UNIT 1: LIBERTY – AS ABSENCE OF EXTERNAL

INTERVENTION*
Structure
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The Meaning of Liberty
1.3 J S Mill’s Notion of Liberty
1.4 Isaiah Berlin and the Two Concepts of Liberty
1.5 Marxist Critique and the Idea of Freedom
1.6 Other Contemporary Ideas on Liberty
1.7 Let Us Sum Up
1.8 References

1.9 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises

1.0 OBJECTIVES

Liberty is considered a core concept and a fundamental democratic value

in modern political and social theory. The notion of liberty emerged in the
context of the formation of modern civil society and political authority.
While the concept is intimately associated with liberal thought, liberals have
looked at the notion in different ways. Marxists are critical of liberal notions
of liberty and would refashion the concept on entirely different assumptions
of individual and society. In this unit, we shall look at different perspectives
on liberty, and try to understand the meanings, justifications and limits of
the notion. The unit has been divided into different sections, each dealing
with a specific aspect of the notion. There are a set of questions at the end
of the unit for self-assessment, and a list of readings to help enhance your
understanding.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The idea of liberty as a core principle of liberal thought is most commonly

understood as ‘absence of restraints’. The notion of liberty emerged in the
context of the establishment of new socio-economic and political relationships
in modern Europe. At the basis of the notion was the idea of a rational
individual, capable of taking reasoned decisions. The rational individual,
it was thought, was capable of self-determination; in other words, capable

*Anupama Roy, Senior Fellow, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New
Delhi, Adapted from Unit 19, EPS-11
9
Liberty of taking decisions which concerned his or her self. In order to develop his
capacities, the individual required freedom from all kinds of social, political
and economic constraints. Thus, the idea of liberty as absence of restraints,
or a sphere of autonomy of the individual, developed. At the same time,
however, the fact that within a social organization the individual is not alone
and exists in relation with other individuals, required that an equal claim of
other individuals to their spheres of autonomy should be recognized. In order
that the respective claims of all individuals to autonomy can be realized with
minimum conflict, it was imperative that a system of restraints and regulation
was worked out and adhered to by everyone. The theories of social contract
put forward by philosophers like Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau put forth the
idea of liberty as absence of constraints. At the same time, they also proposed
the framework within which individual freedom was to unfold. Thus, the
idea of political community was based on a simultaneous recognition of the
capacities and autonomy of individuals and the imperatives that all should
be subjected to a common set of constraints on their liberty. Thus, it must be
understood that liberty, which in common understanding means freedom, or
absence of constraints and obstacles to individual action, and is considered
a democratic ideal, has always been conceived as occurring within a set of
specific constraints in social relationships. There are always limits to what
is seen as acceptable forms of liberty in modern democratic societies. In the
section which follows, we shall look at the meaning of liberty, focussing on
its elements and the justifications for constraints on liberty.

