Liberty
Liberty is generally considered a
concept of
political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has immunity from the
arbitrary exercise of
authority.
Political philosophies rooted in individualism and socialism often conceive of liberty differently;
individualist and
liberal conceptions of liberty relate to the freedom of the individual from outside compulsion; a
socialist perspective, for example, equates liberty with
equality, claiming that liberty without equality amounts to the
domination of the most
powerful. In his book,
Two Concepts of Liberty,
Isaiah Berlin framed the differences in these two perspectives as the distinction between two opposite concepts of liberty:
positive liberty and
negative liberty. The latter designates a negative condition in which an individual is protected from
tyranny and the
arbitrary exercise of
authority, while the former implies the right to exercise
civil rights, such as standing for office.
In
political philosophies,
Kant's
philosophy and many postmodern philosophies,
liberty is a
metaphysical idea and often equated with
freedom. In this perspective liberty is conceived as the
attribute of the
will of the
rational subject, thus defining
free will and voluntary actions.
Classical philosophy
Liberty was greatly prized by many
classical writers such as
Aristotle,
Demosthenes,
Cicero and
Tacitus, often in the context of democratic institutions. It was often opposed to
fatalism and other conceptions of
destiny. Christian
theology developed elaborate ideas about the relationship between liberty and the
morality of action, as is seen in the works of
Duns Scotus and
Thomas Aquinas, which would be continued by
Kant, who defined liberty as the
autonomy of the rational
subject. However, the moral conception of liberty, which finds its ultimate definition in Kant's philosophy, went hand-in-hand with a
philosophy of history (or
theodicy) which considered
God (or, in
Hegel's case, the
Weltgeist) of being the ultimate actor of history, instead of
human being itself.
Enlightenment philosophy
The
social contract theory, invented by
Hobbes,
Locke and
Rousseau, was among the first one to provide a political classification of
rights, in particular through the notion of
sovereignty and of
natural rights. The thinkers of the
Enlightenment reasoned the assertion that
law governed both heavenly and human affairs, and that law gave the
king his power, rather than the king's power giving force to law. The
divine right of kings was thus opposed to the
sovereign's unchecked
auctoritas. This conception of law would find its culmination in
Montesquieu's thought. The conception of law as a relationship between individuals, rather than families, came to the fore, and with it the increasing focus on
individual liberty as a fundamental reality, given by "
Nature and ," which, in the
ideal state, would be as expansive as possible. The Enlightenment created then, among other ideas,
liberty: that is, of a free individual being most free within the context of a state which provides stability of the laws. Later, more radical philosophies such as
socialism articulated themselves in the course of the
French Revolution and in the 19th century.
Spinoza's critique of free will
This individualist conception of liberty, based on
free will, was not however shared by all philosophers.
Spinoza criticed this notion as a conception of the
human being as an "empire in an empire", that is as a reality autonomous from Nature and its
laws. According to Spinoza, to be free is not to be able to do whatever one wants (which is only
submission to one's
passions), but to achieve
knowledge of
God, identified in Spinoza's
immanence philosophy with Nature. Thus, the illusion that
determinism is opposed to liberty endures only as long as one does not know the laws governing their actions.
Hegel also criticized the notion of individual freedom which made, as in the social contract theory, the individual
atom the foundation of
society. According to him,
subjectivity was only the effect of a previous
intersubjectivity: the
you and the
we preceded the
I, a conception which would be later explored by
phenomenology and
Lacan's
psychoanalytic theories on the
Mirror stage.
19th century philosophy and the dialectics between liberty and equality
The first half of the
19th century for
Western civilization was marked by a series of turbulent wars and revolutions, such as the
Revolutions of 1848, which gradually formed into an idea and doctrine now identified as
individual liberty. As exposed by the 1789
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the chief philosophical ground for "liberty" in this most recent period has been the idea of
human rights and civil rights, and that human beings are too valuable to be in
slavery (as well as the idea that human beings ought to control their own
destiny). Much of this philosophy stems from
religious views, although
Christians,
Jews,
Muslims and followers of other religions have often practiced
slavery in the past.
The conception of individual liberty was criticized from different angles by
Marx,
Nietzsche and
Freud.
Socialist conceptions (both
anarchist and
marxist, since the division between these two political philosophies would stem from their difference in appreciation of the role of the
state) criticized the "formal liberties" explicited by the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which
Marx called the "rights of the
egoistic bourgeois". Marx argued that
Civic rights such as
freedom of expression were only abstract rights insofar as the
material conditions to exercice them were not insured. For example,
concentration of media ownership would be said by marxists as impeding the effective exercice of one's right to free expression, selecting which categories of person have the possibility to express themselves in the media. Thus,
equality was seen as a main component of a society's grade of liberty. Liberty without equality,
anarchists argue to this day, is only the "freedom of the powerful to
exploit the weak".
20th century philosophy
The socialist and, in particular, marxist conception of liberty has harshly criticized the liberal conceptions of an individual freedom, based on the
social contract or on a system of
checks and balances, as first theorized by
Montesquieu. Following the
1917 revolution, the world divided itself into two blocs, one claiming to be the "
free world" while the other pretended to be the
revolutionary representative of the
proletariat. After
World War II,
neoliberal thinkers such as
Friedrich Hayek argued that liberty, far from being improved by
social justice and equality, was in fact endangered by socialist regimes practicing centrally-planned economics. However, Hayek's definition of a "socialist regime" would include, in fact, many representative democracies which had turned themselves into
welfare states, such as
Germany or
France.
