Towards a Worldwide Index of Human Freedom

Human Freedom from Pericles to Measurement • 33
Berlin also talks of “the natural tendency of all but a very few thinkers
to believe that all the things they hold good must be intimately connected,
or at least compatible, with one and other” (1958: 175, fn). This is increasingly
seen in writings on freedom, with Sen as the most prominent example.
The reader will have noticed that “claim” freedoms are expressed in a
number of terms: opportunity, capacity, and redistribution, among others.
As “claim” freedoms, what they all have in common is that they reduce someone
else’s freedom to increase “the worth of liberty,”21 but not liberty itself.
Having described “claim” freedoms, we now turn to seeing whether
they meet definitions of freedom. They fail the negative concept of freedom
in that they do not involve lifting humanly imposed, intentional barriers
to some action. In fact, to supply the claims, other individuals are
forced to do and supply things they would not otherwise do.
As noted, “claim” freedoms are often expressed in terms of opportunity,
choice, and capacity. In an important way, as in a Venn diagram, these
concepts overlap with negative freedom, even though they are conceptually
distinct. When a blocking agent—say, a government—prevents one
taking advantage of an opportunity, choice, or capacity that is otherwise
within an individual’s reach, then negative freedom has been violated.
However, when an opportunity, choice, or capacity is outside an individual’s
reach, because of physical or material limitations, then no violation
of negative liberty has occurred.
To remind the reader of Berlin’s quote a few pages earlier: “If I say that
I am unable to jump more than ten feet in the air… it would be eccentric
to say that I am to that degree enslaved or coerced” (Berlin, 1958: 169).
It would be equally “eccentric to say that I am… enslaved or coerced” if I
am unable to generate the material resources to buy a new car, given that,
as argued earlier, the ability to acquire and securely own material possessions
is an extension of the individual. As Rawls notes above, “The
inability to take advantage of one’s rights and responsibilities as a result
of poverty and ignorance” is separate from freedom.
“Claim” freedoms might be conceived of as positive freedom in a
very narrow sense. Since the claim freedoms involve material acquisitions,
some version of positive freedom would have to be described in an
equally material manner for the two to be equated. Whether or not positive
freedom is subject to such a narrow interpretation, and it likely is not,
claim freedom can, at best, define a very limited idea of positive freedom.
Finally to the triadic relationship, as discussed, claim freedoms involve
no humanly intended blocking, so claim freedoms fail this test too.
21 To use Rawls’ previously quoted phrase, but, while it is beyond the scope of this paper,
many of these efforts in fact decrease both liberty and the worth of what liberty remains,
even for the supposed beneficiary.
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