an exercise of positive freedom can become an exercise of negative and a vice versa, then we need a way to explain this in conceptual terms. This can be done by expounding the significance of the third criterion for the distinction: that between routineness and exceptionality. The chapter will first turn to the detail of Berlin’s critique of monism in the final section of TCL. It will look at the specific arguments he makes and conclude that the force of the critique does not lie in proving monism undesirable but in exposing the tension between harmonization of values, on the one hand, and capacity to appreciate the tragic nature of some choices, on the other. I will also focus attention on the link between freedom and value and on the significance of finding a theory that connects them. The problem is that prior to TCL’s final section, Berlin has actively denied the existence of a constitutive link between freedom and value. In Section 2 of this chapter I turn to the reasons why Berlin kept value out of his concept of negative freedom. I also examine John Gray’s attempt to reconnect Berlin’s negative freedom with value. Like Gray, I believe that even the basic definition of freedom should internalise value. However, Gray remains fundamentally sceptical towards the positive concept of freedom, while I argue that we need to turn to some of the classical theorisations of this concept in order to explain properly the link between freedom and value. In Section 3 I turn to the process of moral development as this process shows the role and place of value in the experience of freedom. Indeed, the process of moral development throws light on

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom 201 another major category from the value pluralist debate: that of ways of life. This discussion helps us reach the two main conclusions that can elicit the real force of Berlin’s value pluralism. The first conclusion is that values are expressions of the common good. With this terminology we can explain better what Berlin’s value pluralism achieves. It shows the real limitations of positive freedom, which lie in the partial nature of the common good. By this token, Berlin’s value pluralism succeeds in showing the dangers of ideological conflicts. The second conclusion that the discussion of moral development affords us is that personal well-being is a form of common good. This in turn alludes to the political significance of moral dilemmas. These conclusions throw direct light on the circumstances of value incommensurability, discussed in Section 4. Section 5 traces the implications of the discussion of value pluralism for the conceptual duality of positive and negative freedom, while Section 6 explains why the distinction is a fluctuating one. Some of the main ideas advanced in this chapter have already been developed, although through different paths, in the previous chapters. These include the idea that negative freedom is based on engagement with valued objectives, that it is based on the advancement of one’s own well-being and that the process of moral development pertains not only to one’s aspirational activities but also to one’s routine efforts to socialise. Here, these ideas are advanced from a particular perspective – that of theorising the link between freedom and value. Although, as shown in the previous chapter, Berlin’s discussion of the minimal area of negative freedom makes clear references to moral values and quality of human agency, his overt definitions of the concept and some of his main arguments prevent him from drawing a consistent link between negative freedom and value. In this chapter, I will show how the discussion of value pluralism in particular helps establish such a link.

1 Is monism the villain of value pluralism? The target of Berlin’s critique in the final section of TCL is monism, the belief that there is a single master value which is superior to all other values. Monism is portrayed as a feature of many rationalist doctrines. It represents their ambition to explain the world through a comprehensive system of ideas, where different values are positioned in a fixed hierarchical structure. Monism reflects the aspiration of rationalist doctrines to reach an ultimate truth and a final solution in the light of which all questions have a correct answer and all ethical problems can be resolved. Monism is not oblivious to the existence of different truth claims or of different values. It does not deny the plurality of values but resolves it in a very particular fashion – by eliciting a master value, by articulating an ultimate end or by making an absolute claim. Such ‘final’ solutions have been premised on the belief of compatibility of values. It is because, in monists’ judgement, values are, in some form, reconcilable in that they can be placed in a rational structure that explains their relations and yields specific solutions to all possible problems. The value pluralism which Berlin defends challenges simultaneously these two aspects of monism: the belief in the possibility of a single master value and the

202  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom assumption that values are in principle compatible and reconcilable, and hence capable of being assimilated in an overarching rational design. The tensions between monism and value pluralism in the final section of TCL underscore the tensions between the positive and the negative concepts of ­freedom – the former set of tensions give a final and resounding, though not uncontroversial, reiteration of the latter set. The features of monism help elucidate further the nature of positive freedom, while value pluralism becomes coterminous with negative liberty. Berlin warns against two adverse outcomes of monism: the dangerous political usages it lends itself to and the falsity of the ethical theories characterised by it. We can view these as the external and internal dangers. The first type of critique, the external one, focuses on the undesirable outcomes of the ideological use of value. On this front, Berlin does not pull his punches: ‘[o]ne belief, more than any other, is responsible for the slaughter of individuals on the altar of the great historical ideals’, and this is the monist belief that ‘there is a final solution’, because values are ‘compatible’ (TCL: 212). Such a belief has served well dictators, inquisitors and bullies willing to impose their preferred state of affairs on others. Berlin points out, however, that in such cases, monism itself is not directly at fault. A monist idea like ‘the ideal of self-perfection’ should not be ‘condemned in itself’ (TCL: 214). It is when such ideals recommend themselves to leaders with bad causes that the problem with monism is manifested. Also, not all ideological uses of ideals are wrong: ‘Indeed’, Berlin writes, ‘I have tried to show that it is the notion of freedom in its “positive” sense that is at the heart of the demands for national or social self-direction which animate the most powerful and morally just public movements of our time’ (TCL: 214). Ideals can serve well leaders with just causes. Therefore, if monist theories lead to events with significant political impact, this should not be deemed dangerous by default. So the overall disparaging critique of monism as guilty of ‘the slaughter of individuals’ should be qualified, even according to Berlin himself. Monistic doctrines are dangerous only when put in the service of political leaders or social movements that cause more destitution than good. This critique of monism is already familiar to the readers of TCL – it has been well rehearsed in the discussion of positive freedom throughout the entire essay. It is the second type of critique, the internal one, that has new elements: the critique of the intrinsic deficiencies of monism. Immediately after he absolves positive freedom – and implicitly, some monist doctrines – from the charge that it should be ‘condemned in itself’, Berlin proceeds to land a series of blows on monism in its own right. ‘But equally it seems to me’, Berlin argues, ‘that the belief that some single formula can in principle be found whereby all the diverse ends of men can be harmoniously realised is demonstrably false’ (TCL: 214). The arguments in support of this critique are significant as they have influenced much of subsequent twentieth-century liberal thought.3 Berlin gives five explanations of the faultiness of monism and I turn to these now. First, monistic rationalist doctrines are faulty because they reject empirical evidence and embrace abstract reasoning. Monists like Plato, Hegel and Marx

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom  203 endorse a rationalist metaphysics inherently biased against empirical evidence. Such monists will view ‘the abandonment of the notion of final harmony’ as ‘intolerable bankruptcy of reason before things as they are’. The plurality and irreconcilability of values, for Berlin, are given to us in the ‘world we encounter in our ordinary experience’ (TCL: 213). The plurality of goods and ideals is a fact of the real world, while the claims about ultimate harmony, a final solution or an ultimate end, are premised on ‘an a priori guarantee’ or envisage ‘some ideal realm’ inaccessible to us ‘in our finite state’. Monism is part of rationalist metaphysics, pluralism, of ‘ordinary human knowledge’ (TCL: 213). In essence, monism is an example of poor social science. The second argument against monism is ethically charged. It is to some extent similar to the first one, but instead of counterposing abstract rationalist metaphysics to ordinary human knowledge, now Berlin cites the opposition between abstract ideals and real human lives. Monism in this aspect exemplifies the pressure applied to human beings to give up their ordinary routines in order to achieve an ideal they possibly do not understand. The realisation of high-minded objectives comes at the expense of people leading their lives as they choose to. ‘Pluralism, with the measure of “negative” liberty that it entails’ ‘is more humane because it does not (as system builders do) deprive men, in the name of some remote, or incoherent, ideal, of much that they have found to be indispensable to their life as unpredictably self-transforming human beings’ (TCL: 216–17). This argument is familiar to us from Berlin’s critique of the metaphysics of the higher self, which I discussed in Chapter Four. Here, as we will see next, he takes it a step further. The third argument explaining the deficiency of the monist approach is that it fails to appreciate the tragic dimension of certain choices. The tragedy derives from the realisation that the monist ambition cannot always come to fruition. Monists assure us of the existence of one ultimate end, but Berlin points out that the real world shows that there is a genuine conflict between goods or ideals. We face not one ultimate end, but many. The choice between ultimate ends is a tragic choice, because committing to one end ‘inevitably involve[s] sacrifice’ of the other ends (TCL: 214). Such choice is tragic because what is at stake is not simply redirecting your energy from one objective to another. The issue is that one’s active service to one good cause simultaneously undermines the alternative rival cause. The monist cannot see this tragedy as she views the world through the rose-tinted glasses of her utopian dream of ultimate harmony. This is a powerful and suggestive argument but the conclusions must be carefully drawn. If the failure of the monist project leads to tragedy, we need to give more credit to this project. Why is the discarding of ultimate ends – a discarding which is part of the constitution of the tragic choice – so painful and undesirable? What exactly is at stake in practical terms? Why is denigrating of values bad? The answer to these questions is hinted in Berlin’s fourth argument: monism is the essence of all ideologies. Conflicts between ideologies are costly as losses of ideological battles have dire consequences for vast numbers of individuals who happen to be on the losing side.

204  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom The fourth argument is similar to his external critique of monism, but it adds an internal dimension. The argument now is not that monism lends itself to bad ideological uses but that monism is at the heart of all ideologies, and all victorious ideologies, no matter how noble their causes are, bring down other ideologies and their constituencies. Ideologies are inherently confrontational. Placing monism in the context of ideologies is very helpful in explaining what the pursuit of ultimate ends implies in practical terms. Visualising this process and its components will aid the assessment of value pluralism and its implications – this is what I will follow up in Sections 3 and 4. The fifth and final argument marks a form of culmination in terms of a powerful normative recommendation, but it also amounts to a practical reversal of the places of positive and negative freedom. At the end of the section, Berlin aims his critique at ordinary individuals who internalise the monist attitude. It turns out that such an attitude characterises the disposition not only of rationalist philosophers but also of most, nearly all, human beings. The urge to have a final solution and find harmony among conflicting causes is ‘a deep and incurable metaphysical need’ (TCL: 217). Berlin ends his essay with a moving yet morally controversial plea: we should overcome our childish urge for security and certainty and face the reality of life, where little is certain.4 We should be able to accept the fact of this moral diversity and live up to it by overcoming our need for certainty. Succumbing to our ‘monist’ disposition marks a refusal to reach ‘moral and political’ maturity (TCL: 217). The reason I call this advice morally controversial is that it issues a normative recommendation which people may disagree with and that, as moral advice, it puts some pressure on people to live up to recommended values at a personal cost. Berlin and the monist have swapped places. The monist has become the representative of ordinary life, while Berlin, the value pluralist, has become the spokesperson of a high-minded ideal, which, we could argue, some people may find ‘remote, or incoherent’ (TCL: 216). I argue that monism cannot be the villain of value pluralism. Berlin’s five arguments critiquing monism and value compatibility are suggestive but not conclusive. The last three arguments in fact reinforce the significance of final ends. The tragic nature of the choice between final values implies the significance of final values. We need to position final values in the context of overall human experience more explicitly than Berlin did in order to discern better why final ends are so passionately sought yet potentially so dangerous. Only then can we assess the full strength of Berlin’s claims. What I would like to take out of ‘The one and the many’ is, first, the implied significance of the relationship between freedom and value and, second, the tension between harmonising values, on the one hand, and appreciating the tragic nature of some choices, on the other. The first shows the pertinence and the place of positive freedom and the second shows its limitations. Berlin, however, fails to articulate the first and, as a result, is not in a position to explain the second as well as he could have. So my next step is to fill the gap he left: that is, to explain how freedom and value are related. This can be done by ‘plugging in’ the process of

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom 205 moral development, which I will do in Section 3. In the next section, I will turn to Gray’s attempt to fill the void of the missing freedom-value link.

2 Negative freedom and values: Gray’s provision of the missing link Not only does Berlin not offer a constructive account of the link between freedom and value, he actively seeks to differentiate the pursuit of value from the exercise of freedom. For him, positive freedom has been the legitimate terrain of value. He views evaluation as embedded in the rationalist process of finding and ascertaining a final truth. Positive freedom is the freedom of doing what is right, of ‘bearing responsibility for my choices’ (TCL: 178). For him, the association of freedom with something of value would be a form of restricting freedom, of defining it through something other than itself. The notion of value introduces a claim of objectivity that could then trample over the frail subjectivity of the individual. Values have been used as a means of overriding personal judgements. ‘Only in the name of some value higher than themselves’ can one ‘ever be justified in forcing men to do what they have not willed or consented to’ (TCL: 184). But Berlin himself firmly believes that ‘there is no value higher than the individual’ (TCL: 184); hence, he is critical about the ways in which values serve the objectives of positive freedom. The problem is that justifications based on value tend to dwarf the significance of individuals’ subjective judgements. Parallel to the affinity between positive freedom and value, TCL produces numerous arguments and examples about the disaffinity between negative freedom and value. This is displayed through the frequent references to the conflict between freedom and justice. The argument is that creating and upholding the conditions of justice often entails heavy-handed political interventions. The executors of such political control seek justification in social theories based on a rationally derived vision of justice. People who oppose this vision are deemed irrational. Thus, for Berlin, value, justice and rationality all belong together. Disobedience – that is, the outcry for freedom – is typically cast as irrationality and outlawed: In existing societies justice and equality are ideals which still call for some measure of coercion, because the premature lifting of social controls might lead to the oppression of the weaker and the stupider by the stronger or abler or more energetic or unscrupulous. But it is only irrationality on the part of men (according to this doctrine) that leads them to wish to oppress or exploit or humiliate one another. (TCL: 192) References to values go together with references to justice and rationality and the latter two belong to the world of abstract knowledge based on metaphysical assumptions. Values also fall into the category of ideals and thus belong to a dream or utopian world which undermines the worthiness of the real world we

