Positive and Negative Liberty

[cheisgreat]

What is the leftist view on Positive vs negative liberty? Would leftists be anti-positive liberty because with pos. liberty there would be more government interference and obviously not a lot of people have the power or resources to fulfill one's 'potential'?

I probably need to check out what Fromm said on the matter...

Sorry if this is in the wrong place by the way.

Cheers.

[Zanthorus]

Would leftists be anti-positive liberty because with pos. liberty there would be more government interference and obviously not a lot of people have the power or resources to fulfill one's 'potential'?

:confused: Why does positive liberty require government interference? If anything government interference is necessary to hold back positive liberty by defending 'The minority of the opulent against the majroity'.

[h0m0revolutionary]

Ageed with above. Positive Liberty alows a person to act according to their will. There is no government necessity to oversee this, the one prerequisite I envisage is having a sufficient level of self-relaisation to enable a person to fully appreciate their will and true desire.

The real debate is how far the dichotomies presented in the debate Positive Vs Negative liberty are even relevent. Both have been widely discredited.

I take the view that liberty matters because people have to have the necessary conditions to truely appareciate the fight for political and social freedoms. But presenting that as fitting squarely into positive or negative I think isn't much of a debate. Most of it is philosophical wankery, without much theoretical foundation.

[cheisgreat]

:confused: Why does positive liberty require government interference? If anything government interference is necessary to hold back positive liberty by defending 'The minority of the opulent against the majroity'.


Well some of the reading I am doing for an essay say what I have said. The question is: 'Does Taylor's positive definition of liberty lead to an excuse for extensive government interference in the lives of citizens?'

[Demogorgon]

It is a false distinction.

Anyway the notion that negative liberty does not require government involvement is laughable. What do its proponents call the police exactly?

[cheisgreat]

It is a false distinction.



So you think there is no real difference between the two? This essay is so hard, political theory isn't my strong point.

[Demogorgon]

So you think there is no real difference between the two? This essay is so hard, political theory isn't my strong point.
No, you are free to do something if there isn't anything preventing you from doing it. If something stops you from doing something you are not free to do it. If something hinders you but doesn't entirely prevent you from doing something then you are partially free to do it.

It doesn't matter one jot whether what is preventing you is law, lack of material means or whatever. Liberal theory has attempted to distinguish between "freedom from" and "freedom to", but how do you separate them? Surely freedom from poverty is as valid as freedom from legal coercion? And of course both in practice require state intervention anyway (in conventional political set ups) so why distinguish them there either?

[Hyacinth]

No, you are free to do something if there isn't anything preventing you from doing it. If something stops you from doing something you are not free to do it. If something hinders you but doesn't entirely prevent you from doing something then you are partially free to do it.

It doesn't matter one jot whether what is preventing you is law, lack of material means or whatever. Liberal theory has attempted to distinguish between "freedom from" and "freedom to", but how do you separate them? Surely freedom from poverty is as valid as freedom from legal coercion? And of course both in practice require state intervention anyway (in conventional political set ups) so why distinguish them there either?
I concur. And I would go even further in saying that the distinction is untenable, insofar as they are internally related. One way that proponents of this distinction attempt to cash it out is by identifying 'freedom from' with absence of constraints, and 'freedom to' with capacity. The problem with this is that any absence of constraint can be rephrased as a capacity. In other words, there is no such thing as (substantive) freedom without a corresponding power. It is empty to say that people are free to do that which they are incapable of doing.

This is worth taking a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_freedom

[Demogorgon]

I concur. And I would go even further in saying that the distinction is untenable, insofar as they are internally related. One way that proponents of this distinction attempt to cash it out is by identifying 'freedom from' with absence of constraints, and 'freedom to' with capacity. The problem with this is that any absence of constraint can be rephrased as a capacity. In other words, there is no such thing as (substantive) freedom without a corresponding power. It is empty to say that people are free to do that which they are incapable of doing.
Yes, that is true I think. I have seen attempts to justify the distinction by appeal to a so called state of nature, but that won't work either. To take a frequently claimed negative right-the right to property-how can that possibly exist in a "state of nature"? After all you will only be able to possess property insofar as you can defend it from those who wish to take it, therefore there is no right to property without a third party there to guarantee it.

This applies to virtually all negative rights too. You often hear Libertarians say something along the lines of "the proper role of Government is to protect the individual's [negative] rights", however in doing so they have just justified a tax funded means to enable rights. That seems to me identical to justifying a tax funded health service to back the (apparently positive) right to healthcare.

Therefore the difference seems to come down to nothing more than "rights I support" and "rights I don't support". Tellingly you rarely hear people using the distinction when they are supporting "positive" rights.