GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

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* POLITICS
the State makes and enforces law; the degree to which the
system of the State's laws approximates to the General
Will of a society is also the degree of the State's merit.
In a perfect State the approximation would be complete.
GREEN'S THEORY OF FREEDOM* The ideological con-
ception of rights has an important bearing upon the
problem of freedom. The function of the State on its negative
side is, as we have seen, to relieve men of all external
hindrances to the realization of their personalities, the
realization of their personalities being identified with the
continuous and unrestrained exercise of a free moral will
conceived on Kant's lines. It is
personalities that, Green holds,
by realising our moral
we become free. Since
the State has a necessary rdle to play in assisting us to
realize our personalities, we are, by living the lives of loyal
and obedient citizens, assisting the functioning of an
organization whose existence and smooth running are a
necessary condition of our freedom. If we wish to withhold
our obedience, yet are forced to give it, our freedom is
none the less being promoted by those who force us. This
last statement has an air of paradox. How is it defended?
The establishment of the freedom of man in the true sense
of the word " freedom " is, we are told, the ultimate justification
of the State. In order that man's freedom may be
established, the State must remove certain hindrances.
In removing hindrances, it may have to use force; force
against the rebel; force against the anarchist; force against
the slave-owner opposing the manumission of his slaves;
force against the parent depriving his children ofeducation ;
force against the employer who overworks employees in
his factory; force, in a word, against all anti-social individuals.
Green's argument is that in using force with this
the freedom of citizens as
object, the State is furthering
a whole* It is, therefore, furthering the freedom of the
victims of its force. One is reminded of Rousseau's con-
ception of the individual being "forced to be free". Green,
however, was careful to point out that the force which