1.2 THE MEANING OF LIBERTY

As mentioned in the introduction, liberty means freedom from, or absence

of restraints. A person may be considered free or at liberty to do something
when his or her actions and choices are not hindered or constrained by those
of another. It is important to understand that constraints refer to impediments
imposed by political and other authorities. Thus, imprisonment, bondage
or slavery, subjection to laws, etc., may be seen as referring to conditions
of unfreedom or absence of liberty. While states of unfreedom like
imprisonment or subjection to laws may appear as constraints on liberty,
we know that modern democratic social and political organisations are
founded on legal and institutional structures, which aim at ensuring equal
consideration of each individual’s liberty. No society will, therefore, have
an unlimited ‘right to liberty’. Each society will have a set of restrictions on
liberty, which are justified by the fact that people accept these restrictions as
the best possible conditions in which liberty could be maximised.
The understanding of liberty as ‘absence of restraints’ or ‘absence of
external constraints’ is generally described as negative. The negative nature
of liberty appears in two different senses:
a) In the first, law is seen as the main obstacle to freedom. Hobbes, for
instance, described freedom as the ‘silence of the laws’. Such a view
10
 sees freedom as limited only by what others deliberately prevent Liberty–As Absence
individuals from doing. This understanding would, therefore, appear of External Intervention
to imply a definite limit upon both law and government. Philosophers
like John Locke have, however, pointed out that a commitment to
liberty does not mean that the law should be abolished. Rather, it
means that law should be restricted to the protection of one’s liberty
from encroachment by others. Locke suggested therefore, that law
does not restrict liberty, it rather enlarges and defends it.
b) The second view sees liberty as ‘freedom of choice’. Milton
Friedman, for example, in his work, Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
proposes that ‘economic freedom’ consists of freedom of choice in
the marketplace – the freedom of consumer to choose what to buy,
the freedom of the worker to choose his job or profession and the
freedom of the producer to choose what to produce and whom to
employ. ‘To choose’ implies that the individual can make unhindered
and voluntary selection from a range of different options.
While talking about liberty, a distinction is often made between negative
and positive notions of liberty i.e., between the idea of ‘absence of external
constraints’ and ‘the existence of conditions which enable or facilitate’. In
other words, the distinction between ‘freedom to do’ something and actually
being able to do it. To be free or at liberty to do something is not to be
restrained or prevented from doing it. While to be able to do is to have
the capacity, financial or otherwise, to do something. For example, one
may be free or unrestrained to take up any job, yet, one may not have the
qualifications or the economic resources which may make one’s candidature
worthwhile. Political theorists often make this distinction between liberty as
an absence of restraints and the conditions which make liberty worthwhile.
A starving person who is legally free (not prevented from) to eat in an
expensive restaurant, may in fact, enjoy no liberty on the basis of the legal
freedom. The freedom to eat in this case will require some positive action by
the state. It is this reasoning that has been used to justify social legislation
designed to increase opportunities for individuals. By such positive action,
the state is said to be not only decreasing inequality, but increasing liberty.
The negative conception of liberty is a characteristic of a strand of English
political thought represented by Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, John Stuart
Mill, Henry Sidgwick, Herbert Spencer and the classical and neo-classical
economists who supported the claims of individuals to break free from
unnecessary restraints of arbitrary government. The main political axiom
of negative liberty was that ‘everyone knows his own interest best’ and that
the state should not decide the individual’s ends and purposes. Essential
to the doctrine was the sanctity of the contract. Implicit in this assumption
of sanctity was the understanding that the act of entering into a contract,
even if the terms of the contract were restrictive of individual freedom,
was an expression of liberty, of the exercise of individual choice. Thus,
11
Liberty to this strand of thinkers, a person’s liberty was a function of that area in
which he was left alone and not related to the quality of action. The concept
of negative liberty is best understood as a doctrine about the meaning of
liberty. Although negative liberty is often condemned as the ‘freedom to
starve’, this understanding is somewhat misleading. It does not necessarily
put a prohibition on state intervention, but merely holds that this cannot be
justified on the ground that it increases freedom, although arguments from
the arena of inequality may be called into force for justification. However,
the historical connection between negative liberty and the lasseiz-faire
economics cannot be denied, and most of its advocates favoured a minimal
state. The concept is neutral in the sense that it is compatible with a wide
range of politics, and describes a condition of liberty without indicating
whether it is good or not.
Criticisms of the negative notion of liberty have come from modern liberals,
social democrats and socialists. The liberals in the nineteenth century,
primarily T H Green and to some extent J S Mill, developed some of the
earliest critiques of negative freedom. They felt that capitalism had done
away with feudal hierarchies and legal restrictions (especially of economic
pursuits), but it had also subjected large masses of people to poverty,
unemployment and disease. Such circumstances were seen as hindering
liberty as much as legal restraints and social controls. One of the first
liberals to embrace the positive notion of liberty was T H Green (1836-82),
who defined freedom as the ability of people ‘to make the most and best of
themselves’. This freedom consisting not merely of being left alone, but
in having the power to act, shifting attention thereby to the opportunities
available to each individual. The concept of positive liberty has been at the
basis of the Welfare State. The idea has acted as the moving force behind
social welfare provisions taken up by states, combining thereby freedom
with equality.
In the section, which follows, Mill’s notion of liberty will be taken up for
study. Mill appears to endorse a negative conception of freedom, or the
individual’s sovereign control over his/her body and mind. In the ultimate
analysis, however, Mill’s notion of ‘individuality’ brought him closer to a
positive notion of liberty.

