Freedom as an Ideal: Raymond Geuss and Martin Hollis' Discussion

Freedom as an Ideal
Author(s): Raymond Geuss and Martin Hollis

Source: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 69 (1995), pp.
87-112
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FREEDOM AS AN IDEAL
Raymond Geuss and Martin Hollis
I-Raymond Geuss
saiah Berlin's discussion of the two concepts of liberty1 p

a convenient starting place for the topic I wish to discuss, na
the role conceptions of freedom play in structuring our
aspirations. Berlin assumes that 'freedom' can be signif
ascribed either to human individuals or to groups, and
distinguishes what he calls 'negative conceptions' of freedo
'positive conceptions'. An entity (whether human indiv
group) is free 'in a negative sense' to the extent to which t
no (external) impediments or obstacles to the action of tha
(in some particular domain); an entity (whether a human in
or a group) is free 'in a positive sense' to the extent to wh
entity is its own master, i.e. to the extent to which it rules or
itself. One might think that these two distinctions (b
individual and group freedom on the one hand and positiv
negative freedom on the other) cut across each other so that ac
Berlin's account recognizes four kinds of freedom:
a) negative freedom of an individual: if my hands are un
am to that extent freer than I was;
b) positive freedom of an individual: a Roman slave wh

emancipated became free 'in a positive sense';
c) negative freedom of a group: a certain nomadic group
not be free to move in a certain direction because of frontier
arrangements (Hadrian's Wall, for instance);
d) positive freedom of a group: if a colony successfully revolts
against the metropolitan area and establishes itself as a separate
political entity, it may sometimes be said to have attained a kind
of (positive) freedom it lacked before the revolt.
1 'Introduction' and 'Two Concepts of Liberty' in Four Essays on Liberty, Isaiah Berlin,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.
88 I-RAYMOND GEUSS
As if this were not complic

the positive conception of fre
this case the positive freedom
Sometimes 'freedom' (of th
means 'autonomy' or ability t
one's own behaviour, but so
'self-realization' i.e. that the individual's 'true' or 'real' self comes
to expression in action. Actually neither of these two senses of
'(positive) freedom' seems the same as the sense in which the
emancipated Roman slave has become free. An emancipated slave
is a person who has been assigned a certain legal status: his or her
actions are now recognized in a certain way, and certain kinds of
action, such as appearing in court in one's own cause, are now
possible that were not before. None of this implies that the former
slave is now 'autonomous' i.e. actually capable of regulating his or
her own behaviour or has attained 'self-realization' (in any of the
more emphatic senses in which that term was used in the 19th
century).
The discussion can be clarified, I think, by introducing a further
distinction which Berlin doesn't use. To return for a moment to the
positive sense of freedom for a group, a colony that attains independ-
ence from a metropolitan area may be said to have gained a kind of
positive freedom, but it does not follow from such independence that
the former colony will be internally self-governing (by whatever
standards one uses to determine this). I would like to say that the
colony that becomes independent attains (positive) freedom 'in an
outward-looking sense'; '(positive) freedom in an inward-looking
sense' then refers to political and social arrangements which
nowadays will probably include the existence of a parliamentary
system of government with regular elections, etc.2 One can make an
2 I would like to be able to give a clearer and more abstract account of the distinction
between inward-looking and outward-looking senses of freedom, but can't. I hope the
examples at least make my general intentions clear. 'The positive freedom of a group in
an inward-looking sense' doesn't yet designate a single well-defined concept, but rather
a family of slightly different conceptions. Different more or less distinct concepts will
arise by adding further specifications of what it means for a group to be 'self-governing'.
I discuss some of these issues in more detail in my 'Auffassungen der Freiheit' (forth-
coming in Zeitschriftfiir philosophische Forschung) and 'Freiheit im Liberalismus und
bei Marx' (forthcoming in Ethische und politische Freiheit ed. Julian Nida-Riimelin and
Wilhelm Vossenkuhl).
FREEDOM AS AN IDEAL 89
analogous distinction in the case

individual: the legal freedom of th
positive freedom in an outward-loo
important historical step when t
master' is extended and internal
(positive) freedom as self-control,
that is, to various conceptions of
sense.
Berlin's own final position on freedom is not co

He obviously thinks that the concept of freedom ha
a kind of 'inflation' during the past several hundr
sense that people have tried to build more and mo
ponents of a fully good and satisfactory human life in
of freedom itself. In any case Berlin is clearly extr
to counter this 'inflation' of the concept of freed
possible.3 Thus he wishes to distinguish as shar
between what belongs to the content of the concept o
and what properly belongs only to the conditions
freedom can effectively be utilized.4 In fact Berlin
close to suggesting that positive freedom itself in any
forms is not really a proper concept of freedom
amalgam, incorporating components of the concep
with various other inflationary elements derived f
of happiness, rationality, etc. Only, he suggests, th
of individual negative freedom is the real unvarnis
certainly it is individual negative freedom which
strict priority in philosophical discussion.
The reason it is so important for Berlin to claim t
of individual negative freedom is in some sense
concept of freedom5 is that he believes there is a k
affinity between positive conceptions of freedom
ation of a certain kind of totalitarian oppression.6 O
3 Cf. Four Essays on Liberty, pp. xxxviii ff., liii ff.

