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Liberty, in modern time, is generally considered a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the ability to act according to his or her own will. Economic freedom is freedom to produce trade and consume any goods and services acquired without the use of force fraud or theft Freedom, or the idea of being free is a broad concept that Political freedom is the absence of interference with the sovereignty of an individual by the use of coercion or aggression Freedom of assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the Freedom of association, is the Individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively Freedom of association is the Individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively express promote pursue and defend common interests thumb| |Broken Liberty Istanbul Archaeology Museum Civil liberties are freedoms that protect the Individual from the Government. Freedom of movement, mobility rights or the right to travel is a Human rights concept which is respected in the Constitutions of numerous Freedom Constitutional or statutory protections pertaining to freedom of the press Freedom of religion is the freedom of an individual or community in public or private to manifest religion or belief in teaching practice worship and observance Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without Censorship or Limitation. Freedom of thought (also called freedom of conscience and freedom of ideas) is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact viewpoint The right of self-defense (also called alter ego defense, defense of others, defense of a third person) is the right for civilians acting on their Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable harmful or sensitive as determined by a censor Coercion (co-er-shion is the practice of compelling a person or manipulating them to behave in an involuntary way (whether through action or inaction by use of threats Children's rights are the Human rights of Children with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to the young including their Human rights refers to the "basic Rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled There are several Non-governmental organizations that publish and maintain assessments of the state of freedom in the world according to their own various definitions of Media Transparency is the concept of determining how and why Information is conveyed through various means The concept of negative liberty refers to freedom from interference by other people ||-||} Positive liberty refers to the opportunity and ability to act to fulfill one's own potential as opposed to Negative liberty, which refers to freedom from The term "concept" is traced back to 1554–60 ( l conceptum - something conceived but what is today termed "the classical theory of concepts" is the theory of Aristotle Political philosophy is the study of questions about the City, Government, Politics, Liberty, Justice, Property, Rights As commonly used, individual refers to a Person or to any specific object in a collection The question of free will

Individualist and liberal conceptions of liberty relate to the freedom of the individual from outside compulsion or coercion; A socialist perspective, on the other hand, associates liberty with equality in wealth. Classical liberalism (also known as traditional liberalism, Laissez-faire liberalism, Market liberalism or in much of the world Coercion (co-er-shion is the practice of compelling a person or manipulating them to behave in an involuntary way (whether through action or inaction by use of threats Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution As such, a socialist redefines liberty as being entitlements and connects liberty (i. Entitlement is a guarantee of access to benefits because of rights or by agreement through Law. e. freedom) to the equal distribution of wealth, arguing that liberty without equal ownership amounts to the domination by the wealthy. Thus, freedom and material equality are seen as intrinsically connected. On the other hand, the individualist argues that wealth cannot be evenly distributed without force being used against individuals which reduces individual liberty.

John Stuart Mill, in his work, On Liberty, was the first to recognize the difference between liberty as the freedom to act and liberty as the absence of coercion. John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 &ndash 8 May 1873 British Philosopher, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential On Liberty is a philosophical work by 19th century English Philosopher John Stuart Mill, first published in 1859 In his book, Two Concepts of Liberty, Isaiah Berlin formally framed the differences between these two perspectives as the distinction between two opposite concepts of liberty: positive liberty and negative liberty. Two Concepts of Liberty was the inaugural Lecture delivered by Isaiah Berlin before the University of Oxford on October 31, 1958 Sir Isaiah Berlin, OM (6 June 1909 &ndash 5 November 1997 was a philosopher and historian of ideas regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century ||-||} Positive liberty refers to the opportunity and ability to act to fulfill one's own potential as opposed to Negative liberty, which refers to freedom from The concept of negative liberty refers to freedom from interference by other people The latter designates a negative condition in which an individual is protected from tyranny and the arbitrary exercise of authority, while the former refers to having the means or opportunity, rather than the lack of restraint, to do things. In modern usage a tyrant is a single ruler holding absolute power over a State or within an Organization. For the concept of arbitrariness in trademark law see Trademark distinctiveness. In Politics, authority ( Latin Auctoritas, used in Roman law as opposed to Potestas and Imperium

Mill offered insight into the notions of soft tyranny and mutual liberty with his harm principle. The harm principle is articulated most clearly in John Stuart Mill 's On Liberty, though it is also articulated in John Locke 's Second ^[1] Overall, it is important to understand these concepts when discussing liberty since they all represent little pieces of the greater puzzle known as freedom. Freedom, or the idea of being free is a broad concept that In a philosophical sense, morality must supersede tyranny in any legitimate form of government. Morality (from the Latin la moralitas "manner character proper behavior" has three principal meanings In modern usage a tyrant is a single ruler holding absolute power over a State or within an Organization. For the government of parliamentary systems see Executive (government. Otherwise, people are left with a societal system rooted in backwardness, disorder, and regression. System (from Latin systēma, in turn from Greek systēma is a set of interacting or interdependent Entities, real or abstract The backwardness model is a theory of Economic growth created by Alexander Gerschenkron.