Check Your Progress Exercise 1

Note: i) Use the space given below for your answer.

ii) See the end of the unit for tips for your answer.
1) Distinguish between positive and negative conceptions of liberty.

………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
12
 ………………………………………………..…………………… Liberty–As Absence
……………………………………………………………………… of External Intervention
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………….....

1.3 J.S. MILL’S NOTION OF LIBERTY

J S Mill’s On Liberty was influential in the academic debates in the 1960s.

Mill’s work is seen as an exposition of the negative concept of liberty. At
the basis of Mill’s arguments for individual freedom lay a strong sense of
contempt for custom, and for legal rules and norms which could not be
rationally justified. It is also sometimes argued that for Mill any free action,
no matter how immoral, had some element of virtue in it, by the fact that
it was freely performed. While Mill considered restraint on individual’s
actions evil, he did not consider restraints to be entirely unjustifiable. He
felt, however, that within the society there was always a presumption in
favour of liberty. Any constraints on liberty, therefore, had to be justified by
those who applied them.
For Mill, the purpose of liberty was to encourage the attainment of
‘individuality’. Individuality refers to the distinctive and unique character
of each human individual, and freedom means the realisation of this
individuality, i.e., personal growth or self-determination. It was the property
of individuality in human beings that made them active rather than passive,
and critical of existing modes of social behaviour, enabling them to refuse
to accept conventions unless they were found reasonable. Freedom in Mill’s
framework, therefore, appears not simply as the absence of restraints but the
deliberate cultivation of certain desirable attitudes. It is because of this that
Mill is often seen as gravitating towards a positive conception of liberty.
Mill’s conception of freedom is also rooted in the notion of choice. This is
evident from his belief that a person who lets others ‘choose his plan of life
for him’ does not display the faculty of ‘individuality’ or self-determination.
The only faculty he or she seemed to possess was the ‘apelike’ faculty of
‘imitation’. On the other hand, a person ‘who chooses to plan for himself,
employs all his faculties’. In order to realise one’s individuality, and attain
thereby the condition of freedom, it was essential that individuals resist forces
or norms and customs which hindered self-determination. Mill, however,
was also of the view that very few individuals possessed the capacity to
resist and make free choices. The rest were content to submit to ‘apelike
imitation’, existing thereby in a state of ‘unfreedom’. Mill’s conception of
liberty can be seen for this reason as elitist, since individuality could be
enjoyed only by a minority and not the masses at large.
13
Liberty Mill, as other liberals, emphasised a demarcation of the boundaries between
the individual and society. While talking about reasonable or justifiable
restrictions on individual liberty, Mill distinguished between self-regarding
and other-regarding actions, i.e., actions, which affected the individual only,
and actions which affected the society at large. Any restriction or interference
with an individual could be justified only to prevent harm to others. Over
actions that affected only himself, the individual was sovereign. Such an
understanding of legal and societal constraints conveys the idea of a society
in which the relationship between individual and society is not ‘paternal’,
i.e., the individual being the best judge of his interests, law and society
could not intervene to promote a person’s ‘best interests’. Similarly, the idea
that an act can be constrained only if it harmed others, rules out the idea
that some acts are intrinsically immoral and therefore, must be punished
irrespective of whether they affect anyone else. Further, Mill’s framework
rules out ‘utilitarianism’, as enunciated by Bentham, which would justify
interference if it maximized the general interest. Yet, the demarcation
between the individual and the society is not strict in Mill in the sense that all
acts do affect others in some way, and Mill believed that his principle did not
preach a moral indifference towards the self-regarding behaviour of others,
and felt that it was permissible to use persuasion to discourage immoral
behaviour. Also, Mill strongly believed in the instrumental value of liberty
in the promotion of social goods. This is especially true of his arguments
for the complete liberty of thought, discussion and expression and the right
to assembly and association. Mill felt that all restrictions on free discussion
should be removed because truth would emerge from a free competition of
ideas. It may be pointed out that in today’s catalogue of liberties, freedom
of expression is valued perhaps more than economic liberty as a democratic
ideal. Free exchange between individuals is undoubtedly an important
exercise of liberty and a society, which forbade all kinds of liberty and
allowed this would still be relatively free.

