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1 Liberty in Crisis: from Berlin's Division to Contemporary Practical Notes 1 Liberty in Crisis: From Berlin’s Division to Contemporary Practical Challenges 1. All throughout the book, I understand “liberalism” as signifying the political theory that emerged in the seventeenth century, emphasizing the protection of basic liberty, which should not be confused with the modern American political distinctions between conservative and liberal political perspectives. Hence, this rather generic term encompasses versatile and sometimes competing conceptions of liberalism: classical liberalism, welfare-state liberalism, libertarianism, liberal-culturalism, liberal-egalitarianism, democratic-liberalism, political-liberalism, etc. Accordingly, in referring to “liberal-democratic states,” I mean to imply any form of democratic government that is committed to the protection of basic liberties, however extended or limited the definition of “basic liberties” may be. See: Gutmann (2001). 2. In fact, some of the interpretive accounts offered to the Two Concepts of Liberty have argued that Berlin’s stance there against “positive” liberty is not as extreme as it has been depicted by other commentaries. See for example: Megone (1987); Renick (1990); Ryan (1965). 3. The republished edition of the essay to which I am referring here is included in Berlin’s Four Essays on Liberty 11 years after the original lecture was delivered and published. Most of the works referring to Two Concepts of Liberty and that were published after 1969 are based on and refer to this version of the essay, and the current chapter is no exception. With respect to the differences between the original publication and the one found in the latter source see for example the following works: McBride (1990: 300); Renick (1990: 2). 4. Some notable commentators such as Claud Gaipeau and William Galston claim that it is impossible to understand Berlin’s criticism of “positive” liberty when it is detached from his advocacy of “value pluralism.” Thus, the general claim here is that Berlin’s support for “negative” right stems from the need to allow individuals the freedom of choice between multiple and incommensurable values, since there cannot be any theory, let alone a government, that can justifiably make these choices for them. Hence, from this perspective, Berlin’s support of “negative” liberty is not so much due to his rejection of “positive” liberty as an illiberal stance, but rather a result of the reality depicted by “value pluralism” (Galipeau 1994: 109–11, Galston 1999, Lukes 1994, Weinstock 1997). However, such an explanation certainly faces one major difficulty. The problem is that while it is true that the last portion 122 Notes 123 of Berlin’s essay revolves on “value pluralism,” insisting that his stance is primarily based on the discussion at this section ignores the rest (and vast portions) of the essay. 5. For representative works of the various modes of criticism mentioned here, see the following sources: Christman (1991); Colie (1965); Kaufman (1962); McBride (1990b); Megone (1987); Renick (1990); Simhony (1993); Skinner (1984, 1998); Taylor (1985). 6. For a list and reference to some of the more renowned accounts of criti- cism written against the Two Concepts of Liberty see: Harris (2002). 7. Tim Gray, for example, states that: “Berlin’s ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ … was a landmark in the history of attempts to elucidate the meaning of freedom …. MacCallum’s article, “Negative and Positive Freedom,” pub- lished 9 years later [1967], was a second landmark, at least as important as the first …” (Gray 1990: 11). 8. I therefore, object Claude Galipeau criticism of Taylor’s article, stating that “there is a misunderstanding on Taylor’s part in that his criticisms do not focus on this issue of civil liberties which is Berlin’s target …. None of … [his] examples deal with the relationship between citizens and government, rather the focus is on autonomy instead of civil lib- erty.” (Galipeau 1994: 95). Although Galipeau is right with respect to the examples used by Taylor in the course of his arguments, his fundamen- tal claim is based on an example clearly linked to the political liberties realm. 9. I’ll be referring here to two works by Skinner that directly pertains to his critique about Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty, though there are 14 years separating between the two works by Skinner. These are his article “The Idea of Negative Liberty: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives” from 1984 and his book (or rather booklet, insofar as its length is concerned), Liberty before Liberalism from 1998 (Skinner 1984, 1998). Additionally it should be noted that I’ll be using the terms “neo- Roman” and “republican” together or interchangeably, though Skinner uses the former in the later research and the latter in the earlier study. Still his switching from one term to the other one does not indicate two different theories, but rather the wish on Skinner’s part to use what he perceives to be a more accurate term (“neo-Roman”) in order to depict the same theory (usually referred to as “republican”). In his own words: “I have previously spoken not of the neo-Roman but the republican the- ory of liberty. But this usage now seems to me liable to mislead” (Skinner 1998, 11 [footnote no. 31]). 