The Meaning and Value of Freedom: Berlin contra Arendt

Abstract

This essay considers the theoretical disagreement between Isaiah Berlin and HannahArendt on the meaning and value of freedom. Berlin thinks that negative liberty as noninterference is commendable because it is attuned to the implication of value pluralism that man is a choice-making creature and cannot be otherwise. By contrast, the political freedom to act is in Arendt's view a more fulfilling ideal because it is only in political action that man's potentiality is actualised, his unique identity manifested and his beingin-the-world-with-others reaffirmed. What lies beneath the two thinkers' dispute over the most satisfactory meaning of freedom, I argue, is a deeper disagreement over human nature itself. The implication of this analysis for the contemporary debate between pluralist liberals and their agonistic critics is briefly discussed in conclusion.

The burden of choice and the triumph of the event

“…Taken word for word, such ideations of a perfect politico-moral universe are of little use to the anthropologist whose subjects are neither aspirants nor nostalgics of the polis and yet who speak of being free. Arendt's conception of freedom, based on the fulfillment of a singular conception of the good life, lies in contrast to Berlin's conception of the human as "choice-making creature," whose freedom needs not be pinned to any one image of the good life (Hiruta 2014). However, Arendt's distinction between I-will and I-can freedom becomes useful ethnographically when we allow the contents of I-can to be a little less circumscribed (Christman 1991).…”

An ‘anti-utopian age?’: Isaiah Berlin’s England, Hannah Arendt’s America, and utopian thinking in dark times

“…It is notable in this context that the critics have ignored the two thinkers' mutual dislike. 6 This, as I argued elsewhere, 7 should not be reduced to (imagined) psychological issues such as Berlin's alleged sexism and academic vanity; nor should it be attributed solely to the two thinkers' disagreement over Israeli politics and the Zionist movement. 8 Rather, it was underpinned by a set of significant theoretical differences.…”