NEGATIVE VS SOCIAL LIBERTY: HONNETH’S TACIT CRITIQUE OF BERLIN
Keywords:
Isaiah Berlin, Axel Honneth, positive liberty, negative libert, value pluralism, liberalism, socialismAbstract
This paper represents a kind of defense of the famous division of Isaiah Berlin's political liberty to its ’positive’ and ’negative’ articulation, and especially the rights of negative liberty as the minimum core that must be included in any debate on freedom. The first part of the paper is dedicated to Berlin's analysis of political liberty. The reasons that guided Berlin in giving priority to negative liberty are especially emphasized: above all, the probability of postitive liberty’s perversion and the fatality of its consequences. Berlin's ’postulate’ of value pluralism as a hinterland or a aegis of the thinking of liberty is also discussed. The second, central part of the paper, exposes Honneth's critique of the concept of negative liberty and his advocacy of ’social freedom’ – with Berlin mentioned only in incidental remarks. Instead of Berlin, the author of the paper reconstructs possible Berlin’s answers to Honneth's objections, at the same time criticizing Honneth's socio-ontological approach to the issue of liberty. In short ’conclusion’, the imperishability of Berlin's installation of the negative concept of freedom is affirmed, not as sufficient, but as a necessary common ground of any meaningful discourse on political freedom. The belief is also expressed that such a voluntary reduction, such a minimalist orientation, corresponds to Berlin's intention in problematizing the notion(s) of liberty.
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