ABSTRACT
In the five decades since “Two Concepts of Liberty” was published, various attempts have been made to fashion a conception of positive freedom that captures the value of a kind of agency that extended beyond simply enjoying negative liberty (the simple absence of constraints) but also avoids the dangers that Berlin articulated in that seminal article. These dangers include the prospect of defining freedom in terms of substantive ideals and values, ideals that are contestable and conflicting in the kind of pluralistic society for which conceptions of freedom are meant to function as a guiding principle. Yet attempts persist, spurred by the abiding concern that merely negative views of freedom fail to capture the importance of effective agency in principles of freedom.1 These concerns point to the way that oppression and subjugation can occur when people lack not only opportunities for unimpeded action but abilities to effectively and authentically deliberate and act in socially structured settings.