206  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom live in. Although Berlin does not say that negative freedom is value neutral, some of the key arguments in its defence suggest such an interpretation. Altogether, both Berlin’s critique of positive freedom and his elaborations of negative freedom point in the direction of establishing an inverse correlation between freedom and value. This set the beginning of a significant trend in contemporary liberal political theory, labelled ‘restrictivist’ by John Gray (Gray, 1984: 321)5 and also known as ‘pure negative’ (Laborde and Maynor, 2008: 5).6 Scholars of this tendency attempt to develop a descriptive as opposed to an evaluative concept of freedom. According to them, the definition of free action should not involve evaluative judgements of any kind. The scholarship of the restrictivists or pure negative libertarians follows the tension between negative freedom and value asserted by Berlin to its logical conclusion. If the distancing between negative and positive freedom depended on dissociating negative freedom from commitments to objects of value, then the definition of negative freedom would look very different from any of its reiterations by Berlin. Hillel Steiner demonstrated that unless one articulated a negative concept of freedom that excluded reference to desirability and evaluation of objects, one would still be on the terrain of positive freedom. According to him, a proper definition of freedom can only capture actions which have not been rendered physically ‘impossible’ (Steiner, 2006: 134). Merely preventing an action does not imply deprivation of freedom. He famously argues that neither offers nor threats violate freedom. This is because threats and offers affect our actions in a fundamentally similar fashion – they alter the desirability or the justifiability of certain actions. However, desirability and justifiability should not be taken into account if we want to construct a purely descriptive account of freedom (Steiner, 2006: 132–35). Ultimately ‘freedom is the personal possession of physical objects’ (Steiner, 2006: 138; emphasis removed). Berlin would not have defined negative freedom in these terms himself. Steiner’s argument is useful in showing that a systematic disconnection of freedom from processes of desiring and evaluation does not yield the concept of freedom Berlin would uphold through the rhetoric and argumentation of TCL. But Steiner and the pure negative freedom trend which he represents also demonstrate that the link between freedom and value is problematic and, to say the least, should not be assumed. John Gray is keen to show that the ‘restrictivist thesis’ of freedom is misguided and that the link between liberty and value is embedded in Berlin’s theory. He argues that for Berlin ‘freedom cannot be insulated in a restrictivist fashion from evaluative questions, from disputes in social theory or from metaphysical commitments’ (Gray, 1984: 323). Gray points to the places in TCL where Berlin refers to the link between negative freedom and value in no ambiguous terms. But it is possibly no accident that the most notable passage, quoted here, where Berlin states that the extent of one’s freedom depends on the subjective and objective value of the available options, occurs in a long footnote. This gives it the air of a significant afterthought which if added to the main body of the text would have necessitated a fundamental

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom 207 re-thinking of the narrative. Berlin’s specific attack on positive freedom makes it very hard for him to associate, without self-contradiction, negative freedom and value. These are, however, Berlin’s words; they do appear in the 1959 edition of the essay, and they do show his understanding of the significance of value in the exercise of freedom: The extent of my freedom seems to depend on (a) how many possibilities are open to me . . . (b) how easy or difficult each of these possibilities is to actualise; (c) how important in my plan of life, given my character and circumstances, these possibilities are when compared with each other; (d) how far they are closed and opened by deliberate human acts; (e) what value not merely the agent, but the general sentiment of the society in which he lives, puts on the various possibilities. (TCL: 177) Gray appreciates the challenge of having to reconcile the link between freedom and value with the other aspects of Berlin’s theory which undermine this link. Gray argues that the claim that freedom is ‘inescapably evaluative’ does not entail ‘the absurd but perennially popular view that freedom cannot compete with other values’. It is not the case that if the practice of freedom is associated with a particular value then ‘all bona fide freedoms cohere to compose the good for man’ (Gray, 1984: 332). The association of freedom with value should not lead to the Socratic paradox that an agent cannot choose what is bad. In other words, admitting that the exercise of freedom implies an evaluative process should not translate to the claim that one is free only if one advances some objective value. The process of evaluation implies that we may trade some freedom for others. We may even trade freedom for non-freedom-related values, yet this should not entail that the value of freedom would be lost altogether. Admitting an evaluative aspect to freedom, Gray believes, should not lead to the complete annihilation of the value of freedom in the battlefield of ideas, nor to turning freedom into a master value that would subordinate all other values. Such an explicit acknowledgement of the link between freedom and evaluation leads Gray to a new definition of negative liberty7 that risks some overlap with positive liberty. Gray believes such a revision is necessary for the sake of conveying more successfully Berlin’s ‘substantive moral and political arguments’ (Gray, 1984: 343). He believes that negative freedom should extend to take into account not just matters of evaluation but also matters of social theory and considerations around the rational aspects of choice. In other words, negative freedom should expand in at least three dimensions, which Berlin has consistently cautioned against. Gray claims that even though his proposed take on freedom ‘may appear to contain one of the important elements of the positive conception in that it is concerned with internal as well as external conditions of choice and action, it remains nonetheless recognisably a variant of the negative view’ (Gray, 1984: 323).

208  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom An enlarged concept of negative liberty, Gray believes, would still allow for a different positive conception. Like Berlin, Gray argues that although freedom encompasses a diversity of values, not all values are relevant to freedom: ‘only some considerations and values are specially salient to judgements about freedom’ (Gray, 1984: 334). Positive freedom takes the extra step of connecting freedom to values that may go beyond this remit: ‘positive conceptions mistakenly identify distinct political values with freedom or liberty’ (Gray, 1984: 325). One can include evaluation and conditions for rational choice into the definition of negative freedom without reaching the ‘conflation of acting freely with acting reasonably’ (Gray, 1984: 337). The latter would fall within the remit of positive freedom. I endorse Gray’s attempt to incorporate value into the exercise of negative freedom. It conveys Berlin’s substantive moral and political concerns and affords logical consistency to his value pluralism. The centrality of value in the account of value pluralism is captured well by Bernard Williams: ‘One who properly recognises the plurality of values is one who understands the deep and creative role that these various values can play in human life’ (Williams, 1978: xviii). In a similar vein, one would argue that a constitutive link between value pluralism and freedom has to imply a similar link between singular values and freedom. Gray’s way of offering such a link, however, leaves some unanswered questions. He argues that some values are salient to the exercise of freedom and some are not, but he does not explain how we could distinguish between these. At what point in our pursuit of values do we move out of the terrain of negative into the terrain of positive freedom? He claims that it ‘simply does not follow from the claim that all judgements about freedom are inescapably normative that there is not a distinguishable domain of evaluative considerations salient to the use of the concept of freedom’ (Gray, 1984: 333), but he does not say how we distinguish this domain. Although Gray endorses a constitutive link between freedom and value, he does not explain the process of engagement with value and as a result he repeats Berlin’s mistake of mounting a disparaging critique of the possibility and desirability of harmonising values. He echoes Berlin in stating that ‘supposing that values cohere in an harmonious whole’ is ‘an immemorial error’ (Gray, 1984: 344). Gray would have to explain why the practice of evaluation in the context of negative freedom is clearly different from this practice in the context of positive freedom. Would he argue that harmonization of values pertains to the latter but not the former? If so, what would cause the change in our evaluative practices? I argue that the link between freedom and value cannot be understood outside the context of moral development; therefore, I propose an alternative approach. I would like to re-validate the way in which this link has already been established by Green and Berlin in their discussions of positive freedom. For purposes of clarity, I point out that my own account of positive freedom differs slightly from theirs to the extent that they subsume the whole process of development under the positive freedom concept, while I believe positive freedom should capture only the top end of the process, as discussed in Chapters Two and Four.

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom  209

3 The moral development underpinning the practice of values There are two theorisations of positive liberty which underpin my understanding of the concept: T.H. Green’s theory of true freedom and Berlin’s discussion of the transition from the empirical to the higher self. The latter is intended to be a summary of the former.8 I believe that, although Berlin rejects the validity of this process, he captures its key parameters fairly accurately.9 I endorse the metaphysics which Green expounds and which Berlin ostensibly rejects. This metaphysics, with some reconstructions, will help explain some of Berlin’s pivotal ideas: the incommensurability of values and the need for a distinct concept of negative freedom. It throws light on the causes of the former and the justifiability of the latter. It reveals the circumstances in which the value pluralist attitude is called for and thus suggests the manner in which one could uphold, without self-contradiction, the parity of values and the priority of final values, including the priority of negative freedom. I argue that values and evaluation are aspects of moral development and as such main constituents of the exercise of positive freedom, as understood by Green and Berlin. Let us turn to the key aspects of the moral development process, making use of Berlin’s depiction of the transition of the empirical to the higher self. I will also use the terminology of Green’s theory by referring to ‘the moral agent’ as equivalent to ‘the higher self’ and referring to ‘ordinary agent’ as equivalent to ‘the empirical self’. The moral agent has accomplished fully the objective of moral development. The ordinary agent is the one who exists here and now. The moral agent exists in potential and her characteristics are more specific, as they reflect the features of an accomplished moral agency. The ordinary agent is characterised by insufficient possession, possibly even lack, of these features. Therefore, we should look at the moral agent first and the ordinary agent second and read the information in Table 6.1 by looking first at the right-hand column. After we assess the components of the moral agent and draw conclusions, we will look at the nature of the process that transforms the ordinary to a moral agent and the resulting changes of the characteristics of the ordinary agent due to the recurrent nature of the process. Note that Table  6.1 essentially replicates Table  4.2. Table 6.1 aims to show more explicitly the place of ‘values’ and ‘ways of life’ in the framework of moral development. Here I will focus on components 5 and 610: component 5 captures the terrain of values, while component 6 captures the terrain of ways of life – two fundamental categories of the value pluralism debate. Let me look at component 5 first. In order to become a moral agent one needs an ideal to strive towards. Such an ideal is provided by existing bodies of knowledge, including the rationalist doctrines Berlin repudiates. Values, ideals, rational doctrines, comprehensive theories of the good: all these operate on the same level. They all play the same role in the process of moral development. They provide specific purpose and vision, which inform and motivate the process of moral development. The specificity and particularity of values is an important feature – had they been ambiguous or fundamentally open,

210  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom Table 6.1 The parameters of moral development The ordinary agent (the empirical self)

The moral agent (the higher self)

1 Primarily focused on her personal well-being; not purposefully oriented towards the common good

1 Serving the common good; taking moral responsibility for her action; prioritising the common good over aspects of her well-being 2 Being somebody: attainment of excellence

2 Underachieving, not as successful as she could be 3 Feeling of frustration due to underachievement 4 Not making full use of her willpower 5 Driven by routine, not always the most desirable objectives 6 Lacking full success in terms of institutional recognition

3 Feeling of satisfaction 4 Internal control: having cultivated the willpower needed for upholding responsibility or reaching excellence 5 Guided by ‘reason’, moral ideal or value: by some external standard of what is good and right; ‘ideal values’ 6 Becoming part of existing institutions and ways of life which uphold one’s chosen values; ‘practised values’

they could not motivate and channel the agent’s effort to become a moral agent effectively. In this context, seeing these values and ideals in terms of ‘final values’ or ‘ultimate ends’, as Berlin does, is fully adequate. As products of bodies of scholarship or of ideologies, values and ideals have complex underpinnings, but they do represent the final solution of all considered practical and moral conundrums. Practising values is not feasible without some knowledge or acceptance of what is right. ‘Value’ is an alternative name for a morally worthy objective. Component 6 includes existing institutions and ways of life which uphold the values that inspire the moral agent. This component is prominent in Green’s theory of moral development. Institutions and moral ideals are mutually reinforcing entities, but they are not identical. Not all moral ideals are backed up, so to say, by existing institutions. By the same token, not all values have corresponding ways of life. For example, the ideal of gender equality was not backed by the institution of democracy prior to the enfranchisement of women. The reverse is also not always the case: not all existing social institutions express worthy ideals.11 Typically, however, institutions embody values in the sense that they represent understandings of the common good. The significance of institutions for the process of moral development is great. Institutions not only act as sources of ideals and values but also provide the reward for the invested personal effort. They are a source of validation and of confirmation that the process of moral development has reached a point of completion. Institutional recognition is a sign that one is practising a particular value successfully. A set of institutions can be seen as synonymous with a way of life. Both values – which are synonymous with moral ideals – and ways of life are constitutive

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom 211 aspects of moral agency. This has direct implications for the value pluralist debate. The debate recognises that plurality of values includes plurality of goods and plurality of ways of life.12 Value pluralist scholars reach different conclusions depending on whether they give more weight to the plurality of goods, as does Crowder, or to the plurality of ways of life, as does Gray (Crowder, 2004: 36). The observation here is that the value pluralist debate treats these as related but not identical, and this is also the case in my current discussion of moral development. The latter throws particular light on the nature of their relation. Institutions or ways of life embody particular values, but we may be critical of these values. For example, we are critical of institutions that fail to reprimand racism. So we critique the quality of the institutionalised values from the point of view of other values. Hence, the distinction between practised values – those channelled through existing institutions – and ideal values – those generated through relatively independent rational analysis – is pertinent.13 The nature of the relation between values and ways of life is important to understand. We have reason to emphasise the difference between them, but we also have reason to emphasise the organic bond between them, and I would like to do the latter. Counting both values and ways of life as constituents of moral agency can help elicit another aspect of the nature of values. Values are expressions of a common good. They offer a specific visualisation of some form of human well-being, made possible through a specific way of life. The adoption of values leads to moral development because values help individuals to adjust their personal wellbeing to a common good. Following values makes one a morally better – more other-oriented – person, because it offers a specific way of simultaneous advancement of personal and common well-being. Chapters Two and Four showed that the adjustment of the personal to the common good is constitutive of positive freedom in two related ways: it helps one to become a moral agent and it helps personal thriving through the attainment of excellence in a recognised field. One’s capacity to be successful in socially recognised fields depends on a prior accomplished ‘fusing’ of personal and common interests. Seeing the place of values in the context of moral development helps explain their key role in personal well-being. This in turn assists in showing why the undermining of values is so undesirable. Injury to values is an injury to personal well-being in a deeper sense as it undermines the capacity of individuals to serve others, to fit into society and to thrive. And the close relation between values and ways of life shows the way in which values are expressions of the common good. This way of seeing things – that is, understanding the link between freedom and value through the context of moral development – can help substantiate a claim which Berlin makes in passing: that ‘there is no value higher than the individual’ (TCL: 184).14 Berlin does not explain how exactly the value of the individual surpasses all other values or why other values are not able to surpass it. And if the ‘moral development’ reading of value proposed here is correct, then in some sense all values are ‘higher’ than the individual in that all values are expressions of a common good. In fact, this is exactly what Berlin most vigorously objects