10. It is worth noting that in the later study, developed in Liberty before Liberalism, Skinner focuses the attention to English writers advocating the neo-Roman (or republican) thought in the second half of the seven- teenth century. While John Locke’s thought is (almost) completely absent from Skinner analysis, as Locke is mainly and fundamentally linked with classical liberalism, as we shall see on Chapters 3 and 4, Locke’s emphasis on political participation and its vital connection to liberty resembles 124 Notes Skinner’s interpretation of a stance he ascribes to republican or neo- Roman philosophy. See: Skinner (1998: 12–16). 11. The search was conducted on the string “Berlin Two Concepts of liberty” and resulted in 59,600 entries. See: http://scholar.google.com/scholar? start=0&q=Berlin+Two+concepts+of+liberty&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5. 12. For example, see Tim Gray’s book, Freedom, in which he suggests seven different conceptions of liberty, rather than merely two, as Berlin does. Yet it is precisely Berlin’s model that constitute the initialization of Gray’s argument (Gray 1990: 7–11, 15–16, 19–30). 13. I am using the term “right-libertarians” instead of just “libertarians” (almost) all throughout the book because there are also “left-libertarians” who usually reach the opposite stance of their fellow “right-libertarians.” See also Chapter 3. 14. This is of course hardly the only depicted division within liberal theory. Interestingly, William Galston offered a somewhat parallel distinc- tion between seemingly older and newer streams of liberalism, yet his emphasis was less directly linked to the two concepts of liberty (“positive” and “negative”). Thus, Galston contrasts between “reformation liberal- ism,” associated with classical liberals like Locke that stress toleration and diversity, as opposed to “enlightenment liberalism” that he links to the philosophies of Kant, and Mill who emphasize the value of personal autonomy. Galston’s distinction is of particular interest because he claims that it is the older Lockean model of liberalism, emphasizing toleration and diversity that is more suitable to one of the main contemporary chal- lenges to and within liberal theory, namely the topic of multiculturalism. While the interpretation that is offered in the current book will demon- strate why and how the Lockean conception of liberty is specifically rel- evant to the latter topic, our analysis will show that it is precisely due to the value of liberty (or autonomy in Galston’s terms) that such toleration and fostering of diversity is promoted. See Galston (1995). 15. These discussions are particularly vibrant within the realm of bioethics research. See for example: Beauchamp and Faden (1979); Daniels (2010). 16. One notable exception to this alienation of neo-liberals and right- libertarians from the discourses about multiculturalism is of course Chandran Kukathas’ extensive writings in this subject matter. See: Kukathas (1992); Kukathas (2003). 17. Chapter 4 of this book discusses this topic in details. 2 Empowering Liberty: Liberty as Interrelated Self and Societal Empowerment 1. I shall refer to Nozick’s theory in more detail in the next chapter. 2. Henceforward I shall refer to this work as the Second Treatise. 3. The following sources, for instance, refer to the problems in understand- ing and interpreting Locke’s “state of nature”: Aarsleff 1969b; Ashcraft 1968; Goldwin 1976. Notes 125 4. “Of the many qustiones disputatae roiling the fast-moving waters of Locke scholarship, few have evinced a more persistent capacity to stimulate disagreement than the matter of his natural-law teaching—its status, significance, coherence, consistency” (Oakley 1997: 624). 5. The list of works on these themes is very extensive, but here are some var- ied and notable examples: Forde 2001; Forster 2005; Fortin 1996; Seliger 1968; Waldron 2002. 6. Indeed, in an attempt to examine the original criticisms of Strauss’s inter- pretation, Michael Zuckert has claimed that they could be divided into four main issues, all of which concern different aspect of attributing to Locke an “esoteric writing.” I’m referring to a combination of two arti- cles that were originally written by Zuckert in 1975 and 1977 and which were republished in his 2002 book Launching Liberalism: On Lockean Political Philosophy (Zuckert 2002a, 2002c). These articles are as follows: “Problematic Perspectives on Locke” (originally published under the title: “The Recent Literature on Locke’s Political Philosophy” in Political Science Reviewer, 1975); and “Of Wary Physicians and Weary Readers: The Debates on Locke’s Way of Writing” (originally published under the same title in Independent Journal of Philosophy, Fall 1977).
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