4 Cf. Four Essays on Liberty pp. xlix, liii ff. Accepting this distinctio
discussion views that take power to be an essential component of f
an opportunity for action' (Four Essays p. xlii) not a power to act o
5 Cf. Four Essays p. lvi.
6 Berlin sometimes denies that he is asserting any special (in pa
connection between positive conceptions of freedom and totalit
90 I--RAYMOND GEUSS
conception of freedom, Berlin th

called 'Rousseau's paradox' that
circumstances one could force p
under certain circumstances peo
however, to lack the conceptual r
totalitarianism.
To put what I take to be Berlin
1. To be negatively free means
one has unobstructed oppor
positively free means actually
2. If freedom is a way of life,
than I do what constitutes that w
3. Anyone who knew (better t

positive freedom would consist
adopt that way of life and in s
be free.
There are any number of dif

Obviously nothing at all like it
conceptions of freedom, for inst
as residing in individual autonom
it would be an integral part of the
living it has chosen that life rath
At the moment, however, I woul
the argument. It is, of course, not
good for you--even if I know w
Essays, pp. xliii-xlix, 132), but this seems

connection between positive conceptions of
historical and contingent, it is hard to see
supposed to have, beyond reminding us tha
senses, not all of them compatible with each
7 J.-J. Rousseau Du contrat social (1762)
Negative Liberty' in Philosophy in Histor
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1
8 Note for instance that it would be a mistak
must be an exercise concept, just because it
(in a positive sense) might designate the po
or may not be exercised.
9 Note that I could also force you to be nega
your action. Whereas before you had no cho
the chair), when I untie you you are forced
standing up. No one thinks there is anythin
you-this gives me a warrant to coerce you, especially not if the

good in question is one which has value only if you chose it freely,
so that in using coercion I destroy it.
The situation changes immediately, of course, if one adds to the
three points listed above a fourth:
4. There is a social agency (for instance, The State) who is really

me (or: who is 'the real me') and thus all of whose actions are
really mine so that none of its actions against me can even in
principle count as coercion.
Actually if one has 4 one doesn't need 3 above to draw some strong
and unpleasant conclusions. This suggests that Berlin has mis-
diagnosed the error which gives rise to an inability to resist the
temptations of totalitarianism. The culprit is some thesis about the
relation between individual and social agency-something like 4
above or like what Berlin calls the 'organicist' conception of
society and not the positive conception of freedom. 10
It is striking that Berlin's whole discussion of freedom is struct-
ured by his interest in the limits of permissible social coercion.ll
Freedom for him is from the very start a police-concept. The possible
justification of coercive social regulation of human action is not,
however, the only context in which the concept of freedom plays a
role. Another context is that in which individuals decide how they
will lead ffieir own lives. Whatever the importance of negative
conceptions of freedom in the discussion of systems of public
coercion, they are of little use in helping individuals structure their
aspirations.l2 Since one is not necessarily going to be using
conceptions of freedom to legitimize systems of coercion, it isn't at
all obvious that conceptual abstemiousness is the correct course. It
doesn't follow from ffiis either that one can't take seriously Berlin's
10 Note that Thomas Hobbes has a relentlessly negative conception of freedom, but given
his theory about the construction of social agency, the Leviathan, he arrives at strongly
totalitarian conclusions. Note also that both Hegel and Marx specifically reject the
'organicist' conception of society if by that is meant the view that human individuals are
no more than accidents of the social substance or organs of a social whole. Cf. G.W.F.
Hegel Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 1970, 260
261 plus 'Zusatze', 273 ('Zusatz'). Cf. also Karl Marx, Grundrisse, Berlin: Dietz, 1974
pp. 375ff, esp. p. 384.
1 1 Berlin, Four Essays p. 121.
12 As Nietzsche writes, freedom as absence of constraints is perhaps a reasonable aspiration

for slaves, but not for others. Cf. Fr. Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Bose 260.
92 I--RAYMOND GEUSS
concern about excessive inflat

'freedom' needn't necessarily com
indistinguishable from the vag
satisfactory human life'.
If 'freedom' is not the same as
'morality' either.13 So if one wa
direction in understanding free
thread one's way through the min
of which I have just sketched. T
freedom which is a development
usage and practice which can s
individual human aspirations bu
nor so inflated as to be indistin
indeterminate sum of all huma
moralized that it is an analytic
acting morally.
There are, I think, a number o
mine-field. I would like to ment
2) conceptions of freedom cent
authenticity of desire; 4) freed
make some very cursory remark
comments on authenticity and s
The full concept of autonomy
prised of two components; I wil
1. have or exercise the capacit
give myself principles of actio
2. have or exercise a capacity

refrain from acting on impul
them to be incompatible w
principles I have adopted.
This conception of freedom as
uished history although I would
slightly etiolated to those with a c
To use the standard example,
'autonomous' in the above sense,
13 Despite the efforts of Kant and his follow
call such a slave fully free. One migh

this consideration by claiming that
comprises both full autonomy and
If one reflects on the intuition t
conception of freedom, one might
thing like this: I am the freer the
stand open to me, thus any obstac
action as a possibility for me is a res
is the right way to think about freed
extent of the spectrum of possible co
to me at any given time. How many
open to me, however, will depend
many cases it will depend as much
kind) I have as on the existence
'Obstacles' lose their salience in th
is in principle no reason why incre
to as great an increase in my freed
would. This is the tack Marx takes when he cites the 'Dictionnaire
de l'academie' to the effect that 'libert6' is most commonly used in
the sense of 'puissance'.14
Stalwart proponents of negative liberty can try to resist this line
of argument by appeal to a certain moral intuition many of us have
and which one finds expressed with great clarity in Rousseau's
Emile, namely that we react differently to different ways in which
our wishes can be frustrated. If our desires are frustrated because
we lack the power to attain what we want or are prevented by some
natural obstacle our reaction will usually lack the quality of resent-
ment and indignation it may well have if we are hindered by an
obstacle created by another human agent (especially if this obstacle
was created specifically to thwart us). Berlin, and those who take a
similar position to his on the priority of negative liberty argue from
this Rousseauist intuition that only obstacles which are the results
of human action (or even, of 'deliberate interference')15 count as
restrictions of my liberty; natural obstacles or my own lack of power
do not.16
14 MEW 3.287 i.e. Marx-Engels Werke (Berlin: Dietz, 1983) vol. 3, p. 287.
15 Berlin, Four Essays p. 122.
16 Part of my intention is to try to break the hold on our imaginations exercised by an image
94 I-RAYMOND GEUSS
It seems plausible that a conc