212  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom to: the suppression of the individual in the name of the common good. In the last quote he seems to be saying that there is no common good more important than the individual. And if we see the common good as an organic bond between personal and common well-being, then his claim cannot be sustained: in the context of positive freedom and moral development, the common good does not suppress the individual but helps him thrive. However, there is a way in which we can convey Berlin’s concern, even if we accept the language of moral development as fully legitimate. What Berlin wants to say is that the value of all ideal values is derived from their practical adoption by specific individuals. Individuals bring values to life: therefore, individuals themselves have to be valued on par with all other values. In other words, personal well-being itself is a form of common good. Commitment to other people’s personal well-being is a form of service to the common good. Berlin’s passionate defence of negative freedom is, in essence, a plea for us to adopt the well-being of individuals as a form of moral ideal and serve it accordingly. The personal well-being of people is as important as all other common goods that have inspired us. Let us go back to the process of moral development and place another key aspect of the value pluralist argument in its context: the critiqued by Berlin belief that values are compatible and the corresponding intention to harmonise them. My claim here is that harmonisation is part of the process of realising values. One lives up to moral ideals by harmonising the need for personal satisfaction with the demands of the broader community. Harmonisation works in the context both of practised values and of ideal ones. In the context of practised values, we harmonise personal interests with those advanced by the institutions we want to be part of. Ideal values are also an outcome of harmonisation. Most people are aware of conflicting ideals and construct their own reconciliatory narratives. Every single moral ideal or value is a product of some moral and epistemological effort. To assert a value as truthful, I need to accept or develop a rational argument, build a body of examples, position it in a relevant context and so on. Ideal values are goods that people have argued and fought for. The harmonising and reconciling of contradictory claims is part and parcel of the process of asserting a value as truthful or authentic or, in Berlin’s terms, as final. There is no categorical difference between values and final values. The constructive way to understand this finality, however, is to see it as an endpoint in a process and as meaningful in the context of this process. Internally, every system of truth or value is based on comprehensive lexical ordering. Every system of truth is internally monistic. To claim that you are value pluralist and to go against monism is self-contradictory in that it denies the process that is crucial to the existence of values. If ‘we are faced with choices between ends equally ultimate’ (TCL: 213) then ultimate ends must exist. They cannot be simply delusions of monists. Placing the practice of values within the context of moral development throws new light on what Berlin calls ‘monism’. For Berlin, monism has significant negative connotations, spelled out in detail in Section 1 here. But my analysis shows that what he disapprovingly calls ‘monism’ in fact represents the way in which values are routinely practised. Both our personal experience of trying to fit in a

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom  213 social world and our experience as scholars in humanities and social sciences who articulate and defend particular normative perspectives imply, on analysis, a process of value adjustment. The compatibility of values and the possibility of coherent normative narratives is what stays in the heart of our social integration and our critical vision of the world. Let us go back to the graphic outline of the process of moral development sketched in Table 6.1 in order to assess how the profile of the ordinary agent will change as a result of the recurrent transition from ordinary to moral agency and also to clarify the nature of the transition itself. The ordinary agent is not the complete opposite of the moral agent. She is not purely self-oriented, fundamentally failing, irrational and socially outcast. She has the qualities of the moral agent but to a lesser degree. The fundamental difference between the two is that the ordinary agent is focused on her personal well-being, with whatever degree of social interest this personal well-being has managed to internalise, while the moral agent prioritises the common good over the personal good, even if the latter is already informed by broader concerns. Ultimately, it is the distinction between personal well-being and service to the common good that sustains the two poles in the process of moral development. The fact that personal well-being itself is a common good does not undermine this polarity.15 The process of moral development is propelled by the personal intention of, or by the existing external pressures on, the ordinary agent to improve in terms of better adjusting her personal interest to the common good; being more successful in getting institutional recognition and coming closer to prioritising the common over the personal good. Every particular improvement in these respects marks a successful transition from ordinary to moral agency. As a result the ordinary agent internalises the qualities of the moral agent and the gap between them gets smaller and smaller. Indeed, at the point when one actually acquires moral agency, that is, acts as a moral agent in a particular moment, the gap closes completely. The gap is typically reopened, however, as there is no objective limit to how good or how successful one can be. Once a particular objective is achieved, a new one can be put in place. A successful development allows the ordinary agent to become a moral agent, but as soon as the moral agent is realised, he becomes an ordinary one, in the sense that he is the agent who ongoingly has that character. A new more advanced version of the moral agent can be projected ahead. The gap typically reappears for one more reason. It could be that the acquisition of moral agency is temporary and one slips back into the old ordinary agency. This is because the transition has been difficult and the effort to sustain the outcome too demanding. The process of adjustment of the personal to the common good typically involves some level of sacrifice of the personal good. Hence, the full acquisition of moral agency, which is marked by subordination of the personal to the common good, is costly and hard to sustain for a long time. The acquisition of full moral agency is temporary. Either it is marked by one-off sacrifice that hopefully will not have to be often repeated or the agent manages to internalise the common good so well that it becomes personal good and hence ordinary agency is resumed. Ideally, one should not often have to acquire moral agency. One’s

214  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom routine commitment to the common good, that is, the commitment practiced comfortably within the parameters of one’s routine activities, should be enough for the purposes of both satisfactory personal well-being and effective service to the common good. There is another possibility, however. Due to the force of circumstances, one may have to sustain moral agency indefinitely – that is, one may be under pressure to prioritise the common good over personal good as a matter of course. This would be undesirable for the obvious reason that a person in this condition would not be able to sustain personal well-being. It is exactly this that amounts to one of the most lamentable losses of negative freedom, and of freedom altogether, to which Berlin wants to alert us. I will return to this issue in Section 6. Finally, I would like to place the issue of sacrifice in the context of moral development. For Berlin, in a world with no guaranteed final ends, every significant choice entails sacrifice: ‘The need to choose, to sacrifice some ultimate values to others, turns out to be a permanent characteristic of the human predicament’ (IN: 43). Interestingly, for him sacrifice is also an intrinsic aspect of the transformation of the lower into the higher self: the language of sacrifice is pertinent to explanations of moral action and positive freedom. Sacrifice would be part of element 4 from Tables 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 6.1. However, the story of moral development I aim to reconstruct here reflects a gradual process of harmonising the personal with the common good. If this is the case, why then is sacrifice necessary? It is because every loss of personal interest, even if reasonable and ultimately rewarded, is at least temporarily painful. All moral development entails some degree of sacrifice. Yet the next section will show that this degree matters when it comes to assessing a particular situation in terms of value incommensurability. It would be helpful to distinguish between hardship and sacrifice. A sacrifice would be called for when, for some reason, the gap between the ordinary and the moral agent is large. Moral agency could be hard to achieve because the available ways of life do not accommodate either one’s particular personal interest, or one’s considered form of personal well-being, or one’s chosen common-good cause. These underpin three types of clashes, not all of which amount to incommensurability of values, as the next section will show.

4 The sources of incommensurability of values Plugging a theory of moral development into Berlin’s value pluralism helps put the latter’s disparate ingredients together. The metaphysics of moral development explains what Berlin assumes: the tragedy caused by the impossibility of the monist dream. It helps address the question of what makes the monist dream so powerful in the first place, not just for philosophers but also for most human beings. It also helps us discern the nature and the cause of incompatibility of values. Let me take these issues in turn. The monist dream is powerful because final values help us along the steep upward path not just towards becoming good and successful but also towards leading a normal meaningful life. The process of moral development discussed in

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom 215 the previous section reflects not only ambition for moral authenticity or an urge for upward social mobility, but also the process of social adjustment which is part and parcel of routine daily existence.16 Social adjustment has the same constitution as moral development: it equally depends on a personal transformation. Fitting into one’s social environment is not straightforward. One needs to understand and internalise values that may not be part of one’s upbringing and also to be able to set personal interest aside. Availability of ‘final values’ in terms of clear and justified objectives will make this task easier. Ways of life underpinned by a comprehensive and solid rationale are likely to reward personal effort and offer confirmation of either moral development or, as I have argued in Chapter Three, social adjustment. As Berlin says, if final values existed, we would not have to make difficult choices. The analysis of moral development shows that ‘final values’ are possible, if there is a way in which the personal and the common good can be made harmonious, or if two conflicting common goods could be reconciled with only limited loss. I argue that the incommensurability of values and ways of life reflects only the more dramatic scenarios of the process of moral development. The incommensurability of values is based not on all clashes of values but only on the significant ones. I will view three types of clash, starting with the most dramatic: (1) the clash between two common goods; (2) the clash between personal well-being and the common good and (3) the clash between not-fully-considered personal interest and the common good. A major strength of Berlin’s account of value pluralism is its capacity to articulate the possibility of a clash between common goods. By this very token, ‘The one and the many’ wages a cogent critique of the concept of positive freedom: it reveals the limits to what can be achieved through the exercise of positive freedom. The agent of positive freedom, that is, the moral agent, has the capacity to overcome personal interest and advance the common good. Therefore, those who take the path of positive freedom do not create but resolve confrontations. They do not oppose but advance the common good. Because they choose to harmonise interests rather than assert their own interests against those of others, they are practically equipped to advance the common good. But even that, Berlin shows us, will not get all the way to full value reconciliation. Every common good is the good of a particular community, or of a particular group of people. Conflicts between groups will expose different understandings of the common good. When the common good is uncertain, moral development is harder to accomplish. The limits of positive freedom lie in the partial nature of the common good. The British idealists, as key exponents of the concept of positive freedom, and T.H. Green in particular, did not envisage ‘real’ clashes between common goods17 and therefore did not theorise such clashes. What enables Berlin to expose such clashes is his discerning of the ideological dimension of values. TCL abounds in examples of how moral ideals are used to serve the causes of ‘nations or Churches or classes’ (TCL: 214). This happens not only when moral ideals or values are hijacked and their genuine moral contents abandoned. Ethical values and group interest are intertwined at a deeper level. The ideological dimension of values

216  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom shows that the clash of values is underpinned by the clash of group interests. This means that the normative dynamic of the battle for the noblest value is complicated additionally by the political dynamic of which group interest shall prevail. The latter exposes the cost to real human lives of what may have seemed a purely ethical discourse. Even if the nobler value prevails – the one that furthers the common good best in given circumstances – human beings may suffer significant loss of well-being. The ideological dimension of value is what is missing in Green’s analysis, which nonetheless displays a stunningly perceptive understanding of moral conflict.18 Green’s discussion of ‘conflict of duties’ in his Prolegomena to Ethics is very useful here as it shows how a conflict of duties is personally experienced and also how it could be resolved. For Green, we experience conflict of duties when different authorities issue conflicting commands. What causes the problem, however, is not plurality of duties as we have only one duty – to serve the common good – but the fact that existing authorities may facilitate the performance of this duty partially and imperfectly. Therefore, if someone finds that he is subjected to conflicting calls of duty, he should question the authenticity of the authorities issuing such calls. A person who understands that existing authorities may not be the best vehicles of the public good will have a rationale of the various duties presented to him in the name of Caesar or God, which will help him to distinguish what is essential in the duties from the form of their imposition, and to guide himself by looking to the common end to which they are alike relative. Should an occasion arise when duties seem to conflict, he will be prepared for the discovery that the conflict is not really between duties, but between powers invested by the imagination with the character of imponents of duty. He will be able to stand this discovery without moral deterioration, because he has learnt to fix his eye on the moral end or function – the function in the way of furthering perfection of conduct – served by the authorities which he has been bred to acknowledge. (Green, 1890: 357) As the quote indicates, the danger in the situation of conflict of duty is not in the discovery that there is no obvious morally superior path of action but in the risk of moral scepticism and paralysis, the risk of turning a deaf ear to calls of duty altogether. Indeed, Green believes that there is ultimately a ‘real authority’ (Green, 1890: 350) that could make a rightful claim on one’s service. Going back to our discussion of the clash of common goods, Green’s message is that the conflict we witness and indeed experience in the context of conflict of duties is not between moral ends but between conflicting institutions. In other words, the real clash is not between ideal values but only between practised values: and in terms of the value pluralist debate, not between goods but between ways of life. The latter have to be reassessed through the critical guise of the former. The power of Berlin’s critique of monism can be appreciated against this

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom 217 background. Berlin rejects Green’s perspective and argues instead that ideal values are complicit in the clash of practised values or different ways of life and therefore blameworthy for the tragic consequences of these clashes. By not appreciating the ideological dimension of value, Green also does not give due consideration to the personal and social cost involved in choosing one common good in a situation where common goods clash significantly. This is because the ideological dimension of value puts a new angle both on the consequences one suffers in the context of clash of values and on the nature of the personal dilemma involved in facing this conflict. If one’s way of life is undermined or destroyed as a result of ideological conflict, one will lose the capacity to lead a fulfilling life: the new institutions are not likely to reward the service to the common good one is capable of. This also makes the ‘conflict of duty’ Green discusses genuine as opposed to merely apparent (Green, 1890: 355). In circumstances of political conflict, every choice, even the best one, will affect a group of people adversely, that is, will result in a loss of personal well-being for some. Earlier on I mentioned that incommensurability of values is based on three types of clash. I have just discussed the most important type: that between common goods. I will now turn to the second one: that between personal well-being and service to the common good. This type of clash is the one most widely referred to in the description of moral dilemmas. On the basis of what has been argued so far, we can observe that a clash between personal well-being and service to the common good is in essence a clash between common goods. This is because, as discussed in the previous section, personal well-being is a form of common good. But what does this practically mean? We can argue that moral dilemmas capture the personal experience of ideological clashes. Keeping personal well-being in focus will also help connect conceptually the incommensurability of values and the experience of moral dilemmas. If we put the former in terms of the latter, we can see better what incommensurability refers to in practical terms and what the circumstances are that surround it. A person experiencing a moral dilemma would be a prime example of somebody aspiring to be a moral agent. Moral dilemmas typically occur if one is in search of the best course of action. The person is committed to the common good even if the ‘correct’ common good would not advance her personal well-being. A  conflict between one’s personal well-being and the common good can be seen as a conflict between two common goods, in the sense that one’s personal well-being has already internalised some common good. The clash of the two common goods indicates that adjustments and compromises are not possible. An example would be living in Nazi Germany and having to choose whether to help save a Jewish person or not. Either choice would compromise one’s personal well-being. Choosing to help will come at great risk for one’s personal security or life. Choosing not to help will leave one with a sense of guilt and diminished self-respect. Moral dilemmas make it impossible for one to serve the common good in a fashion that enhances personal well-being. It is important however to distinguish between moral dilemmas characterised by tragic choices – where the choice between common goods does not allow any compromise – and, on the other hand, difficult choices, where

