On Isaiah Berlin's "Two Concepts of Liberty"
Section: Articles
Abstract
The main purpose of Isaiah Berlin's concept of the "two kinds of liberty" is not to distinguish negative liberty from positive liberty in order to criticize the latter and advocate the former. Rather, it is to reveal the incommensurability among a plurality of values and, on that basis, to show clearly that monism is the chief source of the misunderstanding of different forms of liberty and value.
An early article engaging a classic question in political philosophy through Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between negative and positive liberty.