Glossary

A

Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart

The ruling SED party's name for the Berlin Wall (antifaschistischer Schutzwall), a protection claim for a barrier built to keep its own people in. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: A Field Guide to Those Who Just Talk About Liberty

Autonomy

Self-legislation: obeying laws one gives oneself. Central to Kant and to the individualist form of positive liberty. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Positive Liberty

B

Berlin's two questions

Isaiah Berlin's questions about the area of non-interference (negative liberty) and the source of control (positive liberty). The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: How to Identify Counterfeits

Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, proposed by Congress on 25 September 1789 and ratified on 15 December 1791. Mostly written as restraints on government. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Negative Liberty

Bulk collection

Gathering records about large numbers of people without a specific selection term tied to a target; banned for Section 215 orders by the USA FREEDOM Act. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: A Field Guide to Those Who Just Talk About Liberty

C

Capability

In Amartya Sen's approach, a real opportunity to achieve some doing or being, such as being well fed or educated. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Debate Since Berlin

Chichele Professorship of Social and Political Theory

A chair at the University of Oxford. Berlin was elected to it in 1957, succeeding G. D. H. Cole, and resigned it in 1967. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Lecture at Oxford

Coercion (Berlin)

The deliberate interference of other human beings within the area in which a person could otherwise act. Natural inability is not coercion. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Negative Liberty

Conversion factor

In the capability approach, how well a person can turn a resource into a capability. A bicycle gives little mobility to someone never taught to ride. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Debate Since Berlin

Counterfeit liberty

A claim that borrows liberty's name to sell something else, often power over the listener, a product, or another good whose cost in liberty goes unnamed. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: How to Identify Counterfeits

D

Divided self

Berlin's name for the move that splits a person into a 'higher,' rational or 'real' self and a 'lower,' empirical self of passing desires. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Positive Liberty

E

Enumerated powers

The specific powers the Constitution grants the national government, with the rest reserved to the states or the people by the Tenth Amendment. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Two Liberties in America

Exercise concept

Taylor's name for liberty as actually directing one's own life, which requires some judgment about one's real purposes. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Debate Since Berlin

F

Follow the power

This course's working test: after the promise is kept, who holds authority over whom, and who can take the benefit back. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: How to Identify Counterfeits

Four Freedoms

The war aims Roosevelt named on 6 January 1941: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Two Liberties in America

Frontier (Berlin)

Berlin's image for the line between private life and public authority, which he said must be drawn somewhere, though where is always a matter of argument. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Negative Liberty

G

General will

Rousseau's term for the will of the political community directed at the common good, distinct from the particular wills of individuals. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Positive Liberty

H

Harm principle

John Stuart Mill's rule in On Liberty (1859) that the only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over a member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Negative Liberty

I

Inaugural lecture

The first public lecture a new professor gives on taking up a chair, often used to state a program of work. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Lecture at Oxford

Incommensurable

Having no common measure. Berlin thought some values cannot be weighed on one scale, the way inches and pounds cannot. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Berlin's Warning and the Plurality of Goods

Inner citadel

Berlin's image for the person who secures himself against tyrants by giving up every desire they could frustrate. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Berlin's Warning and the Plurality of Goods

L

Liberty as protection

Jeff A. Pierson's plain name for Berlin's negative liberty: government protects rights and otherwise stands aside. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Two Liberties in America

Liberty as protection (Jeff A. Pierson)

Jeff A. Pierson's plain name for Berlin's negative liberty, in which government exists to protect rights and otherwise stand aside. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Negative Liberty

Liberty as protection / liberty as provision

Jeff A. Pierson's plain names for Berlin's negative liberty and for the political, budget-bearing form of positive liberty. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: How to Identify Counterfeits

Liberty as provision

Jeff A. Pierson's name for the political, budget-bearing form of Berlin's positive liberty: liberty as goods the state supplies. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Two Liberties in America

Liberty as provision (Jeff A. Pierson)

Jeff A. Pierson's name for the political, budget-bearing form of positive liberty, in which the state supplies the means people are said to need to be free. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Positive Liberty

Liberty of the ancients (Constant)