1.4 ISAIAH BERLIN AND THE TWO CONCEPTS OF LIBERTY

In his now classic, Two Concepts of Liberty (first published in 1958) Isaiah
Berlin tries to reconcile the negative and positive notions of liberty, i.e., the
notion of liberty as the absence of restraints with the various views pertaining
to its operation within the social context. For Berlin, the ‘negative’ notion
of liberty can be understood by addressing the following 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 be, without interference by other
persons?’ (1969, p.121). On the other hand, the positive sense is concerned
with the answer to the question: ‘what, or who, is the source of control or
interference that can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?’
(1969, p.122).
Positive liberty, on the other hand, does not interpret freedom as simply

14
being left alone but as ‘self-mastery’. The theory involves a special theory Liberty–As Absence
of the self. The personality is divided into a higher and a lower self. The of External Intervention
higher self is the source of an individual’s genuine and rational long-term
goals, while the lower self caters to his irrational desires which are short-
lived and of transient nature. A person is free to the extent that his higher self,
is in command of his lower self. Thus, a person might be free in the sense
of not being restrained by external forces, but remains a slave to irrational
appetites; as a drug addict, an alcoholic or a compulsive gambler might be
said to be unfree. The main feature of this concept is its openly evaluative
nature, its use is specifically tied to ways of life held to be desirable. The idea
of positive liberty involves a special interpretation of the self and assumes
not just that there is a realm of activity towards which the individual ought
to direct herself/himself.
The notion suggests that the individual is being liberated when he or she is
directed towards it. Critics of Berlin’s notion of positive liberty feel that a
belief in positive liberty may involve the idea that all other values, equality,
rights, justice etc., are subordinate to the supreme value of higher liberty.
Also, the idea that the higher purposes of the individual are equivalent to
those of collectivities such as classes, nations and race, may lead to the
espousal of totalitarian ideologies.

Check Your Progress Exercise 2

Note: i) Use the space given below for your answer.

ii) See the end of the unit for tips on your answer.
1) Discuss J S Mill’s views on liberty.

………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………..………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………