consist in autonomy plus po
outlined above. It could hav
distinguishable from other id
inherently moralizing way-
use my powers in ways that d
'morality'.
One might still, however, think that a conception of freedom
which took it to consist in autonomy plus power left something out.
It has often been taken to be part of our intuitive conception of
freedom that I can be called fully free only if I am doing what I
really want. 'What I really want to do' here refers not to some
externally specifiable course of action, but to the kind of desire that
gives rise to the action I perform. In this sense I am doing something
I really want to do if my action is motivated by a desire that is
genuinely or authentically mine. I'm free then, in this sense, if I am
acting on a genuine or authentic desire.
Another way in which the same point is often put is to say that I
am free only if acting on a desire with which I 'identify'. The most
powerful contemporary analysis of what it means to 'identify' with
a desire is the one given by Harry Frankfurt in his classic paper
'Freedom of the Will & the Concept of a Person'.17 This analysis
starts from a distinction between first-order and second-order desires
(and correspondingly first-order and second-order volitions). I
identify with a given desire, roughly speaking, when I will that desire
to be the one which moves me to action. Thus if I have a (first-order)
desire to have a glass of wine, I will be acting freely in acting on that
desire if I also have a second-order desire that that desire for a glass
of wine be the one which motivates me to action; such a second-order
desire is a second-order volition and means that I have identified with
the given first-order desire. If, on the other hand, I have a first-order
Berlin (and some of his followers) tend to project, the image of a contrast between sober,
responsible, more or less value-neutral negative conceptions of freedom and inflated,
highly moralizing positive conceptions. (Cf. esp. Flathman The Philosophy & Politics of
Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) pp. 50ff.) If the Rousseauist
intuition did turn out to be part of the motivation of those who cling most tenaciously to
a purely negative conception of freedom, this would be grist for my mill.
17 Harry Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1988) pp. Ilff.
desire to drink a glass of wine and

first-order desire not move me to ac
wine is not one I have identified with
acting on it will not be acting fully f
In a somewhat later essay18 Frank
to his account. If I have a second-order desire not to be moved to
action by a particular first-order desire, I have not identified with
the first-order desire in question, but it doesn't necessarily follow
from the fact that I endorse a given first-order desire as motive for
action that I have thereby identified with that first-order desire in
any very significant sense. It may well be the case, for instance, that
I have unresolved conflicts among my higher-order desires. After
much backing and forthing I may reluctantly, with (proleptic) regret
and many reservations finally settle for the moment on a second-
order volition that one particular first-order desire be the one that
constitutes my will. In so deciding (and then acting) I don't fully
identify with the first-order desire-all things considered, under
these and these conditions, unfortunately, I endorse it for action this
time around without any commitment or clear expectation that next
time around I will not decide differently. This is the issue Frankfurt
calls 'wholeheartedness'. It is obviously extremely difficult to give
any kind of full and clear account of what it means to identify
wholeheartedly with a desire, but Frankfurt is surely right to
emphasize that one component of such an analysis is a commitment
the agent makes vis-a-vis the future; I grant the desire in question
a continuing recognized place within the self.19
Reflection on wholeheartedness, identification, authenticity
gave rise in the nineteenth century to two contrasting ideals.
The first of these is one which sees freedom to consist precisely
in the absence of identification or wholeheartedness. The free spirit
is bound by no fixed beliefs or commitments and stands related to
desires in a way that is similar to that in which the ancient sceptic
stands to beliefs. Desires, both first-order and higher-order desires,
18 'Identification and Wholeheartedness' in Harry Frankfurt, The Importance of What We

Care About pp.159ff.
19 Cf. H. Frankfurt 'Identification and Wholeheartedness' in The Importance of What We

Care About (Cambridge, 1988) esp. pp. 168ff. 'Freedom of the Will and the Concept of
a Person' deals with traditional problems of the mechanism of autonomy; 'Identification
& Wholeheartedness' deals with what came to be called 'authenticity'.
96 I RAYMOND GEUSS
are there to be acted on in the given context, not to be the objects

