Since there is a collective aspect to Freedom- in that a specific Identity class needs to be able to propagate itself on an uncertain fitness landscape- every justiciable conception of it must have a positive, substantive, aspect.
All cultures have a notion of Guardianship, of delegated Responsibility, of uttermost Good Faith, and of a duty of Care involving the exercise of prudence and diligence in securing the interests of others in proportion to one's standing in society. The term 'culpa levis' refers to an ordinary sort of negligence, not normally punished unless it has disastrous consequences. Such negligence might be such as a bonus paterfamilas exacta diligentia- a good father- might be guilty of with respect to his progeny, in which case it is termed 'in abstracto' and refers to the highest possible duty of care. Thus a failure on the part of a person of high standing which leads to a reduction of freedom for someone in a weaker position might be punishable because of a lack of abstract forethought and diligence of an exceptional type.
Negligence of a sort which might one might ordinarily be guilty of in the management of one's own affairs, quanta in suis rebus diligentia, is termed culpa levis in concreto if another suffers by it. This would vary with the status and ability of the subject.
Clearly, every Culture which has at any time distinguished between free men and slaves, or minors and adults, or citizens and aliens, must have had a positive conception of 'Freedom', encoded, perhaps, in elite Paideia, which would be fully 'factorizable' from the point of view of 'Law & Economics' such that 'Normativity' would have univalent foundations. However, there would necessarily be power gradients within the realm of Freedom, with the higher being under an 'liturgical' obligation to the lower.
A culpa levis in concreto type offence occurs where your position is low but the other is more disadvantaged yet. Thus, you could be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor even if your actions towards it are similar to your own actions with respect to your self. By contrast, you may be prosecuted for acting in restraint of trade if the effect of your action is to significantly reduce the economic freedom of a weaker party.
This is an idiographic matter. The nomothetic method of Political Philosophy can offer us little guidance. Indeed, all it can do is to show itself to be either puerile or paranoid.
Thus, for Isaiah Berlin
The Notion of Positive Freedomcashes out as the desire to autonomously will oneself to breathe in and then breathe out rather than do so because of the machinations and 'manufactured consent' of Big Air and its minions in the Media and the Trilateral Commission.
The `positive' sense of the word `liberty' derives from the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master.Which means deciding to breathe in and breathe out by oneself.
I wish my life and decisions to depend on myself, not on external forces of whatever kind. I wish to be the instrument of my own, not of other men's acts of will.More especially them fuckers wot work for Big Air who are constantly scheming to get us to expand or contract our diaphragms so as to cause us to be the slaves of respiration.
I wish to be a subject, not an object; to be moved by reasons, 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 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 realizing them. This is at least part of what I mean when I say that 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 responsibility for my choices and able to explain them by references to my own ideas and purposes. I feel free to the degree that I believe this to be true, and enslaved to the degree that I am made to realize that it is not. The freedom which consists in being one's own master, and the freedom which consists in not being prevented from choosing as I do by other men, may, on the face of it, seem concepts at no great logical distance from each other--no more than negative and positive ways of saying much the same thing. Yet the `positive' and `negative' notions of freedom historically developed in divergent directions not always by logically reputable steps, until, in the end, they came into direct conflict with each other.Why does Berlin pretend the 'positive concept of freedom' is not verbose paranoia? The point about talking like a lunatic is that sooner or later your lunacy will bring you into conflict with everybody and everything coz like they're all in the pay of Big Air and are sending subliminal messages through the radio waves and polluting our precious bodily fluids so as to cause us to breathe in and then breathe out without consciously willing any such action.
Berlin wrote elegantly and introduced English speaking readers to the mischegoss that was German academic thought. Because Germany fucked up big time, it quite naturally and plausibly had a class of shitheads whose thinking was fucked in the head. Thus, one could always write a paper on how some particular bunch of pedants paved the way to Marx or Hitler or Merkel or, my particular bete noire, David Hasselhoff.
One way of making this clear is in terms of the independent momentum which the, initially perhaps quite harmless, metaphor of self-mastery acquired. `I am my own master'; `l am slave to no man'; but may I not (as Platonists or Hegelians tend to say) be a slave to nature? Or to my own `unbridled' passions?No! All have been enslaved by the Nicaraguan horcrux of my neighbor's cat! All hail Chairman Meow!
Are these not so many species of the identical genus `slave'--some political or legal, others moral or spiritual? Have not men had the experience of liberating themselves from spiritual slavery,No. They have pretended to do so and tried to get a bit of publicity that way.
Or slavery to nature,The Maharishi made billions teaching people to levitate.
and do they not in the course of it become aware, on the one hand, of a self which dominates; and, on the other, of something in them which is brought to heel?No. In the course of telling stupid lies they become even stupider and tell even more foolish lies.
