Читать книгу Political Theory - Pete Woodcock - Страница 18

This chapter will discuss a number of debates around the nature of freedom in society. It will commence with Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between positive and negative liberty; that there have been two different ways in the history of political thought that freedom has been conceptualized. This will be challenged by Gerald MacCallum who will argue that there is only one concept of freedom, and Quentin Skinner’s assertion that there are three. The chapter will end with a discussion of John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle, the notion that the just state should only ever stop someone from doing things that directly and physically harm someone else. The state, nor anyone else for that matter, has no right to ban someone from doing that which only harms themselves, or that which offends other people.