negative liberty

This note last modified September 1, 2024

The lack of explicit blocks (e.g. laws) preventing you from doing what you want.

positive liberty
- The ability to actually act and change the world around you. Billionaires have the same negative liberties as you because they are (ostensibly) beholden to the same laws you are, but they have far more positive liberty since if they want something to happen, they can make it happen.
duty
- Similar to positive and negative liberties, there is positive and negative duties. Negative is don’t interfere with other people’s lives, positive is that you have a duty to help others.
definitions of liberty
- Liberty is good, but it’s a complex idea. Many libertarians immediately jump to negative liberty as what they mean, but positive liberty is also a thing. Some arguing in bad faith use liberty to mean “me doing what I want without consequences” while more reasonable people refer to the ability for the hypothetical person to do what they want.
berlinism
- Negative liberty is what we typically think about. The government granting you free speech is a negative liberty, the ability to say whatever you want without (government) consequences.