The Way Forward

Abstract

As Sir Isaiah Berlin¹ so eloquently observed in his seminal 1958 address at Oxford University, there are two distinct concepts of liberty. Our Western liberal tradition, based on the theories of John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant, among others, perceives the concept of liberty as freedom from coercion from the state, a dominant religion, or a despot or tyranny. Isaiah Berlin defines this as “negative liberty,” or freedom from coercion. Fundamental to this is the Western concept of the nature of man and of his intrinsic intellectual ability to be able to carve out free, autonomous, intelligent choices on how to live a moral life.

Never underestimate the power of ideas. Philosophical concepts nurtured in the stillness of a professor’s study could destroy a civilization

—Heinrich Heine