A Third Concept of Liberty 
Quentin Skinner
My starting point is one of the claims most widely accepted in current discussions about the theory of liberty. There is one overarching formula, we are told, under which all intelligible locutions about freedom can be subsumed. The prevalence of this belief appears to be due in large part to the influence of a single classic article, Gerald MacCallum’s ‘Negative and Positive Freedom’ (1967). Whenever the freedom of an agent is in question, MacCallum maintains, it will always be freedom from some element of constraint on doing or becoming (or not doing or becoming) something. Consequently, to speak of the presence of freedom is always to speak of an absence: absence of constraint on an agent from realising some goal or end. There is, in other words, only one concept of liberty.
Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is available for purchase online. Buy this article.
Quentin Skinner is Regius Professor of History at Cambridge. He spoke about Milton and liberty at Cambridge in January as part of the 400th-anniversary celebrations of Milton’s birth.
print layout
tell a friend