of identification. Genuinely free and deep people are those who
love masks and are deft at changing them.20
As Hegel pointed out, though, in his criticism of Friedrich
Schlegel2l the apparent rich multiplicity of possibilities open to the
free spirit seems to be purchased at the price of an impoverishment
of the self which is reduced to the single, empty infinitely repeated
movement of rejecting identification.
The other, diametrically opposed ideal, is one which sees free-
dom to consist in identifying oneself wholeheartedly with a unitary,
structured set of desires which constitute the core of a more or less
enduring self.22 Only then, so this line of argument runs, can there
even be a self which might be said to be free or unfree in acting one
way rather than another, namely acting freely if acting on a desire
with which it identifies, otherwise not acting freely.23
It would, though, I think, be a mistake to think that one could
understand freedom in the sense at issue here merely as action on
a set of desires with which I can wholeheartedly identify. Even if
the project of the 'free spirit' in its more extreme versions isn't
completely coherent, the proponents of this ideal did have some-
thing in mind that one can't simply dismiss: there can be a kind of
naive, immediate, and unreflective wholeheartedness which we are
not necessarily inclined to see specifically as a form of freedom.
Hegel's idea that both reflection (which gives rise to the ideal of
the free spirit) and identification (which gives rise to the ideal of
wholeheartedness) are internal 'moments' of freedom (correctly
understood), seems plausible, but by itself leaves one without much
clarity about how exactly the two will be related in full-blown cases
of freedom.
20 This ideal is expressed with great brilliance at various places in Nietzsche's work, (e.g.
Jenseits von Gut und Bose 40, 284, 289).
21 G.W.F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (Suhrkamp, 1970) 140.
22 Oddly enough one finds extreme expressions of both of the two ideals in Nietzsche. (For
an instance of something like this ideal of 'wholeheartedness' cf. Gotzendammerung
'Spruche und Pfeile' 44). Part of the difficulty in understanding Nietzsche is a difficulty
in knowing how to take this fact. Hegel has a complex theory of the way in which both
of these ideals are (so he claims) rooted in aspects of the structure of the will and how
they can be reconciled in a life lived in a fully rational state. Cf. Hegel Grundlinien zur
Philosophie des Rechts 5-7, 139-157.
23 Kant doesn't use the language of 'identification' but one might think of him as claiming
that one should identify wholeheartedly only with the desire to act consistently.
Self-realization views of freedom shift the focus from the

internal world of desire to the world of action. There are two slightly
different versions of a self-realization approach to freedom. The
first, which one can find perhaps most explicitly in Humboldt,24
sees human beings not so much as creatures who have desires with
which they identify or fail to identify, but as bearers of powers and
capacities which they can exercise and develop. I'm free on this
view to the extent to which I am engaged in a course of action in
which I am exercising my powers and capacities in such a way that
these powers and capacities are also at the same time being further
developed. It is by exercising my capacity to play the piano that that
capacity is further developed, and to the extent to which the exercise
of this capacity is at the same time the development of that capacity,
the course of action is free. In 19th century capitalist industrial
labour, workers performed simplified and highly repetitious
motions for long periods of time; part of the reason why for Marx
such labour was a form of unfree activity was that such simplified
and routinized activity was the exercise of certain human capacitie
on the part of the individual worker which was not appropriately
connected with the development of any powers or capacities.25
Playing the piano an hour a day makes one progressively a bette
player but turning a screw in a certain position for an hour a day
won't after the first day make one a better mechanic.
Often those who wish thus to understand freedom as the exercise
and development of human powers and capacities hold that a fully
free action will be one that is an integral part of an all-sided or
universal development of human powers and capacities.26 Since the
development of some human powers and capacities is incompatible
with the development of others, the coherence of the more extreme
forms of this view has rightly been questioned.27 There is also a
slight difference at least of emphasis perhaps between this self-
24 W. von Humboldt, Ober die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staates (originally 1793; the
most convenient modem edition is Reclam, 1967).
25 MEW Erg. 1.454ff. Marx-Engels Werke (Dietz, Berlin) Erginzungsband 1, pp. 454ff.
26 MEW 3.74, 206, 237, 245 etc.
27 Cf. G.A. Cohen 'Reconsidering Historical Materialism' (in Nomos XXVII, 1983) pp.
226ff. Obviously there are a number of different specific views possible here: That
freedom consists in exercise and development of all of my powers and capacities, of any
that are unique to me, of those that are in some sense characteristic of me, etc.
98 I--RAYMOND GEUSS
realization view and the view I mentioned earlier which identified

freedom with power. The earlier view focuses on my ability to get
what I want as the central part of freedom (and power is what lets
me get what I want). In the self-realization views the emphasis seems
rather to be on the transformation of my self which development of
my powers and capacities brings about; by developing and
exercising my capacities and powers I become a literally more
realized self and thus, the proponents of this argument claim, freer
in my acting.28
The other variant of a self-realization view emphasizes that I am
free only if I am acting in such a way as to be able to recognize (or
perhaps recognize and affirm) myself in the action. Unfortunately
it is tremendously difficult to give any kind of coherent reading of
what 'recognizing myself in my action' means which isn't either
much too weak-'recognizing myself' means just having a certain
feeling of familiarity or subjective belief, but one doesn't
necessarily want to define freedom directly in terms of a mere
subjective feeling-or really very strong indeed-if one, for
instance, has a specific theory of the structure of the self and holds
that free action is action in which I can see that particular structure
of the self to be instantiated. I suspect that most of what is intuitively
appealing about this version of the self-realization view can actually
be accommodated by ajudicious extension of notions of authenticity
of desire or perhaps of the notions of authenticity plus development
and exercise of my powers and capacities.
Autonomy, power, authenticity of desire, exercise and develop-
ment of my powers and capacities all seem eminently reasonable
objects of human aspiration; all seem reasonably clearly defined and
none of these seems to have an inherent bias in favour of morality.
I may autonomously set myself perfectly immoral goals, authentic-
ally identify with desires that will move me to egregiously antisocial
behaviour, and the development and exercise of my capacities may
be grossly incompatible with the continued existence of minimally
humane conditions of life for large numbers of other people. Finally
none seems to be inherently a police concept. (Together with
28 Note that the word 'power' in the phrase 'development and exercise of my powers and
capacities' may not mean precisely the same thing as 'power' meant in the earlier
discussion.
negative freedom) they seem to me

