Reclaiming a Positive Vision of Liberty

Over the past two and a half centuries, the word “liberty” has become talismanic in the West. At least two revolutions, the French and the American, were fought in its name, and it is ritualistically invoked by all sides in political debates, each one claiming ownership of it. But every attempt to define it runs into roadblocks. “The right to do as you please” won’t work, at least without serious qualification, since today we know all too well what some people have been pleased to do. In the nineteenth century, the philosopher John Stuart Mill famously refined the definition with his “harm principle.” The “only” reason, he wrote, for stopping someone from doing what he pleases “is to prevent harm to others.” But the harm principle has its own problems. What kind of harm? Physical? Emotional? Spiritual? Left alone, liberty can pull us into some dark doings.

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