218  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom adjustments are possible. An example of the second would be the choice between a career and looking after an ill relative. An option where one could slow the pace of one’s career, as opposed to giving it up, and provide the needed care would be the form of compromise that would allow alignment of personal well-being and the most enlightened common good. Moral dilemmas evidence the incommensurability of values in the first case, but not the second. Green’s discussion of the conflict of duties makes powerful and, I believe, correct observations. Green believes that it may be difficult to find out what the most compelling case for the common good is. But more important than finding the ‘correct’ common good for him is to keep one’s commitment to it unwavering and to serve it in the form that one understands best. In other words, moral dilemmas should not make the acquisition of moral agency impossible. It is the other way round – if one is committed to do the right thing, most of the chosen causes would rely on one’s exercise of moral agency. However, Green does not appreciate the way in which moral dilemmas undermine one’s opportunity to advance personal well-being. It could be the case that the most compelling case for the common good is the one that fuses with personal interests the least. It is exactly this scenario that Berlin is eager to acknowledge. So we can say that Green and Berlin discuss the same thing: the personal experience of moral and political confrontations. Green sees the way forward – moral agency is still possible – but does not acknowledge the loss of personal well-being. Berlin wants to throw light on the latter but lacks the conceptual apparatus to do so. The theory of moral development is very useful here. It allows us to explain that the experience of moral dilemmas – an experience typically emerging in the context of clashing understandings of the common good – is likely to lead to a loss of personal well-being. The process of moral development throws light both on the objective and subjective experience of clash of values. Objectively, we suffer the consequences of value clashes when we are on the losing side of an ideological confrontation. This is because the destruction of certain ways of life makes it very hard for their constituency to pursue their well-being as they did, that is, on the basis of the particular blending of personal interests and common good they have developed. Subjectively, clashes of values lead to moral dilemmas. Ideological conflicts throw at us tragic choices on whichever side of the ideological conflict we stand. If we are on the winning side, we face the choice between continuing to pursue our own way of life even though we are aware it threatens those of others or questioning it and thus suffering injury to personal well-being. If we are on the losing ideological side, we have to choose between accepting an alien way of life that undermines identity and dignity, on the one side, or rebelling against it at high personal risk. In the first case, the clash of common goods makes it impossible for one to continue acquiescing in the established way of life. In the second case, none of the existing common good alternatives – alien way of life or revolutionary struggle – can possibly advance one’s personal well-being. The conclusions here are that incommensurability of value arises in particular circumstances – those of ideological confrontation, where the losing side will have its way of life destroyed or significantly undermined, and those of moral

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom  219 dilemmas. Often moral dilemmas are underpinned by ideological conflicts but one can imagine other circumstances where tragic choices would have to be made, such as circumstances of poverty or security threats. Coming back to the third clash I outlined – between exclusively personal interest and the common good – would help reinforce these conclusions. Berlin would count even these clashes as significant, because the loss of personal activities considered of little value is still a loss. First, the ‘little value’ assessment may be wrong and, second, the process of working out what is valuable entails exploring a broader range of options. For Berlin, the essence of negative freedom is not to dismiss out of hand what is ‘irrational, or stupid, or wrong’ (TCL: 194). However, we can argue that the purpose of this exploration is to develop viable options of personal well-being. Therefore, the tragedy comes only when our considered personal well-being clashes with service to the common good. The process of moral development discussed earlier captures well the point which Berlin might want to make about the lamentable loss of not-fully-­considered personal interest. The need for moral development is a universal feature of human experience. The necessity to develop capacity for moral agency and experience hardships on the way applies to all. We are all heroes – whether we cherish career aspirations and ambition for moral purity or not – as we all endure the pressures of social institutions and have to adjust and transform. But the hardship of moral development, which applies to all, is not the same as the tragic nature of moral dilemmas as the latter occur only in circumstances of conflicts between common goods.

5 The implications of value pluralism for the distinction between positive and negative freedom The previous chapters of this book, containing studies of Constant’s, T.H. Green’s and Berlin’s ideas, have established three criteria for the distinction between positive and negative freedom. The first criterion is relation-to-authority. Negative freedom is a form of resistance to authority while positive freedom is a form of appropriation of authority. This is captured by Berlin’s words ‘The former [exponents of negative freedom] want to curb authority as such. The latter [exponents of positive freedom] want it placed in their own hands’ (TCL: 212). This criterion is relatively simple and straightforward, and it conveys the predominant understanding of the distinction. It is, however, abstract and does not make clear how the appropriation of authorities can be seen as an exercise of freedom. This issue is addressed by fortifying the relation-to- authority criterion with the second criterion. Negative freedom is experienced in the process of advancing one’s personal well-being, while positive freedom is experienced through the acquisition of moral agency. This ‘ordinary versus moral agency’ criterion (Dimova-Cookson, 2003) is based on T.H. Green’s theory of true freedom. The advantage of this theory is that it explains how exactly the appropriation of authority amounts to an exercise of freedom. Put briefly, positive freedom as an exercise of moral agency depends on appropriation of moral ideals and engagement with certain social

220  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom institutions. Both moral ideals and social institutions are forms of authorities. Positive freedom cannot be realised without constructive engagement with authorities. The link between the first and the second criteria can be put in the following terms. Authorities aim to advance the common good. In the context of negative freedom, which is the pursuit of personal well-being, we have to be able to resist those authorities and implicitly those forms of the common good that threaten our personal well-being. Negative freedom is viable because, in principle, there can be a discrepancy between personal well-being and common good.19 In the context of positive freedom, we aim to advance the common good, and collaborating with authorities helps advance this objective. My previous chapters20 have also elicited a third criterion for the distinction: ‘routineness versus exceptionality’. Negative freedom is the freedom exercised in the context of routine activities, while the exercise of positive freedom, as acquisition of moral agency or excellence in a recognised field, marks the ultimate point of an achievement. This criterion is rooted in Green’s discussion of the exceptionality of the attainment of perfection (DSF: 228–29) and in Berlin’s associating of negative freedom with ‘normality’ (TCL: 210, 211; IN: 44, 54). As I have already mentioned in the introduction to this chapter and in Section 1, in the context of Berlin’s discussion of value pluralism, negative and positive freedom switch places. The negative freedom of the value pluralist is, on analysis, representative of highly reflective, dutiful and selfless behaviour of a type one would typically associate with positive freedom, while the positive freedom of the monist is, on reflection, an exercise of negative freedom, as the monist represents human behaviour in its more routine and unreflective modes. This reversal of places obtains within the framework of Berlin’s own accounts of the distinction. We could argue that the first and the third criteria for the distinction are based directly on Berlin’s own ideas. This swap of places comes to show several things. First, it shows that the distinction is complex as it operates along several criteria. This means that it is possible that one freedom is seen as either negative or positive depending on the criterion in use. I do not want to conclude that the distinction is unstable and elusive, however. In Section 6 I will summarise the reasons why the distinction can fluctuate and thus demonstrate that such fluctuation does not invalidate the distinction overall. The reversal of places of the two freedoms does not show that the distinction is meaningless – it helps us understand better the connection between the three criteria for the distinction. Second, and more importantly, the reversal of places of positive and negative freedom in the context of value pluralism says something about the nature of both freedoms, or of freedom altogether. It shows how fundamental the engagement with value is for the exercise of freedom. It shows how aspirations for the certainty and security provided through the existence of ‘final ends’ are deeply embedded in human life. In our less reflective modes we crave definite values and final solutions. So positive freedom, far from being the exceptional freedom of high aspiration and idealistic pursuits, is the freedom that one cherishes on a routine basis. In this sense the link which Berlin draws between monism and positive freedom throws new light on the latter. Monism is bad in a similar but also in a

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom 221 different way from the other perversions of positive freedom. In a similar fashion to the previously expressed concerns with positive freedom, the monist could be a fanatic who forces others to do things which will supposedly liberate them: here we encounter an already familiar critique. But it has a new fault. The monist is short-sighted and stuck in her routine. She lacks the bird’s eye view of the world of values. She sees only her own ethical causes and defends her own ways of life but does not appreciate that alternative causes and ways are life are of commensurable value. However, although Berlin arguably succeeds in articulating yet another critique of positive freedom, he unwittingly achieves also something else: he shows that the pursuit of value pertains to the exercise of the two freedoms. One might ask, What then is the difference between the two freedoms? The difference is based on the realisation that when values clash the freedom of the monist becomes questionable. And this is where the freedom of the value pluralist has its place: it resolves the problem that the monist creates. The two freedoms offer different responses to the realisation that values clash: one of them is exercised through the security and fulfilment found in the pursuit of value, while the other is found in adopting the existential stance of rising above the search for security and meaningful life. The clash of values creates a problem which would be ignored if one continued to pursue one’s usual ways of life, or it could be addressed through moral action. So the positive freedom of the monist becomes negative freedom, and vice versa, according to the second and the third criteria for the distinction. If we take this observation a step further, we can connect the discussion from the previous chapters of the link between freedom and ‘authority as such’ with the discussion of value pluralism. We can observe that values are forms of moral authorities, while ways of life are forms of political authorities. The monist is a person who endorses existing moral and political authorities and the value pluralist is reflective and brave enough to oppose them. This fits very well with Berlin’s categorisation of the agent of positive freedom as wanting authority placed in her own hands and the agent of negative freedom as wanting to curb authorities. So the value pluralist debate allows Berlin to reaffirm his relation-to-authority criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction. However, now we can appreciate that the relation-to-authority criterion is more complex than it seems, and indeed is somewhat confusing as a mere criterion. It is in fact more useful as an indication of the need for a positive/negative distinction in the first place. Let me address these two claims in turn. The relation-to-authority criterion announces the need for a distinction in a roundabout manner, as shown through the value pluralism discussion. The negative freedom of the value pluralist curbs authorities in a very indirect fashion. We have now established that authorities, and moral authorities in particular, channel values. The value pluralist does not oppose values. Like all human beings he treasures values deeply, because values allow him to have a meaningful, integrated, responsible and secure life. The value pluralist does not challenge values in principle: in fact, he challenges his own values. In this sense he practices his freedom not by curbing moral authorities in principle but by questioning the moral authorities that have hitherto advanced his own well-being. So if negative

222  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom freedom is the freedom of the value pluralist, it curbs authority only in a heroic fashion, only in a fashion which puts on hold his own well-being. In principle, however, he supports moral authorities, because in principle he supports everyone’s right to engage with what they find valuable. It turns out that when Berlin says that the agent of negative freedom curbs authority as such, he is again using a metaphor. The agent of negative freedom wants to regulate the power of moral authorities so that as many people as possible could engage with their chosen values. He has a sophisticated understanding of how authorities work both to make life meaningful and to serve as an obstacle to such a meaningful life. Therefore, the firm conclusion we could take from the relation-to-authority criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction is that this criterion exposes the need for, but not necessarily the nature of, such a distinction. The type of these authorities and the way we approach them determine the kind of freedom we exercise. If the authorities advance our values and thus our well-being, and if we choose to accept them, we exercise one kind of freedom. If the authorities suppress our values, we face two options: we could change our values so that they fit existing authorities, or we could challenge these authorities at high cost to our well-being. In both of these cases the freedom we would exercise is different from the first one. So, which freedom is which? Which is the negative, and which is the positive? If we stay with Berlin’s relation-to-authority criterion, the first freedom is positive, the first version of the second freedom is also positive and the second version of the second freedom is negative. But I suggest that Berlin’s criterion here is no longer helpful. The criterion has fulfilled its purpose by leading us to see the need for a dual conceptualisation of freedom. Once we see the mechanics of the two new freedoms, we can think anew which freedom is negative and which positive. It is against this background that I argue that the second criterion for the ­distinction – that between advancement of one’s own well-being and the exercise of moral agency – is the one that is best in deciding which freedom is positive and which is negative. Arguing that negative freedom is found in the context of one’s advancement of his well-being captures best Berlin’s insightful challenge of the British idealist defence of positive freedom. It is this understanding of negative freedom that conveys Berlin’s normative concerns expressed in his critique of the higher self as well as in his famous ‘Everything is what it is’ paragraph. Linking negative freedom with individuals’ well-being also shows the affinity of this concept with Constant’s modern liberty and J.S. Mill’s liberty. Defining positive freedom as the exercise of moral agency is faithful to Berlin’s depiction of the concept in the First Paragraph (see Chapter Four, Section 2) and to T.H. Green’s concept of positive freedom. The second criterion of the positive/negative freedom distinction runs through the dual conceptualisations of the three champions of the distinction: Constant, Green and Berlin. The third criterion for the distinction is also useful as it reaffirms the second, but it also helps adjudicate on a particular scenario where the second criterion may fail to give a definitive answer. So typically, the second and the third criteria work in parallel. On the second criterion, the agent of negative freedom pursues his own

