Is the Value of Individual Liberty Disregarded Through Constraints?

Is the Value of Individual Liberty Disregarded through Constraints?

While he described the concept of positive liberty, Berlin was deeply suspicious of it. He argued that the pursuit of positive liberty could lead to a situation where the state forced upon people a certain way of life, because it deemed itself the most rational course of action, and was thus what a person should desire. In the negative sense, liberty "involves an answer to the question 'What is the area within which the subject -- a person or group of persons -- is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons". Some philosophers, such as Skorupski, have disagreed on the extent of this realm while accepting the main point that liberty defines that realm in which one may act unobstructed by others.

Every good has a value; that is, it is considered worthwhile or desirable to the possessor. In living a life, humans pursue the values of certain objects, be they concrete or abstract. However, the pursuit of any value has various conditions. In order to protect the agent from unjustified interference whilst simultaneously preventing them from harming others, we establish not only a principle of liberty to support the agent but also moral principles to constrain him in the case where his action or inaction affects the justice of others.

Human life consists of a sequence of various actions. However, no one has absolute freedom to do anything, as there always exist constraints, either physical or social. The former are caused by the laws of physics and are, as such, uncontroversial. It is the latter that are of concern with respect to the value of liberty. Social constraints are those imposed by society, laws, moral customs or conventions. Such rules are considered to be established for the good of society, either positive good or the prevention of a disutility. Any action in the public sphere that is free from such constraints carries the possibility of producing harm to others. As a consequence there exists a conflict between the interests of the individual and those of society. On the one hand we advocate freedom to act and claim liberty as a basic human right, whilst on the other we delineate the boundary beyond which no actions are permitted. However, this raises the question of where the boundary should be set so as to optimize the interests of the individual and those of society.

Mill claims, that “the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being” . With this in mind we are in a good position to consider why we shouldn’t force people in matters concerning their own interests. In the first place man, as sovereign, is the person most interested in his well-being with his knowledge of his circumstances and feelings vastly superior to anyone else’s. In addition, society's interference is likely to be erroneous for general assumptions are more than likely to be wrong in individual cases. Moreover, the harmful effects of intervention are likely to outweigh the errors