Two Concepts of Liberty

Two Concepts of Freedom

Two Concepts of Liberty is a lecture address that welcomed the inauguration sent by Isaiah Berlin before Oxford University on October 31, 1958. He was subsequently published as a pamphlet; the 57-page treaty by Oxford at Clarendon Press. He was also seen in the Berlin document collection Four Essays at Liberty (1969) and was more recently re-published in a collection entitled only Liberty (2002).  Berlin distinguishes two forms or concepts from negative freedoms and positive freedoms - and argues that the latter concept has often been used to cover all abuses, leading to a reduction / limitation of the freedom of negative people "for good they themselves ".  

Berlin believes that positive freedom almost always gives rise to abuse of power. Because when a political leadership believes that they hold a philosophical key record (in a better future, this noble end can be used to justify brutal and drastic means; Berlin sees the choice of the vanguard of the Soviet Union as an example the main of the dangers of 'positive freedom' and the concept can be seen as especially eye-catching during the Cold War, where opinion, a revolutionary feeling is full.  

Berlin believes that more precautious principles are needed, and that 'negative freedom', in which radical individuals are protected from or revolutionary messages, and as such have little or no existential freedom but is given more and more 'internal' freedom to pursuit of recreation and various consumer interests.

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