Contents 1 Philosophy 2 Freedom as a triadic relation 3 Liberty and political thought 3.1 Meaning of Liberty 3.2 Social contract 3.3 Modern perspectives 4 See also 5 References

Philosophy

Main article: Philosophical freedom

Opinions on what constitute liberty can vary widely, but can be generally classified as positive liberty and negative liberty. ||-||} Positive liberty refers to the opportunity and ability to act to fulfill one's own potential as opposed to Negative liberty, which refers to freedom from The concept of negative liberty refers to freedom from interference by other people Positive liberty asserts that freedom is the ability of society to achieve an end. For example, Puritans such as Cotton Mather often referred to liberty in their writings, but focused on the liberty from sin (e. A Puritan of 16th and 17th century England was an associate of any number of religious groups advocating for more "purity" of Worship and Doctrine, Cotton Mather (February 12 1663 &ndash February 13 1728 AB 1678 ( Harvard College) A Sin is a term used mainly in a religious context to describe an act that violates a moral Rule, or the state of having committed such a violation g. sexual urges) even at the expense of liberty from the government. For the government of parliamentary systems see Executive (government. However, in modern time, liberty is generally considered to be the concept of negative liberty. This refers to an individual's liberty from being subjected to the authority of others. In this negative sense, one is considered free to the extent to which no person interferes with his or her activity. According to Thomas Hobbes, for example, "a free man is he that. Thomas Hobbes (born 5 April 1588died 4 December 1679 was an English philosopher, whose famous 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation . . is not hindered to do what he hath the will to doe. "

The concept of negative liberty has several noteworthy aspects. First, negative liberty defines a realm or "zone" of freedom (in the "silence of law"). Law is a system of rules enforced through a set of Institutions used as an instrument to underpin civil obedience politics economics and society In Berlin's words, "liberty in the negative sense 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 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. Second, the restriction (on the freedom to act) implicit in negative liberty is imposed by a person or persons and not due to causes such as nature, lack, or incapacity. Helvetius expresses this point clearly: "The free man is the man who is not in irons, nor imprisoned in a gaol (jail), nor terrorized like a slave by the fear of punishment. Claude Adrien Helvétius (26 February 1715&ndash26 December 1771 was a French Philosopher and Litterateur. . . it is not lack of freedom not to fly like an eagle or swim like a whale. "

The dichotomy of positive and negative liberty is considered specious by political philosophers in traditions such as socialism, social democracy, libertarian socialism, and Marxism. Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution Social democracy is a Political ideology of the left and centre-left Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that aim to create a society without political economic or social hierarchies – a society in which all violent Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Some of them argue that positive and negative liberty are indistinguishable in practice, while others claim that one kind of liberty cannot exist independently of the other. A common argument is that the preservation of negative liberty requires positive action on the part of the government or society to prevent some individuals from taking away the liberty of others.

Freedom as a triadic relation

In 1967, Gerald MacCallum argued that proponents of positive and negative liberty converge on a single definition of liberty, but simply have different approaches in establishing it. According to McCallum, freedom is a triadic relationship: "x is/is not free from y to do/not to do or become/not become z". In this way, rather than defining liberty in terms of two separate paradigms, positive and negative liberty, he defined liberty as a single, complete formula.

The question is whether this formula fully captures what positive liberty means. Positive liberty, understood as "internal forces which determine how a person shall act" ^[2] is saying more than 'x is free to do z. ' One is free when one becomes the ideal of oneself, which includes MacCallum's triadic relation; but the latter alone is insufficient to fully capture what positive liberty means.

