ABSTRACT
This chapter describes positive liberty as grounding a strong subjectivity, enabling human beings to be and to become what they want as an ongoing process of self-development. There are differences amongst liberal thinkers as to which conception of freedom or liberty they favour but a common presupposition of liberalism is that a coherent conception of liberty is available to all human beings. Positive liberty has been described as virtually the same as an individual's power in the developmental sense. The chapter examines Hegel's theory of the formation of self-consciousness as it presents a much deeper understanding of the nature of individual freedom. Hegelian ideas of identity formation highlight the importance of the structural institutions and social framework and relations with other people within which human freedom thrives. Hegelian identity formation, showing that the self is constituted reflexively and is radically dependent on the actions of others, has a direct relevance to international humanitarian and to human rights law.