The Chinese sage
Lao Tsu warned against over-reaching governments, in a way analogous to the development in the western world of post-
Lockean ideas of
negative liberty. He taught that government by example and "not doing" (
wú wéi) was superior to government by law and discipline.
The Jewish religious tradition features several individuals who stood up to statist power at crucial moments, including
Moses, who demanded that the
Pharaoh of
Egypt "let my people go." The
Maccabees rebelled against mandatory assimilation to
Greek culture and the
Zealots (less successfully) rose against the
Roman Empire.
Muslim jurists have long held that the legal tradition initiated by the
Qur'an includes a principle of permissibility, or
Ibahah, especially as applied to commercial transaction. "Nothing in them [voluntary transactions] is forbidden," said
Ibn Taymiyyah, "unless God and His Messenger have decreed them to be forbidden." The idea is founded upon two verses in the Qur'an, 4:29 and 5:1.
The modern conceptions of
democracy, whether
representative democracies or other types of democracies (including the past
communist "popular democracies"), are all found on the
Rousseauist idea of
popular sovereignty. However,
liberalism distinguishes itself from
socialism and communism in that it advocates for a form of
representative democracy, while socialism claims to work for a
direct democracy (although, in the case of communism, this was supposed to be achieved through a period of
dictatorship of the proletariat, a concept which was instrumentalized during the
Cold War to legitimate
authoritarian regimes).
Liberalism is a
political current embracing several historical and present-day ideologies that claim defence of individual liberty as the purpose of government. Two main strands are apparent, although both are founded on an
individualist ideology. In continental Europe the term usually refers to
economic liberalism, that is the right of individual to contract, trade and operate in a market free of constraint. In the United States it often refers to
social liberalism, including the right to dissent from orthodox tenets or established authorities in political or religious matters. Both are core political issues, and highly contentious.
A school of thought popular among US
libertarians holds that there is no tenable distinction between the two sorts of liberty -- that they are, indeed, one and the same, to be protected (or opposed) together. In the context of U.S.
constitutional law, for example, they point out that the constitution twice lists "life, liberty, and property" without making any distinctions within that troika.
Individualists, such as
Max Stirner, demanded the utmost respect for the liberty of the individual. From a very similar perspective from North America,
primitivists like
John Zerzan proclaimed that
civilization not just the state (as in socialist thought) would need to be abolished to foster liberty. Some in the US see protecting the ideal of liberty as a
conservative policy, because this would conform to the spirit of individual liberty that they consider is at the heart of the American constitution. Some think liberty is almost synonymous with
democracy, at least in one sense of that word, while others see conflicts or even opposition between the two concepts.
Some notable quotations that include liberty are:
* "The defining principle of democracy is liberty, one aspect of which is having a share in ruling."
Aristotle,
Politics* "
In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas" —
Rupertus Meldenius* "Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" —
Patrick Henry* "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...." U.S. Constitution, Amendment V. "[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...." Id., Amendment XIV.
* "Every law is an infringement upon liberty."
Jeremy Bentham* "Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."
Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819
* "That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant."
John Stuart Mill,
On Liberty* "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
Benjamin Franklin* "Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good!Dictators work havoc. You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives. (...) Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces"
Etienne de La Boétie,
The Discourse of Voluntary ServitudeA temple was erected to the
goddess Liberty on the Aventine Hill in Rome by the father of Tiberius Gracchus during the second Punic War. A statue of the goddess Liberty was also put up by Clodius on the site of Cicero's house after it had been pulled down.
A
Statue of Liberty now exists at the entrance to New York harbour in the United States. The
copper statue of the goddess of Liberty was a present from the Republic of France, as a centennial gift to the US and a sign of friendship between the two nations. The pedestal was constructed by the United States. The Statue of Liberty is often used as a symbol of the ideals of the United States, and in particular of
liberty in general; as such it is a favored symbol of US libertarians.
The
Liberty Memorial in
Kansas City,
United States is dedicated to
World War I and
World War II victories for liberty against the
Central Powers and the
Axis Powers.
*
La Boétie, Etienne,
The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (16th century) with an introduction by
Murray Rothbard,
Free Life Editions, 1975. ISBN 0-914156-11-X (etext freely available
here, translated by
Harry Kurz under the title "Anti-Dictator", Columbia Univ. Press, 1942, with an introduction)
* Powell, Jim. The Triumph of Liberty, A 2,000-Year History Told Through the Lives of Freedom's Greatest Champions (New York: Free Press, 2000).
Various concepts of liberty and freedom
*
Consciousness and
subject*
Types of freedom''
*
Liberty (as a
goddess; she is the
personification of liberty)
*
Freedom*
Freedom of expression*
Freedom of religion*
Freedom (political)*
Free will*
Positive liberty*
Negative liberty*
Self-ownership*
Toleration*
Free spirit*
Gratis versus LibreVarious political ideologies
*
Anarchism*
Christian anarchism*
John Locke*
David Hume wrote "Of Civil Liberty", in his book "Essays Moral and Political" (first ed. 1741-2)
*
Libertarianism*
Libertarian socialism*
Socialism*
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on negative and positive liberty*
Liberty Ideas: International platform for individual liberty