Liberty and political thought

Meaning of Liberty

The first known use of the word freedom in a political context dates back to the 24th century BC, in a text describing the restoration of social and economic liberty in Lagash, a Sumerian city-state. Ama-gi is an ancient Sumerian word (ama-gi4, also spelled ama-ar-gi4 thought to denote "freedom" or "liberty" it is the Sumerian ( " native tongue " was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC Lagash ( is modern Tell al-Hiba, Iraq. Located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk Urukagina, the king of Lagash, established the first known legal code to protect citizens from the rich and powerful. Urukagina (reigned ca 2380 BC &ndash 2360 BC, Short chronology) alternately rendered as Uruinimgina or Irikagina, was a ruler Lagash ( is modern Tell al-Hiba, Iraq. Located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk Known as a great reformer, Urukagina established laws that forbade compelling the sale of property and required the charges against the accused to be stated before any man accused of a crime could be punished. Property is any physical or virtual entity that is owned by an individual This is the first known example of any form of due process in the history of humanity. Due process (more fully due process of law) is the principle that a person has a right to receive notice and be heard in an orderly proceeding in order to protect his or her

Like Urukagina, most ancient freedoms focused on negative liberty, protecting the less fortunate from harassment or imposition. Other ancient legal codes, such as the Code of Hammurabi, similarly forbade compulsion in economic matters, like the sale of land, and made it clear that when a rich man murders a poor one, it is still murder. The Code of Hammurabi ( Codex Hammurabi) is the best-preserved ancient Law code, created ca Still, these codes relied on a certain virtuousness of kings and ministers, which was far from reliable.

In the Persian Empire, citizens of all religions and ethnic groups were given the same rights and had the same freedom of religion, women had the same rights as men, and slavery was abolished. The Persian Empire was a series of Iranian empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland and beyond in Western Asia A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos Freedom of religion is the freedom of an individual or community in public or private to manifest religion or belief in teaching practice worship and observance As a social-economic system slavery is a legal institution under which a Person (called "a slave" is compelled to work for another All the palaces of the kings of Persia were built by paid workers in an era where slaves typically did such work. ^[3] The Cyrus cylinder of Cyrus the Great documents the protection of the rights to liberty and security, freedom of movement, the right of property, and economic and social rights. The Cyrus cylinder, also known as the Cyrus the Great cylinder, is a document issued by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great in the form of a clay Security is the condition of being protected against danger loss and criminals Freedom of movement, mobility rights or the right to travel is a Human rights concept which is respected in the Constitutions of numerous ^[4]

In the Maurya Empire of ancient India, citizens of all religions and ethnic groups had rights to freedom, tolerance, and equality. The Maurya Empire ( 322 – 185 BCE) ruled by the Mauryan dynasty was a geographically extensive and powerful political and military This article is about the history of South Asia prior to the Partition of British India in 1947 Political freedom is the absence of interference with the sovereignty of an individual by the use of coercion or aggression The need for tolerance on an egalitarian basis can be found in the Edicts of Ashoka the Great, which emphasize the importance of tolerance in public policy by the government. Egalitarianism (derived from the French word égal, meaning equal) is a political doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals and have The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of 33 inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls made by the Emperor Ashoka of the Mauryan Ashoka ( Devanāgarī: अशोकः IAST: Aśokaḥ, aɕoːkə(hə Prakrit Imperial title Devanampriya Priyadarsi The slaughter or capture of prisoners of war was also condemned by Ashoka. ^[5] Slavery was also non-existent in ancient India. ^[6]

Roman law also embraced certain limited forms of liberty, even under the rule of the Roman Emperors. Roman law is the legal system of Ancient Rome. As used in the West the term commonly refers to legal developments prior to the Roman/Byzantine state's adopting However, these liberties were accorded only to Roman citizens. Citizenship in the time of Ancient Rome was a privileged status afforded to certain individuals with respect to laws property and governance Still, the Roman citizen enjoyed a combination of positive liberty (the right to freely enter contracts, the right to a legal marriage) and negative liberty (the right to a trial, a right to appeal and the right to not be tortured). Many of the liberties enjoyed under Roman law endured through the Middle Ages, but were enjoyed solely by the nobility, never by the common man. Nobility is a government-privileged title which may be either hereditary (see Hereditary titles) or for a lifetime The idea of unalienable and universal liberties had to wait until the Age of Enlightenment.

