Two Concepts of Liberty
Isaiah Berlin
Berlin delivered this as his inaugural lecture at Oxford on 31 October 1958 and Clarendon Press published it as a pamphlet. It separates negative liberty, the absence of interference, from positive liberty, self-mastery, and shows how the second can be turned into a reason for coercing the person it claims to free. The link is to Liberty, edited by Henry Hardy, which incorporates the earlier Four Essays on Liberty and so is wider than the catalogued lecture.
Why you should read this
Berlin's inaugural Oxford lecture draws the influential line between negative liberty, freedom from interference, and positive liberty, freedom toward self-mastery, warning that the second idea can be twisted into justifying coercion. A standard starting point for any course on liberalism.
- Field
- Political Philosophy
- Form
- Non-fiction
- Published
- 1958
- Themes
- LiberalismPolitical Philosophy
