The freedom of the pike is death to the minnows

In philosophy, freedom is usually examined as a property of the will. It is as an ethical ideal or normative principle, perhaps as the most vital such principle. In its simplest sense, freedom means to do as one wishes or act as one chooses. As John Locke defined it, it is the freedom to life, freedom, and property.

Only anarchists, who reject all forms of political authority as unnecessary and undesirable, are prepared to endorse unlimited freedom. A license is agreed as a necessary vice. The question remains is regarding which freedoms are we willing to approve, and which ones are we justified in curtailing.

John Stuart Mill departed from utilitarianism and recognized individuality, proposing a clear distinction between ‘self-regarding’ actions and ‘other regarding’ actions. When harm is involved, then a license is necessary. Which begs the question: what is harm? Physical or moral?

It is argued that governments should similarly be restricted to a ‘minimal’ role, amounting in practice to little more than the maintenance of domestic order and personal security. This vision is shared by many liberals and neoliberals, in what is known as negative liberty. For this reason, advocates of negative freedom have usually supported the minimal state.

In a famous essay first published in 1958, Isaiah Berlin referred to negative liberty and positive liberty. The reason for using these labels is that in the first case liberty seems to be a mere absence of something, whereas in the second case it seems to require the presence of something. Negative freedom is freedom of choice: the freedom of the consumer to choose what to buy, the freedom of the worker to choose a job or profession, the freedom of a producer to choose what to make and who to employ. Positive freedom however polices restrictions to impediments to freedom. It helps citizens help themselves to be free.

In light of the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict, can the question of negative and positive liberty be used as an excused that justified Kremlin’s invasion of its neighbour? Can the rhetoric of freeing a nation that is denied political and jurisdictional rapprochement with its soviet predecessor, and freeing its people from neo-liberal abuse and modern enslavement be employed as philosophical notions of a nation that reminisces about a glorious past?

The contested concept of freedom lies at the heart of the issue. Whichever band one decides to side, neither is fully observing the core of freedom: people’s choice. The moment that freedom was delegated to a higher power, its strength has been muzzled and blended into different shades of freedom. At present, negative or positive, Ukrainians are suffering the exploitation of “freedom”: freedom to join the free world, or freedom to join the free nation. Ironically, they are not offered the freedom to explore any other option.