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom  223 well-being and in this sense he acts as an ordinary – as opposed to a moral – agent. On the third criterion, the exercise of negative freedom captures routine pursuits of liberty. So a person’s advancement of his own well-being would be something he would do on a routine basis. The point of failure of the second criterion is the point where the ordinary agent becomes a moral one; that is, the pursuit of his well-being is replaced by service to the common good. The understanding of moral development advanced here indicates that moral agency is possible, even if hard to attain, and typically exists as projected in the future. The ordinary agent who is the one here and now, and who is typically advancing his personal well-being, is capable, in potentiality, of subordinating the personal to the common good and thus becoming a moral agent. In other words, this potentiality can become a reality. So does the moral agent, who is here and now, become an ordinary agent? If so, does one of the two agencies disappear, or more to the point, does their distinct status collapse? Arguably, yes. And this is the point where the second criterion for the distinction reaches wobbly ground. There are several possible scenarios when the two agencies coincide, and these scenarios determine the fashion in which the distinction re-emerges. So this is where the third criterion for the distinction comes into place. If the moral agent can sustain his commitment to the common good as a matter of routine, this particular kind of service to the common good becomes part of his personal well-being and therefore should be associated with an exercise of negative freedom. In the alternative scenario where the particular service to the common good is hard to sustain on a routine basis, the ordinary agent falls out of moral agency, figuratively speaking. In this case moral agency resumes its status as ‘potentially possible’, that is, resumes its exceptional status, and its exercise falls in the domain of positive freedom. The third criterion, however, cannot work on its own – it needs to be fortified by the second one. The routinisation of moral agency must imply by that token that the embraced common good has become an organic aspect of the personal good. We will shortly examine the case where the routinized moral agency is not advancing effectively a person’s personal well-being and therefore cannot amount to an exercise of negative freedom, or any freedom whatsoever. Let us return to the first, the relation-to-authorities, criterion for the distinction. One final benefit of this criterion, particularly for Berlin, is its capacity to elicit one further critique of positive freedom. I argued in Chapters Two and Four that Berlin was right to point to the deeper connection between positive freedom and authorities, particularly moral authorities. But as we have seen, this connection has to be explained in a meaningful fashion, and this explanation is provided by British idealist moral philosophy. What we have to clarify, however, that the link between positive freedom and moral authorities does not explain all that is essential to it. We need to take into account the broad and metaphorical use of ‘authority’. For Berlin authority implies power and power limits freedom. But this is only partially true. As the value pluralist debate revealed, moral authorities are also equivalent to values and political authorities to ways of life. So authorities can help affirm one’s individuality and identity. In this sense, Berlin has not exposed the link between positive freedom and authorities in a fully constructive fashion. And again, the

224  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom valid point to take from the relation-to-authorities criterion for the distinction is that the complex relation between individuals and authorities is the one that starts to enlighten us about the necessity of two concepts of freedom. But the nature of this relation is not captured by the claim that authorities limit negative and enhance positive freedom. The relationship between the individual and authorities and the impact of this relation on the exercise of freedom can be understood best in the context of moral development. Moral authorities are instrumental in the process of moral development. The complexity in the pursuit of freedom is introduced by the fact that a tension between personal well-being and service to the common good is possible. In other words, moral authorities may obstruct the pursuit of one’s well-being. In this case negative and positive freedom offer two alternative ways forward. Negative freedom would side with the moral authorities that tally with and forward better one’s well-being, while positive freedom would choose the moral authority that serves the common good best, at some personal cost. At this juncture we can appreciate that the discussion about the actual nature of authorities – as opposed to a mere reference to ‘authority as such’ – is crucial for the analysis of freedom and the adjudication whether one’s action is negatively free, positively free or not free at all. The general reference to ‘authority as such’ can only take us so far. Important questions about how to decide on what type of freedom one exercises or whether any is exercised at all would depend on specifying the exact nature of authorities and the context in which they are exercised – as we will discuss in the following section.

6 Explaining the dynamics of the positive/negative freedom distinction The discussion of value pluralism brings the theme of morality to the heart of Berlin’s discussion of freedom and thus opens a prominent place for positive freedom in the context of Berlin’s own ideas. It seems that we should end up with an expanded, indeed all-encompassing, concept of positive freedom. If moral development is a universal characteristic of the modern human condition, is there room at all for negative freedom? I argue that the distinction between negative and positive freedom remains and that we are now in a better position to explain its parameters. The value pluralism discussion has thrown the two concepts into some disarray, but this can help explain the dynamism of their relationship. The concepts are fluid and the distinction equally so. Berlin makes frequent references to the fluidity of the concepts and their dividing line (TCL: 178). Critics, including MacCallum (1967), Gray (1984: 344) and Simhony (1993a, 2019), have tried to capture this dynamism by arguing that there is one concept of freedom only, while positive and negative freedom are two conceptions of what is a single concept. Indeed, it is the fluctuation in the meaning of liberty, and of positive freedom in particular, that led Berlin to draw the distinction, so that certain extensions of its meaning are kept out of the definition of negative freedom. Among other things, his distinction aimed to capture and put useful conceptual reins on the fluidity of the meanings of freedom. But the distinction itself is not immune to

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom 225 conceptual fluctuation – as Berlin points out, sometimes the two concepts may represent ‘no more than negative and positive ways of saying much the same thing’, while at other times they come ‘into direct conflict with each other’ (TCL: 178–79). I find Berlin’s value pluralist discussion particularly useful in displaying and therefore helping to understand better the dynamism of the positive/negative freedom duality. For the remainder of this section I would like to address the logic of the fluctuation of the positive/negative freedom distinction or, to put it in the terms used in the previous chapters, of the internal freedom boundary. We will also see that the logic which affects the movement of the internal freedom boundary also affects the external freedom boundaries. The internal freedom boundary fluctuates in the sense that in certain circumstances it becomes more significant and has to be upheld in order to protect the exercise of freedom. Examples will be helpful here. I will turn to cases where negative freedom needs protection from positive freedom and vice versa. We will see that Berlin has strong grounds to argue that the perversions of positive freedom lead to non-freedom but that the reverse is also true. The perversions of negative freedom also lead to freedom deprivation. So Berlin has been right to see an interrelation between the internal and the external boundaries: his arguments have implied that the protection against positive freedom is needed as a protection of freedom in principle. But he has not appreciated two things: that the same applies in the opposite scenario, where the exercise of positive freedom needs protection from negative freedom and its perversions and that although the internal boundary indicates potential threats to freedom in principle, it sometimes does not. Indeed, if applied outside the relevant contexts, the internal boundary is likely to hinder the exercise of both freedoms. Negative freedom is under threat from the pressure to exercise positive freedom when there is a conflict of moral authorities, that is, as argued in Section 4, in cases of value incommensurability. In normal circumstances moral authorities do not threaten negative freedom. For example, one’s duty to look after their children does not have to clash with the duty to do one’s job or with one’s well-being as both duties could be accommodated within his well-being. But we can imagine scenarios of either conflicting duties or of a duty that poses a strong challenge to one’s well-being. For example full-time caring duties which do not allow one to pursue valued projects would affect adversely one’s well-being. In this case one’s negative freedom needs protection from the pressure to exercise positive freedom. This means that a person would be justified in asking for help with his caring duty and that those who put pressure on him to do all the care himself would be restricting his negative freedom. If no help is available and the carer has to, and does, give up significant personal projects, there are two ways forward. The first is turning to positive freedom; the second is loss of freedom altogether. Turning to positive freedom would be possible if the carer is capable of rethinking his wellbeing in a fashion that accommodates caring duties. In this context he would have prioritised his service to the common good, but this would be done in a manner that is acceptable to him. This positive freedom would not represent a form of selfabnegation, as Berlin may be inclined to argue. Such positive freedom would be

226  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom made feasible partly by the agent’s self-transformation but partly by some favourable circumstances which allow the new set of arrangements to remain fulfilling for him. The scenario where freedom would be lost would be one where the carer is fulfilling his duties against his own choice and where existing circumstances do not allow his activities to bring personal satisfaction. The carer would be doing his duties but not exercising either positive or negative freedom. The carer could be a victim of exploitation. The failure to uphold the internal freedom boundary for the sake of protecting negative freedom could result in loss of negative freedom, in terms of significant loss of personal well-being. My observation here tallies well with what Berlin has argued himself: that the pressure on someone to give up his negative freedom and replace it with positive freedom may result in a perversion of positive freedom and by this token in freedom deprivation. One could be performing one’s duties and serving the common good but be nonetheless unfree, because this has not been freely chosen and one’s own well-being has been badly affected. We have to be careful, however, when we call this a perversion of positive freedom. In the discussed scenarios, it is not merely the pressure of moral expectation that had led to a situation of loss of well-being. It is not merely the case that the value of moral agency has been unduly glorified. The pressure we put on others to perform their duties could be a mechanism of exploitation, but on its own it cannot result in freedom deprivation. The exact nature of moral and political authorities would have a lot to answer for. Exploitation happens when moral authorities condone a situation where a certain group of people shoulder a disproportionally higher level of care. It also happens when the existing political authorities do not themselves make provision for helping people in need of care and carers. Here we are faced again with the significance of the external freedom boundary. While the internal boundary will guard against moral pressures, the external one would have to engage with an assessment of the nature of existing moral and political authorities and their capacity to support everyone’s well-being. But the internal freedom boundary must be also upheld for the protection of positive freedom. Green’s arguments explaining the nature of true freedom are of great use here. The exercise of positive freedom is under threat when for various reasons someone is unable to perform her duty freely. If her moral development is thwarted her positive freedom is in danger. The internal boundary is needed to guard against excessive self-centredness, against her exclusive concern with her own well-being, against her failure to assess the adverse impact of her well-being on the well-being of others. If we try to establish the external factors which can affect adversely the exercise of positive freedom, we could again point to conflict of moral authorities. We could even turn to a similar set of examples where values that are better harmonised with one’s well-being clash with values held as a matter of moral conviction. But in this case, it would be the choice of the former over the latter that would cause the threat to positive liberty. An example of such a clash would be holding a job that pays well but which compromises one’s moral convictions. Deciding to stay on this job would prevent one from exercising positive freedom. And depending on how morally disagreeable the job is, choosing

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom 227 to hold this job may compromise one’s freedom altogether. Such scenarios are not addressed by Berlin until the end of IN, where he shows awareness of the possibility of overinvestment in negative freedom to an extent that is morally disagreeable. ‘Least of all’ he argues ‘does [individual liberty] call for abdication by individuals or groups from democratic self-government of the society, after their own nicely calculated corner has been made secure and fenced in against others, leaving all the rest to the play of power politics’ (IN: 53). This shows that the negative freedom Berlin champions cannot serve as a justification for people to put all their efforts into feathering their nest and to neglect their social roles. But, as I discussed in the previous chapter, Berlin does not draw the conceptual conclusions of his admission that negative freedom could also be perverted into the opposite of liberty. What I would argue here is that the lack of good protection of positive freedom may lead to a perversion of negative freedom and in this sense to non-freedom. A proper protection of positive freedom – that is, protecting an environment that encourages one to take duties seriously – prevents negative freedom from turning into non-freedom. Upholding the internal freedom boundary for the sake of positive freedom by having reasonable expectations from others to perform their duties could pre-empt the undesirable aspects of negative freedom: aspects which Berlin saw as ‘compatible with exploitation, brutality and injustice’ (IN: 38). We can see how the internal boundary helps us to find and uphold the external one. Again, we have to make clear that the full analysis of such scenarios of freedom deprivation has to include a specification of the moral and political authorities which facilitate this. Table 6.2 shows graphically the internal boundary between the two freedoms (marked as IB) and the two external boundaries on either side of the two freedoms (marked as EB). In normal21 circumstances vacillation between the two freedoms should not raise a cause for concern. As the third criterion for the distinction suggests, in

Table 6.2 The internal boundary (IB) between the two freedoms and the external boundaries (EB) around them Non-freedom EB Negative IB Positive freedom EB Non-freedom associated with freedom associated with perversion perversion of negative of positive freedom freedom Enforced service Prioritising Serving the Failing to serve to the common service to common good the common good leading to the common while focusing good and thus significant loss good over primarily on compromising of well-being other personal one’s own one’s wellobjectives well-being being and but within the damaging the framework of well-being of a reconsidered others well-being

228  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom normal circumstances one seeks negative freedom, but when duties are not in conflict and are able to be harmonised, one’s well-being could comfortably accommodate one’s moral commitments. In normal circumstances the choice to pursue positive freedom should not be dramatic: even if one were to prioritise service to a particular common good at some personal cost, this could only be temporary, as one should be able to return to the more routine pursuit of well-being without significant loss to meaningful personal objectives. Someone could choose to take an additional domestic duty to help his spouse or additional work to help out his colleagues, but if there are no fundamental disagreements or circumstances that make valued options impossible, then such an exercise of positive freedom should not limit in a more radical fashion his negative freedom. In normal circumstances the internal freedom boundary is harder to pinpoint and not in need of upholding. In fact, there it would be counterproductive. This is because in normal circumstances well-being and duty should not be in tension but in unison enhancing each other. Therefore, an internal freedom boundary would only interrupt the natural continuity between well-being and duty. This brings us again to circumstances that are not normal – circumstances in which one of the two freedoms is genuinely threatened. There are cases where the only way to stay free is the choice of positive freedom. And there are cases where the only way to allow a person to experience freedom is by protecting her negative freedom. Examples of the first case would include a soldier captured by the enemy and asked to betray his fellow fighters. This would be a case where only positive freedom is possible: that is, where he chooses to sacrifice himself but protect his comrades. His negative freedom, that is, the advancement of his well-being, is no longer an option – whether he chooses to collaborate with the enemy or not. Cases where only negative freedom is possible will include situations where a person’s survival, security or livelihood are at stake, where he is unable to exercise moral responsibility and therefore could not be held morally responsible – situations in which many workers and tenant farmers in Victorian Britain found themselves and for whose well-being improvement Green pleaded in LLL. Such people cannot be expected to serve the community before they find their own bearings and gain some level of control over their own fate. The times when only one of the two freedoms is possible give us another context where the internal freedom boundary is important. The soldier captured by the enemy or a dying person who could agree to donate her organs must be able to see the possibility of positive freedom in order to be able to exercise it. Indeed, most moral dilemmas can be properly faced and acted on only through the exercise of positive freedom. In this sense the belief that positive freedom is possible is crucial and this belief does rest on the understanding of how exactly positive freedom is different from negative. Without an understanding of positive freedom, one would not be able to experience hard choices as free. Such cases give pertinence to the positive/negative freedom distinction: neither of the two freedoms would be fully understood and, in difficult situations, successfully protected without it. The internal boundary has to be understood even if ideally one would not need to uphold it: that is, ideally the exercise of one of the freedoms should not threaten

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom  229 the exercise of the other. But the fact that the internal boundary becomes significant only in a crisis does not make it less relevant. Crises happen more often than we want them to. But also the internal boundary gives vital clues about the external boundaries. The perversions of positive freedom are different from the perversions of negative freedom, and if we take the internal boundary seriously we will be able to see better where or what the external boundaries are. The two paradigm cases of unfreedom which the internal boundary helps us see are the enforcement of duty on the one hand and the full relinquishing of duty on the other (see Table 6.2). The understanding of the positive/negative freedom distinction helps us explain why the real threats to freedom are the threats to well-being and moral motivation.

