ABSTRACT
Many Cold War interpretations of Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty” took positive liberty to be his principal target. Although this remains a popular view of Berlin, I find that his abiding preoccupation and object of criticism is political rationalism. For Berlin, the essence of political rationalism is the belief in a single way of life for all human beings or a single solution to any human problem.1 Today we may underestimate the threat political rationalism continues to pose to freedom because its guises are far more subtle than when Berlin wrote his essay. The dominant form of political rationalism today-a political economic rationalism purporting to secure global markets and economic growth beneficial to all-presents itself as in the service of liberty. Indeed, the personal freedom proffered by political economic rationalism-the maximization of individual preference satisfaction-may be thought to be akin to Berlin’s favored negative liberty. In this case, however, appearances are deceiving.
