Articles & Papers
What Is Liberty?
A genealogy of a changing definition, Filmer to Berlin.
Download the full PDF One-page summary (PDF)Almost everyone says they favor freedom. The argument is over what freedom is. Free from what? Free to do what? And who gets to decide? Each time the definition moves, the meaning of law, rights, government, equality, and even oppression moves with it.
No government, no law. You are free to build what you want, say what you want, defend your property. You are also free to take someone else’s property and settle disputes however you choose. So is everyone else. Is that maximum liberty, or are you less free, because anyone stronger than you can take what you have?
I. Robert Filmer, Patriarcha (1680)
Liberty as the absence of restraint.
A liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws.
Filmer, PatriarchaLiberty = absence of restraint. Law → restraint → less liberty. Every restraint you add is liberty you lose, so government is always a subtraction. Filmer draws the conclusion without flinching: “Such liberty cannot be; if it should, there would be no government at all.” If freedom means no restraint, every law is a loss of freedom, and the only question is how much loss you will tolerate.
II. John Locke, Second Treatise (1689)
Liberty as freedom from arbitrary will. Locke answers Filmer by name (§22) and replaces the definition:
A liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.
Locke, Second Treatise §22The question changes. Filmer asks how much you are restrained. Locke asks who has the power to direct you. Law stops being the enemy of liberty, because a known, standing law binds everyone, including the man who would otherwise rule you by whim — “where there is no law, there is no freedom” (§57).
A general law: no person may enter another’s property without permission. Your freedom is constrained — and the same law protects you from everyone else.
The king declares you may not use your property because he does not like you. There is no general law, only another man’s will.
For Locke, Scenario B is the real enemy. Law can restrain action without destroying liberty. Arbitrary power destroys it.
| Filmer | Locke | |
|---|---|---|
| Fundamental problem | Disorder | Arbitrary will |
| What causes it | Disordered desires; rebellion against legitimate authority | One man’s unchecked power over another |
| What liberty is | Ordered freedom under legitimate authority | Freedom from arbitrary will under known, standing law |
| What law does | Orders and restrains the will | Defines and protects the sphere of liberty |
| Primary danger | Anarchy, disorder | Tyranny, arbitrary power |
| Primary task | Preserve order | Preserve liberty |
Filmer: the problem is the disordered will. It needs legitimate authority to govern it.
Locke: the problem is the arbitrary will. No man’s will may be subject to another’s discretion.
III. The Line of Development
Mill moves the Lockean idea toward autonomy. Locke asked whether you are subject to another’s arbitrary will. Mill asks whether your conduct harms anyone else: “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”
Rousseau asks whether you can be free at all while governed by a will not your own — but takes it elsewhere: genuine freedom is self-government, and the individual becomes free by participating in the collective will. Locke wants freedom from another’s will. Rousseau wants freedom through the general will.
Berlin (1958) named the two ideas. Negative liberty: freedom from interference — what am I free from? Positive liberty: self-mastery — who or what controls my life?
| Thinker | Liberty Is… | The Question It Asks |
|---|---|---|
| Filmer | the absence of restraint | How much restraint can liberty tolerate? |
| Locke | freedom from arbitrary will | Am I subject to anyone’s arbitrary will? |
| Montesquieu | security under constitutional law | Does the structure of power prevent abuse? |
| The Founding | rights secured against government | Can government be kept from becoming arbitrary? |
| Mill | individual self-direction | Where does legitimate interference begin? |
| Rousseau | self-government, collective autonomy | Am I free if I am not self-governing? |
| Berlin | negative vs. positive liberty | Freedom from, or freedom to? |
These definitions do not replace one another. They coexist, which is why two Americans can both say “liberty,” mean it, and mean different things.
IV. The Modern Problem
Three people, one word:
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m not really free if I don’t have the education and opportunity to pursue my goals.”
“Society shouldn’t allow people to make choices that destroy themselves.”
All three sincerely defend freedom.
V. Political Consequences
| Definition | Political Implication |
|---|---|
| Absence of restraint | Minimize coercion. Government should do relatively little. |
| Protection from arbitrary power | Build institutions that make arbitrary government impossible: constitutions, separated powers, due process. The Lockean, classical-liberal project. |
| Individual autonomy | Give each person a large private sphere to determine his own life. Modern civil libertarianism. |
| Capacity for self-realization | Government supplies the conditions people need to be genuinely free. Intervention is justified in liberty’s own name. |
Classical liberal: “Taxes restrict my liberty.” Positive-liberty advocate: “Taxes provide what other people need to exercise their liberty.” Both claim the word freedom. The disagreement is not over whether freedom matters. It is over what freedom is.
VI. The Deeper Question
Once liberty means the ability to pursue my own purposes, the next question cannot be avoided: what if my purposes are evil? The older Christian tradition rejects the premise. Liberty, on that account, is not freedom from external constraint but freedom to live according to what is true and good. The question is not who controls me but what am I made for.
VII. Conclusion
Locke insisted his liberty was not license, because the law of nature governs the state of liberty (§6). But that law is known by unaided reason, and in the state of nature every man is its judge. Government exists only to secure life, liberty, and property; it takes no position on the good life. So the only barrier between Lockean liberty and license is each individual’s private assent to a natural law with God behind it. Once God drops out of the public argument, nothing else in the structure has to change — the individual is still the judge of the good, government is still neutral on ends, and the only remaining limit on freedom is the will of other people. Mill states the result: power may be used against a man only to prevent harm to others. Berlin completes it: freedom is measured by the absence of obstacles, not by the worth of what is chosen.
A freedom whose only boundary is other people’s rights protects every self-regarding choice equally, the noble and the degrading alike. That is licence, and it is not an abuse of Locke’s definition. It is the definition, once the belief Locke assumed and could not secure is gone.
The political argument is no longer about how much government we should have. It is about who gets to say what a human being is, and what human beings are for.
SOURCES · Sir Robert Filmer, Patriarcha (1680) · John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (1689), §§6, 22, 57 · John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859) · Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958)