Positive liberty is defined as having the power and resources to fulfill one's own potential as opposed to negative liberty, which is freedom from external restraint. A concept of positive liberty may also include freedom from internal constraints.
The concepts of structure and agency are central to the concept of positive liberty because in order to be free, a person should be free from inhibitions of the social structure in carrying out their free will. Structurally speaking classism, sexism, and racism can inhibit a person's freedom and positive liberty is primarily concerned with the possession of sociological agency. Positive liberty is enhanced by the ability of citizens to participate in their government and have their voice, interests and concerns recognized as valid and acted upon.
Although Isaiah Berlin's essay "Two Concepts of Liberty" (1958) is typically acknowledged as the first to explicitly draw the distinction between positive and negative liberty, Frankfurt School psychoanalyst and Marxist humanistic philosopher Erich Fromm drew a similar distinction between negative and positive freedom in The Fear of Freedom (1941), predating Berlin's essay by more than a decade.
Read more about Positive Liberty: Overview, Examples, Various Thinkers, Bibliography
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