This dominant 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.Yes, yes. We know. We too have a self-help book to sell. Everybody wants to go on Oprah. My own 'dieters guide to weight-loss through farting' explains how one can take control of one's intestines to produce spiritually enlightening farts.
Presently the two selves may be represented as divided by an even larger gap: the real self may be conceived as something wider than the individual (as the term is normally understood), as a social `whole' of which the individual. is an element or aspect: a tribe, a race, a church; a state, the great society of the living and the dead and the yet unborn.Very true. Everybody should smell my farts and gain ultimate Liberation. Also send me all your money.
This entity is then identified as being the `true' self which, by imposing its collective, or `organic', single will upon its recalcitrant `members', achieves its own, and therefore their, `higher' freedom.Smell enough of my farts and you'll feel the same way. Everybody should have access to my farts. That way Humanity will pass the Omega point and become a perfected species of fart-appreciators.
The perils of using organic metaphors to justify the coercion of some men by others in order to raise them to a `higher' level of freedom have often been pointed out.Reasoning with nutjobs does no good. Lock them up for fraud or medicate the fuck out of them.
Investing in better Policing and Psychiatric services is the way to go. It doesn't matter whether a nutter or a con-man sounds plausible; what matters is whether the the guy is mad or up to mischief.
But what gives such plausibility as it has to this kind of language is that we recognize that it is possible, and at times justifiable, to coerce men in the name of some goal (let us say, justice or public health) which they would, if they were more enlightened, themselves pursue, but do not, because they are blind or ignorant or corrupt.Coercion is a justiciable offence. Such justification as the coercer offers a court of law involves questions of law and questions of fact and are resolved in a protocol bound manner. Philosophy can't confuse what the Law makes clear.
This renders it easy for me to conceive of myself as coercing others for their own sake, in their, not my interest. I am then claiming that I know what they truly need better than; they know it themselves. What, at most, this entails is that they would not resist me if they were rational and as wise as I and understood their interests as I do. But I may go on to claim a good deal more than this. I may declare that they are actually aiming at what in their benighted state they consciously resist, because there exists within them an occult entity--their latent rational will, or their. `true' purpose-- and that this entity, although it is belied by all that they overtly feel and do and say, is their `real' self, of which the poor empirical self in space and time may know nothing or little; and that this inner spirit is the only self that deserves to have its wishes taken into account. Once I take this view, I am in a position to ignore the actual wishes of men or societies, to bully, oppress; torture them in the name, and on behalf, of their `real' selves, in the secure knowledge that whatever is the true goal of man (happiness, performance of duty, wisdom, a just society, self-fulfilment) must be identical with his freedom--the free choice of his `true', albeit often submerged and inarticulate, self. This paradox has been often exposed. It is one thing to say that I know what is good for X, while he himself does not; and even to ignore his wishes for its-- and his--sake ; and a very different one to say that he has eo ipso chosen it, not indeed consciously, not as he seems in everyday life, but in his role as a rational self which his empirical self may not know--the `real' self which discerns the good, and cannot help choosing it once it is revealed. This monstrous impersonation, which consists in equating what X would choose if he were something he is not, or at least not yet, with what X actually seeks and chooses, is at the heart of all political theories of self-realization.So what? Make everybody an Oprah Book Choice and let their competing idiocies cancel each other out as noise. So sayeth the Nicaraguan horcrux of my neighbor's cat. All hail Chairman Meow!
It is one thing to say that I may be coerced for my own good which I am too blind to see: this may, on occasion, be for my benefit; indeed it may enlarge the scope of my liberty. It is another to say that if it is my good, then I am not being coerced, for I have willed it, whether I know this or not, and am free (or `truly' free) even while my poor earthly body and foolish mind bitterly reject it, and struggle against those who seek however benevolently to impose it, with, the greatest desperation.This is not really true. I know that I live in a Society where I will be locked up in a psychiatric hospital if I daub myself with feces and run through the Shopping Mall chanting the Rituale Romanum. Thus, I emigrate to Canada where such behavior is de rigueur.
Suppose I have a conscientious objection to serving in the armed forces. I might be well advised to emigrate from a country where conscription is required to safeguard the Nation's borders.
It is a matter of fact, not speculation, that citizens of a Democratic country delegate decisions which safeguard Liberty to an elected body. One may not like how Liberty is secured but one has sanctioned the method used.