dimensions along which the discus
Earlier (footnote 16 above) I sp
Berlin's discussion insinuated: T
straightforward, sober, morally n
conceptions of freedom arose out
controversial biases in the direction of one or another moral view
into the very nature of freedom itself.
What 'moral neutrality' might mean here isn't perhaps com-
pletely clear (nor why that should be a desideratum). I take it to be
one of the great merits of Bernard Williams' work to have pointed
out that 'ethics' has traditionally meant two distinct things: a) the
attempt to say something about what the 'good life' for me would
be, and b) the attempt to say something general about how people
should regulate their behaviour toward one another. 'Ethics' widely
construed refers equivocally to either task, narrowly construed to
the first; 'morality' tends to be used to refer to the second. Western
philosophy begins with the attempt to show the close connection
between plausible answers to the two questions: the only way for me
to live a truly happy life (it is claimed) is to do so in the context of
acting toward others in morally well-regulated ways.29
'Negative freedom', I want to claim, gets its attractiveness if one
is looking for a police-concept, that is a concept to regulate the
enforcement of morality. This doesn't mean one can't extract a
concept of 'negative freedom' from the context of moral enquiry in
which it is embedded; of course one can, but outside this particular
moral context the concept seems ad hoc and pointless.
It would be neatly symmetrical if I could now claim that the
positive conception of freedom (or at any rate some of the various
positive conceptions) has the property of 'moral neutrality' falsely
assigned to negative freedom, but I can't. This result should be
undisturbing because one's whole interest in the concept of
'freedom' arises from ethical concerns (very broadly construed) so
it isn't obvious that all forms of moral neutrality are even desiderata.
The positive conceptions of freedom I have mentioned describe
29 Cf. Bernard Williams, Ethics & the Limits of Philosophy (London: Fontana, 1985). For
the persistence of this form of thinking in German Idealism cf. Andreas Wildt, Autonomie
undAnerkennung (Klett-Cotta, 1982).
100 I-RAYMOND GEUSS
individual aspirational ideals, b

an open question whether it is
attain his or her ideals (to bec
particular way) and also an open
extent) it would be a good thin
to allow its members maximal freedom in one or another of the
positive senses.30
30 My thanks to Prof. Martin Hollis for his extremely helpful comments on this paper.
FREEDOM AS AN IDEAL
Raymond Geuss and Martin Hollis
II-Martin Hollis
FREEDOM IN GOOD SPIRITS
TheExhibition.
Geuss Gallery of Ideals is mounting a 'Spirit of Freedom'
The main section will be devoted to people who
personify the idea (or ideal); and there will be sections for Enemies
of Freedom, and for Free and Unfree Societies. The selectors are
off to a good start with a huge bust of Socrates for the main section
and a scowling portrait of Joseph Stalin for the rogues gallery. But
they are already having trouble with Genghis Khan and Martin
Luther. By the test of whether these individuals displayed
'autonomy, power, authenticity of desire and the exercise and
development of [their] powers and capacities' (p. 98), the former is
in and the latter probably out. That is disconcerting; but then, by
that test, Stalin may have had the edge on Socrates.
The debate has driven the selectors back to their general brief,
which is not proving altogether helpful. It instructs them to apply a
conception which is 'a development of something rooted in
everyday usage and practice, which can serve to give clarity and
focus to individual human aspirations but which is neither a
police-concept nor so inflated as to be indistinguishable from the
concept of the indeterminate sum of all human satisfactions, nor so
thoroughly moralized that it was an analytic truth that anyone acting
freely was acting morally.' (p. 92) Each clause strikes a chord; but
they are unsure whether the clauses sum coherently. Yet the intel-
lectual distinction of Raymond Geuss's absorbing, inconclusive
paper, with its mixture of scholarly notes and inviting queries, bids
them to think their way through.
I share their admiration and am all for working up a positive
conception of freedom connected with human aspirations, But,
since the paper trails far more thoughts than can be pursued and the
Joint Session thrives on a spot of discord, I shall argue that it fails
102 II-MARTIN HOLLIS
in its aim unless Geuss is willin

ethical and less individual than
I shall distinguish 'thin' and 't
positive freedom, and then tur
autonomy, power, authenticity
I see it, is better suited to colla
say about internal impediment
discourse moulded chiefly in d
commonly biased towards ind
about objectivity in ethics.
I
Isaiah Berlin's mesmeric 'Two Concepts of Liberty' defined

negative freedom as an absence of (human) interference with my
activity and then traced positive freedom to 'the wish on the part of
the individual to be his own master'. I agree that this strategy has
the drawbacks which Geuss points out. As Berlin himself remarked,
he employed two concepts which may seem 'at no great distance
from one another'. Consequently he injected a bias towards
individualism, and left it unclear why and hence whether freedom
to be one's own master is always 'positive'. Leaving the individual-
ism for later, let us start with differences between and within
negative and positive conceptions.
Despite a risk of begged questions, I propose marking off
negative from positive by the test of whether the freedoms deemed
crucial are a function of what I want or a function of what it is proper
for me to want. This leaves it open for the moment whether 'proper'
is a moral term or has some other connotation, and whether what it
denotes is finally internal, perhaps peculiar, to me or involves
externally set goals and aspirations essentially-open, in short,
about the wish to be one's own master. But it lets us distinguish at
the extremes between Mill's 'fool satisfied' and Cranmer's
obedient Christian. The former is perfectly free, if satisfactio
everything; the latter submits to a God whose service is perf
positive freedom.
I am negatively free in so far as I can do what I want. Within th
negative range, there are 'thin' and 'thick' versions, whose dif
ence is fairly straightforward for external impediments. The thin
versions recognise only formal prohibitions and some wi
obstructions. By this test any Ame