Conclusion The chapter shows the ways in which the theme of value pluralism develops the distinction between positive and negative freedom. ‘The one and the many’ confirms, complicates and develops further the rationale for a dual conception of freedom. It confirms the rationale for a dual conception to the extent that negative freedom, in its radical value pluralist version, challenges authority, while positive freedom reinforces it. However, the chapter showed that, ultimately, the case is the opposite. The initial positive freedom of Berlin’s monist has become the negative freedom of the agent aiming to advance his personal well-being. The negative freedom of Berlin’s value pluralist can be exercised only by someone who becomes a moral agent. Such moral agency would depend on capacity for transformation and preparedness for sacrifice and hopefully should not be called for on a frequent basis. Throughout the entire TCL Berlin has been committed to the ordinary freedom of ordinary people. In the context of the value pluralism debate, this is the freedom of people who want to pursue their own values in their own cultural settings. If he were to stay consistent with this, it is their freedom which should be his prime concern, not so much the freedom of the value pluralist. It is their freedom that should be conceptualised in negative terms, if we define negative freedom, as I have done in this book, as the capacity to advance one’s personal well-being. The conclusion here is that my first criterion for the positive/negative freedom distinction is the least stable and enlightening of the three. Depending on circumstances, one can affirm authorities in the context of pursuing negative freedom and can also challenge them in the context of exercising positive freedom. So the relation-to-authority criterion works only to the extent that it captures what is at stake with the ‘ordinary versus moral agency’ criterion, which reflects one’s manner of engagement with the common good. In the context of negative freedom, the lead motivation is personal well-being, while in the context of positive freedom, it is the common good. So I claim that the discussion of value pluralism complicates the distinction to the extent that it poses a serious challenge to the relation-toauthority criterion for the distinction.

230  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom Finally, Berlin’s vision of value pluralism develops further the rationale of a meaningful distinction between positive and negative freedom. It reveals a particular dynamism in the exercise of the two types of liberty. It shows how actions that have been categorised as moral and thus exceptional can become part of one’s routine pursuits. It shows how a positive freedom can become negative. We can capture and explain this through the third criterion for the distinction – ‘routineness versus exceptionality’. The transition of positive into negative freedom is exemplified by the case of the monist who pursues final values. On one level such commitment can be heroic and self-denying and this is the reason why Berlin has associated it with positive freedom. But as the final section of TCL shows, this commitment to ultimate ends can be routinized and become one’s normal mode of pursuing happiness and security. Berlin should not be unhappy with this outcome. This form of routinizing positive freedom is desirable, as in this case the service to the common good has become an organic part of one’s own well-being. There is however an undesirable scenario of routinizing positive freedom: this is the case where circumstances compel you to serve the common good and to abandon your own good, on a permanent basis. This is what happens when values are incommensurable. What I have tried to show here, however, is that incommensurability of values is circumstantial not permanent. My reading of the distinction between positive and negative freedom places certain limits on the overall understanding of freedom. There are features which both concepts, as defined here, share. They are both underpinned by the process of moral development and as such neither can be expressed in terms that purposefully exclude references to human agency. The ‘value’ aspect of freedom which Berlin’s discussion of value pluralism places centre stage has been very useful in eliciting the moral dimension of both of the concepts. The theme of moral development explains why the distinction between the two concepts is needed and how it works. The moral agency which occupies the top end of the moral developmental curve has a different status from the ordinary agency which covers the curve itself but not its top point. Theoretically, what distinguishes moral agency is subordination of the personal to the common good. Practically, this subordination is made necessary by clashes between common goods which occur in circumstances of ideological conflict, general hardship and moral dilemmas. These are the circumstances of value incommensurability. The discussion of value pluralism does not prove that monism and positive freedom are ethically deficient. It proves that the aspiration for positive freedom is a pervasive feature of human experience, but it also proves that we cannot experience freedom fully or act responsibly towards the freedom of others unless we are capable of questioning our routine commitments to the common good. It shows that at the most fundamental level freedom is about the pursuit of moral values and that the mindful protection of the freedom of all implies preparedness to think beyond ideological allegiances. In the end Berlin puts the distinction on the correct, higher, footing where the first liberty is that of moral development and the second one is about the actual exercise of moral agency.

Value pluralism and the duality of freedom  231

Notes 1 See also Gray (1995: 168); Crowder (2004: 171). For a more general discussion on the link between liberalism and pluralism see also Raz (1986), Berlin and Williams (1994), Newey (1997), Tamir (1998), Gray (2000a, 2000b), Jones (2006), Lassman (2006), Ferrell (2009), Talisse (2010), Riley (2013) and Hiruta (2014) among others. 2 Crowder also argues that ‘By the end of his life pluralism emerges as one of the two principal moral themes, to set beside his liberal commitment to individual freedom’ (Crowder, 2004: 125). Gray argues that Berlin’s opposition to the idea that ‘values cohere in an harmonious whole’ ‘undoubtedly constitutes his master idea’ (Gray, 1984: 344). 3 Several key themes in contemporary political theory reflect and develop further Berlin’s rejection of monism in the context of his discussion of value pluralism. These themes include the critique of comprehensive moral, philosophical and religious doctrines, the critique of perfectionism and the belief that individuals’ capacity to choose between comprehensive doctrines can be protected if the state remains neutral towards such doctrines. Engagement with these themes can be found in the works of John Rawls, Stuart Hampshire, Joseph Raz, Steven Lukes, Thomas Nagel, Charles Taylor, Martha Nussbaum, Charles Larmore and John Gray, among others. 4 Avital Simhony (personal communication) pointed out that this echoes Macedo’s claim: ‘Liberalism imposes burdens of choice on individuals in a pluralistic milieu without the assurance of complete and final right answers to the question of how to live’ (Macedo, 1991: 280). 5 Gray includes Felix Oppenheim, J.P. Day and William Parent as exponents of different versions of the restrictivist thesis. 6 To find more about the ideas of the ‘pure negative’ scholars see Hillel Steiner (1994), Ian Carter (1999), Matthew Kramer (2003), Harbour (2012) and Shnayderman (2013). 7 Gray builds on Benn and Weinstein’s definition of freedom as ‘non restriction of options’ (Gray, 1984: 337). Gray argues that ‘a freedom promoting policy is one which expands the options open to men, and this (on Berlin’s own account) must include diminishing internal and subjective restrictions on the availability of options. . . . I would argue that the general commitment to freedom actually comprehends a commitment to an open society in which rival models of thought and life conflict and compete’ (Gray, 1984: 342). 8 See the discussions in Chapters Two and Four. 9 For the extent of similarity between Green’s and Berlin’s understanding of the exercise of positive freedom see Tables 3.3 and 4.1. 10 Components 2, 3 and 4 have been discussed in Chapters Two and Four. 11 See Green’s critique of Hegel’s idea that freedom is realised in the institution of the state: To an Athenian slave, who might be used to gratify a master’s lust, it would have been a mockery to speak of the state as a realisation of freedom; and perhaps it would not be much less so to speak of it as such to an untaught and under-fed denizen of London yard with gin-shops on the right hand and on the left (DSF: 233). 12 See Crowder (2007: 134), (2004: 157). 13 We need ideal values in order to articulate the deficiencies of practised values. The question about the quality of values – that is, evaluation of values – cannot be fully cast aside as many value pluralists have tried to do. The capacity to critique ways of life relies on the ability to articulate superior values. Crowder acknowledges the need to question and critique ways of life but resolves this problem by focusing on the protection of plurality of goods. He claims that if value pluralism is to avoid the pitfalls of cultural relativism, ‘then it must refer primarily to the plurality of goods, not cultures’ (Crowder, 2004: 36). Gray also places a lot of trust in diversity as a way of overcoming

232  Value pluralism and the duality of freedom

14 15 16 17 18

19

20 21

the undesirable impact of the incommensurability of values. For him, a key feature of a liberal society is its capacity to ‘render a diversity of options and life styles subjectively accessible to men, without which they must fail to attain the status of free men’ (1984: 343). However, I believe that value pluralists place too much trust in the plurality of values as a means of addressing value-based disagreements. I argue that the capacity to critique ways of life can be addressed but not fully resolved by protection of diversity, be it of ideal or of practised values. The step value pluralists should – but do not – take is to acknowledge the necessity of argumentation in support of a higher-quality value. The capacity to critique ways of life depends on the capacity to show that some values are superior to others. This in itself does not pre-empt incompatibility of values or reject the possibility of incommensurability of values. The claim for incommensurability of values captures something more specific than the conflict of values, as Section 4 here will show. The former is a normative recommendation for suspending evaluation of values in particular circumstances: circumstances of ideological conflict where the victory of one side will cause significant damage to the way of life of the other. Although Berlin makes this claim in the context of explaining Kant’s ideas, it captures what Berlin himself believes to be the case. A pure involvement with one’s own personal well-being does not count as a service to the common good. However, involvement with others’ personal well-being does count as such. See the discussion in Chapter Three. ‘There is no such thing really as a conflict of duties’ (Green, 1890: 355). Avital Simhony pointed out to me (personal communication) that Green’s defence of positive freedom in LLL, as well as in part of his Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, is about the ideological conflict between laissez-faire negative liberalism and the newly emerging positive or social liberalism, although Green’s discussion of conflict of duties in the Prolegomena to Ethics lacks an ideological dimension as I say. However, she believes that even the Prolegomena is not free of an ideological dimension, as evidenced in sections such as 206–14, 240–5, 258–9, 264, 266–7. My reply to this is that the awareness of the ideological conflict I try to convey in support of Berlin’s value pluralism is not simply about the appreciation of the ideological dimension of moral arguments. My point is that significant ideological conflicts can cause regrettable loss on either side of the conflict, even the allegedly less just one. Berlin succeeds in taking a ‘meta’ view of ideological confrontations, even though he is open on which side he personally stands. The British idealists do not take such a ‘meta’ view: Green positions himself on a particular side of such a confrontation, as Simhony points out. One could question the desirability of taking such a ‘meta’ view, but this would be a different argument. This chapter demonstrated that the cases of discrepancy between personal well-being and common good are in essence cases of discrepancies between different common goods. This is because personal well-being has internalised a particular form of the common good. See Chapter Four, Section 7. One could argue that I should say not ‘normal’ but ‘favourable’ circumstances, indicating that the environment where ideological conflict or economic hardships are lacking is not necessarily normal but purposefully created.

Conclusion

In this book I have argued that freedom is best understood as a dynamic interaction between two inseparable yet fundamentally opposed positive and negative concepts. To use a metaphor from Chinese philosophy, these twin concepts are the yin and yang of freedom. Negative freedom is the freedom to pursue one’s own well-being, while positive freedom is the freedom we exercise as moral agents. The two concepts are fundamentally opposed, since exercising positive freedom typically requires sacrificing our own well-being to some extent – for example, to raise a family, to learn a complex new skill, to pursue the common good. Yet the two concepts also interact dynamically, because exercising positive freedom may gradually integrate the moral goal with our own well-being through a process of personal development over time – for example, growing love for the child one is caring for, growing enjoyment of the skill one is learning, growing commitment to the common cause one is fighting for. The nature and extent of this process of integration depends on the political and personal challenges we face and the choices we make. In this book I have argued that we need two concepts of freedom because depending on a range of factors, the freedoms we pursue may be fundamentally different – different in the sense that an essential aspect of one of the freedoms is excluded from the other one. In circumstances of political clashes, ideological conflicts and moral dilemmas, the exercise of freedom may entail the temporary suspension of the pursuit of one’s own well-being: well-being which in normal circumstances represents an essential aspect of freedom. Positive freedom is the freedom we exercise as moral agents and it depends on one’s capacity to prioritise the common good over one’s personal good. This prioritising, however, does not amount to self-abnegation: Berlin misrepresented positive freedom when he described it in those terms. Positive freedom is possible because we are capable of fusing the good of others with our own good and thereby expanding the parameters of our well-being to a point where, even if we were to prioritise the common good over this well-being, this can be done willingly and can bring authentic satisfaction. Positive freedom is also possible because the values or the moral ideals which inspire us to do more good are appealing to us: we understand them; possibly we have articulated them ourselves. In this sense the normative dimension of positive freedom is significant. The credibility of the moral ideals

234  Conclusion which determine the actions that make one positively free is an important aspect of positive freedom. These ideas must serve the interest of the whole community affected by one’s actions. If somebody proves successfully that the justification of my moral conduct is faulty and that its overall impact is detrimental to others, then I would not be exercising positive freedom. The credibility of the ideals we pursue affects our positive freedom. In this sense we cannot determine whether I am positively free or not without assessing the quality of my values or ideals. Conceptual and normative analyses are intertwined. The same however applies to negative freedom. Negative freedom is about one’s capacity to advance one’s well-being, but well-being implies some engagement with the common good. The difference from positive freedom is that negative freedom allows one more space to experiment with values and ideals. It is unrealistic to expect that one thinks through the moral implications of every single action undertaken on a daily basis. But moral decisions can become significant even in the context of one’s pursuit of one’s own well-being. If personal choices have a notable impact on others then moral questions have to be properly addressed; otherwise one may be in a position where development is stunted and well-being will not improve: in other words one may lose negative freedom. The authors who campaigned for unconditional protection of personal space did so to preserve and foster the capacity to act humanely and responsibly, on the presumption that this is an essential aspect of self-respect. The boundary which Constant drew around modern liberty and the wall Berlin raised to protect negative freedom in order to shield individuals from the moral pressures society puts them under were created for the purpose or preserving one’s potential to develop as a human being. Both writers had moral development in mind – not only personal thriving. So negative freedom has to be such that positive freedom is possible. One’s well-being constitutes an exercise of negative freedom if it does not close off the possibility of prioritising the common good if needed. In this sense the outcome of normative debates also affects the adjudication of whether one is negatively free. Personal aspirations which shape the nature of one’s well-being have consequences and our assessment of these aspirations informs our decision to support or not to support other people’s negative freedom. In this sense the two concepts of freedom implied in the positive/negative freedom distinction produce a distinctive overall understanding of freedom. Green has been particularly successful in showing how our experience of freedom is associated with our development: development in terms of self-improvement, in terms of character development, in terms of improvement of living conditions and in terms of advancing our objectives, be they personal or publicly oriented. This development could take different directions, some of them better – where well-being is really improved and one fits more comfortably into one’s social environment – and some worse – when fulfilment of one’s desire makes one’s condition worse and causes overall damage to others. Given this variation, the objective of development is important in the adjudication of whether one is free or not. Understanding personal development and being able to assess the nature of its objectives is crucial for the exercise of both positive and negative freedom.

