PHIL 330 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Negative Liberty, Positive Liberty, Philip Pettit
Document Summary
Government have a duty to protect liberty right of its citizens. Negative liberty; absence of interference in the private domain. Or i am free if i don"t have interferences in the private domain. Or i am free if i have control over my own life (self- mastery) Ch 1, berlin and two concepts of liberty: negative liberty; It"s the absence of external interference1 or coercion in the private domain2 in which i am capable of doing. Coercion implies the deliberate interference of other human beings within the area in which one could otherwise act. If i am prevented by others from doing what i could otherwise do, i am to that degree interfered. Liberty is (1) social and (2) external to the individual. It"s defined in terms of interpersonal interaction, and makes few assumptions about the individual whose liberty is being considered.