1.5 MARXIST CRITIQUE AND THE IDEA OF FREEDOM

The Marxist concept of freedom is different from the liberal views, which
have been discussed above. The main points of difference emerge from the
Marxist understanding of the individual and society, the relationship between
15
Liberty the individual and society, and the Marxist critique of capitalist society.
While the liberal view is based on the centrality of the individual and his
freedom of choice, the Marxists would see the notion of liberty based on
the liberal notion of individual and society as conditions of unfreedom. For
Marxists, the individual is not separated from other individuals in society by
boundaries of autonomous spaces for the free exercise of choice. They are
rather bound together in mutual dependence. The notion of individuality is
likewise transformed into a notion of rich individuality, which emphasises
the social embeddedness of the individual, the idea that individuals can
reach a state of creative excellence and develop their capacities only in a
society which seeks the development of all its members. For the Marxists,
therefore, freedom lies in the development of creative individuality, and
cannot be achieved in a capitalist society where individuals are separated
by boundaries of self-interest and where they can only imagine themselves
to be free when in reality they are bound by structures of exploitation. It is
only in a society, which is free from the selfish promotion of private interests
that a state of freedom can exist. Freedom, thus, cannot be achieved in a
capitalist society.
These views have been articulated in Friedrich Engel’s Anti-Duhring and
Karl Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Engels
discusses the notion of freedom as a state of transition from necessity
to freedom. The state of necessity is defined by a situation in which the
individual is subjected to another’s will. Engels points out that man has
the capacity to identify and understand the forces, which condition and
determine his life. Man has, thus, obtained scientific knowledge about the
laws of nature, which determine his existence and also learnt how to live
with these laws in the best possible way. Ironically, man has not been able
to break free from the bondage of the forces of production, which have
historically kept him under subjection, or in other words, confined him to
the realm of necessity. In order to reach a state of freedom, man not only
has to have knowledge of human history, but also the capacity to change it.
It is only with the help of scientific socialism that man can hope to leave the
realm of necessity and enter the realm of freedom. Freedom is a significant
component of the idea of communist society laid down by Marx and Engels
in Communist Manifesto. It was only in a communist society where there
will be no class exploitation that freedom will be achieved.
In his work, Manuscripts, Karl Marx avers that the capitalist society is
dehumanizing. It not only alienates the individual from his true self, it
separates him from the creative influences of society. Marx proposes that
it is only by transforming those conditions in which alienation takes place,
can freedom be restored. Thus, it was only in a communist society where
the means of production were socially owned, and each member of society
worked in cooperation with the other for the development of all, that true
freedom could be achieved. Thus, in Marx’s framework, freedom is seen
16
in a positive sense, denoting self-fulfillment and self-realisation, or the Liberty–As Absence
realisation of one’s true nature. Marx described the true realm of freedom of External Intervention
as ‘the development of freedom for its own sake’. This potential could be
realised, Marx believed, only by the experience of creative labour, working
together with others to satisfy our needs. Under this framework, Robinson
Crusoe, who enjoyed the greatest possible measure of negative freedom,
since no one else on his island could check or constrain him, was a stunted
and therefore unfree individual, deprived of the social relationships through
which human beings achieve fulfilment. This notion of freedom is clearly
reflected in Marx’s conception of ‘alienation’. Under capitalism, labour is
reduced to a mere commodity controlled and shaped by de-personalised
market forces. In Marx’s view, capitalist workers suffer from alienation
in that they are separated from their own true nature: they are alienated
from the product of their labour, alienated from the process of labour itself,
alienated from their fellow human beings, and, finally alienated from their
‘true’ selves. Freedom is, therefore, linked to personal fulfilment which only
unalienated labour can bring about.

Check Your Progress Exercise 3

Note: i) Use the space given below for your answer.

ii) See the end of the unit for tips for your answer.
1) Discuss Marxist critique of liberty.
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………..………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………

1.6 OTHER CONTEMPORARY IDEAS ON LIBERTY

Apart from Berlin whose work is perhaps the most significant among the
contemporary works on liberty, there are other thinkers who have discussed
the idea of liberty elaborating upon the ideas expressed by thinkers on both
sides of the ideological divide. Milton Friedman, like Mill and Berlin was
a liberal who in his work Capitalism and Freedom developed a notion of
liberty as a significant aspect of capitalist society. The freedom of exchange
was an essential aspect of liberty. To promote this freedom, Friedman
17
Liberty required the state to give up its concern for welfare and social security
and devote itself to maintaining law and order, protecting property rights,
implementing contracts etc. For Friedman, not only was liberty essential
for free and voluntary exchange among individuals, it was only within a
capitalist society that this freedom could be achieved. Moreover, it was
economic freedom that provided the opportune and essential condition for
political liberty.
In his work, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), F A Hayek has propounded
a theory of liberty, which emphasises the negative role of the state. For
Hayek, a state of liberty is achieved when the individual is not subject to the
arbitrary will of another individual. Hayek calls this individual freedom and
distinguishes it from other forms of freedom, establishing at the same time
the primacy and independence of individual liberty from other forms of
freedom, including political freedom. Hayek recommends that the original
meaning of liberty as the ‘absence of restraints’ should be preserved. The
enlargement of state intervention in the name of freedom would mean the
demise of real liberty which consists in the freedom of individual from
restraints.
Another group of thinkers evidently influenced by the Marxist notion of
freedom emphasised that liberty as practiced in modern capitalist societies
breeds loneliness. Eric Fromm (1900-1980) explained that in modern
societies, aloofness was brought about owing to the separation of the
individual from his creative capacities and social relations. This separation
generated physical and moral aloofness in the individual affecting his
mental well-being. It was only through creative and collective work that the
individual could restore himself to society. Herbert Marcuse in his work One
Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
(1968), also explored the nature of alienation in capitalist societies. Marcuse
asserts that the creative multidimensional capacities of the individual get
thwarted in capitalist societies. Man is able to express himself only as a
consumer constantly engaged in the satisfaction of his physical needs.

