Me: >>> BTW, why is it that money libertarians like the word "liberty" while >>> most other people like the word "freedom"? Most people seem to use the >>> two words interchangeably.
David S: > Here is a theory. "Money libertarians," as you call them, are the > contemporary descenants of 19th Century "Liberalism," which term is rooted in > "Libertas," and Libertas is at root a legal status of a free-man (i.e. not a > slave). The term "freedom," on the other hand, through the efforts of > Germans like Hegel, and then transmitted to the English speaking world > through interpreters like T.H. Green, became associated with what you call > "positive freedom" (i.e. a free-man who makes a bad choice, or is limited by > circumstance in making choices, is not really "free"). Therefore, to "money > libertarians." liberty is a status relationship between man and the state, > while for the modern day Hegelians, freedom is more of a psychological state > of a man. Money libertarians, aware (contra Mr. Andrews) of the efforts of > the modern day Hegelians to minimize the importance of legal status in order > to justify state power, therefore, prefer "liberty" rather than "freedom" as > the ideal.< I refer to "money libertarians" as who want those people who own liquid assets (financial and otherwise) to be free as individuals, so that those with the most of these assets have the most freedom, including the freedom to order others around and to reduce their negative freedom. The money libertarians want money (or rather, the use of it by those who have it) to be free. On the other hand, a genuine libertarian would want _people in general_ to be free, each to a roughly equal extent, no matter what property they own. I'm no expert on Hegel, so I'll defer to you on what he meant by "freedom." But the different usages (liberty vs. freedom) seem basically a matter of tradition, not reason. I disagree with your interpretation of "positive freedom." Instead of being a psychological state, positive freedom, as you said earlier, refers to limits imposed by circumstances (where those circumstances might be having a physical disability, for example). Making matters clearer, Amartya Sen calls it "substantive freedom." One way to understand this is to remember that "freedom" (of either the positive or negative sort) in general refers to the _availability of choices_ (Sen's capabilities). (It doesn't, however, refer to having free will.) Somewhat incoherently, the Wikipedia says: >>Positive liberty refers to having the power and resources to act to fulfill >>one's own potential, as opposed to negative liberty, which refers to freedom >>from restraint. Inherent to positive liberty is the idea that liberty is the >>ability of citizens to participate in their government [[and to control it]]. >>...<< Better is Amartya Sen's perspective, as summarized in "Amartya Sen's Ethics of Substantial Freedom," by Dr. Jan Garrett (http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/ethics/senethic.htm), with his comments in single brackets and mine in double brackets: >> Sen's "perspective of [positive or, as he calls it "substantial"] freedom" >> is concerned with "enhancing the lives we lead and the freedoms we enjoy," >> in other words, "expanding the freedoms we have reason to value," so that >> our lives will be "richer and more unfettered" and we will be able to become >> "fuller social persons, exercising our own volitions [capacities for >> deliberate choice] and interacting with--and influencing--the world in which >> we live." ... << [[Sen sees substantive freedom as giving us greater capabilities, i.e., larger sets of available choices, which allow us to live richer lies, become fuller social persons, etc., but do not guarantee that result.]] >> Public policy--the programs and rules by which government and other public >> agencies arrange our lives in society--is supposed to be the means by which >> human beings pursue what is good or ethically desirable in the public >> sphere. Perhaps it is not too much of a stretch to treat Sen's perspective >> as an ethical perspective that may also help us evaluate the interactions >> between people in families and other associations. [[I don't think that this >> is a stretch at all.]] >> We should try to explain what Sen means by "substantial freedoms." >> Substantial freedoms are (1) valuable things [[assets or "capacities"]] that >> can be divided up and delivered to human beings (or groups of people in a >> region) in varying amounts. In that respect they are like money and freedom >> from coercion, things which can be preconditions for substantial freedom >> [["capabilities"]] but are not very good indicators of it. In the case of >> money, a person can have very little, a middle amount, or a lot. In the case >> of freedom from coercion, the same can be said: one can be a slave, >> constantly subject to the whims of an overseer, or one can have maximum >> available freedom from coercion by one's fellow humans in their private or >> governmental capacities. What society does, and to some extent what >> individuals do, can determine how much substantial freedom we have. [[the capabilities (substantive freedom, a large set of available choices) that result from our capacities (personal assets) depend on the society in which we live, including constraints imposed by governments.]] >> But substantial freedom (2) has to be distinguished from other things that >> we "often have reason to value": money, negative freedom (aka negative >> liberty, or freedom from coercion), and happiness, on the other.... >> Monetary income alone cannot be used as a reliable indicator of substantial >> freedom. An increase in income might be converted into an increase in >> substantial freedom, but the conversion is not automatic or equally easy for >> everybody. A sick [[or disabled]] person is normally less able than a >> healthy one to convert a given increase in income into a wider range of real >> opportunities, i.e., into greater substantial freedom [[capabilities, >> choices]]. The same might be said of a person who lives in a dangerous >> neighborhood that makes her fearful to go outside as compared to a person >> who lives in a safer neighborhood. >> Thus it is often more effective, in the promotion of substantial freedom, to >> invest in public programs that will provide access to inexpensive health >> care or make neighborhoods safer places than to divide the money that would >> be used on these programs among the individual people who happen to be sick >> or who live in the affected neighborhoods << -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