President, since there is no legal obs
in which a poor black woman has a f
is as nothing to the sense in which s
still in the negative range which id
perhaps lack of abilities as relevant i
The range is governed by what is d
can do what I want, with a firm presu
be human and removable. I am neither
the moon; but what of the impedimen
for physics? Several criteria have be
some more disputed than others. Br
resource which nature has given n
cannot at present supply is never d
Argument occurs only where natur
isation have granted some people
element of human responsibility
sufficient. For instance, blindness d
kingdom of the blind but may or m
it deprives some people of opportun
cure or compensation is possible. 'Re
causal term but soon takes on a moral tone.
The moral element in the choice of what counts is striking and
perhaps unexpected. It operates most clearly in political philosophy.
Libertarians are quick to resist the idea that lack of resources or
abilities limits my freedom, and will countenance it only where I
have suffered a personal injustice. I remain free to buy a car, even
though I do not have the price of a bicycle, unless, for instance, you
have stolen my savings: if my poverty is due to nature or to social
arrangements where no one in particular is at fault, my freedom is
unimpaired. On the other hand, liberals who agree with J.S. Mill that
'the only liberty which deserves the name is that of pursuing our
own good in our own way' are notably readier to discuss the dis-
tribution of resources and abilities. But then they hold beliefs about
social justice-for instance that there is such a thing-which
scandalise libertarians. They also connect freedom with the cultiv-
ation of one's faculties-a matter to return to in a moment.
On another occasion we might linger on distinctions between
natural impediments and those created by human beings, and,
within the human category,

particular and those arising fr
at large. We might also ponder
justice, seeing that they owe
society, and something to peo
divert us too far into discussi
concept of freedom and the cond
distinction varies with the con
also take us further into polit
warrants. So let us simply not
clearly influenced by consider
usefully helps to correct any p
of freedom differ from positi
To generalise the point, be
innumerable hazards, only som
ments. Since hazards which are
effective are not deemed relev
freedom depends on absence
hazards. But no theory takes thi
who created the hazard or coul
theories of freedom of action ar
should remove it. If it turns out
to smooth the way, the hazard
this extent even negative conc
But, despite the intrusion of et
negative, so long as they refus
free agent to want. Ethical quest
of means for pursuing our ow
counts as an unwarranted impe
this can be done or whether th
be related to particular, no d
negative conceptions can avoid
prohibitions and unwarranted
beings in particular circumsta
are more precarious, partly be
of resources and other features
among ends and partly beca
ambitious thoughts about abili
Talk of abilities, and hence of inte

distinction between negative and
Hobbes's account of freedom in Levi
ments are the only touchstone. He ope
Liberty, or freedom, signifieth, prope
by opposition, I mean external imped
and then argues that, contrary to com

rationally do from fear and inde
influences on my will (described in
in deliberating') do not count, sin
solely by whether my will can succeed
persons adapt their desires to their
closing any gap between what they w
we do well to become Stoics or, with
If Hobbes does not draw this conclus
he takes human nature to be incapab
Continual success in obtaining those t
to time desireth, that is to say, contin
FELICITY; I mean the felicity of this li
as perpetual tranquillity of mind, wh
itself is but motion, and can never b
Without this restlessness, we would

desires modest, and, even granting i
the less our frustration. It is hard to
can say otherwise.
This finds no favour with J.S. Mil
liberty includes a central message a
advice on cultivating the higher plea
our faculties. The theme is plain in
name only three. It links freedom w
'positive' by Berlin's test, and goe
autonomy to particular capacities, w
desirable and freedom-enhancing. T
'remarkable change in man' produce
because inter alia:
his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas so extended,

his feelings so ennobled, and his whole soul so uplifted, that, did
not the abuses of this new condition often degrade him below that
which he left, he would be bou

took him from it for ever, and,
animal, made him an intellig
Contract 1.8)
Rousseau's conception of free

exactly? The chapter ends by
also acquires
moral liberty, which alone makes him truly master of himself; for
the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law
which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty.
Yes, but where exactly was the border between negative and
positive crossed? Was it when, like Mill, he declared a view about
which capacities are worth cultivating? Was it in introducing the
idea of 'moral liberty' as accompaniment to the 'civil liberty' which
the social contract gives us in exchange for our 'natural liberty'?
Or was it perhaps in the deliberate choice of the first person plural
to define liberty as obedience to a law which we prescribe to
ourselves?
The border between thick negative and thin positive seems clear
at first. The idea behind thick negative is to specify what is needed
in practice if, individually or collectively, we are to be effectively
able to pursue our own good in our own way; and to specify it
without preempting the form of our own good. For the individual,
there are some famous 'freedoms from' (e.g. hunger and fear), and
'freedoms of' (e.g. speech and religion), which sound non-
committal. Also there are what are fashionably called transferable
skills, or skills required for a High Quality Life, whatever form that
life might take. On the collective front, there are pre-conditions for
self-government-a citizens' army to protect the realm is a
traditional example-which seem not to restrict the ends which a
free society might choose to pursue; and a similar line could be
taken for transferable skills which a free society needs its citizens
to have for the common good, whatever form the common good
might take.
On second thoughts, it is not so easy, even though some resources
and abilities can serve many purposes and, in general, add more
options than they restrict. Resources are resources only relative to
purposes, and their provision has opportunity costs. Clothes are not
a resource for determined nudists and the cloth diverted from

