Negative and positive liberty; freedom of expression

The two dimensions of freedom are called negative and positive liberty in political theory.

Negative liberty ('freedom from') defines and defends an inviolable area of non-interference where a person can 'do, be or become' whatever they wish, with no outside authority interfering.

• This minimum area is needed for human dignity: if it is too small, dignity is compromised. How large it should be, and what it should contain, will always be debated; the bigger the area, the more the freedom.
• It answers the question: 'Over what area am I the master?'

Positive liberty ('freedom to') answers the question 'Who governs me?', ideally: 'I govern myself.' It looks at the conditions in society and tries to improve them so that individuals can develop.

• Its tradition runs through Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Gandhi and Aurobindo.
• The individual is like a flower that blossoms when the soil is fertile, the sun gentle, the water adequate and the care regular. To develop, a person must not be held back by poverty or unemployment, must have a say in decision-making so that laws reflect their choices, and must have access to education.
• Positive liberty holds that one can be free only in society, and so tries to make society enabling; negative liberty is concerned only with the protected area. The two usually support each other, though tyrants have sometimes justified their rule by appeals to positive liberty.

Freedom of expression is considered part of the area of non-interference. A society must be willing to bear some inconvenience to protect it. As Voltaire is often quoted: 'I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it.'

• Mill's four reasons for allowing even ideas that seem 'false': (1) no idea is completely false; it contains some truth that a ban would lose; (2) truth emerges only through the conflict of opposing views; (3) this conflict has lasting value, since truth unchallenged becomes an unthinking cliché; (4) we cannot be sure that what we now think true is true; ideas once suppressed as false have later proved true.
• There have been many demands to ban books, plays and films in India and elsewhere. Banning is an easy short-term answer but harmful in the long run, because it builds a habit of banning. Yet societies do have film censorship, so the real debate is when a ban can be justified.
• Constraints backed by organised social, religious or state power are hard to resist. But restrictions we accept willingly, without coercion, to pursue our goals (like an employee's confidentiality contract) do not curtail our freedom in the same way.

Freedom and responsibility. Freedom is our capacity to make choices, and choices bring responsibility for their consequences. That is why children are placed in the care of parents. The ability to choose well must be built through education and the cultivation of judgement, as well as by limiting the authority of state and society.

Example (new): a student newspaper that prints a sharp but honest criticism of the school's exam schedule should be answered with arguments, not shut down; banning it would teach everyone that criticism is dangerous.