The Self at Liberty

Duncan Ivison sets out to map a subtle but significant addition to the political discourse on liberty. Using the political theories of Niccolo Machiavelli, John Locke, John Rawls, and Michel Foucault, Ivison contests one of the most famous distinctions in contemporary political philosophy: Isaiah Berlin's distinction between negative and positive liberty. Ivison explores a gradual shift of focus from the individual acting in accordance with authentic desires and beliefs to the actions of a self at liberty. One indication of this shift is an increasing tendency in the early modern period to ally liberty closely with ideas of security and stability. Liberal conceptions of government assume that the free choices of individuals are necessary to maintain a liberal political order with efficient markets and an effective rule of law. But free choices and actions, along with their intended and unintended effects, risk undermining some of the conditions that make such an order possible. Being free stands in contrast, classically, to being constrained by the intentional actions of other people. Ivison presses the relation between intentions and constraints a bit further, and investigates what happens to our conceptions of liberty when attention shifts from negative constraints to various enabling conditions.