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Skinner, Quentin
2002.
Visions of Politics.
Skinner, Quentin
2002.
Visions of Politics.
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Extract
The philosophical problems of liberty may be classified as those of definition, of justification and of distribution. They are so complex that there is a danger of being unable to see the wood for the trees. It may be helpful, therefore, to provide an aerial photograph of a large part of the wood, namely, the liberty of individual persons. But it is, of course, a photograph taken from an individual point of view, as Leibniz would have put it.
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References
1 See Plato, , RepublicGoogle Scholar (c. 360 BC); de Spinoza, B., Ethics and Political Treatise (1677)Google Scholar; Rousseau, J. J., Social Contract (1762)Google Scholar; Kant, I., Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)Google Scholar; Hegel, G. W. F., Philosophy of Right (1821)Google Scholar and Lectures on Philosophy of History (2nd edn, 1840)Google Scholar; Berlin, I., ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, in Four Essays on Liberty (London: Oxford University Press 1969).Google Scholar Kant uses the expression ‘a positive concept of freedom’.
2 See Hampshire, S., Spinoza (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1951), esp. Ch. 4.Google Scholar
3 See, e.g., Crocker, L. H., Positive Liberty (The Hague: Nighoff 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Taylor, C., ‘What's Wrong with Negative Liberty’, in The Idea of Freedom, Ryan, A. (ed.) (Oxford: University Press 1979).Google Scholar
4 See Long, D. G., Bentham on Liberty (Toronto: University Press 1977), 54.Google Scholar
5 Oppenheim, F. E., ‘Five Concepts of Liberty’, prepared for the European Consortium for Political Research Workshop on Liberty (London: Wiley, 1980).Google Scholar
6 See Hobbes, T., Leviathan (1651)Google Scholar; Locke, J., Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690)Google Scholar and A Letter concerning Toleration (1689)Google Scholar; Hume, D., An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1777)Google Scholar; Bentham, J., An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (2nd edn, 1823)Google Scholar and Of Laws in General (1782)Google Scholar; Mill, J. S., On Liberty (1859)Google Scholar and A System of Logic (8th edn, 1872)Google Scholar; O'Connor, D. J., Free Will (London: Macmillan 1972)Google Scholar, esp. Ch. 9. It is a curious paradox that the concept of liberty which is indispensable for political thought is not the political one, positive liberty, but the physical one, negative liberty.
7 On Liberty, Ch. I.
8 Bentham uses the expressions ‘political liberty’ and ‘political punishment’, and Godwin uses the expression ‘political justice’; see note 29.
9 This account of a penal statute is due to Bentham, who created the imperative theory of law. See Bentham, op. cit.; Hart, H. L. A., ‘Bentham's Of Laws in General’, Rechtstheorie 2 (1971).Google Scholar On how threats coerce, see Day, J. P., ‘Threats, Offers, Law, Opinion and Liberty’, American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1977).Google Scholar Although criminal law is the chief instrument of political coercion, it must be remembered that civil law is also coercive, since the orders of civil courts are backed by a threat of punishment for contempt in the event of recalcitrance.
10 See, e.g., Huxley, A., Brave New World (London: Chatto & Windus 1932)Google Scholar and Brave New World Revisited (London: 1959)Google Scholar; Orwell, G., Nineteen Eighty-four (London: Secker & Warburg 1949)Google Scholar; Packard, V., The Hidden Persuaders (London: Longman 1957).Google Scholar Rousseau was the first to grasp the concept of political coercion by manipulation; see his Discourse on Political Economy (1758).Google Scholar Bentham call it ‘indirect legislation’; see Long, op. cit., Ch. 8. B. F. Skinner's reflections on social control provide the most thorough contemporary treatment of the topic; see his Beyond Freedom and Dignity (London: Cape, 1971).Google Scholar
11 There are also collective rights held by groups, e.g. women and Negroes. See Glazer, N., ‘Individual Rights Against Group Rights’ in Human Rights, Kamenka, E. and Tay, A. E. (eds) (London: Arnold 1978).Google Scholar
12 See Hart, , ‘Are There Any Natural Rights?’, Philosophical Review 64 (1955).CrossRefGoogle Scholar One consequence of the theory of a contract of government is that it transforms liberty and other natural rights from general political rights into special political rights.
13 See Weber, M., The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Parsons, T. (London: Unwin 1930)Google Scholar; Tawney, R. H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London: Murray 1926).Google Scholar
14 See Locke, op. cit.; Kamenka, E., ‘The Anatomy of an Idea’Google Scholar, in Kamenka and Tay, op. cit.
15 But there is a strong utilitarian (consequential) strand in Locke's political thought too, e.g. ‘The public good is the rule and measure of all law-making’ (A Letter concerning Toleration).