making them umbrellas is wasted. The same goes for abilities.
Mastery of the Cornish language is not enabling, if Cornish has died
out leaving no other speakers or significant texts behind, and
especially if it means no time to learn Japanese or sword-
swallowing. 'Individuality', in short, is not neutral among ends and
aspirations. Liberals, at any rate, have a committal view of which
abilities enhance freedom and so merit public sponsorship, one
bound up with a view of 'our own good'. In Mill, it is linked with a
conviction that a properly cultivated human being 'comes, as though
instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of course
pays regard to others' (Utilitarianism, ch. 3, italics in original), and
shows itself in a running contrast between the mechanical and the
organic:
Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to
do the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and
develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward
forces which make it a living thing. (On Liberty, ch. 3, 'Of
Individuality')
Trees, it soon emerges, need the right soil as much as machines need
production lines, and Mill firmly prescribes suitable dung and tilth.
Resources are resources relative to favoured abilities, and policies
of public provision are to be decided accordingly.
The category of 'thick negative' is thus precarious and shades so
readily into 'thin positive' that it threatens to destabilise. Yet, since
not even thin negative conceptions are morally innocent, it may not
be fatal to put moral restrictions on the laws which, as free beings,
we may prescribe to ourselves. 'Socrates dissatisfied' is still as far
from Cranmer's obedient Christian as from a 'fool satisfied'.
Geuss's aim, in surveying the four candidates for a positive
conception-autonomy, power, authenticity of desire and self-
realisation-is, I take it, to pick the thinnest positive, or perhaps
thickest negative, candidate which fits his bill. Although all four are
in the positive range by Berlin's test, Geuss has queries about th
test and may be hoping for a position between the border
checkpoints. Can he please tell us more about his criterion of
relevance for inner impediments?
Meanwhile, we can see why

Freedom' Exhibition are perplex
time with comments.
* a development ofsomething rooted in everyday usage andpractice,
Yes, but there are many rough ideas of freedom rooted in everyday
usage and practice. Their advocates are often unclear where freedom
stops and other ideas, like that of a good life, begin. The clearer they
manage to be, the plainer it is that ideas so rooted can conflict. This
first clause is only a growled warning not to roam without good
reason.
* which can serve to give clarity and focus to ind

aspirations
Noble aspirations? Or are the aspirations of serial killers to be equally
well served? There is an old hope that clarity and focus lead people
to sociable aims. But Geuss's final page seems to reject this hope.
* but which is neither a police-concept...
Although Geuss's focus is inforo interno, where policing is second-

ary, we cannot altogether avoid thinking about policing conflict
between the aspirations of different people.
* nor so inflated as to be indistinguishable from the concept of the

indeterminate sum of all human satisfactions,...
Another growl-presumably a modest inflation is acceptable, in

that some human satisfactions may prove integral to freedom as an
ethical ideal.
* nor so thoroughly moralized that it was an analytic truth that

anyone acting freely was acting morally.
Short of this, however, a bit of moralising is unavoidable.
II
Geuss's own reading of the brief leads him to opt for authenticity,
strengthened by mention of powers and capacities, as the most
suggestive clue. Although leaving much to further discussion, he is
definite that none of his 'eminently reasonable objects of human
aspiration' displays 'an inherent bias

I can autonomously choose 'perfec
desires 'can move me to egregiously
of my capacities may be a disaster
people' (p. 98). This reading deeply
Freedom Exhibition as it threatens to
Ubermenschen and to exclude the me
subvert it.
Although teasingly ambiguous betw
positive, Geuss's ideal is clearly loca
than collective, range. As a Geussian
what is, in some sense, right-for-m
'so thoroughly moralized that it was
acting freely was acting morally'. Wha
right for anyone else or in general. Is
choices to my particular individu
makes room for self-creation, even
element of self-recognition. On the
Existentialism and Humanism, 'in lif
... and there is nothing but the portra
the self-portraits which I can come
Very well, suppose I am fascinated
mixture of envy and bloodlust, ligh
nance, as I savour their exploits. Wh
pathic tendencies are authentic or inau
squeamish about spending my evenings
off motorists from a bridge on the m
Angeles are apparently wont to d
squeamish and come to adapt my cha
ways were needed to give me a co
Come to think of it, do I even need
cure for dissonance: another is to insu
another and live in sealed compartm
possibilities so open that anythin
constraints at work have an undisclosed source.
1 Jean-Paul Sartre Existentialism and Humanism (London: Methuen, 1973), p. 42.
If the source is neither a pre-social human n

'thoroughly moralised', how about heading o
paths by construing 'individual human aspira
point 'aspirations' onward and upward? Yet th
while my aspirations remain firmly peculiar
'Freedom as an Ideal'. His brief, however, ref
ethical ideal' and I do not see how aspirations
are to come out ethical. 'Ethical' requires
gratuites than he countenances. So, I suggest,
to be somewhat moralised, enough to take us def
positive range. My 'individual human asp
chosen from some kind of moral catalogue,
even if lightly and in pluralist spirit, by whe
as ethical.
At this point an ambiguity emerges. 'Ethical' gestures both to
local ethos or practices and to what is truly right, good and beautiful.
Is it enough to shift focus from individual to collective, or must we
also shift from subjective to objective? Recast the central question
as one about collective human aspirations. Is it remedy enough to
say that I, as a free being, cannot set myself perfectly immoral goals
or give way to egregiously antisocial behaviour or make my neigh-
bours' lives a misery, while leaving it open that we might? What
are the selectors to make of that?
They are yet more perplexed. The Third Reich developed clear
and focused aspirations, together with the capacities to execute
them, and, by the test of Geuss's final page, sounds like a free society
in the collective sense. To avoid drawing this unappealing con-
clusion amid the mass graves of the victims, he could try denying
that there is a collective sense of freedom after all, apart from any
derivable as a sum or reconciliation of individual freedoms.
Alternatively, however, he might prefer to restore some famil
safeguards, which he seems to have stripped away.
As soon as we enter the collective range, we face Roussea
question: how can a man be forced to conform to wills not his o
There seem at first to be only two answers. One is to invoke extern
(and eternal?) moral principles to guide what may be demanded
a citizen. This answer used to make sense, when human life
belonged in a morally-charged, perhaps divinely ordered, cosmos
and may still serve for religions and theories of natural justice which
retain pre-modern convictions. But

