human freedom - negative Flashcards
● Can be understood as an individual’s power to think, act, and speak without restraints
● Individual power to exercise our will
Freedom
Without an external restriction
● “Freedom from”
NEGATIVE FREEDOM
who Presented 2 types of freedom: Negative freedom
and positive freedom
Isaiah Berlin
meaning freedom
people or systems that
affect your decisions
NEGATIVE FREEDOM
● Author of the book “Leviathan”
Thomas Hobbes
He described the nature of humans in a pessimist point of view, he called this the state of nature.
Thomas Hobbes
○ We are naturally competitive and greedy.
○ We are selfish beings.
○ Life is nasty, brutish, and
short
○ To reconcile this state of
nature, society needs a
leviathan
state of nature
For —-, true freedom is achieved by surrendering our natural rights to a sovereign authority through social contract. (best possible government led by a Leviathan)
Hobbes
○ Unwritten argument between the government and the people
○ Giving up of rights to the leviathan (government)
○ To maintain peace and order
Hobbes on Social contract
● An important figure in the Enlightenment period regarded as the father of liberation
John Locke
Fundamental rights: (3)
life, liberty, property
○ A state of purest freedom
○ There is a paradox: absolute freedom makes our rights
violable
Locke on the state of nature
○ Giving up rights to the
leviathan (government)
○ The government has limited
power over their citizens.
Locke on Social contract
A political and ethical philosophical theory emphasizing the greatest happiness principle.
Utilitarianism:
● Highlights utilitarianism, individual liberty, and freedom of thought.
John Stuart Mill