16 See Plamenatz, J. P., Consent, Freedom and Political Obligation (Oxford: University Press 1938), Ch. 6.Google Scholar
17 Discourses (c. 100).
18 On Liberty, Ch. 5. See also Benn, S. I. and Peters, R. S., Social Principles and the Democratic State (London: Allen and Unwin 1959)Google Scholar, Ch. 10; Day, ‘Presumptions’, Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference of Philosophy, Vol. 5 (Vienna: Herder 1968).Google Scholar
19 Mill, , On Liberty, Ch. I.Google Scholar
20 Locke uses the expression ‘ecclesiastical liberty’ in his Letter concerning Toleration.
21 On Liberty, Ch. 2; see also Scanlon, T., ‘A Theory of Freedom of Expression’, Philosophy and Public Affairs I (1972).Google Scholar
22 On Liberty, Ch. 3.
23 On the liberties of association and of associations, see A. Dicey, V., Law and Opinion in England (London:Macmillan 1905)Google Scholar, lectures 5, 6, 8, appendix, note I; Benn and Peters, op. cit., Ch. 13; Nomos XI: Voluntary Associations, Pennock, J. R. and Chapman, J. W. (eds) (New York: Atherton Press 1969).Google Scholar
24 On Liberty, Ch. I.
25 See Hart, , Law, Liberty and Morality (London: Oxford University Press 1963).Google Scholar
26 On Liberty, Ch. 5.
27 See Benn, S. I., ‘Human Rights—for Whom and for What?’Google Scholar, in Kamenka and Tay, op. cit.; Mack, E., ‘Bad Samaritanism and the Causation of Harm’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 9 (1980).Google Scholar
28 See Flew, Antony, ‘What is a Right?’, the Georgia Law Review 13 (1979).Google Scholar
29 The spread of the belief in positive rights is obviously connected with the growth of the welfare movement; see Benn, op. cit. (note 27, above). But, in England, the belief is already to be found in the writings of, e.g., Paine and Godwin, and in legislation of the sixteenth century. See Paine, Thomas, The Rights of Man (1792)Google Scholar, Pt 2, Ch. 5; Godwin, William, Enquiry concerning Political Justice (3rd edn, 1798)Google Scholar, Bk 2, Ch. 5 and Bk. 8; Halévy, Elie, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, trans. Morris, M. (London: Faber and Faber 1928), Pt 2, Ch. 2, sec. I.Google Scholar
30 This principle should not be confused with the principle of the natural identity of particular and general interests. This states that individuals and groups promote the general interest by pursuing their particular interests. Its most famous formulation is Smith, A.'s doctrine of ‘an invisible hand’ in his Wealth of Nations (1776).Google Scholar An essential difference between the two principles is that Smith's is descriptive whereas mine is normative. Different again is the principle of the artificial identification of particular and general interests. This states that the legislator ought to enact penal laws which will make it to the interest of individuals and groups to promote the general interest; and that the instructor ought to inculcate in his pupils beliefs which will make them desire to promote the general interest, and consequently do so. Plainly, this Benthamite view of education, which derives from C. A. Helvétius, represents it as propaganda, i.e. as a sort of coercion by manipulation. (See section I.) This principle too is normative and not descriptive. See Halévy, op. cit., Pt. I, Ch. I.
31 See Mill, , Principles of Political Economy (7th edn, 1871)Google Scholar, Bk 5, Ch. II; Dicey, op. cit., lecture 6; Day, ‘On Liberty and the Real Will’, Philosophy 45 (1970).Google Scholar
32 I an grateful to Professor E. Mack for pointing out to me this deeper objection to legal paternalism. See also Feinberg, J., Social Philosophy (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall 1973), Ch. 3.Google Scholar
33 See Stephen, J. F., Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (2nd edn, London: Smith, Elder 1874)Google Scholar; Devlin, P., The Enforcement of MoralsGoogle Scholar; Hart, , Law Liberty and MoralityGoogle Scholar; Feinberg, op. cit.
34 In fact, that is. In fiction, things are different—‘Among the Lilliputians ingratitude was a capital offence’ (Walker, A. D. M., ‘Gratefulness and Gratitude’, Aristotelian Society Proceedings 80 (1980).Google Scholar
35 A System of Logic, Bk 6, Ch. 10.
36 See Dicey, op. cit.
37 Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality, Preface. I am grateful to Professors A. G. N. Flew, H. L. A. Hart and J. O. Urmson for their comments on an earlier version of this lecture.
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