Benjamin Constant's name for the liberty of the classical republics: a direct share in collective power, joined to near total control of private life. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Lecture at Oxford

Liberty of the moderns (Constant)

Constant's name for the liberty valued in his own time: security in private life, guaranteed by institutions. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Lecture at Oxford

M

Monism

Berlin's name for the opposing view: every real question has one true answer, there is a sure way to find it, and all the true answers fit together. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Berlin's Warning and the Plurality of Goods

Monstrous impersonation (Berlin)

Berlin's phrase for equating what a person would choose if he were something he is not with what he actually seeks and chooses. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Positive Liberty

N

Negative liberty

Isaiah Berlin's first concept of liberty: the area within which a person can act unobstructed by others. The wider the area of non-interference, the wider the liberty. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Negative Liberty

Negative liberty (Berlin)

In Berlin's account, the area within which a person can act unobstructed by others. Its question: how far am I interfered with? The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Lecture at Oxford

Non-domination

The republican account of liberty proposed by Philip Pettit and traced historically by Quentin Skinner: being free means not living under anyone's arbitrary power, even a power that is never used. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Debate Since Berlin

O

Operative section

The part of a law that actually commands, permits or punishes, such as Section 215 of the 2001 PATRIOT Act or Section 103 of the 2015 USA FREEDOM Act. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: A Field Guide to Those Who Just Talk About Liberty

Operative text

The sections of a law or contract that command, permit or punish, as distinct from its title or preamble. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: How to Identify Counterfeits

Opportunity concept

Charles Taylor's name for liberty as the options open to a person, whether or not he uses them. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Debate Since Berlin

Ordered Liberty

In Jeff A. Pierson's framework, the moral structure of a free people and the covenant the founders built, binding self, neighbor and government. He does not treat it as a third type of liberty. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Two Liberties in America

P

Paternalism

Ruling people for their own good as the ruler sees it. Berlin cites Kant calling it the greatest despotism imaginable. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Berlin's Warning and the Plurality of Goods

Positive liberty

Isaiah Berlin's second concept of liberty: the wish to be one's own master, answering the question of who, or what, is the source of control over what a person does. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Positive Liberty

Positive liberty (Berlin)

In Berlin's account, the wish to be one's own master. Its question: who, or what, is the source of control over what I do? The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Lecture at Oxford

Purpose clause

A condition attached to a right that limits it to some approved goal. Article 125 of the 1936 Soviet constitution is a standard example. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Two Liberties in America

R

Recognition

The desire to be seen and respected as somebody by others. Berlin called it a real human need that is often mislabeled as liberty. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Berlin's Warning and the Plurality of Goods

Reverse error

Calling every public program or protective product a counterfeit, so that the tests stop telling honest cases from dishonest ones. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: A Field Guide to Those Who Just Talk About Liberty

S

Second Bill of Rights

The list of economic rights Roosevelt proposed on 11 January 1944, including a useful job, a decent home, medical care and a good education. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Two Liberties in America

T

The wolf's dictionary

Lincoln's 1864 phrase for a definition of liberty that means power over others. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: How to Identify Counterfeits

Those who just talk about liberty

People or institutions whose words praise liberty while their laws, policies or products add to someone's power over others. The phrase describes a gap between words and record, not a motive. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: A Field Guide to Those Who Just Talk About Liberty

Triadic relation

MacCallum's term for liberty as a relation among three things: an agent, a preventing condition, and something the agent does or becomes. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Debate Since Berlin

Two Concepts of Liberty

Isaiah Berlin's inaugural lecture as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford, delivered 31 October 1958 and published that year by Clarendon Press. The source of the negative and positive liberty distinction as it is used today. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: The Lecture at Oxford

V

Value pluralism

Berlin's view that human goods are many, that some of them conflict, and that no single scale or formula can rank them all. Choosing among them means real loss. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: Berlin's Warning and the Plurality of Goods

Viewpoint discrimination

A rule that allows speech on a topic from one side and forbids it from another; the ground on which the Eleventh Circuit upheld the injunction against Florida's employment provision. The Two Liberties and How to Identify Counterfeit Liberty: A Field Guide to Those Who Just Talk About Liberty