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Index

Note: Page numbers in italic indicate a figure and page numbers in bold indicate a table on the corresponding page. Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes. achievement 57, 72, 75, 76, 77, 103, 116, 131, 135, 137, 139, 140, 154, 157, 160, 161, 163, 165n7, 167n27, 183, 220 adaptation 155 – 56, 157, 159 Adolphe 56 agency 15 – 16; moral agency 7, 8, 9 – 10, 10, 11, 16, 17, 64, 66, 69, 71, 72, 76, 78 – 82, 84, 85, 86, 88, 90, 95, 98, 100, 101, 102, 104, 107, 111 – 12, 114 – 15, 117, 118, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126n7, 131, 132, 135, 139, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 149, 149, 151, 152, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165n7, 166n15, 167n27, 181, 184, 185, 194, 195, 200, 209, 210 – 11, 213 – 14, 218, 219 – 20, 222, 223, 226, 229, 230; ordinary agency 213 – 14, 230; see also moral agency alcohol 63, 116 altruism 55; see also sacrifice; selfabnegation ancient liberty 16, 21, 27, 32 – 36, 60n15; and fourfold freedom matrix 47, 59; hedonic critique 38 – 40; vs modern liberty 25 – 32; for modern people 31 – 32, 32 – 36, 58; political critique of 36 – 38; virtue critique of 40 – 46; see also Constant, Benjamin area, the 168, 181 – 87; see also Berlin, Isaiah; boundaries aristocratic liberalism 61n20 artists 186 Asquith, H.H. 91n4 authority(ies) 2, 8 – 9, 14, 124; authority as such 8 – 9, 65, 129 – 30, 168, 188, 193, 219, 221, 222, 224; Berlin, Isaiah, on 130 – 31, 134; and common good

65 – 66; and external freedom boundary 188; modern authorities 33, 35, 36, 195; modern dictatorship 34, 36, 42, 44, 130; and modern liberty 59; moral authorities (social norms) 9 – 10, 11, 12, 13, 21, 48, 50, 52, 58 – 59, 59, 83, 124, 125, 130, 132, 141, 142, 144, 147, 148, 151, 152, 153, 154, 160, 161, 162, 164, 165, 165n4, 171, 177, 187, 188, 189, 194, 195, 221 – 22, 223 – 24, 225, 226; political authorities 9 – 10, 10, 12, 26, 29, 33, 37, 38, 47, 50, 58, 59, 59, 61n23, 83, 85, 90 – 91, 94, 97, 111, 124, 134, 141, 145, 146, 147, 165n4, 171, 187, 188, 190, 191, 193, 194, 221, 223, 226, 227; and true freedom 83 – 85, 90 – 91; see also institutions; laws; moral authorities; political authorities autonomy 5, 45, 196n1; quality of agency 17, 74, 132, 155, 159, 164, 169, 170, 176, 179, 184 Berkeley, George 67 Berlin, Isaiah 1, 2, 3 – 5, 6, 15, 129 – 36, 234; and ancient liberty 41; and authorities 8 – 9, 14; and boundaries 168 – 71, 181 – 87, 196 – 97; and Constant, Benjamin 22 – 23; and excellence 136 – 41, 159 – 62; and fourfold freedom matrix 193 – 95; vs Green, T.H. 139, 142; and incommensurability of values 214 – 19; and monism 201 – 5; and moral authorities 13, 148 – 54; and moral development 209 – 14; and noninterference 176 – 81; and perfectionism 162 – 63; and political authorities

246 Index 145 – 48; and self-transformation 141 – 45, 154 – 59, 163 – 65; and threats to freedom 187 – 93; and value pluralism 199 – 208, 229 – 30, 231n3; and wellbeing 171 – 76; see also value pluralism Bosanquet, Bernard 127n15; and juristic freedom 104; and the self 106; and true freedom 85 boundaries 168 – 71, 181 – 87, 196 – 97; see also Berlin, Isaiah Bourbon Restoration 22, 34 bullying 168 capability 94 capacity 114 capitalism 133 care/caring 44, 85, 123, 128n30, 155, 156, 218, 225, 226, 233 certainty 204 character 20n11, 44, 54, 56, 68, 72, 85, 91n6, 102, 113, 139, 142, 149, 162, 170, 178, 184, 207, 213, 216, 234 choice 3, 26, 27, 36, 47, 50, 56, 89, 94, 105, 106, 112, 128n30, 153, 154, 160, 173, 189, 190, 193, 196n1, 203, 204, 207, 208, 214, 217 – 18, 226, 228, 231n4 choices 153 – 54, 203 citizenship 42 – 44, 96 – 97, 117 – 20 civil liberty 41 coercion 136, 166n24; see also power Cold War 133, 197n14 collective self-determination 166n15 colonialism 1, 197n14 commerce 29 common good 114, 233; and authorities 65 – 66; and Green, T.H. 63, 80, 91n6; and higher self 196n4; and moral agency 223; and rebellion 195; and the self 152; and self-development 187; and true freedom 71, 128n31; and value pluralism 173 – 75, 215 – 17; and values 212; vs well-being improvement 130 communism 133 – 34, 192; anticommunism 129 completion 5, 66, 72, 76, 112, 132, 152, 153, 159, 160, 163, 185, 186 – 87, 210 compulsion 3; see also coercion conceptualisation: area of liberty 180, 182, 183, 184, 189; conceptual boundaries 97, 168; dual conceptualisation 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 15, 18, 22 – 23, 24, 35, 36, 51, 52, 59, 62, 64, 65, 83, 115, 120, 121 – 22, 126n3, 129, 130, 222;

duality 21, 23, 46, 96, 111, 200, 201; external freedom boundary (external boundary) 18, 171, 188, 191, 226; the fourfold freedom matrix 10, 47, 59, 124, 166n15, 171, 193, 193; frontier/s of liberty 169, 175 – 78, 181 – 87; internal freedom boundary (internal boundary) 18, 19, 120 – 23, 129, 130, 169, 171, 175, 188, 191, 193, 196, 225, 226, 227, 228; normative concept/s 86, 109 conscience 3, 18, 42, 57, 59, 150, 151, 162, 169, 171, 173, 184, 185 Constant, Benjamin 3 – 4, 6, 15, 21 – 25, 58 – 60, 61n18; Adolphe 56; and ancient liberty 32 – 36, 60n15; and authorities 14; and de Staël, Germaine 22, 60n4; and egalitarianism 61n22; and hedonic critique of ancient liberty 38 – 40; and individuality 52 – 57; Liberty of the Ancients as Compared with That of the Moderns (LACM) 21, 25 – 32; and modern liberty 46 – 52, 60n8, 61n19, 234; and moral authorities 13; and political critique of ancient liberty 36 – 38; and virtue critique of ancient liberty 40 – 46 control 137; see also authorities democracy 4; and Berlin, Isaiah 170; and modern liberty 26; and non-interference 176; and open doors 189 – 91 despotism 42 de Staël, Germaine 22, 60n4 development; developmental agency 7, 183; moral development 16, 18, 47, 52, 57, 59, 63, 69, 72, 76, 80, 81, 82, 83, 90, 92n15, 93n25, 94 – 95, 102, 112, 115, 118, 119, 120, 122, 125, 126n7, 134, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 148, 149, 152, 153, 166n21, 175, 185, 199 – 200, 201, 204 – 5, 208, 209, 210, 210, 211 – 12, 213, 214 – 15, 218, 219, 223, 224, 226, 230, 234; moral growth 50, 84, 111, 124, 125; moral progress 16, 78, 83, 88, 118 dictatorships 42 dignity 90, 157, 158, 168 – 69, 181, 184, 194, 218 desire 2, 12, 13, 16, 29, 35, 40, 44, 48, 51, 53, 54, 55, 57, 63, 67 – 68, 73, 74, 81, 82, 84, 89, 99, 100, 137, 139, 139, 140, 142, 151, 158, 160, 162, 163, 177, 193, 195, 234

Index  247 disobedience 205; see also rebellion diversity xiii, 1, 39, 61n20, 204, 208, 231 – 32n13 dual conceptualisation see two-concept theories duty(ies) 59, 216 – 18; clashes/conflict of duties 216, 218, 232n17, 232n18 egalitarianism 61n22 elite/elitist 44, 53, 61n20 empirical self 132, 142 – 44, 149, 149 – 53, 151, 160, 210; see also ordinary agent; self-transformation empiricism 91n7, 202 – 3 Employers Liability Act 107 – 8 enjoyment 29 – 30, 48 – 49; see also satisfaction equality 1, 6, 21, 22, 41, 43, 44, 133, 172, 173, 183, 191, 205, 210 escapism 155 – 56, 158 ethical naturalism 88 – 89 evaluation 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 231 – 32n13 evolution 91n7 excellence 7, 8; and Berlin, Isaiah 136 – 41, 159 – 62; and moral development 210 exploitation xiii, 14, 19, 63, 65, 87, 94, 114, 115, 119, 130, 168, 180, 188, 192, 195, 226, 227 external freedom boundary 169, 188, 191, 225 – 28, 227; see also boundaries feminism 5 formal freedom 69, 92n8, 97 – 103, 115; vs juristic freedom 95, 98, 103, 126n9; and moral actions 100 – 101; and true freedom 102 – 3; and will 73; see also Green, T.H. fourfold freedom matrix 10, 10 – 11, 12 – 15; and Berlin, Isaiah 171, 193 – 95; and Constant, Benjamin 59; and Green, T.H. 124 – 25 free action 92n20 free contracts 85, 108, 110 freedom (liberty): ancient liberty 3, 6, 15 – 16, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 31, 32, 32 – 33, 35 – 36, 37, 38, 39 – 40, 41 – 42, 43, 44 – 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 59, 59, 60n10, 60 – 61n15, 61n17; freedom (liberty) as such 5, 40, 51, 61n19, 66, 132, 168, 192, 193, 198n21, 199, 231n11; freedom as capability 6, 62, 94, 171, 194; freedom

as non-interference 8, 64, 91n3, 170; formal freedom 69, 73 – 74, 92n8, 95, 97 – 103, 105, 106, 114, 115, 126 – 27n9; individual liberty 5, 27, 28, 37, 49, 50, 51, 116, 172, 174 – 75, 177, 186, 197n7, 198n21, 227; inner freedom 71; juristic freedom 6, 16, 64, 69, 70 – 71, 72, 74, 76, 77 – 78, 79, 82, 84, 87, 92n15, 95 – 96, 97, 98, 103 – 7, 114, 115, 117, 118, 126n6, 126n7, 126 – 27n9, 135; modern liberty 3, 4, 7, 11, 14, 16, 21 – 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29 – 30, 31, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 47 – 48, 49, 50 – 51, 52 – 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 59, 60n5, 60n8, 60 – 61n15, 61n17, 61n19, 61n23, 65, 105, 121, 130, 222, 234; moral freedom 14 – 15, 40, 42, 43, 84, 88, 99, 101, 113, 114, 166n22; moral positive freedom 12, 125, 194, 195; moral negative freedom 12, 125, 194 – 95; non-freedom 207, 225, 227, 227; outer freedom 155; political liberty 16, 20n11, 23, 27, 31, 31, 32, 33, 35, 40, 44, 46, 48, 51, 53, 58, 60n5, 60 – 61n15, 104; political positive freedom 124, 125 – 26, 166n15, 194, 195; political negative freedom 12, 124 – 25, 194, 195; pure negative freedom 6, 206; republican freedom 6, 34, 40, 41, 43, 45, 94, 171; social freedom 5; true freedom 8, 11, 16 – 17, 43 – 44, 51, 52, 62, 64 – 66, 68 – 69, 70 – 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77 – 78, 79 – 80, 81, 82 – 83, 84 – 85, 86, 87 – 88, 89, 90, 92n15, 92n19, 92n22, 93n31, 95, 96, 97 – 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 110 – 11, 112, 113, 114, 115, 115, 116, 117 – 18, 119, 120, 122, 123 – 24, 124, 125 – 26, 126n7, 126n8, 126 – 27n9, 127n18, 127 – 28n22, 128n23, 128n, 137, 139, 139, 140, 141, 146, 163, 164, 165n7, 166n15, 195, 209, 219, 226 freedom of religion 45 free will 67 French Revolution 22, 25, 31, 34 frontier, the 175 – 76, 181 – 87, 197n12; see also Berlin, Isaiah; boundaries gender equality 210 Gladstone, William Ewart 108 good: common good (clashes of common goods) 216, 218, partiality (partial nature) of the common good 201, 215;