Check Your Progress Exercise 4

Note: i) Use the space given below for your answer.

ii) See the end of the unit for tips for your answer.
1) Discuss some of the other contemporary ideas on liberty.
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………..………………………
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………

18
 ……………………………………………………………………… Liberty–As Absence
……………………………………………………………………… of External Intervention
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………..

1.7 LET US SUM UP

The idea of liberty is at the core of liberal thought, which places the rational
individual at its center and draws a boundary between the individual and
his/her sphere of autonomy, the state and society. Liberty in its common
understanding means an ‘absence of constraints’. In other words, it signifies
a condition in which an individual who is capable of taking reasoned
decisions pertaining to his/her own affairs is free to take any action without
and restraints from outside, including state and society. At the same time,
however, the notion of liberty, evolved at the same time as the idea of a
political community and political authority. This simultaneous evolution
has meant an equal recognition of the liberties of all individuals and the
understanding that reasonable restrictions on individual liberty could
be justified on the grounds that they provided the conditions in which
individual liberty could be enjoyed without conflict. The idea of liberty as
the absence of restraints is associated with a ‘negative’ notion of liberty. A
‘positive’ notion of liberty was articulated by thinkers like T H Green who
took into account the conditions, which enabled an individual to be actually
free. Thus, liberty as a positive notion consisted in having the power to act,
and the opportunities which enabled action. The idea of the welfare state
was premised on this idea which required the state to take positive steps
to provide the conditions within which individuals could actually be free
to act and develop themselves. While philosophers like J S Mill and Isaiah
Berlin attempted to reconcile the two notions, Marxists felt that freedom
could not be experienced in a capitalist society. A capitalist society, they
emphasized separates an individual from his/her social contexts and from
his/her own nature. Liberty as can be seen, has been understood differently
by different strands of thought. It remains, however, a fundamental concept
in democratic thought.

1.8 REFERENCES
Barry, Norman. (2009). An Introduction to Modern Political Theory,
London: Macmillan.
Heywood, Andrew. (1999). Political Theory, London: Macmillan.
Vinod, M J and M Deshpande. (2013). Contemporary Political Theory.
New Delhi: PHI Learning Private Ltd.

1.9 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS EXERCISES

Check Your Progress Exercise 1

1) Highlight following points:

19
Liberty • Negative liberty means absence of external constraints
• Positive liberty means existence of conditions which enable or
facilitate better development

Check Your Progress Exercise 2

1) Highlight following points:
• Mill highlighted negative concept of liberty
• Opposed restriction on individual liberty
• Distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding actions

Check Your Progress Exercise 3

1) Highlight Following points:
• Unlike liberals, Marxists see mutual dependence between
individuals and society
• Capitalism alienates individuals from their true self and creative
influences of society
• Freedom can be restored in a communist society only
• Example of Robinson Crusoe

Check Your Progress Exercise 4

1) Highlight ideas of Milton Friedman, F A Hayek, Eric Fromm and
Herbert Marcuse

20