Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T12:13:00.886Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 9 - Disability and Positive Liberty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2021

John Christman
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Get access

Summary

Whereas Isaiah Berlin argued that positive liberty is not a theory of liberty at all, and that negative liberty is the only true conception of liberty, Dorothy Roberts argues that positive liberty is the only true conception of liberty, and that negative liberty is not a theory of liberty at all but rather a theory of power and privilege. This essay takes up that contrast with specific reference to disability. One could argue that disability takes a negative liberty view, because disabled persons are constrained by physical, legal, and attitudinal barriers from doing many things they want. But this requires a positive liberty gesture of expanding what we mean by “barriers,” such as seeing stairs as a barrier rather than a natural part of building architecture for which nobody is responsible. But this essay carries the positive liberty argument further, drawing on feminist insights about the social construction of desire and subjectivity, to argue that positive liberty is important to a full understanding of freedom for disabled persons.

Type
Chapter
Information
Positive Freedom
Past, Present, and Future
, pp. 155 - 173
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×