Its negative meanings:
The term “liberty” is derived from the Latin word ‘liber’ which means free or unrestrained. Montesquieu once remarked: “There is no word that admits of more various significations, and has made more different impressions on the human mind than that of liberty”. In its absolute sense liberty may be defined as “the faculty of willing and the power of doing what has been willed, without influence from any other source, or from without.” Or, briefly, “liberty is absence of restraint.” Understood in this sense, it means the freedom of one man alone and the consequent restraint on others.
Obviously, such an absolute liberty is not desirable at all. If one individual has unlimited freedom to do whatever he likes, all other individuals should also have the same unlimited and absolute liberty. But this is impossible in a society where one’s action affects others and may injure their interests. So if there is no check on the liberty of an individual, he may do many things which may completely destroy the liberty of others. Moreover, if society is to exist and progress, there are certain things which no individual can be allowed to do at all, such as murder, theft etc. From this it follows that we cannot live without common rules which restrain the absolute liberty of all of us. Liberty has, therefore, to be defined on two bases: the desire of every man to have his own way and the social need to protect the equal freedom of others and their interests. Hence, the problem of liberty is not one of absolute freedom but one of relation between the
individual desire for self-expression and the need to control individual action by certain common and necessary social rules and obligations. As Laski puts it, “Historical experience has solved for us rules of convenience which promote right living and to compel obedience to them is a justifiable limitation of freedom. Understood thus, liberty is the power to do anything provided it does not injure the freedom of others. That was how Herbert Spencer, an individualist thinker of the 19th century, defined liberty: “Every man is free to do what he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man”. This is, however, the meaning of liberty in its negative aspect.
Its positive meanings:
In its positive sense, liberty is not only the absence of restraint but also the presence of opportunity to do or achieve something. It is, as Laski •ays, “the eager maintenance of that atmosphere in which men have the opportunity to be their best selves”. It means the power to develop one’s abilities and to plan one’s life according to one’s own will. In this sense liberty is a product of rights. It may be remarked that the negative aspect of liberty implies duties; the duties imposed on others not to interfere in my freedom and the duty imposed on me not to interfere in the equal freedom of others. In its positive sense, liberty implies rights or opportunities which •re essential for the development of the ability, personality, interests and ideals of an individual. Liberty must therefore, be defined both as the absence of restraint and the presence of opportunity. Ordinarily, liberty is understood by a rich man in its negative sense, as absence of regulation by the State, and by a poor man in the positive sense, as the provision of opportunity to live a good life.