Social contract

The social contract theory, invented by Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, were among the first to provide a political classification of rights, in particular through the notion of sovereignty and of natural rights. Social contract describes a broad class of republican theories whose subjects are implied agreements by which people form Nations and maintain a Social order Thomas Hobbes (born 5 April 1588died 4 December 1679 was an English philosopher, whose famous 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation A right is a legal or moral Entitlement or Permission. Rights are of vital importance in theories of Justice and deontological ethics Sovereignty is the exclusive Right to control a Government, a country, a people or oneself The thinkers of the Enlightenment reasoned the assertion that law governed both heavenly and human affairs, and that law gave the king his power, rather than the king's power giving force to law. The Age of Enlightenment or The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. Law is a system of rules enforced through a set of Institutions used as an instrument to underpin civil obedience politics economics and society The divine right of kings was thus opposed to the sovereign's unchecked auctoritas. The Divine Right of Kings is a general term that refers to the philosophy and ideas used to justify the authority and legitimacy of Monarchs in Medieval and Sovereignty is the exclusive Right to control a Government, a country, a people or oneself Auctoritas is a Latin word and is the origin of English " Authority " This conception of law would find its culmination in Montesquieu's thought. Charles-Louis de Secondat baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (Eng The conception of law as a relationship between individuals, rather than families, came to the fore, and with it the increasing focus on individual liberty as a fundamental reality, given by "Nature and Nature's God," which, in the ideal state, would be as expansive as possible. Nature, in the broadest sense is equivalent to the natural world, physical universe, material world or material universe. God is the principal or sole Deity in Religions and other belief systems that worship one deity. Utopia is a name for an ideal community taken from the title of a book written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional Island in the The Enlightenment created then, among other ideas, liberty: that is, of a free individual being most free within the context of a state which provides stability of the laws. Later, more radical philosophies such as socialism articulated themselves in the course of the French Revolution and in the 19th century. Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution The French Revolution (1789–1799 was a period of political and social upheaval in the History of France, during which the French governmental structure previously an

Modern perspectives

The modern conceptions of democracy, whether representative democracies or other types of democracies, are all found on the Rousseauist idea of popular sovereignty. Here is a partial list of varieties of democracy. The types of Democracy listed here are not mutually exclusive Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principles of the people's representatives Popular sovereignty or the sovereignty of the people is the belief that the legitimacy of the State is created by the will or consent of its people, who However, liberalism distinguishes itself from socialism and communism in that it advocates for a form of representative democracy, while socialism claims to work for a direct democracy. Liberalism is a broad array of related ideas and theories of Government that consider individual Liberty to be the most important political goal Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principles of the people's representatives Direct Democracy is a movement within the British Conservative Party dedicated to localism and Constitutional reform as a means of reviving public

Liberalism is a political current embracing several historical and present-day ideologies that claim defence of individual liberty as the purpose of government. Politics Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions Two main strands are apparent, although both are founded on an individualist ideology. An ideology is a set of beliefs aims and Ideas especially in politics In continental Europe the term usually refers to economic liberalism, that is the right of individual to contract, trade and operate in a market free of constraint. Economic liberalism is the Economic component of Classical liberalism. In the United States it often refers to social liberalism, including the right to dissent from orthodox tenets or established authorities in political or religious matters. Social liberalism, also called new liberalism (as it was originally termed high liberalism radical liberalism, modern liberalism, or Both are core political issues, and highly contentious.

A school of thought popular among US libertarians holds that there is no tenable distinction between the two sorts of liberty -- that they are, indeed, one and the same, to be protected (or opposed) together. Libertarianism is a term used by a broad spectrum of political philosophies which prioritize individual Liberty and seek to minimize or even abolish the In the context of U. S. constitutional law, for example, they point out that the constitution twice lists "life, liberty, and property" without making any distinctions within that troika. Constitutional law is the study of foundational or basic Laws of nation states and other political organizations

Anarcho-Individualists, such as Max Stirner, demanded the utmost respect for the liberty of the individual. Individualist anarchism refers to any of several traditions that hold that "individual conscience and the pursuit of self-interest should not be constrained by any collective Johann Kaspar Schmidt ( October 25, 1806 – June 26, 1856) better known as Max Stirner (the Nom de plume From a very similar perspective from North America, primitivists like John Zerzan proclaimed that civilization not just the state (as in socialist thought) would need to be abolished to foster liberty. Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of Civilization. John Zerzan (born 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist Philosopher and author A Civilization is a society in which large numbers of people share a variety of common elements Some in the US see protecting the ideal of liberty as a conservative policy, because this would conform to the spirit of individual liberty that they consider is at the heart of the American constitution. Conservatism is a term used to describe political philosophies that favour Tradition, where tradition refers to various religious cultural or nationally defined Some think liberty is almost synonymous with democracy, at least in one sense of that word, while others see conflicts or even opposition between the two concepts, with democracy being nothing more than the tyranny of the majority. Democracy is a form of government in which the supreme power is held completely by the people under a free electoral system

See also

• Civil liberty
• Freedom (political)
• Freedom (philosophy)
• Gratis versus Libre
• John Stuart Mill's On Liberty
• Liberté, égalité, fraternité
• Libertarian Party

References

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