agrees with Wilhelm Dilthey that
itself. There is nothing in it which p
The challenge is then to find Reason
needing to appeal to meanings extern
Utilitarians are not the only ones to ta
the 'Spirit of Freedom' exhibition, th
dark. Yet the other obvious answer is to declare that whatever the
sovereign says goes; and that apparently leaves the victims with
nothing to complain about. Rousseau's question sounds as
tendentious as Berlin claims.
Rousseau himself has a third line, however. Implicit in the original
convention, which has to be unanimous, is a set of constraints on the
process for arriving at sovereign decisions. These constraints start
with rules for the conduct of decision-making (prior information,
open discussion, no caucusing, no factions and so forth) and extend
to such matters as a reasonably equal distribution of wealth and
power. When these conditions are satisfied, whatever emerges is the
General Will. The case is well put and leads Rousseau to infer that
those forced to conform to wills not their own are being 'forced to
be free'. Is Berlin right to be outraged? Well, since the constraints
ensure a General Will, if at all, only while there is no trace of
corruption and since there is no independent measure of corruption,
we may well think Rousseau's line too dangerous to risk, whether
well reasoned or not.
But that leaves further alternatives. Rousseau sets no limit to
what the General Will may demand of its members, who thus have
particular wills, moral discretion and a private sphere only on
sufferance and subject to collective revision of the boundary. That
leaves scope for a position which lies within the collective range
by deeming us citizens with duties before we are individuals with
rights, and is thinly positive, in that, although it involves a theory
of the socially just society, it defines a private sphere immutably.
This is familiar territory to anyone struggling to defend liberalism
from post-moderns, pre-moderns, libertarians and totalitarians. It
2 Wilhelm Dilthey Gesammelte Werke, ed. B. Groethuysen, vol. vii (Stuttgart; Teubner
Verlag, 1926), p. 224.
112 H-MARTIN HOLLIS
is currently where ethical s

individual liberty and alarme
civics. Although it is far from cl
tenable, I suggest that this is w
Geuss closes off this territory
suggesting that a positive conce
bias in favour of morality' nee
by suggesting that autonomy,
a free being can be deemed
aspiration' and 'reasonably clear
conflicts and the good of othe
conception of freedom which
as argued earlier, not even thi
neutral, and if thick negative c
distribution of resources and c
moralised, the territory needs
My own view is that a stand o
enough of the proper sort of f
involves ideas of the common
As evidence, I cite the progress
between the right and the goo
public good in a sense stronger
and they include resolving con
serve the public good. If, as fre
duties before we are individual
are integral to the concept and
So can Geuss please give the s
The exhibition is intended to l
and woo them to aspire to an i
regard to others. The ideal for
is positive in its rejection of in
in its antidote to self-glorifyin
collective that it snuffs out th
that, when contrasted with Ge
bourgeois and conventional, the
Can we not find them a prope
before the enjoyment of righ
spirits?

Freedom as an Ideal: Raymond Geuss and Martin Hollis' Discussion

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Freedom as an Ideal

Author(s): Raymond Geuss and Martin Hollis

Raymond Geuss and Martin Hollis

saiah Berlin's discussion of the two concepts of liberty1 p

b) positive freedom of an individual: a Roman slave wh

As if this were not complic

analogous distinction in the case

Berlin's own final position on freedom is not co

3 Cf. Four Essays on Liberty, pp. xxxviii ff., liii ff.

conception of freedom, Berlin th

3. Anyone who knew (better t

There are any number of dif

Essays, pp. xliii-xlix, 132), but this seems

you-this gives me a warrant to coerce you, especially not if the

4. There is a social agency (for instance, The State) who is really

1 1 Berlin, Four Essays p. 121.

12 As Nietzsche writes, freedom as absence of constraints is perhaps a reasonable aspiration

concern about excessive inflat

2. have or exercise a capacity

13 Despite the efforts of Kant and his follow

call such a slave fully free. One migh

It seems plausible that a conc

17 Harry Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge

desire to drink a glass of wine and

18 'Identification and Wholeheartedness' in Harry Frankfurt, The Importance of What We

19 Cf. H. Frankfurt 'Identification and Wholeheartedness' in The Importance of What We

are there to be acted on in the given context, not to be the objects

Self-realization views of freedom shift the focus from the

realization view and the view I mentioned earlier which identified

negative freedom) they seem to me

individual aspirational ideals, b

Raymond Geuss and Martin Hollis

FREEDOM IN GOOD SPIRITS

in its aim unless Geuss is willin

Isaiah Berlin's mesmeric 'Two Concepts of Liberty' defined

obstructions. By this test any Ame

within the human category,

Talk of abilities, and hence of inte

and then argues that, contrary to com

Without this restlessness, we would

his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas so extended,

which he left, he would be bou

Rousseau's conception of free

a resource for determined nudists and the cloth diverted from

Meanwhile, we can see why

* a development ofsomething rooted in everyday usage andpractice,

* which can serve to give clarity and focus to ind

* but which is neither a police-concept...

Although Geuss's focus is inforo interno, where policing is second-

* nor so inflated as to be indistinguishable from the concept of the

Another growl-presumably a modest inflation is acceptable, in

* nor so thoroughly moralized that it was an analytic truth that

Short of this, however, a bit of moralising is unavoidable.

aspiration' displays 'an inherent bias

1 Jean-Paul Sartre Existentialism and Humanism (London: Methuen, 1973), p. 42.

If the source is neither a pre-social human n

retain pre-modern convictions. But

is currently where ethical s

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