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POSITIVE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHY SERIES

VOLUME 7

POSITIVE LIBERTY

by LA WRENCE CROCKER

Editor: JAN T. J. SRZEDNICKI Assistant editor: LYNNE M. BROUGHTON

Editorial Advisory Council:

R. M. Chisholm, Brown University, Rhode Island. Mats Furberg, Goteborg University, D. A. T. Gasking, University of Melbourne. H. L. A. Hart, University College, Oxford. S. Korner, University of Bristol and Yale University. T. Kotar• binski, Warsaw. H. J. McCloskey, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Melbourne. J. Passmore, Australian National University, Canberra. C. Perelman, Free Univer• sity of Brussels. A. Quinton, Trinity College Oxford. Nathan Rotenstreich, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Franco Spisani, Centro Superiore di Logica e Scienze Comparate, Bologna. S. J. Surma, Cracow. W. Tatarkiewicz, Warsaw. R. Ziednis, Waikato University, New Zealand.

Communications to be addressed to the Editor, c/o Philosophy Department, University of Melbourne, Parkville, 3052, Victoria, Australia.

An Essay in Normative

by

LAWRENCE CROCKER

II 1980 MARTINUS NIJHOFF PUBLISHERS THEHAGUE/BOSTON/LONDON DiSlribUlors: for Ihe United Slates and Canad(l Kluwcr Boston. Inc. 160 Old Derby Street Hingham. MA 02043 USA for (1/1 other countries Kluwer Academic Publishers Group Distribution Center P.O. Box 322 3300 AH Dordreeht The Netherlands

Ubrary of ConlEress CalaJORini in Public.tion Data CE

Crocker. Lawrence. Positive libert y.

(MeltJ.ourne in ternational ph ilosophy series; v. 7) Includes bi hliographical references. i. Liberty. I. Title. II . Series. JC5X5 .C74 323.44'0 1 79-28437

ISBN· I 3:978· 94-009·8839·2 e·ISBN·1 3: 978·94·009·8837·8 DOl: 10. 1007/978-94-009-8837-8

Copyri ght © 19RO by Martinus NijhofJ Publishers by. The Hague. Softcove r rep rint of the hardcover 15t ed ition 1980 All reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system. or transmitted in any form or by any means. mechanical. photocopying. recording. or otherwise. wi thout the prior writlen permission of the pUblisher. Martinus NijhofJ Publishers bv. P.O. Box 566. 2501 CN The Hague. The Netherlands. To the memory of my wife

JANE ELIZABETH ENGLISH who was killed climbing the Mat• terhorn, September 11, 1978. She made important contributions to philosophy and feminism, and taught, by example, the joy of living. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This essay was made possible by a sabbatical grant from the University of Washington and by the hospitality of the Philosophy Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which provided research facilities. I am indebted to many colleagues and friends for valuable suggestions, among them Robert Coburn, David Crocker, Steven Dar• wall, Gerald Dworkin, Jane English, Dan Lyons, and Robert Richman. I also wish to thank the editors of The Personalist, now the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, for their permission to reprint 'Coercion and the Wage Agreement,' which appears here as Section 6, and was originally printed in Volume 59 of The Personalist.

LAWRENCE CROCKER CONTENTS

Acknowledgement vi 1. INTRODUcrION 1 1. Berlin's Distinction 3 2. MacCallum on Positive and 5 3. The Strategy of the Argument 7

II. THE To Do A PARTICULAR THING: THE OBJECfIVE SIDE 10 4. Restraint and Incapacity 11 5. Coercion 15 6. Coercion and the Wage Agreement 22 7. The Probability of Doing x 25

III. THE FREEDOM To Do A PARTICULAR THING: THE SUBJEcrIVE SIDE 30 8. Belief and Information 30 9. Psychological Barriers, Autonomy, and Freedom 36 10. The Desire to Do x 43

IV. PERSONAL FREEDOM 48 11. Berlin's Five Factors 49 12. The Number and Variety of Alternatives 54 13. The Probability of the Alternatives 58 14. The Value of the Alternatives 61

V. SOCIAL LIBERTY 66 15. The Characterization 66 16. Outlines of a Positive Libertarian Social Program 69 17. A Positive Approach to Speech 72 18. Redistribution 74 19. Left and Right 77

VI. CRITICISMS OF POSITIVE LIBERTY 82 20. That Positive Liberty Extends the Notion to Meaninglessness 82 21. Liberty and its Conditions of Exercise 86 22. Liberty and the Conditions that Give It Worth 87 23. "Liberty" in Ordinary Language 92 24. The Special Evils of Restraint and Coercion 99 25. Human Rights, Coercion, and Non-Aid 101

VII. THE VALUE OF LIBERTY 110 26. The Consequences of Liberty 110 27. Intrinsic Value Defined 113 28. The Intrinsic Value of Autonomy and Liberty 114 29. Value and the Structure of Positive Liberty 117 30. An Egalitarian Argument for Positive Liberty 120 Vlll CONTENTS

VIII. THE COSTS AND LIMITS OF LmERTY 123 31. Decision Costs 123 32. Personal Costs and Paternalism 126 33. Social Costs 134 34. Decision and Collective Decision 137

NOTES 143