Teaching Freedom: Revisiting Berlin’s Two Concepts

This is a guest post by Nick Boden (University of Bristol)

Teachers and academics face questions relating to freedom each day. How will students engage with the material? How should students be in the learning environment? Are students free to choose tasks or are their choices constrained by the practitioners preferred methods? These questions place instructors at the centre of an ongoing debate about freedom. Is freedom simply the absence of constraints? Or is there more going on?

At first glance, Isaiah Berlin’s (1958) idea of positive and negative freedom offers a useful framework. Positive freedom can be thought of as “the freedom to”. Rules or regulations are put into place to increase the options available to you. Negative freedom is explained as “freedom from” constraints. Barriers are removed and options are available to you. For example, advocates of negative freedom would explain being left alone to make decisions and choices increases freedom. Whereas advocates of positive freedom would welcome things like welfare funding, taking away the “freedom from” taxes, to “provide freedom to” buy basic goods whilst unemployed. A form of collective freedom.

Confusingly Simple?

This distinction between “freedom to” and “freedom from” provides an easy guide for thinking about freedom as options in the classroom. What do students have the positive “freedom to” do in a class, in an assessment or on a course? What options are open to students? Likewise in the negative sense what are the students not free to do? What options are not available? However, once we look closer at ‘option-based freedom’ things can start to become confusing.

Consider, for instance, the example of freedom of speech. Do you have the option to say whatever you want or are some statements and options closed to you? In other words: are you “free to” say certain things or “free from” an external constraint (such as a law) preventing you saying them? Likewise, with freedom of information: does it mean you are “free from” a company or organisation keeping their records about you secret or does it mean you have the “freedom to” live your life knowing organisations are not able to track your data?

Freedom from assessment?

Current educational standards do not allow “freedom from” assessment. If they did would students be “free from” assessment or have the “freedom to” engage in education without the pressure of assessment? The separation between positive and negative freedom is in practice unhelpful. Freedom is not a dichotomy. The liberal understanding of freedom as option based expressed by Berlin wrongly divides freedom and promotes an individualistic approach. Indeed, Berlin himself admits ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ liberty start at “no great logical distance” from each other.”

Further complications arise when considering the tricky topic of feelings. For example, in a classroom discussion student A may have the positive freedom to speak their views on a certain topic stemming from their personal confidence empowering them to speak. Student B may have a logically stronger idea; however, due to the confidence in which student A explained their idea, B feels unable to counter the argument. Cogently, one student may thrive with limits removed, another may struggle without clear structure and guidance.

Context, Environment and Experience

Berlin ignores how the freedom of one person is interconnected with the freedom of others. Freedom has a social aspect. In our example, the student who is not willing to speak is dependent on others to create a supportive environment. Their freedom depends on others. In this vein Rawls (1982) reminds the reader feelings of self-worth and self-respect must be considered and Walzer (1983) has stressed the environment and experience of education are often more important than content. Freedom can be reduced by internal obstacles as well as external ones. This means freedom is experienced uniquely and in given contexts.

For Berlin positive freedom is the desire to be one’s own master, to be moved by “conscious purposes which are my own, not by causes which affect me, as it were, from outside”. Being your “own master” excludes others. The focus on ‘my freedom’ ignores the social and relational aspect of freedom as interdependent. To promote the freedom of oneself and others a more conscious form of being ought to take precedent over option-based “freedom from” and “freedom to”.

Benevolent Teachers and Dictatorships

Berlin would accept a student has significant options when really, they do not. Consider a ‘benevolent’ teacher who allows students various freedoms such as eating in class or using their phone to speak to friends. Does this count as freedom? In this case students have “freedom to” choose, yet they are not “free from” attending the class.

Berlin was concerned that coercion and oppression could take place in the name of positive freedom. He looked to Marxist and Fascist dictatorships as evidence. Yet perhaps the coercion Berlin was concerned about is a little closer to home. Does education increase freedom or take it away? We might think we are free to take a course on politics and philosophy at the University of Our Choice however, given the economic conditions for such a decision does this count as freedom?

---

Nick Boden currently teaches at the University of Bristol. He is the Subject Lead for Politics on the International Foundation Programme. He is an external examiner of Global Politics for the International Baccalaureate and for the MA in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action at Sciences Po, Paris.