This magical transformation, or sleight of hand (for which William James so justly mocked the Hegelians), can no doubt be perpetrated just as easily with the `negative' concept of freedom, where the self that should not be interfered with is no longer the individual with his actual wishes and needs as they are normally conceived, but the `real' man within, identified with the pursuit of some ideal purpose not dreamed of by his empirical self. And, as in the case of the `positively' free self, this entity may be inflated into some super personal entity--a state, a class, a nation, or the march of history itself, regarded as a more `real' subject of attributes than the empirical self. But the `positive' conception of freedom as self-mastery, with its suggestion of a man divided against himself, has, in fact, and as a matter of history, of doctrine and of practice, lent itself more easily to this splitting of personality into two: the transcendent, dominant controller, and the empirical bundle of desires and passions to be disciplined and brought to heel. It is this historical fact that has been influential.Economics is the subject which studies the efficacy of both 'positive' and 'negative' conceptions of freedom. It does so using the findings of the natural sciences as well as by constructing Structural Causal Models and seeking empirical verification.
Hegel was a silly man. He was not influential. Bolsheviks committing genocide were influential. Why? Not because of the shite they spouted but coz they killed and robbed vast numbers of people.
This demonstrates (if demonstration of so obvious a truth is needed), that conceptions of freedom directly derive from views of what constitutes a self, a person, a man.Shit directly derives from shit only if people eat shit. Everybody shits. Few eat shit. 'Views of what constitutes a self, a person, a man' are worthless shite such as a few pedagogues get paid a little money to excrete. 'Conceptions of freedom' are similar shite. Why? It's coz
Enough manipulation with the definition , of man, and freedom can be made to mean whatever the manipulator wishes.That's why sensible people don't bother with this shite.
Recent history has made it only too clear that the issue is not merely academic.Recent history showed that only being able to kill and rob lots of people mattered. Talking high minded shite was useless.
The consequences of distinguishing between two selves will become even clearer if one considers the two major forms which the desire to be self-directed--directed by one's `true' self-- has historically taken: the first, that of self-abnegation in order to attain independence; the second, that of self-realization, or total self-identification with a specific principle or ideal in order to attain the selfsame end.Why restrict oneself to only two selves? What about one's Porn Star Self and Super Hero Self and Talk Show Self and Country and Western Self and so forth?
The Retreat To The Inner Citadel
I am the possessor of reason and will; I conceive ends and I desire to pursue them; but if I am prevented from attaining them I no longer feel master of the situation.Nonsense! One can always masturbate and master the shite out of all dem bitches but good.
I may be prevented by the laws of nature, or by accidents, or the activities of men, or the effect, often undesigned, of human institutions. These forces may be too much for me. What am I to do to avoid being crushed by them?Like Rousseau, you can give yourself a hernia jacking off.
I must liberate myself from desires that I know I can not realize.Why? Having a wank is cheap and good for the prostate.
I wish to be master of my kingdom,Like Seinfeld and chums wanted to be the 'masters of their domain'.
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 the attainment of some specific object. But I cannot command them. I choose to avoid defeat and waste, and therefore decide to strive for nothing that I cannot be sure to obtain.Yup. That's what happened in that episode. Everybody had a wank.
I determine myself not to desire what is unattainable. The tyrant threatens me with the destruction of my property, with imprisonment, with the exile or death of those I love. But if I no longer feel attached 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 or desires.But you still die in a Gulag.
It is as if I had performed a strategic retreat into an inner citadel-- my reason, my soul, my `noumenal' self--which, do what they may, neither external blind force, nor human malice, can touch. I have withdrawn into myself; there, and there alone, I am secure. It is as if I were to say: `I have a wound in my leg. There are two methods of freeing myself from pain. One is to heal the wound. But if the cure is too difficult or uncertain, there is another method. I can get rid of the wound by cutting off my leg. If I train myself to want nothing to which the possession of my leg is indispensable, I shall not feel the lack of it.'Alternatively one can say 'SHAZAM!' and turn into Captain Marvel and get it on with Wonder Woman.
This is 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, and 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.How come all these 'perfected' beings need vast donations from credulous old maids?
All political isolationism, all economic autarky, every form of autonomy, has in it some element of this attitude. I eliminate the obstacles in my path by abandoning the path; I retreat into my own sect, my own planned economy, my own deliberately insulated territory, where no voices from outside need be listened to, and no external forces can have effect. This is a form of the search for security; but it has also been called the search for personal or national freedom or independence. From this doctrine, as it applies to individuals, it is no very great distance to the conceptions of those who, like Kant, identify freedom not indeed with the elimination of desires, but with resistance to them, and control over them. I identify myself with the controller and escape the slavery of the controlled. I am free because, and in so far as, I am autonomous. I obey laws, but I have imposed them on, or found them in, my own uncoerced self.Yup! I am God and this is the little joke for which I excuse my flippancy in having created the world. Kindly give me a bj.
Pedagogy began, in the West, not with a Crisis of Values but a pederast trying to fuck the boy Lysis. However, Philosophy was no use here. Pretending to be God is a better way to get tail. Plato's importance lay in his getting people to study Math- which is useful. Applied Math- i.e. Econ- enables us to get to substantive conceptions of both positive and negative freedom of a utile type.
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