Positive dimensions of negative liberty

This thesis will critically examine some of the central issues that revolve around the understanding and defense of negative liberty that Isaiah Berlin presented in his famous lecture Two Concepts of Liberty. By taking into consideration a variety of positions we shall observe that theories of negative liberty are not only based on a set of institutional preconditions but also necessitate some idea concerning our ends and our identities in order for us to discriminate between alternative spaces of non-interference. Such a position seems to infer that any concept of liberty must contain both positive and negative dimensions - it must be both an opportunity concept and an exercise concept. In this sense, this thesis presents an attempt to overcome the impasse between positive and negative liberty. Voiced in another fashion, the thesis presents an effort to resolve the dilemma articulated close to two hundred years ago by Benjamin Constant: how do we bring the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns together?