Q.3 Write a note on Liberal Theory with reference to the views of some thinkers.
Liberal Theory
disagree, however, about the concept of liberty, and as a result the liberal
ideal of protecting individual liberty can lead to different conceptions of the
task of government. Isaiah Berlin famously advocated a negative conception of Liberal
Theory : I am normally said to
be free to the degree to which no man or body of men interferes with my
activity. Political liberty in this sense is simply the area within which a man
can act unobstructed by others.
If I am prevented by others
from doing what I could otherwise do, I am to that degree unfree; and if this
area is contracted by other men beyond a certain minimum, I can be described as
being coerced, or, it may be, enslaved. Liberal Theory,
Coercion is not, however, a term that covers every form of inability.
Liberal Theory,
If I say that I am unable to jump more than ten feet in the air, or cannot read
because I am blind…it would be eccentric to say that I am to that degree
enslaved or coerced. Coercion implies the deliberate interference of other
human beings within the area in which I could otherwise act. You lack political
liberty or freedom only if you are prevented from attaining a goal by other
human beings (Berlin, 1969: 122).