248 Index service to the common good 12, 79, 82, 87, 120, 121, 123, 126n7, 130, 141, 152, 161, 174, 176, 195, 212, 213, 214, 217, 219, 223, 224, 225, 227, 230, 232n15; personal good 11, 81, 82, 100, 114, 150, 213, 214, 223, 233 Gray, John 200, 206 – 9 Green, T.H. 3 – 4, 6, 15, 62 – 66, 94 – 97; and authorities 9, 82 – 83, 85 – 86; vs Berlin, Isaiah 139, 142; and citizenship 117 – 20; and common good 91n6; and development 234; On the Different Sense of ‘Freedom’ 66 – 71, 138; and duty 59 – 60; and formal freedom 92n8, 97 – 103; fourfold analysis of 124 – 26; and idealism 91n7; and internal freedom boundary 120 – 23; and juristic freedom 103 – 7; Lecture on Liberal Legislation (LLL) 107 – 12, 109; and moral development 83 – 84; and morality 112 – 15; and perfection 92n33; and satisfaction 84 – 85; and self-reliance 115 – 17; and true freedom 123 – 24, 165n7; see also juristic freedom; true freedom Ground Game Act 107 – 8 happiness 3, 59 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 2, 68 heroes/heroic behaviour 219, 222, 230 higher self 132, 142, 142 – 45, 149, 150 – 53, 151, 160, 196n4, 199, 210; see also moral agent; self-transformation historical context 24, 131, 132, 190 Hobbes, Thomas 2 Hobhouse, L.T. 17, 148, 151 – 52 human rights 128n27 Hume, David 67 idealism 13; and common goods 215; and Green, T.H. 63, 91n7; and moral development 149; and the self 151 – 53 ideals 57, 205 – 6, 209 – 10, 212, 215, 219, 220, 233 – 34; see also values ideology(ies) 133, 166n9, 203 – 4; ideological clashes 217 ideological conflicts 133, 135 – 36, 200, 201, 217, 218, 219, 230, 231 – 32n13, 232n18, 232n21 individuality 24, 52 – 57 indoctrination 51, 144 inequalities 1 institutions 2 – 3, 146; and Berlin, Isaiah 170; and Green, T.H. 83, 111; and

human rights 14; and social justice 87; and values 210 – 11; see also authorities internal freedom boundary 19, 120 – 23, 165n5, 169, 187 – 88, 191, 196, 225 – 28, 227; see also boundaries inversion thesis 147 juristic freedom 62, 64, 69 – 71, 103 – 7, 115, 126n6; and authorities 79 – 80; vs formal freedom 95, 98, 126n9; vs true freedom 72, 76 – 77, 126n7; see also Green, T.H. justice 205 Kant, Immanuel 2, 3, 68, 95, 98 – 99, 101, 143 law 3, 42, 68, 69, 74, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 99, 101, 103, 111, 113, 116, 117, 118, 136, 183, 184 laws 83, 183; see also authorities; legislation Lecture on Liberal Legislation 96, 107 – 13, 109; and morality 113 – 17; and selfreliance 117 – 20; see also Green, T.H. legal freedom 105 legislation 65, 107 – 8; see also laws legitimacy 38 leisure 3, 11, 13, 39, 47, 48 liberal freedom 109 liberalism 13, 60n2, 106 – 10, 181; Cold War liberalism 131, 133, 164, 170, 196n2; New Liberalism 63, 148 living conditions 102, 109 Locke, John 2, 67 MacCallum, Gerald 4 – 5 manipulation 34, 42, 170, 179, 180 martyrdom 155 – 56, 157 – 58, 159; see also self-abnegation Marx, Karl 2 mental conditioning 157 metaphors 178; ‘open doors’ metaphor 189 – 91, 198n20; ‘true freedom’ metaphor 70, 105 methodology 104, 138 Mill, J.S. 9, 52, 54, 130, 177 millionaires 186 modern liberty 11, 14 – 15, 16, 21, 23, 27, 31 – 32, 46 – 52, 58 – 59, 60n8; vs ancient liberty 25 – 32; and fourfold freedom matrix 47, 59; and individuality 52 – 57; and private sphere 24; see also Constant, Benjamin

Index  249 monism 200, 201 – 5, 220 – 21 moral action 91n6; see also moral agency moral agency 7, 8, 10, 209, 210, 213 – 14; and common good 222 – 23; and development 229 – 30; and noninterference 178 – 79; and the state 111 – 12; and true freedom 64, 71, 78 – 82, 87 – 88; and well-being 11; see also moral action; moral agent; ordinary agent moral agent 209 – 10, 210, 211, 213; see also higher self moral authorities 9 – 10, 10; and Berlin, Isaiah 147, 148 – 54; and fourfold freedom matrix 12 – 13; and Green, T.H. 124 – 25; and monism 221; and moral development 224; vs political authorities 83; and self-transformation 160, 161 – 62; see also authorities moral development 18, 185, 210, 213 – 14; and authorities 166n21; and common good 82; and juristic freedom 92n15; and satisfaction 74 – 78; and true freedom 71 – 72, 82 – 85, 122; and values 200 – 201, 209 – 14; see also selfimprovement; self-transformation moral dilemmas 217 – 19; see also value pluralism moral freedom 99 moral ideals xiii, 88, 134, 144, 151, 154, 162, 163 – 64, 168, 199, 210, 212, 215, 219 – 20, 233 – 34 morality 112 – 15 moral liberty 3 moral responsibility 102 moral pressure 13, 19, 122, 130, 171, 193, 226, 234 Napoleon I 22 natural liberty 3, 41 New Liberalism 63 non-interference 169, 170, 176 – 81, 195 – 96, 197n12, 198n23, 199; see also boundaries normal agency 141 normality 163 objective freedom 85 obstacles 76 – 77, 103 On the Different Sense of ‘Freedom’ 66 – 71, 113 – 14, 138; see also Green, T.H. open doors 179, 189 – 91; see also noninterference

opportunities 1, 5; and capacities 127n17; and moral freedom 88 – 89; and true freedom 93n31 oppression 4, 159; feeling of 78; and selftransformation 161 ordinary agent 210, 213; see also empirical self organic metaphors 145 participation, political 14, 16, 30 – 31 Paul the Apostle, Saint 68 Peel, Robert 108 perfectionism 162 – 63; and Green, T.H. 92n23; and true freedom 11, 92n22 personal development 8, 186 – 87, 198n23 personal dilemmas 1 philosophy: analytical philosophy xii; critical theory 180; moral philosophy 3, 15, 63, 84, 106, 107, 122, 127n15, 131, 134, 136, 140, 141, 145, 147, 148, 164, 174, 181, 199, 223 Plato 68 pleasure 30, 38 – 39, 40, 48 – 49, 51, 54, 58, 80, 84, 99, 100, 142, 149, 157 pleasures 38 – 40; and formal freedom 100 – 101; vs satisfaction 99 pluralism 135 political authorities 9 – 10, 10; and Berlin, Isaiah 136, 145 – 48; and fourfold freedom matrix 12 – 13; and monism 221; vs moral authorities 83; see also authorities political conflicts 1 political freedom 104 political liberty 44; see also ancient liberty political theory xiii, 2, 4, 5, 18, 23, 62, 63, 65, 91n1, 94, 96, 97, 109, 129, 133, 178, 181, 194, 206, 231n3 positive/ability freedom 113 – 14, 115, 115, 117 – 19 positive/true freedom 113 – 14, 115, 123 – 24 positive/negative freedom distinction 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 – 9, 11, 12, 13 – 14, 15 – 19, 64, 65, 66, 83, 91n3, 125, 126n7, 127n15, 132, 141, 159, 160, 161, 165, 166n13, 169, 170, 171, 173, 176, 193, 197n6, 199, 221, 222, 224 – 29, 234 popular sovereignty 21, 34, 38, 41, 42, 43, 45, 61n22, 134 populism 1 poverty 1, 191 – 93 power 41; and juristic freedom 103, 104 – 5; and non-interference 179 – 80; see also coercion

250 Index primary freedom 70 – 71, 105; see also juristic freedom privacy 13, 189; moral sphere 12, 13 – 14, 47, 48, 52, 59, 124, 124; personal sphere 27, 27, 28, 28, 29, 31, 32, 46; private sphere 3, 24, 25, 39, 47, 189 professions 28 professors 186 property 2, 3, 26, 27, 49, 110, 127n19, 155 property rights 3, 110, 127n19 quantitative measurement methods 5 rational determination 101 rationalism 202 – 3 reason 143 – 44; and moral freedom 99; and will 73 rebellion 195; see also disobedience recognition 8, 54, 105, 119 – 20, 126n3, 128n25, 140, 146, 152, 153, 159, 169, 170, 172, 195, 210, 210, 213 relation-to-authority criterion 8 – 9, 10, 10, 124, 130, 219, 221 – 22, 229 religious feelings 55 representative governments 37 – 38 responsibility 14, 52, 55, 56, 59, 82, 86, 102 – 3, 110, 116, 117, 127n14, 135, 139, 142, 195, 199, 205, 210, 228 right objects 74 rights 1, 10, 14, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 37 – 38, 39, 45, 47, 48, 49, 51, 53, 57, 59, 63, 65, 91n5, 105, 108, 110, 119 – 20, 127n19, 128n27, 134, 171, 184, 188, 189, 191, 194: and Green, T.H. 91n5; and legislation 65; and modern liberty 26; see also human rights; property rights Robespierre, Maximilien 40 – 41 romantic love 526 Rousseau, Rene 2, 3, 22, 41, 42 sacrifice 171 – 72; see also self-abnegation Saint-Just, Louis Antoine de 40 – 41 satisfaction 16, 28, 61n17; and ancient liberty 38 – 40; and Constant, Benjamin 24, 29 – 31; and excellence 161; and free action 92n20; and Green, T.H. 68 – 69, 90, 92n13; and modern liberty 51 – 52; and moral development 210; progressive satisfaction 78, 80, 81, 161; vs pleasure 99; and true freedom 66, 71, 73 – 78, 86; see also enjoyment savagery 117 – 18 scepticism 132, 162 – 63

self, the 106; see also empirical self; higher self self-abnegation 17, 132, 155, 158, 197n13; see also martyrdom; sacrifice self-determination 3 self-development 48, 49, 135; see also self-improvement self-fulfilment 155 self-government 3 self-improvement 16, 93n24, 234; and moral agency 81 – 82, 90; and satisfaction 74 – 78; see also moral development; self-development self-mastery 135, 137, 138 – 41, 139 self-realisation 119, 132 self-reliance 109, 115 – 16, 115 – 17 self-transformation 131, 140; and Berlin, Isaiah 141 – 45, 154 – 59, 163 – 65; and political authorities 147; see also moral development selfishness 56 service 2 single-concept theories 5 – 7 slavery 29, 36, 40 Smiles, Samuel 127n21 social belonging 140 social freedom 5 socialisation 215 social justice 87 socioeconomic conditions 191 – 93; see also living conditions; poverty; working conditions Soviet Union 133 spiritual determinism 127n12, 127n14 spontaneity 56 squalor 116 – 17; see also living conditions surveillance 189 success 41, 74, 100, 156, 157, 163, 170, 210 tenant farmers 97, 102, 107 threats 1 totalitarianism 1 trade 28, 28 – 29 transformation 11 – 12, 17, 24, 25, 33, 46, 80, 131, 139, 141, 142, 145, 147, 148, 149, 156, 157, 159, 162, 163, 214, 215, 229 true freedom 11, 17, 62 – 71, 90 – 91, 115; and authorities 83 – 85; and capacities 165n7; and citizenship 118; and common good 128n31; features of 71 – 72; vs juristic freedom 126n7; vs liberal freedom 110; and moral agency 78 – 82; as a normative concept

Index  251 86 – 90; obstacles to 92n18, 92n19; and opportunities 93n31; and perfection 92n22; and satisfaction 73 – 78; vs selfmastery 139; and self-reliance 115 – 17; see also Green, T.H. truth 201, 212 two-concept theories 5 – 7 tyranny 54 Ultra-Royalists 60n14 usurpation 42 utilitarianism 49; hedonism 36, 38, 39, 45 value pluralism 18, 165n2, 197n6, 199 – 201, 229 – 30, 231n13; and authorities 65; and autonomy 196n1; and Berlin, Isaiah 169, 172 – 75; and distinction between negative and positive freedom 219 – 29; and freedom 205 – 9; and individuality 57; and monism 201 – 5; and moral development 209 – 14; see also Berlin, Isaiah values 7, 8; compatibility of values 176, 200, 201, 213, 214, 231 – 32n13; incommensurability of 209, 214 – 19, 231n13; final values 200, 204, 209, 210, 212, 214, 215, 230; harmonization of values 200, 208; ideal values 210, 211, 212, 216 – 17, 231n13; incommensurability of values 18, 197n6,

209, 214 – 19, 230, 231 – 32n13; plurality of values 201, 208, 211, 231 – 32n13; plurality of ways of life 211; practiced values 214; see also ideals virtue 40 – 41; and ancient liberty 42 – 43; and modern liberty 43 – 44, 46 – 48, 51 – 52; and voluntariness 49 – 50 voluntary contract; see also free contract voluntariness 49 – 50, 51 voluntary contract 110, 114, 126 walls 185; see also boundaries war 28, 28 – 29 welfare politics 62 welfare state 133 well-being 1 – 2, 7, 92n9, 233; and Berlin, Isaiah 171 – 76; control of well-being 12, 95, 105, 116, 118, 125, 162; improvement of 94 – 95, 130; and internal freedom boundary 19, 120 – 23; and moral agency 11; and values 211; well-being improvement 63, 94 – 95, 135, 141, 161, 228 will: freedom of the will 67, 82; good and bad will 68, 78, 82, 84, 85, 103 – 4, 116, 128n28, 170; good vs bad 78; and juristic freedom 103 – 4; and true freedom 73 – 74 workers 97, 102, 107, 126n8 working conditions 102, 109, 114