Liberty

Negative Liberty: Two Postulates

The F Postulate distills the nature of negative liberty as it exists in particular instantiations. However, the U Postulate does not comprehend all the situations in which particular instances of negative liberty are absent. That is, the two postulates are not jointly exhaustive in their coverage. Apart from being free to ϕ or being unfree to ϕ, somebody can be simply not free to ϕ. In other words, is not free and is unfree are not equivalent; the latter predicate entails the former, but not vice versa. (What are equivalent are the predicates is not free and is unable.) Likewise, the predicates is free and is not unfree are not equivalent. The former entails the latter but not vice versa.

For example, although Joe is not able to run a mile under 3 minutes and is therefore not free to run a mile under 3 minutes, it is not the case that [Page 1448]he is unfree to run a mile in such a short span of time. His lack of freedom to run a mile so rapidly is a mere inability rather than an instance of unfreedom. It is a mere inability because it is not due to any action(s) or disposition(s) to perform some action(s) on the part of anyone else. Instead, it is a purely natural limitation.

Hence, the concept of freedom as explicated here is trivalent rather than bivalent. Instead of separating people's abilities and inabilities dichotomously into freedoms and unfreedoms, it separates them trichotomously into freedoms, unfreedoms, and mere inabilities. The mere inabilities are infinitely expansive in their scope, for most of the countless ways in which any person falls short of omnipotence are due to natural limitations rather than to the conduct of other people.

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